Her breath hitched.
‘I always imagine us together. I watch you work on your computer and I imagine you taking off your sensible shirt for me in the seductive way you used to strip yourself when you were desperate to tempt me into making love to you.’ He flattened a hand over her breasts. Her nipples were as hard as her skin was hot. ‘I watch you working at the big table on the blueprints and I imagine myself bending you over and—’
‘Stop,’ she moaned, but her cheek rubbed into his head and her fingers groped at his shirt.
‘Am I turning you on?’ He found her mouth and kissed her savagely. ‘Remember when you used to talk to me like this? When you told me all the ways you wanted me to make love to you and all the ways you wanted to make love to me?’ He found the pins holding her hair together and pulled them free. Her hair tumbled like a fragrant cloud. ‘What’s holding you back from acting all your fantasies out now? If you have your way, this will be our only night together.’
Taking hold of her hand, he placed it on his throbbing excitement. ‘Do you feel that? Tell me it’s not the same for you. Tell me you don’t ache for me as I ache for you.’
Her eyes were wide, her breaths little pants. For a long time she did nothing but stare at him. And then she bunched the long skirt of her dress up to her thigh, took hold of his hand and placed it at the heart of her femininity. The heat he found there was hot enough to burn. And it told him better than any verbal response that it was the same for her too.
With more strength than even he realised he possessed, Theo swept her into his arms. Moving swiftly, he carried her to his bedroom. By the time he placed her on the bed, she’d already unbuttoned his shirt.
He made deft work of removing her dress and underwear—she had been wearing knickers, the minx—while she scratched and pulled at his clothing to free him too.
Naked, he pressed her down so she lay flat on her back, then began worshipping his goddess. There was not an inch of flesh he didn’t kiss or drag his tongue over, not an inch of flesh he didn’t inhale. And there was not an inch of flesh on his own body that didn’t blaze with the passion consuming him.
Their lovemaking earlier had been too urgent for him to luxuriate in the act. This time he was determined to go slow and bring to life the fantasies he’d been dreaming of for three years. But it was hard to take his time with Helena writhing and moaning beneath him, her sounds and movements firing his passion.
He remembered the first time he’d seen her naked and how painfully shy she had been. She’d covered her breasts with an arm and placed her hand over her pubis to hide it from him. Within weeks she’d lost all her inhibitions. She would prance around naked, revelling in the effect her nakedness had on him. Always she would try to tempt him into making love. The control it had taken to resist performing that ultimate act had been torture defined. If he’d known then that the control he’d exhibited, which had been only because he’d wanted their wedding night to mean something pure and beautiful, would be twisted by Helena into an act of control over her, he would have said to hell with it and made her his entirely.
Then none of this would have happened. With no Helena-shaped mysteries to unravel, he’d have been able to move on with his life. But if he’d moved on with his life they wouldn’t be there now and the pleasure consuming him would never have existed.
And, Theos, this was pleasure defined. Hungry, dark, all-consuming pleasure. It almost made his three-year abstinence worth it. Tonight, Helena was his. All his. Exactly as she should be.
At the first touch of Theo’s tongue on her swollen nub, Helena closed her eyes and sank into the magic she knew would follow. When his hand dragged upwards over her belly and to her breasts, squeezing the highly sensitised flesh, she moaned and captured his fingers in hers, linking them together.
Oh, but he knew what she needed and wanted. He knew better than she.
This was why she’d been unable to find desire for another. It was not possible that she could respond to anyone else in this way, a mass of sensation and so alive. Theo made her feel as if she could fly.
The hand not clasped in hers cupped her bottom and gently raised it, slightly changing the angle with which he was pleasuring her. It was all that was needed to send her soaring. Crying his name, Helena rode the tsunami of pulsations that throbbed from her core into every crevice of her body.
She was still floating when he slowly kissed his way up her body. His face over hers, he brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and kissed her. Their lips fused together, he entered her.
Their lovemaking felt as if it were happening in slow motion. Every thrust, every brush of his chest against her breasts, every squeeze of their laced fingers, every dance of their tongues consumed her entirely. Theo consumed her.
When they were finally spent and she was cocooned in the safety of his arms, her cheek on his chest, his heartbeat thrumming beneath her ear, unbidden tears suddenly filled her eyes. She blinked them away. This moment was too special to allow doubts and fears to spoil it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE SCULPTOR’S STUDIO was nestled in
