Chapter Seventy Three

Her whole body was wire-tight with anticipation when his arms slid around her waist. She almost crumbled at the contact, the need for it was so intense. She leaned back against him, revelling in the sense of being encompassed and protected by his hard, warm strength, wanting to feel a togetherness that could face anything and survive intact. He rubbed his cheek over her hair and she felt his chest rise and fall as he breathed in its scent, mingled now with the smell of the sea.

'You should have been called Eve,' he murmured.

The beginning of time, she thought, elated that he was in tune with her own feelings. 'And you, Adam?'

'The caveman in me has definitely been stirred tonight.'

Was it the cavewoman in her responding? It didn't matter. Having surrendered to whatever it was, she simply wanted to be swept along with it.

His hands slid up to capture her breasts, fingers softly kneading, savouring their fullness. She closed her eyes, inwardly focusing on his touch and the sensations it aroused, the excited lightening of her nipples, the flow of pressures that seemed to make her flesh swell voluptuously and recede in rhythmic waves. She reached up to pull her hair forward over her shoulders to bare the zipper at the back of her dress, but he didn't do anything about it. He kissed the nape of her neck and glided his hands down over her stomach, her thighs, and gathered up the hem of her dress, lifting the skirt to her waist so the night air shivered over all he'd exposed to it, naked thighs, naked hips, and his palm moved underneath the G-string she still wore, fingers reaching, stroking, building an almost unbearable excitement.

It was unbelievably erotic being caressed like this, without seeing theman who was doing it, only feeling his body behind her, hot flesh pressed to hers while in front of her there was nothing but sand and water and air—elemental nature, swirling, changing, sucking, crashing, wafting—while the fire of desire was being stoked inside her in an echo of the same shifting patterns of movement.

It was wild. And suddenly it was too much for her to keep letting it goon. In a fever of urgency, she dropped her own hands to snatch the flimsy G-string away, pulling it down to step out of it. As she bent over she felt her dress being unzipped, her bra unclipped, and in a few quick seconds, she was completely naked, too, and spun around to face her partner of the night.

He grabbed her hands and stepped back, his eyes feasting on the feminine curves he'd only felt. 'Look at you...' he said huskily

The awe in his voice filled her own mind as she looked at him, so tall and big and magnificently made in a mould that was utterly perfect manhood.

'...like a siren from the sea, come to lure me away from everything else.'

'Are you a myth?'

'Do I feel like one?' He lifted her hands to press the palms against his chest, drawing her into him as he guided them up to his shoulders. The tips of her breasts touched him. Then he released her hands and scooped her into close and intimate contact with all of him.

'Not a myth,' he said gruffly. 'But we can make a legend of tonight, Jasmine Leclaire.'

And he kissed her.... Kissed her as though her mouth held the fountain of life and he thirsted for every drop of it. And she kissed him back with all the pent-up passion from waiting for this, waiting and wanting and needing it to be...just like this.

He swung her off her feet, laid her on the rug, loomed over her, his face ablaze with the fire within, his powerful body dark and taut, rampant male poised to take, primed to take, and a wild elation coursed through Jasmine as she positioned herself to possess him.

He came into her with shocking, exhilarating swiftness, the impact of him arching her body in an instinctive and ecstatic urge to hold the deeply penetrating fullness, to have it all, the whole glorious shaft ofhim imbedded in the warm silky heart of her, surrounding him, enclosing him, drawing him into the ultimate togetherness.

And he paused there to kiss her again, to invade her mouth with the passionate intent to link them in a totality that swam with intense sensation. He was spread on top of her, a pulsing blanket of heated muscle, pressing onto her breasts, their lower bodies locked, her legs wound around his hips, her hands raking his back, her whole body yearning to be utterly joined with his, exulting in feeling everything possible with him.

His arms burrowed under her and she was lifted to straddle his thighs as he sat back on his haunches, his mouth leaving hers to fasten on her breasts, subjecting each one to a wild exquisite suction as he rocked her from side to side, moving the pressure of him inside her to an equally exquisite slide along her inner walls. She threw back her head, instinctively thrusting her breasts forward, loving the hot tug onthem, the swirling lash of his tongue on her nipples, and the arc of sweet pleasure that flowed from these ravishing kisses to the tantalising caresses within.

The full moon shone on her face. The sea breeze filtered through her swaying hair. The roar of crashing waves filled her ears. But they were outside things and the vibrant inner life of this union with Collins Templeton swamped her awareness of anything else. It was like an ocean of sensation, whipped by a storm of feeling, tidal waves gathering more and more explosive power.

He surged up and laid her back on the rug, his breath a hot wind on her skin as he hovered over her like a dark mountainous wave about to break. She felt the crest of it, poised within her, holding, holding. Then the pounding began, deep, glorious beats that throbbed through her entire body, convulsing it around him, carrying her into intense turbulence—a turbulence that swept her to an incredible peak of ecstatic excitement, and her body seemed to shatter with the fantastic pleasure of it.

But it wasn't shattered. It floated on rolls of more pleasure, peaking and ebbing, peaking and ebbing, until the driving force of Collins reached its climax on one last brilliant peak and finished in a flood of deep warmth that slowly gentled them both into the sweet peace of utter fulfilment.