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‘You are like the cat goddess Bastet, again,’ he murmured, patting the dark curls dry, the breath thick in his throat.
‘Again?’
‘There have been moments when I have thought of you like that.’
Something passed across her face, an expression too fleeting for him to catch. ‘You mean you have thought of me with...desire before now?’ she asked. There was that look again—uncertainty and past hurt.
‘You think I did not, from the beginning? What about Cairo and on board ship? That first kiss at Koum Ombo?’
‘You stopped at Cairo and on the ship, you did not want me, you were only being kind.’ Cleo sat up and curled against the pillow, pulling the towel around her.
‘Kind!’ Quin tossed the rest of the damp towels into a corner. ‘I was being frustrated and attempting, Heaven help me, to do the honourable thing. Do you really think I didn’t want you?’
‘Not me,’ she said, her gaze on her clasped hands. ‘I realise you wanted sex, men always do, but I thought it was easy for you to stop because it was just me.’
‘Hell, Cleo.’ Quin was not sure whether to laugh or drop his head in his hands. ‘There I was, nobly suffering agonising balls’ ache and sleepless nights and you were insulted by my restraint?’
‘You were frustrated?’ She sat bolt upright, curled her arms around her knees and smiled at him, her eyes sparkling with very feminine pleasure.
‘And aching. Cleo, I want you. I have always wanted you, even when you were torturing me with wet sheets and sharp implements and icy looks.’
‘Then come to bed with me now.’
I could drown in those eyes, he thought. Quin stood up and began to strip off his clothes.
* * *
At last. His naked body was surprisingly unfamiliar, despite the fact that she had handled it while he was unconscious. A conscious, active man was something else entirely, Cleo mused as she allowed herself the indulgence of openly watching the play of his muscles as Quin lifted the wet shirt over his head, bent to his shoes, tugged off his breeches. He was not lying about wanting me. She felt her own body soften and grow moist.
‘Hurry,’ she whispered.
‘Stop it,’ Quin said as he lay down beside her. ‘You are doing nothing at all for my self-control.’
‘I don’t want your self-control.’ She shifted down the bed, opened her arms to him, and, wantonly, her legs.
Quin’s weight over her was bliss. His heat and the texture of his skin, the pressure against her belly, the teasing friction of hair against her nipples turned longing into desperation. Her body was tightening painfully, as close to the edge as if they had been making love for an hour.
She arched up, inciting him, needing him inside her, needing to surround him with love and passion and urgency. Quin shifted and she felt him slide between the wet, swollen folds, pressing, caressing, but not penetrating. He gave a deep sigh and rested his forehead against hers.
‘You are so beautiful, Cleo,’ he murmured and took her mouth in a deep, demanding kiss even as he began to move against her, tightening the coiling desire in her to desperation point. She wanted him inside her and yet she wanted him to keep on doing exactly what he was doing; she wanted his mouth on hers, possessive, demanding, and she wanted to scream his name, bite the muscled arms that caged her.
And then Quin tilted his hips, changed the angle of the pressure until there was nothing in her consciousness except that one pulsating focus of need. Lights flashed behind her closed lids, the spiral knotted, broke, unravelled and she screamed his name against his lips and lost herself utterly.
Cleo came to herself to find that Quin had not moved except to raise his head. She looked up into his eyes, dark with desire, and freed one hand from the sheets she had twisted it into to touch his cheek, wondering if this was not a dream.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said softly.
‘I’m not.’ It seemed she could speak.
‘Must be rain then.’ He kissed the corners of her eyes and then brushed his mouth to hers so she could taste the salt. Then, lips still brushing hers, he eased himself into her in one long, slow, perfect thrust.
It had been a long time since Thierry and Quin was not, she thought with fleeting apprehension, a small man, but he was perfect for her body. She focused on relaxing, accepting, and then she found those almost forgotten inner muscles and began to use them to caress Quin, even as her hands slid over his shoulders and her tongue thrust against his.
He groaned, deep in his chest, and began to move in long, hard, slow strokes. Cleo gasped, tried to hang on to some kind of control and failed, convulsing around him as he arched over her, thrust one more time and came with her, his shout muffled in her hair, his body wrapping hers within his powerful embrace.
