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The sun had just started to spread warmth over the beach. Darkness was reluctantly giving way to light, and the morning was fresh.
It was Hannah’s favourite time of day, when the air itself seemed to be full of magic and promise.
She had only the clothes she’d worn the day before, and the shirt she’d slept in, which was ridiculously big even when accommodating her pregnant belly. Still, it was comfortable and covered her body. Besides, it was a private island. Who was going to see her?
Pausing only to take a quick drink of water in the kitchen, Hannah unlocked the front door of the mansion and stepped out, breathing in the tangy salt air.
Excitement and a sense of anticipation rushed her out of nowhere, like when she was a small girl, around six or seven, and her parents had taken her away on their first family vacation. They’d gone to the glitzy beachside resort of Noosa, in tropical Queensland, and Hannah had woken early and looked out on the rolling waves crashing onto the beach, the moon still shimmering in the sky, and her stomach had rolled, just like this.
There’s something elemental and enlivening about the sea, and this island was surrounded by a particularly pristine shoreline and ocean.
Without having any real intention of going to the beach, she found herself moving that way quickly, her bare feet grateful when they connected with cool, fine sand, clumps of long grass spiking up between it every now and again. Dunes gave way to the flatness of the shore. She walked all the way to the water’s edge, standing flat-footed and staring out to the sea, her back to Leonidas’s mansion, her eyes on the horizon.
This was not the tropical water off the coast of Queensland. Here, there were no waves, only the gentle sighing of the sea as the tide receded. With each little pause, each undulation back towards the shore, the water danced over Hannah’s toes; the cool was delicious given the promise of the day’s heat.
She could have stood there, staring out at the mesmerising water, all day, were it not for the sudden and loud thumping from directly to her left. She turned just in time to see Leonidas, earphones in and head down, eyes trained on the shore, galumphing towards her. There was barely enough time to sidestep out of his way.
He startled as he ran past, jerking his head up at the intrusion he’d sensed, then swore, pulling his earphones out and letting them dangle loose around his neck.
She wished he hadn’t.
The simple act drew her eyes from his face to his body. There was nothing scandalous about what he was wearing. Shorts and a T-shirt—only the T-shirt was wet with perspiration and the firmness of his pecs was clearly visible.
She took a step backwards without realising it, not to put physical space between them but because she wanted to see him better. Her aunt would have told her to stop staring, but Hannah couldn’t. As much as the tide couldn’t cease its rhythmic motion, Hannah found it impossible to tear her eyes away.
She remembered everything about him and yet...seeing him again sparked a whole new range of wants and needs.
Thick, strong legs covered in dark, wiry hair looked capable of running marathons but she couldn’t look at him without imagining him straddling her, pushing her to the sand and bringing his body over hers, his hard arousal insistent between her legs. Without remembering the feeling of h
is weight on her body, his strength, power and skill in driving her to orgasm again and again.
Her throat was dry and the humming of the ocean was nothing to the furious pounding of her own blood in her ears.
She dragged her eyes up his body, over dark shorts that showed nothing of his manhood, even when she was suddenly desperate to see it—to see all of him again, in real life, not her very vivid dreams.
She prepared to meet his gaze, knowing he must surely be regarding her with mocking cynicism, only he wasn’t.
He wasn’t looking at her face, wasn’t looking at her eyes to see the way she’d been eating him alive. No, he was performing his own slow, sensual inspection and it was enough to make her blood burn.
His eyes were on her legs, desire burning in the depths of his gaze as he lifted his attention to the curve of her breasts and, finally, to her lips. They parted under his inspection as she silently willed him to kiss them. To pull her into his arms and remember how well that worked between them.
And when he didn’t, she took a step forward herself, knowing it didn’t matter who moved first, knowing it was imperative only that they touch once more.
It broke the spell. His gaze slammed into hers, surprise there, confusion and, yes, desire. So much desire that it almost drowned her. He made a deep, husky sound and stood completely still, his body hard like steel.
Hannah moved closer, her eyes holding a silent challenge. Stop me if you dare.
He didn’t.
One more step and their bodies connected, just like that first night in the bar, when fate had thrown them together and passion had held them there.
The air around them cracked and sizzled as though a localised electrical storm had touched down. He was so much bigger than she was. Hannah stood on the tips of her toes, which brought her body flush to his, her womanhood so close to the strength of his arousal that she echoed his own guttural moan with a soft whimper.
‘Hannah.’ Her name on his lips wasn’t a request, nor was it a surrender. He spoke her name as though he simply couldn’t resist and she lifted higher onto her toes and kissed him, hungrily.
He was still. Completely still, so her mouth moved over his, her tongue tracing the outline of his lower lip, her breath warm against him, and then, after the briefest moment, he lifted his hands to the back of her head, holding her where she was, keeping her so close to him, and he opened his mouth, kissing her back. But not in the way she had kissed him.
This was a kiss driven as much by a need to possess as his kiss had been the first night they’d met. There was madness in his kiss, his desperation for her completely overwhelming.
