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‘Absolutely,’ she said, nodding. ‘I was tutored at home until I was sixteen and then went straight to university. All of the normal experiences you had with Henri—’
‘I’m not sure I’d call them normal,’ Mateo laughingly interrupted.
‘Maybe not,’ she conceded with a smile, ‘but things like school dances, or walking home with friends, or sharing gossip and crushes on the cool boys...’ Her breath shuddered in her chest, just a little, just enough for him to hear the longing for things she hadn’t had or known. When she looked up at him from across the table, he suddenly realised that they had wandered into dangerous territory. Because the way she looked at him pulled his pulse into a faster beat, it filled the air between them with a heavy sensuality and everything in him wanted to respond to it—a siren’s call that would dash them both on the rocks if they were not careful.
‘There are things that I—’
‘Evie.’ Her name was a plea on his tongue, needing her to stop. He’d seen so much of her in the last few days. Not just his father’s assistant, or a woman determined to follow an ancient treasure hunt. But also the woman she was...incredible, powerful, proud, intelligent. He admired her. And he didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to give her false promises of a future he had no intention or ability to offer her.
She bit her lip, and once again he regretted dimming that light, thinking wrongly that it had been extinguished. But when she looked back up at him, anger shimmering with desire, he realised the spark had been lit and now threatened toburn.
‘There are things that I want,’ she repeated, her voice trembling a little, but no less clear for it. Her determination pushed him to the brink. Everything in him warred between walking away and pulling her to him.
He started, when she pushed her chair back and stood, slowly coming around the table, her bare feet sandy and soft on the wooden platform.
‘There are things that I want and if I don’t say it now, I...’ She paused and he thought he understood. He expected that she might not find the courage again, but he was wrong. He had underestimated her again, and that would be the last time he would ever do it. ‘If I don’t say it now, I will be smaller. I will be less. And I don’t want to be less. I want to be as strong as Isabella was when she faced down the pirate that attacked her ship. I want to be as fierce as she was when she defended her crew against her fiancé. So I know that you might turn me away, but,’ she let out a small laugh, ‘this actually isn’t about you. It’s about me,’ she said. And as if realising the truth of her words as she spoke them, sheshone. Her eyes sparkled and her skin glowed beneath a milky moon.
He stood to take her hand, gazing into all that was her glory.
‘I’m listening.’
‘I want you to kiss me,’ she said, and heat burned his lungs on an inhale. ‘I want you to crush my lips to yours and fill my mouth with your tongue.’ Her words were an erotic fantasy, the imagery of it, slashing red marks across his cheeks. ‘I want to taste you,’ she said, ‘and I want you to taste me,’ the soft wishes morphing into something hot and carnal. ‘I want you to touch me, to cover my body with your hands.’
Evelyn’s breath was coming in pants he could feel against his lips.Cristo, it was taking every single ounce of strength to hold himself back.
‘I want you to touch me in places that will make me moan with pleasure,’ she said, as heat and need built in his chest until he thought he might explode. ‘I want you to relieve the ache burning across my body and delight in doing it,’ she all but begged.
‘And I know,’ she said as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘I know it wouldn’t be more than tonight. But just for tonight, I want that,’ Evie said, her hands bunching the beautiful turquoise material at her thighs, as he bit back a moan of need so strong he wanted to tear the world apart.
‘And I wanted you to know that,’ she said before turning away.
Before she could take a step, he reached for her wrist and drew her back, pulling her against the length of his body, relishing in finally,finally, having her against his skin. With one hand he cupped her jaw as the other pressed her against him.
‘You wanted to be as strong as Isabella?’ he asked.
She nodded, trying to avoid his gaze.
‘How did you not know that you already are?’ he asked, searching her eyes for an answer he wasn’t sure he didn’t already know. And, unable to deny them both what they so desperately wanted, he claimed her lips with his.
Her mouth parted on a cry, as he hoped it would, opening for him, welcoming his passion. Her hands threaded through his hair, holding him to her as if she was worried he might disappear. He cradled her neck in the palm of his hand, half terrified of exactly the same thing. An urgency overwhelmed him even as he gentled his desire, remembering her innocence and inexperience. He wouldn’t turn away from her, not unless she asked it, but he knew that he should ease back a little. He slowed the kiss, closing it with a careful bite of her bottom lip.
‘I know you want those things, and I know that you’ve thought it through, in here,’ he said, tapping gently at her temple. ‘But what you feel in here,’ he said, pausing to lay his palm against her chest, ‘might be different to what you expect.’
‘If you’re asking me—’
He cut her words off with a kiss, lips pulled into a slight curve by his smile from the indignance in her tone. ‘Evie,’ he said, resting his forehead against hers, ‘I’m not asking if you’ve changed your mind. But I have to make sure you understand that I cannot offer you more than this,’ he said, searching her level gaze, thankful she clearly had no idea of the storm raging within him. She had offered him everything he had wanted from her and for her and only the thinnest thread of selflessness was holding him back. But it was strong enough. Because he needed her to know that he could not be what he knew was in her dreams. ‘I cannot give you forever and happy-ever-after, Evie. It’s just not in me.’
Solemn eyes stared back at him, green and gold flickers in the hazel-brown depths.
‘I understand,’ she said sincerely, and half of him urged, now! Now! But that thread still held him back, so very careful of her inexperience.
‘I want you to know that if you want to stop at any point, I’ll stop. If you think it’s too far, or even if you just need a moment, I’ll stop and it won’t change a thing between us. I need you to know that.’
It was as if a hand had swept aside all the obstacles muddying the waters between them. In that moment, Evie understood him perfectly and she felt understood completely. Trust. That was what it was. She trusted herself with him utterly and irrevocably and he trusted that she would be true to herself with him. It spoke to her soul in a way that made Mateo’s words true. She didn’t know what to expect to feel from this...but everything in her wanted to find out.
She rose onto her toes and pressed a chaste kiss against his lips, once, then twice. By the third, her tongue swept out to taste his lip, then his mouth, and then...oh, then it was heaven. As he opened for her, he pulled her into him, his arms sweeping around her as his tongue filled her mouth and she felt possessed. Not owned, but joined. Her skin ached and the juncture of her thighs throbbed with want. Her legs became restless, and just when they began to tremble he swept her up into his arms, and without breaking the kiss he walked them to his cabin, up the wooden steps, and into a suite that mirrored hers.
He placed her on the end of the canopied bed and she barely spared a glance for the hundreds of tea lights glittering around the cabin. With the night sky in the distance and the shimmering candles around them, she felt as if she were on a bed amongst the stars.
