Serena wasn’t the young vulnerable girl she had been, desperately seeking love and family. She wasn’t going to make the same errors. She was older now. Wiser. She’d craved a future in which she lived for herself, decided for herself, and if she was completely honest, she knew what she wanted. All she had to do was trust that she could handle it. Reach for it…
Taking a breath, she pulled open the bedroom door and returned to the living area, only to find it empty, but carried forwards by the new, empowering certainty within herself, she ventured to the other side of the house.
The door of Caleb’s room was slightly ajar, and with another breath, she knocked lightly. ‘Caleb?’
‘Yes? Come in.’
The richness of his voice sent nerves skittering across her skin as she pushed open the door to his private space. A sole lamp lit the spacious room, the low lighting creating an intimate impression and that was before her eyes found him. When they did, Serena stilled. He was midway through getting undressed, his black trousers riding low on his lean hips and his chest bare, all hard muscle and gold skin for her eyes to gorge on. She remembered all too well the feel of him, but the sight of him…that was something else entirely. An even hotter heat exploded in her middle, engulfing her from head to toe, and all the moisture in her mouth evaporated as her eyes traced the faint line of hair bisecting his torso all the way down to where it disappeared into the band of his trousers.
‘You need something?’ he asked when she didn’t speak.
Levering herself out of her stupor, Serena nodded. ‘I can’t reach the fastenings at the back of the dress, and I was hoping you could help.’
She couldn’t control the warble to her voice, not when she could taste the danger of this moment, feel her feelings ready to catch fire with one single touch that she craved so desperately…
‘Of course.’
As Caleb came towards her, she turned to offer him her back. Her breath shifted, quickening with the anticipation of his touch, and her stomach was tightening, almost to the point of pain, with the longing that ascended from so deep inside of her. Gently, he brushed her hair to the side, and as he did so his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her neck. It was like being electrocuted, sparks of feeling arrowing in each and every direction. Shivers travelled across her skin as his fingers moved to undo the tiny buttons, his warm breath fanning over her, his body so close that she could feel…everything.
Strength. Heat. Temptation.
Surrender.
As his fingers moved lower, it got harder and harder to breathe. The dress was unfastened enough now for her to complete the task, but she made no effort to move and Caleb didn’t remove his hands; instead, they slipped confidently beneath the fabric, settling on her waist and Serena swallowed a gasp at the blissful meeting of flesh.Yes. Touch me. Take me.
His fingers spanned outwards, creeping upwards to brush the base of her breast and this time she was powerless against the shudder that rippled through her. She had never wanted to be touched so desperately in her life, for her breasts to be cupped and caressed, stroked and sucked.
‘Caleb…’ She sighed, pressing back against him in invitation and turning her head for his mouth to claim hers, a kiss that, when it began, was unrestrained.
His tongue stroked the seam of her lips and then delved into her mouth, and with a sigh that seemed to be ripped from the deepest recess of his body, Caleb pulled her tightly against him. The gown slipped to the ground and his hands roved down her body in a slide that was pure possession. Excitement bubbled beneath her skin, liking it, wanting it. Needing it. To be claimed by him. To belong to him in every way possible. There was no one else she could imagine committing such surrender to. And this was…essential. Imperative. There was no other way to describe how it felt between them. She had to seize this gloriousness with him whilst it was here, because happiness never lasted, did it?
His firm mouth demanded more, demanded everything she had to give, and Serena offered it without hesitation, turning in his arms and clinging to him as the current building between their bodies threatened to sweep them both away. With another rumble from deep in his chest, Caleb scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed, his mouth never leaving hers.
He tumbled her on to the softness of the covers, and Serena curled herself around him as snugly as she could, her blood beating with an unknown rhythm, whimpering as he pulled away, but only briefly and only so he could rip at his trousers and then he was covering her again, naked, his skin hot to the touch and as he fitted himself onto the cradle of her thighs, her body filled with so many wants and wishes, so many feelings, she wasn’t sure how she didn’t explode.
‘You’re so beautiful, Serena,’ he breathed, the rise and fall of his chest heavy, as though she was too much to truly take in. ‘So beautiful it’s driving me crazy.’
The final words were delivered on a breath of desperation, and then he was lowering his head in worship, burying his face in the valley of her breasts so the embers simmering low in her stomach exploded into a full-on wildfire. His hands moved to palm her breasts, but they had become so sensitive that at the tiniest amount of pressure, she gasped, and Caleb pulled back, alarmed.
‘It’s OK,’ she assured him breathlessly. ‘They’re just really sensitive right now.’
A soft light burned in his eyes. ‘I’ll be very gentle then.’
And he was. Beautifully, exquisitely gentle. He caressed her almost reverently, stroking her with fingers as soft as a butterfly’s wing and where he would have used his thumb, employed his tongue instead, licking and sucking her into the warm heat of his mouth and the tenderness of his ministrations only seemed to send their power arrowing deeper into her so that she was quivering beneath him.
‘Caleb,’ she pleaded, the stars flashing before her eyes with such brightness she was half-convinced she could reach out and touch them.
His only response was the flash of a smile as he drew his line of teasing kisses even lower down her body, blazing a path over her stomach and lower again to where she had never been touched. Even if Serena had possessed the breath to protest, she wouldn’t, because his mouth on her most secret cavern felt like the ultimate way of giving and belonging, and there was a relentless tattoo striking right there, which only throbbed with greater insistence as his mouth neared. And then his mouth was on her, his lips and tongue moving with synchronised perfection and in a matter of moments Serena was soaring, spinning higher and higher out of herself and it didn’t once enter her mind to be scared of the plummet back to earth, because she knew that Caleb was there to catch her.
Caleb had never seen a sight more beautiful than Serena trapped in the grip of her quaking release. She sparkled with the orgasm tearing through her, and as the ripples subsided long enough for her to open her eyes, and they locked on him, her smile was as dazzling as rays of sunlight.
‘That was incredible,’ she breathed, reaching for him to press, fast, eager kisses to his lips.
‘I am nowhere near finished yet,’ he promised, his chest flooding with the pleasure he’d given and all that he still intended to bestow and with a single move pinned her beneath his weight.
Surrender had never felt so good. Thinking only about this moment and nothing else. For the first time in a long time, it was the impulses of his body leading the way instead of his brain, and his body wanted this—closeness, pleasure.Serena.He had known the moment they returned to the villa that he didn’t want to fight anymore.Couldn’tfight anymore. He had been fighting all day, and after too many moments holding her close and being teased and tempted by her softness and her scent, his hunger for her was too great to be denied. Another night without her seemed…impossible. And had he known how spectacularly eager and responsive she would be beneath him, he would have lost his battle hours earlier.
Caleb drew his lips across her mouth, before moving down her neck and chest, over her stomach and then to the arch of her thighs, dropping open-mouthed kisses back up her body. He would have kept on kissing her, tasting every inch, but his impatience was insistent, and with the way she was arching and pulsing under him, Caleb couldn’t wait a moment longer to sink his hard length inside her, and the welcome he received, her muscles stretching and tightening around him like a hug, was beyond his greatest longing. He wanted to hold steady, to relish that moment of reunion after craving it for so long and so fervently, but he simply couldn’t. He had to move, compelled by the emotions powering through him. More than everything he had already acknowledged feeling for her, more than protectiveness, more than lust.
