After an interminable few moments he spoke. ‘You want me.’
Emily wasn’t sure if it was a question or an ironic comment, but she answered without hesitation, ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then show me how much, Emily.’ No doubt about his tone now. It was hard and ruthless, challenging her mind, heart and soul. ‘Show me that what I do tomorrow will not be done for nothing.’
Tomorrow…Hannah…the link burst through her brain, and on its heels came the red alert warning not to ask! If she brought her sister into this moment which was charged with explosive elements relating to only Zageo and herself, it would blow apart everything that could be good between them. Every instinct she had urged her to seize this night and make it theirs.
She swung her legs off the bed. He made no move towards her. His silence screamed of waiting…waiting to see how far she would go for him. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, allowing her to see he was wearing the light cotton robe supplied by the hotel. No need for him to dress properly when the doors to their suites faced each other across the upstairs porch. Emily had no doubt he was naked underneath the robe.
She’d worn nothing to bed herself, hoping he might come. Any inhibitions about her body were long gone with Zageo. She was only too eager for him to touch it, caress it, pleasure it. But he didn’t reach for her as she stepped close. He maintained an aloof stillness. Waiting…
Emily thought of how much he had shown her. Without the slightest hesitation she started undoing his tie belt. ‘Were you lying in bed, thinking of what you could be doing with me?’ she asked huskily, determined to seduce him out of this stand-off.
No reply.
‘I was, for hours and hours,’ she confessed, drawing his robe apart, sliding her hands up his chest, lightly rubbing her palms over his nipples. ‘I wanted to feel you as I’m feeling you now.’
His chest lifted as his nipples hardened under her touch. The swift intake of breath was inaudible but his body revealed the signs of excitement. Emily moved around behind him and slid the robe down his arms, getting rid of the garment. Her hands went to work on the taut muscles of his neck and shoulders—a soft, sensual massage.
‘Relax, Zageo,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t want to fight you. I want to make love to you.’
He didn’t relax. If anything, his muscles tightened even more.
She ran featherlight fingers down his back in soft whirling patterns, revelling in the satin smoothness of his skin as she gradually worked her way to his waist. Then she moved in, pressing her breasts against his sensitised back, gliding her hands around to the erotic zones on either side of his groin, caressing them, silently rejoicing in the tremors she raised with her touch.
‘You’ve brought me back to life again,’ she confided, trailing kisses down the curve of his spine. ‘I’ve just been going through the motions for the past two years. Meeting you, knowing you…it came as a shock. I didn’t know how to handle it, Zageo. But I do want you.’ She pressed her cheek into the hollow between his shoulder blades, fervently murmuring, ‘I do.’
His diaphram lifted with the quick refilling of his lungs with air. Emily moved her fingers lower, reaching for him, hoping she had aroused the desire he’d always shown her. Elation zinged through her as she felt his strong erection, the soft velvety skin stretched to contain the surge of his excitement.
Just the most delicate touch on the tip…and Zageo exploded into action, whirling around, seizing her waist, lifting her, carrying her headlong onto the bed with him, pinning her down, his eyes stabbing into hers with fierce intensity.
‘Do not play with me, Emily. This has gone beyond games,’ he stated harshly. ‘Beyond anything civilised.’
‘I wasn’t playing with you,’ she cried breathlessly.
‘Then give me the new sense of life I gave you. I need it now. Now…’
He kissed her with a devouring passion that fired a tumultuous response from her. She wasn’t trying to prove anything. Her own wild surge of need met his, fiercely demanding expression, craving satisfaction. His arms burrowed under her. She eagerly arched her body, wanting fierce collision, a swift primitive mating, the ecstatic sense of him driving into her.
It came and her body seemed to sing with exultation in his possession of her, her possession of him. It was marvellous, beautiful, glorious. She was hungry for the wonderfully intense feelings it generated, greedy for them. Her arms grasped him tightly. Her legs wound around him, urging him on, goading him on.
Zageo filled her with his power, lifted her onto wings of ecstasy that had her flying high, then swooping into delightful dips before soaring again, higher and higher until she simply floated in a delirium of pleasure, waiting for the ultimate fusion of his climax, the final fulfillment of their becoming one again.
When it came, to Emily it was sweeter than ever before. She hoped he felt as deeply moved by this special intimacy as she did. His forehead pressed briefly against hers, mind to mind, she thought, body to body. Then he heaved his weight off her, rolling, scooping her along with him, pressing her head over his heart, his fingers thrust into her hair, not stroking as he usually did, but grasping her scalp, holding her possessively against the thud of his life-beat.
He didn’t speak.
Neither did she.
Emily was happy to have her head nestled precisely where it was. Her own heart kept time with his, giving her a blissful sense of harmony, the soft drumming gradually soothing her into a deep and peaceful sleep, cocooned securely in his embrace.
When he removed that embrace and left her, she had no idea. It was morning when she woke again and where he had lain in the bed was cold. For a few minutes she fretted over why he would have returned to his own suite instead of staying with her. Perhaps she hadn’t answered his need. Perhaps…
Then she remembered.
Hannah!
Zageo had some action planned for tomorrow and now it was tomorrow. Last night she’d been certain it related to the trade they’d made. If that assumption was right, did he feel it was worth doing this morning? Was that why he was missing from her bed? He’d already gone about the business he had prearranged?
Emily rushed to the bathroom, anxious to be showered, dressed and ready for anything.
Today was important.
On how many counts she couldn’t begin to guess.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EMILY braved knocking on the door to Zageo’s suite, arguing to herself that last night’s intimacy gave her the right to at least say hello. There was no response—disappointing, but to be expected, since it was almost nine o’clock and he was probably already attending to whatever he had planned for today.