Page 80 of Hot Greek Summer

‘I know that,’ she said, her fingers unpicking the belt of her robe. ‘But I also know that we’ll find a way to deal with it, because we have to. And I know that you’re not the terrible guy you pretend to be and I’m not the fragile woman I was when I came here all those weeks ago either.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, but even in the same breath he pushed her robe back on her shoulders and dropped it on the lounger.

‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘And I won’t hurt you either.’

She didn’t miss the flickers of uncertainty and shock in his eyes. It had obviously been a long time since anyone had taken care of Jesse emotionally. He buried his face in her hair and he kissed her again, languid and searching.

‘Take me to your bed,’ he said, gruff, sliding his hand up her ribs to cover her breast. ‘If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it properly.’

Jesse was way too far over the line to think about tomorrow. He followed Winnie through the quiet villa, pausing to grab hold of her hand on the first landing, pressing her against the wall to kiss her breathless. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted anyone the way I want you tonight.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s ever wanted me this much,’ she said, and he made a silent vow to find her husband and plant his fist square in his guts. How? How had he had a woman like Winnie in his life and turned away?

‘Come on,’ she said, reaching the top landing, leading him inside her room and clicking the door quietly shut behind them. Scanning the room quickly, he lifted her and deposited her on the edge of the huge, high bed.

‘I feel like I’m in a fucking fairytale,’ he said, taking in the oversized iron bedstead, the cool white linen and the beautiful, sun-kissed girl in just her slip and her cowboy boots.

Winnie caught her bottom lip between her teeth, her blue eyes sparkling in the low, creamy lamplight.

‘You should probably know that I’m naked beneath this.’ She glanced down at her slip.

‘You think I don’t know that already?’ he all but growled. Christ, she was something. She opened her knees for him to step between them, feeling the pit drop out of his stomach when she flicked her tongue over his lips and popped the top button on his jeans.

God, he needed to be naked, and he needed her to be naked, and he needed the slick press of her warm skin against his more than he knew how to handle. He shucked his clothes and moved onto the bed, taking her with him until she was on her back alongside him.

‘Win,’ he said, sliding her slip down her arms to her waist. He’d seen her naked before, but never like this, never just for him, never knowing that she was all his until sunrise. Kissing her breasts, he tugged her slip down her hips and let his lips move down with it, making her moan and drag her nails slowly over his shoulders. Fuck.

‘Oh God,’ he heard her moan under her breath when he lifted her knee outwards, taking the time to slide his tongue into the heat of her folds as her fingers tangled through his hair and her breath caught in her throat.

He wanted to give her more, to linger there and love her with his mouth but he needed her too damn much, sliding his body up over hers again to kiss her hard and open-mouthed, shocked senseless by the intensity of his own excitement. He burned for her. Leaning over the edge of the bed, he dragged his jeans closer and from his back pocket fished the box of condoms that he’d put there before he’d left the house.

‘You’re sure?’ he managed, ragged as he ripped the silver foil with his teeth, praying she’d say yes because he wasn’t sure he could stop.

She nodded, star-bright lust in her eyes, her breathing fast and shallow as she opened her legs to let him settle between them. ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything.’

And then he sank his hips down and pushed into her, taking her gasps into his mouth with his own, knife-hot pleasure so sudden and fierce that he could barely breathe through it. He palmed her breast, feeling her nipple stiffen in his fingers, and screwed his face up to hold on when her hand cupped his ass and pulled him deeper, wrapping her legs around him as they moved and arched. He tried to take it slow, but he was fighting a losing battle, because every tilt of her hips had him closer until she opened her eyes and let him watch her at her most intimate, her most vulnerable and exposed, and it was so insanely sexy that he let go with her, for her, and because of her.

‘We’ll take it slower next time,’ he murmured against her ear, pulling the sheet over their bodies as he spooned around her a little later. Winnie pressed herself into all of the warm crooks of him, relishing the weight and strength of his limbs wrapped protectively around hers. There would be a next time. Tonight wasn’t for sleeping together. It was for being awake together, for giving and taking, for drowning and then resurfacing again just before your lungs burst. Jesse’s arm lay beneath her head, his hand hot and assured curved over her breast, his other hand over her hip. They’d danced beneath the stars earlier, and their sex had turned out to be a steady escalation of that dance, a slow grind building towards a hot, frantic beat that had left them both exhausted.

Two things happened at once as Winnie opened her eyes. One, she turned over and realised that Jesse wasn’t there any more. The sheets weren’t still warm from his body heat and his clothes were no longer strewn over the bedroom’s mellow wooden floorboards. He’d gone, just as he’d said he would, and although she’d have been more surprised by his presence than his absence, she felt the loss of him all the same.

The second, more pressing thing was that she’d been woken by some kind of commotion outside.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘What the blazes …?’ Winnie muttered, struggling through the stages from sleep to wakefulness, blinking rapidly to adjust to the stream of sunlight through her open balcony doors. Realising she was naked, she paused for a second and pressed her hands against her flushed cheeks, because oh my God. Jesse. One night with him had been so much more than she could’ve guessed it would be, and she’d already guessed it would be something special. For such a smart-mouthed Australian alpha he’d been unexpectedly tender and then sometimes blissfully not so, setting her skin on fire and making her head spin until she was dizzy, euphoric, drunk on him.

‘Win? Are you awake in there?’ Stella’s voice carried through the door. ‘We’ve got a bit of a situation.’

‘I’m coming,’ she called, dragging on underwear and shorts. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Not really sure,’ Stella said. ‘But we seem to have half of the island in the back garden.’

Winnie finger-combed her hair and dragged it back into a band, then pulled a sunshine-yellow vest over her head as she swung the door open.

Stella peered around her for a second.

‘What?’ Winnie said.

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