The Helen Bianchin Collection

‘At the time you took Georgia’s word over mine.’ Nicos wanted to shake her. ‘Did you pause to consider how that made me feel?’ His hands fisted, and he controlled the urgent need to smash something. Soon, he would have the proof he needed. But for now all he had was words.

‘Did it never at any time occur to you that Georgia deliberately set out to destroy our marriage? You, me?’

‘Yes.’ It was an honest admission, one that had been her first thought. A woman scorned could prove a dangerous threat. ‘But she provided dates, places…hotels.’ Receipts as confirmation. The horror of being presented with such proof came flooding back, the memory leaving her features pale, her eyes too large, too dark with remembered pain.

‘I wasn’t with her.’

‘Dammit, she was pregnant,’ Katrina vented. ‘She had medical proof.’ Her breath hitched, and she sought control. ‘She showed me a copy of the ultrasound.’ A video delivered to her apartment weeks later by special messenger. Vivid, cruel evidence she’d only been able to view for seconds before being physically ill.

It was too much. To think she’d behaved shamelessly and wantonly in his arms sickened her.

With a groan that was part despair, part self-loathing, she rolled to the edge of the mattress, only to have any form of escape felled before her feet could touch the carpet.

‘Let me go.’

His grasp was firm, with a hint of steel should she attempt to struggle. ‘No.’

She turned on him, like an angry, spitting feline. ‘What do you want to prove, Nicos? Superior male strength?’ Her eyes speared his, darkly luminous, and totally without fear. ‘Sensual expertise?’

Something moved in his eyes, and she banked down the sudden apprehension that clenched in her stomach.

He didn’t say a word. The silence stretched between them, like a taut wire on the verge of breaking. She could see the tension, feel it, as if it was a throbbing, palpable entity.

Then he moved, tumbling her down on top of him, anchoring her there with an arm whose hand splayed over her buttocks, while the other fisted in her hair as he dragged her head down to his.

He ravaged her mouth, conquering it in a manner that left her stunned and unable to breathe. It was a total ravishment that gave no quarter as he used the edge of his teeth, his tongue, and plundered at will.

She heard someone whimper, and was unaware the sounds came from her own throat.

It was possession. Absolute, total possession. Savage in its intensity, devouring, devastating. Almost barbaric.

A man teetering on the edge of controlling his emotions, bent on imprinting his image on her soul.

Something stirred deep within, an answering, compelling need that rose of its own accord, dispensing her shocked passivity and replacing it with active response.

Katrina was hardly aware of the change, only that she was meeting and matching his passion, greedily intent on giving what he’d taken, and with equal fervour.

Hard and fast, with no preliminaries. She wanted, needed the force of it, the intense, animalistic coupling with no holds barred.

She used her hands to push against his shoulders, her voice little more than a guttural plea as she arched against him, rising to cushion the moist folds of her femininity against the base of his arousal.

With a deliberate intention to tease, she rocked against him, gently at first, then slowly traversed the length of his shaft and back again, creating a tactile slide that brought a deep, husky groan.

Heat pulsated fast, heady, magnetising, as it washed in vibrating waves through her body, and she rose up, tantalising him further for several heart-stopping seconds before she took him deep inside in an achingly slow movement that tested his control as much as it did her own.

Unleashed passion flared, raw and libidinous, as they took a ride that lasted long and left them both breathless and slick with sensual sweat.

Katrina subsided against him, and sighed as his fingers traced a lazy pattern along the edge of her spine.

This…this, was everything and more. A special time before problems and doubt could intrude.

The lingering aftermath of erotic, riveting lovemaking, where every sensual pleasure-pulse had become acutely heightened in sexual intimacy.

What they’d just shared was more than just sex. More than the slaking of mutual desire.

At this precise moment Katrina was loath to put a name to it.

Nicos nuzzled a sensitive ear lobe, then took the soft flesh between his teeth and bit gently before moving to caress the curving slope of her neck, following it inch by inch to settle in the hollow at the base of her throat.

A faint moan escaped her lips as his mouth found hers, initiating a gentle exploration with a slow, evocative sweep of his tongue that stirred the lingering warmth to renewed life.

With a fluid movement he rose into a sitting position and held her loosely in his arms as he trailed a path down to her breast.

The darkened peak invited his touch, and he circled the aureole with his tongue, savouring it, before taking the peak into his mouth.

Katrina felt her body give an involuntary shudder as he began to suckle, and she cried out as he grazed the tender nipple with his teeth. Seconds later he sought the soft flesh beneath the peak, bestowing a gentle bite before moving to render a similar salutation to its twin.

She had a need of her own, and her fingers sought the dark whorls of hair on his chest, tugging a little as she trailed his midriff and followed the narrowed line of hair to his navel, caressing it before tracing a path to tangle in the soft curling triangle of hair at his groin.

His reaction was immediate as he swelled deep within her, and she touched where they joined, feather-light, tantalising, and heard his groan as he lowered her down onto the mattress.

This time he took it slowly. Building the intensity with loving care as he sought the highly sensitised nub and stroked until the pleasure mounted and her soft, throaty murmurs begged him to ease the ache deep within.

Then she did cry out as he shifted, leaving her bereft, only to settle his mouth over her navel and trail slowly down to gift her the most intimate kiss of all.

Could you die and go to heaven, and still be mortal? she thought. At what point did pain become pleasure? And vice versa?

Katrina didn’t know. She was aware that it could be both. A pleasure so intense it hovered close to pain and the need for fulfilment. The sense that she could never know its equal, the acuteness so erotically evocative she wanted it go on and never stop.

Was it she who cried out? She, who begged, pleaded with the man whose skilled touch came close to destroying her?

When he entered her, it was almost a relief, and she welcomed him, willing the intensity to lessen, only to have it rebuild and escalate as he took her to the heights, and beyond.

This time she wasn’t alone, and she heard his exultant groan as he reached his own climax, and she savoured the moment, loving his passion and the joy of sharing it.

Afterwards she might analyse and dissect, but for now she was content to live for the moment.

And that was Nicos. Held in his arms, her cheek buried against the curve of his shoulder, she heard the strong, steady beat of his heart, felt the strength of his large muscled body, and savoured the comforting warmth of his breath as it stirred her hair. A stray hand skimmed lightly over her waist and settled possessively on her hip.

She loved his scent, the faint muskiness of his skin. The flex of muscle and sinew beneath the satin smoothness of its olive texture. The subtle tang of his exclusive cologne that always seemed to linger, the result of layering the same expensive brand with matching soap and deodorant.

There was something in the way he cupped his hand…beneath her elbow, her chin, curving over her shoulder. A light possessive touch that claimed her as his own.

And the simmering passion evident in his dark eyes. The look that made mere words fade into inadequate comprehension.

Once, in the beginning, she had only to meet his gaze to know. To nurture that need, to be aware when they were alone the night really began…a long night of loving, pleasuring each other until sleep claimed them and they woke to a new day’s dawn.

Could it ever be that way again?