A hard, solid and warm mass.
A hard, solid, warm, living and breathing form.
A form that was so intensely masculine, lean and hard and forceful, that it could only belong to a man. A tall, strong man, very much in the prime of life.
A man whose arms came out instinctively, folding round her immediately, supporting her, holding her when she swayed off balance and might have fallen. A man whose chest was wide and strong where it supported her head, her cheek resting against his immaculate white polo shirt. She could hear the heavy, regular thud of his heart, echoing the pulse of blood through her own veins. In her nostrils was the heady, sensually intoxicating mixture of clean skin, the subtle tang of some spicy cologne, and the purely individual aroma that was his alone.
A scent that Sarah knew as well as that of her own body. It was one that she recognised so instantly and so completely, not needing to see the man’s face or hear a word spoken in his voice to confirm her immediate and horrified suspicion. Try as she might, she had no hope at all of denying the truth, or escaping from the forceful impact of it.
And if she had needed any further proof, then the instant reaction that flared through her, burning away all other thoughts, all other hopes, provided it in the space of a heartbeat. It licked along every nerve path, obliterating any doubt even before it had a chance to form.
‘Da…’
The single broken syllable was choked from her, impossible to hold back even though her voice didn’t have the strength to complete the name.
Only one man had ever made her feel this way. Only one man had ever been able to stimulate her feelings and her senses so instantly and so furiously.
‘Damon…’ she whispered. ‘Damon!’
Above her head she sensed rather than saw the sensual mouth break into a wide, wicked grin of pure triumph, and felt the faint rumble of amused laughter under her cheek. She knew without the shadow of a doubt that he was glorying in the fact that he had had such an impact on her, and at such speed, evoking the instant effect that she had been unable to hide.
Only the realisation that she had given him the weapon to use against her, putting it almost into his hands herself, kept her silent in mortification, and she had to grit her teeth against the flurry of angry rejection that nearly escaped her. Damon Nicolaides needed no encouragement at all to feel instantly and infinitely superior to any other human being. His head was already swollen wide enough, and he would only take her hurried protestations as an indication of exactly the opposite of what she said.
‘Damon…’ she tried again, aiming for a very different tone. ‘Let me go this minute!’
Once more she felt the chuckle echo in his chest.
‘You know you don’t mean that, sweetheart.’
It was the first time in over six months that she had heard his voice, and the bitter-sweet sensation of its tug at her emotions, the memories it revived in the space of a heartbeat, almost undid her totally.
‘Oh, but I do!’
Gathering together all that was left of her tattered strength, she twisted in his arms and flung back her head so that she could look up, straight into his dark, shuttered face.
And instantly regretted her action desperately.
If letting him feel her immediate response to his presence had been a mistake, then this was definitely error number two—and a far worse, potentially far more dangerous move than anything she had done yet.
Because as soon as she saw him, saw the dangerously handsome face, with the broad, defined cheekbones, the flashing dark eyes and the sensually warm mouth, it was as if he had never been away. In those few, shaken moments, the hundred and eighty days of his absence from her life slid away like so many seconds, and she was jolted back once more to the appalling, devastating moment in which she had learned the truth. When his own father had forced her to see how her love for this man was built not on the strong, sure foundations she had believed it to be, but instead on slippery, shifting sands that had slid away from under her feet, leaving her reeling and lost without any support.
‘I do…’ she tried again, only to hear the words disintegrate as soon as they hit the air, splintering into tiny pieces that had none of the emphasis she aimed for.
And none of the impact she needed, she admitted to herself as she looked into her husband’s deep, dark eyes, and saw there only as much response to her protest as he might have shown if a fly had landed on the olive-toned skin of his arm and he had wafted it away idly with one hand. Instead his smile grew, becoming a broad, fiendish grin as he looked down at her.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he drawled in his softly accented tones. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
Before she could register just what the grin meant, before she had time to realise that she had also made mistake number three as well as one and two, the proud head had lowered swiftly and his mouth took hers in a searing kiss.
A kiss that swept away all pretence at resistance. One that slashed through her defences before she even had time to think about building them, sweeping them aside as a torrential flash-flood might deal with a few weakly rooted saplings it had found in its way, carrying them before it on its relentless, savage path.
Sarah was completely in the power of that storm force. Under attack from a bewildering, devastating array of emotions, she simply closed her eyes and went under, surrendering to the deepest, most elemental demand of all. That of total sensuality.
It was like the first kiss she had ever experienced and yet it was like no other she had ever known. It started hard and fierce and demanding, but instantly gentled as in spite of herself she opened up to him, her mouth softening under his, her lips parting, allowing the arrogantly knowing invasion of his tongue.
She was lost, drowning in sensation, losing all sense of substance, of strength, of reality. The ground was unsteady beneath her feet, the hallway in which she stood just a haze of blue, pale and dark, and the hum of the traffic outside, always present in any part of London, a blur of noise, the buzzing soundtrack to the frantic racing of her heart.
She wanted none of this, her mind screamed at her. Wanted nothing—and yet she wanted everything. She longed desperately for him to release her and in the same thought she prayed that he would hold on to her forever, never letting her go. Letting her go would mean that she was once more cast adrift into the emptiness of being alone, the devastation of loneliness that was all her life had been since their brief marriage had broken up. And, having endured it once, she knew it was something she could not go through again.
‘Excuse me.’
The cold, clipped words vaguely penetrated the heated haze that enclosed Sarah’s thoughts, reaching her only as a tone, not any sort of meaning. But that tone was a million miles away from the ostensibly polite phrase, carrying with it a load of barely controlled fury and cold disbelief.
‘Excuse me,’ Jason repeated, with cutting emphasis.
That at least had some effect on Damon. It made him pause, stilling his mouth on Sarah’s, lifting it slightly away from her.
‘Yes?’
It was curt and disdainful, insultingly so. If Jason’s interjection had been cool, then Damon’s response was nothing short of icy.
‘What is it?’
He was still so close that she could feel the whisper of his breath over her skin as he spoke, still taste him on her lips and her tongue. His scent still lingered tantalisingly in her nostrils. It took a shocking effort to crush down the instinctive, weakly betraying murmur of protest that almost escaped her, and to her horror her hands had actually lifted to pull him back to her before she realised what was happening and determinedly forced them back down again. Only by curling her fingers into tight, defensive fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms, did she feel that she had regained enough control not to give herself away completely.