And she did. She did. The feel of his body in her arms was close to overwhelming.
And when finally, blissfully the moment came when he was entering her… taking her, demanding she follow where he led… she felt herself cry out with sheer joy. They merged, and the night exploded in a mist of white-hot desire. And then they lay, sated but still linked, still loving, until the heat built again and raw need took over from the blissful afterglow of consummation.
For this was no one-coupling night. It was as if their bodies were demanding that they make up, in part, for all these years they’d missed. This night was too precious for sleep. She’d dreamed of this man for ever and sleep was for the barren years, for another time, something to be put away as irrelevant.
All that mattered now was Andreas.
He’d changed, she thought wonderingly during this long, languorous night. His was no longer a boy’s body, but a man’s, hard and muscular. Royal or not, this wasn’t the indulged body of a playboy prince. He’d loved working on the farm, she remembered, savouring the hard physical requirements of axing tree stumps, of hauling out rotten fence posts, of heaving bales of hay for hungry cattle. Somewhere in the last years he must have found an alternative to farm work, for his body was all muscle, hard and sinewy and fabulous.
Fabulous. The word whispered over and over in her mind as she lay with him through the night, her fingers exploring, her tongue discovering, her legs holding him possessively in between couplings. Skin against skin on the silken sheets of Andreas’s vast princely bed, still they weren’t close enough.
But they could be. Over and over, each time striving to be closer, closer. The night wasn’t long enough. By rights they should be exhausted but there was no way this night could end with them asleep.
‘You’re so much more beautiful than I remembered,’ he whispered, awed, at some time during the night and she thought, so are you, so are you. ‘My beautiful Holly. My magical outback princess.’
Like young lovers they clung, holding to each other in the dark, exploring, exulting, wanting more, more, until dawn finally came, a tangerine flush appearing softly over the horizon, and a kind of peace that was deeper than she’d ever felt before fell over the pair of them. They lay naked and entwined and she felt seventeen again, beloved, with the world at her feet, her prince in love with her, her man in her arms and nothing could go wrong with her world ever again.
‘Can I take you for a swim, my love?’ Andreas whispered into the dawn, and she thought she must be dreaming.
‘I believe you can take me wherever you want,’ she managed.
He smiled, then swung himself up and over her, so he was smiling down at her. He kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘Then a swim it is.’
‘I don’t believe I’m capable of moving the tip of my smallest finger,’ she whispered, cautious.
‘But you’d like a swim?’
‘Maybe a soak?’ she whispered, tugging him back down to her.
‘Then a soak you shall have,’ he said, and before she knew what he was about he’d rolled off the bed and swung her up into his arms. She gave a squeak of surprise and he grinned down at her, his smile pure mischief. And then he was striding towards the door and she was too stunned to even struggle.
‘We’re naked,’ she managed and her voice came out an even higher squeak.
‘Are we?’ He stopped dead, as if such a thought hadn’t occurred to him. He looked down at her, and his dark eyes gleamed with laughter. ‘So we are,’ he said on a note of wonder. ‘How wonderful.’ He kissed her on the top of her head and then as she twisted he found her lips and kissed her more deeply still. But he’d reached the door and pushed the handle down with his elbow, and was striding out. Past the pool. Through the entrance hall. Out into daylight, to the open world where the beach lay before them in gold and turquoise wonder.
‘Andreas, we’re naked,’ she squeaked again, half laughing, half shocked. The feel of his bare skin against hers in the warm morning wind was almost unbearably erotic. But she had to be sensible. Someone had to be sensible. Dear God, he was gorgeous. Her big, naked prince. Her Andreas.
Her husband.
But: ‘Sophia…’ she whispered desperately. ‘Georgiou…’
‘Sophia will have the others carefully on the other side of the pavilion,’ he said, not breaking stride.
‘She has instructions for when you bring your women here?’
He stopped at that. Stopped dead and his brow snapped down into a frown. ‘No,’ he said, and his tone was suddenly harsh. ‘I’ve told you. I’ve brought no other women here.’
‘Like I believe that.’
‘You can believe it,’ he whispered and kissed her again, so deeply there was no room for argument; there was no room for anything but heat and want and now. ‘I’ve brought you here, my woman. My wife. It was time to bring you home.’
And then he didn’t stop until he reached the shallows. He laid her down, almost reverently, on the soft sand, where the tiny waves rippled in and out. She gasped as her overheated body met the cool of the water, but then Andreas was following her down, gathering her to him, taking her to him with a desire that said this was to be no gentle soak.
‘I thought…’
‘You think what you like,’ he growled and pulled her to him, under him, his knees sinking into the soft sand, his hands holding her face as he tugged her closer, closer until once more their bodies met, fused, merged. ‘I can’t think at all. My Holly. Agapi mou. My heart.’
THE following days were a dream. A honeymoon. Six condoms? There were more where they came from and it was just as well.
For once started it was impossible to stop. Holly was just as crazy as she’d been when she was seventeen, and just as helpless. She was just as hopelessly in love.
Andreas just had to look at her and she melted. He just had to touch her and every fibre of her being responded with pure, white want.
‘My hot woman,’ he called her, tugging her into his arms over and over. ‘My captive wife. I have a mind to keep you here for ever.’
That was fine by her, she thought dreamily as the days wore on. Her time with Andreas in the past had been stolen moments, passion laced with guilt. Caution had made her hesitate on her wedding night, but having abandoned caution she discovered there was nothing more to worry about. There was nothing but the love she felt for this man.
He could take her in any way he pleased, and he did, he did. In turn she took him. He might be aristocratically demanding, but so too could she be. He could be tender in turn and he brought out a gentleness in her she didn’t know she had.
Sophia appeared again, and Nikos and Georgiou, but they stayed in the background. This was their own desert island, their own paradise, just for them.
Deefer was a part of their world, a bouncing ball of fun, flying along the beach, rounding up gulls, following them bravely into the surf, but collapsing in true puppy fashion, exhausted and happy while his master and mistress took their pleasure until they, too, felt the same.
Paradise, just for them.
Only of course it couldn’t last. They were given three days and then the fairy tale ended.
It ended with a knock on the bedroom door. It was eleven in the morning. They’d swum and made love lazily in the shallows, then wandered back hand in hand for a late breakfast by the pool. While Deefer slept the sleep of a truly contented pup, Andreas and Holly had showered with the intent