Champagne Rules. Susan Lyons
teeth closed on her finger. He groaned, then released her hand as his breathing quickened. Inside her, arousal was building again. Hers, his, each feeding the other.
She moved faster, until his hips lifted off the ground.
But no, if she speeded up they’d both climax, and she wasn’t ready for this to end. If she could, she’d make it last forever.
Forever?
She stopped moving, dimly aware of his frustrated groan. Gazing down, she tried to make out his features in the dusky light, but only his eyes were clearly visible, slitted now as he struggled for control.
Forever? Confused, she shook her head to clear it, but instead the dizziness returned. She closed her eyes and held still, trying to think. This had nothing to do with forever. She was going home tomorrow, would never see him again. Her life was just starting, and forever was way down the road.
This man was her initiation into adulthood. He was teaching her about her own sexuality.
Yes, that’s what this afternoon was about. That’s all it was.
Feeling sane again, she realized his body was trembling, his fingers biting into her hips. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“The beach.” The words grated out. “Tell me what’s happening now.”
He was so big and strong, yet he was letting her set the pace, using every ounce of will power to hold his body in check.
She turned her face to the sun, keeping her eyes closed a few seconds, then opening them slowly to the brightness.
Below, a couple strolled into view. “There’s an older man and woman. Grey-haired, naked, walking at the edge of the water. Arms around each other’s waists. They look like they’ve been in love forever.”
Yes, here was what forever looked like. One day she’d find a relationship like theirs. “A love that survives highs and lows, that builds a family and a home, that starts out strong and grows even more beautiful each year.”
“Or they’re brand-new lovers. Just met each other this afternoon.”
Oops, she hadn’t meant to speak her thoughts out loud. Lucky he’d thought she was talking about the couple on the beach, not revealing her own dreams, or she might’ve spoiled the mood.
She replayed his words—such a different perspective from her own. “New lovers? Why not? This is a magical place.”
What else could explain the force that had brought her together with this man? They’d met only an hour or two ago, at the special beach she’d discovered on the last day of her holiday. Only magic could have brought sensible Suzanne from Vancouver, Canada, to the adventure of a lifetime.
She sighed with pleasure, watching the sun glint off the froth that tipped the lazy waves. Never would she forget this afternoon. This man. Almost, she wished she knew his name, where he came from, what he did. But those were mundane details. They didn’t belong in a magical fantasy.
His hand cupped her breast, his finger circling her nipple. Then his thumb and finger squeezed gently, and the tension between her legs built again.
“‘Magical,’” he repeated. “Good word. That’s how it felt when I saw you walking toward me.”
She nodded, remembering.
Bathing suit wrapped in a beach towel, sandals dangling from one finger, toes flirting with the lapping waves, she’d been walking into the sun. Her sunglasses were forgotten back at the restaurant, so her eyes squinted to see who was coming toward her. Feeling a little tipsy, more than a little self-conscious about being, for the first time in her life, naked in a public place. But everyone was; that’s why she’d taken off her bikini. That, and the same wine-induced courage that had led her to venture onto a nude beach.
Already a few people had strolled past her, exchanging casual greetings, but she’d felt something different when this man came toward her out of the sunshine. A kind of spark, an energy that seemed to arc between them. Cretan magic.
As he’d moved closer, she realized how tall he was. So tall he made her feel almost petite, an unusual feeling for a girl who was five-foot-ten in bare feet. Then he stopped in front of her, head blocking the sun, and for the first time she saw him clearly. Her heart pounded as fast as if she’d jogged a mile under the hot sun. He was a statue of a Greek god come to life—except with sexy dreads and much better endowed!
Now his voice was a mesmerizing murmur as he said, “It was as if you were coming toward me out of a dream.”
Yes, the whole afternoon, since she’d finished the second carafe of wine at that long, lazy, outdoor lunch, had the feel of a dream. Every girl’s erotic fantasy. And yet, the body beneath her was hard and sweaty, her knees were beginning to tremble from tiredness, the scent in her nostrils was one her imagination couldn’t possibly have conjured.
This was real.
Deep inside, her muscles convulsed and she tightened around him.
He groaned, a rough, masculine sound that made her clench again.
He stroked his fingers down the center of her body. Chin, throat, between her collarbones. Tracing her cleavage, gliding to her navel. And below. She arched back, the movement thrusting her hips forward.
He surged upward, catching her off guard as he plunged deep, and she cried out.
“They’ll hear you,” he warned.
Still, she couldn’t hold back a moan of pleasure.
“What are they doing now? The people on the beach?” he demanded.
How could she focus on anything but the sensations he was creating? “One of the gay guys—”
She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth as he gripped her hips and pulled her down, tight against him. “He’s reading aloud to the other.”
“What’s he reading?”
She gave a surprised laugh. “My vision’s not that good.”
His fingers teased the curls between her thighs. “Your imagination is. Tell me what he’s reading.”
“I, uh…”
He twisted and twined her curls around his fingers, reminding her of a scene from a book her best friend’s sister had loaned her when she was thirteen. A classic, the girl had assured her, then giggled and said that, all the same, she’d better hide it where her parents wouldn’t find it.
His fingers drifted lower and her words came out in little gasps as she panted for breath. “It’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, except he’s changing it, because they’re gay. He’s saying it’s Lord Chatterley who’s having an affair with the gamekeeper. Oh, sorry, do you know the book?”
“Saw the movie. Sexy.”
“There’s a scene where the gamekeeper threads flowers into his lover’s, um, hair.” Okay, she might be sexy this afternoon, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the word “pubic” aloud.
All the same, he seemed to catch her meaning. “No flowers. Just fingers.” As he spoke, two of those strong fingers pressed gently against her clitoris.
“Fingers are—” She gasped at his touch, at the pressure building inexorably within her. “Fingers are good.”
“Forget the beach,” he commanded. “Look at us now. Look at how we fit together.”
She turned her gaze downward, but her eyes, shocked by the transition from sunlight to shade, were momentarily blind. Disoriented, the only sensation she trusted was the solid heat of the man beneath her. Inside her.
But that was sensation, not…sense. What was she doing, making love—for the third time—with a man she’d just met? A man whose name she didn’t know.
This