The Holiday Escapes Collection. Sandra Marton

      Her pulse was a rush of blood in her ears, louder than the cries of seagulls or the waving fronds of palm trees sighing against the sky above.

      His breath was hot between her legs. It was shocking, wicked, but she could not fight him. Her body was his. Her head was spinning. She stretched her hands out on the sand, desperate to hold on to something, anything, to keep her body from flying off the earth and into the sky. She felt his hands move on her skin between her thighs. He couldn’t be thinking…he couldn’t…

      Spreading her wide, he took a long taste of her with the full width of his tongue.

      With a gasp, she arched off the sand. The sensation of pleasure from this intimate, forbidden act was an assault of pleasure against her body. He moved in a swirling dance, working her most sensitive spot with his tongue. Lightly, then firmly, then lightly twisting again.

      Tension coiled deep inside her as her breath came in increasingly hoarse gasps. Her vision was going dark from the stars in her eyes.

      “Look at me,” he whispered.

      She couldn’t.

      “Look at me,” he demanded, and she had no choice but to obey.

      The image of his dark head nestled between her thighs, looking up at her, as she saw his face against her naked body, caused a surge of electricity to sizzle through her body. Her hips lifted off the sand.

      Then he rose to his knees, and she got her first full look at his naked body.

      Xerxes was breathtaking. Beautiful, in the strength of his muscled form and shape, in the stretch of dark hair tracing down his hard-bodied chest to his taut, flat belly and his lean hips. She saw the hard, enormous, jutting evidence of his desire for her and squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly afraid.

      He covered her with his body, reaching across to gently brush tendrils of hair from her face. “Don’t be afraid.”

      Rose kept her eyes shut. “I know it’s going to hurt,” she whispered. “Please just make it quick.”

      His low laugh made her eyes fly open. She found him looking down at her with dancing dark eyes.

      “Oh, my beautiful girl,” he said. “Quick is the last thing I’m going to be.” As he slowly inched his way back down her body, she heard him mutter, “Even if it kills me.”

      He moved his head back between her legs and breathed against her. Holding her hips firmly, he pressed his mouth against the wet spot between her thighs. The pleasure was too intense, causing her hips to buck as she tried to jerk away, but he would not release her.

      Feeling his tongue work her body like an instrument, playing her at his own rhythm, she was completely under his mastery and control. She could do nothing but surrender to a building joy so exquisite that it was agony as he tortured her with his sweet mouth, tossing her back and forth against the warm, white sand like a ship upon a raging sea. She heard the roar of the nearby surf as he suckled her taut center, licking and swirling her sensitive peak.

      Then he pushed his tongue inside her body.

      She gasped as the jolt went through her. The feeling of his hard, wet tongue inside her was like nothing she’d ever felt before. She arched her back as his tongue moved upward, slowly savoring every slippery crevice of her body. He lapped her taut center and suddenly she felt his thick finger inside her. Even as she gasped, he pulled his finger back, only to replace it with two long, wide fingers from his large hand. Stretching her. Filling her.

      All the while, his hot tongue swirled incessantly against her sensitized nub, until the sensation was such sharp, sweet agony that she whimpered, begging for release, begging him to stop this torment.

      But he was merciless. Holding her firmly against the sand, he began to tease her, going from full laps of his tongue to tiny swirling licks with the tip that now tantalized, but didn’t touch, the taut center of her longing. And when she could bear it no longer, when her gasping breath had shrunk her vision of the blue sky to small pinpricks in a sea of black, he suckled and bit her sensitive nub at the same moment he thrust three fingers inside her, bursting her into a thousand pieces. Rose screamed as her world exploded.

      Instantly, he lifted his mouth from her, shoving her legs apart with his hips, positioning his hardness between her thighs. She was still gasping for breath, lost in dazed ecstasy, when she felt his hardness pressing against her wet core, demanding entrance.

      With a ragged breath, he pushed himself inside her with one relentless movement.

      She was unprepared for the shock of pain, unready for the enormous size of him entering her virgin body, as he pushed himself inside her. She choked back a cry.

      He froze, holding himself utterly still.

      Then slowly, as she exhaled, he began to move inside her. Gently, ever so gently, he swayed his hips against her, rocking back and forth as he thrust with agonizing slowness inside her. To her surprise, a new wave of pleasure begin to build, coiling low in her belly. A new shot of ecstasy swept her up almost instantly as he filled her so deeply and completely, all the way to her heart.

      Deeper. Deeper. His force split her in two but the pain had somehow turned into hot, molten pleasure. It built so hard and fast that within minutes, she gasped out his name as she felt a second explosion, even deeper and more shattering than the first, and she screamed. His deep, low voice joined her, shouting out his pleasure with a growl of ecstasy, and she felt tears on her cheeks and realized she was weeping with joy.

      After Xerxes collapsed over her sweet naked body, it took a long time before he slowly came back to his senses.

      Eventually, he felt the hot sun on his back, felt the rough sand against his knees. He looked down at the beautiful woman in his arms. Her eyes were closed, her lips curved in a smile.

      His heart turned over in his chest.

      He’d never felt anything like this. Ever. For anyone.

      He’d never even imagined lovemaking could feel like this. Was it because he’d never taken a virgin to his bed before? Was that why he felt such amazement, such tenderness?

      It had nearly killed him to hold himself back as he’d made love to her. But knowing she was a virgin, he’d wanted to make it good for her. And what she’d done for him…the way she’d made him feel…

      Tenderly, he rolled off her body so he wouldn’t crush her with his weight. He moved to her side, still cradling her body with his own. He’d wanted nothing more than to make love to her like this, on the white sand as the waves crashed beneath the palm trees. He’d wanted to fill her, to impale her, to make her scream out his name. But it hadn’t been like he’d imagined. It had been better. It had been the single most amazing sexual experience of his life.

      Tucking his hand behind his head, he stared up at the wispy white clouds drifting over the blue sky. Then he glanced at the beautiful woman in his arms, and realized to his shock that he already wanted more of her. And it was even more shocking than that.

      He realized in that moment that he didn’t want to give her up. Ever. He wanted to possess her forever.

       Chapter Twelve

      THE next morning, Rose lay cradled against him in the large bed as she stared out the bedroom window, watching the pink streaks of sunrise cross the sky.

      They’d moved into the bedroom sometime yesterday afternoon. They’d spent the rest of the night there, only leaving the bed to shower and scavenge and devour simple meals in the kitchen.

      She looked at him now as he slept. His peaceful face looked younger somehow, almost boyish. Sleeping with him all night, in his arms after the many times they’d made love, was utter bliss. It was exquisite.

      It was torture.

      Why did she feel this way—so completely