She chuckled. The sound always gave him a sharp spurt of gut-level pleasure. She laughed so much more now, and yet he cherished every instance, because he remembered when her laughter had been as rare as a blue moon.
“When I walked into your board room,” she continued, “I sensed right off something was different. The way you were sitting at the head of the table, all alone, the room cloaked in shadows, the lights of the city behind you. There was this moment, don’t laugh, when I looked at you and realized the trappings were a fa?ade. Instead, I saw the walls of a tent, with armor, shields and swords propped against them. I had walked into the domain of a conqueror.”
She took a breath, her amused expression disappearing to reflect a warmer, deeper pool of emotions. “When you looked at me, I trembled inside. You say your feelings were always obvious. Maybe they were, but you didn’t push hard until that night. Hard enough I couldn’t keep them at arm’s length, or pretend not to see what was there.”
“You weren’t ready before then,” he replied, though her words made him want to draw her closer. “I knew it, tried to respect it.”
She shook her head. “There are times I’ve wished…you’d pushed harder, sooner. But then I think, if you had, it might have been too soon, and we wouldn’t have made it here.” Her gaze sought his. “It terrifies me sometimes, thinking how something that’s everything we ever wanted can be balanced on the head of a pin. A confluence of timing, luck, and the right amount of courage. Plus, the ability to change something about myself I never thought I could.”
He trailed his fingers along her jaw, slipping down to caress the pulse of her throat, which tripped intriguingly under his touch. “You’re the bravest woman I know, Savannah. You’d never miss that kind of moment because of lack of courage.”
“Nor you,” she said, with a trace of a smile. “You’re right. You were concealing nothing that night. From the moment I stepped into the board room, your desire to claim, control, invade was right out front. I thought I had to resist it, like a captive queen, because if I succumbed, everything would be lost. I didn’t realize I was on the cusp of finding everything I needed.”
The blue of her eyes had darkened, telling him she was aware of the heat her words were generating between them. He dropped his hand to her waist, the slick brochures tumbling off the bed as he pushed her to her back amid the pillows. Her golden hair formed shimmering waves on the linens as she spread her long slim legs. Her cream-colored satin robe parted to allow the motion, so when he laid full length upon her, there was nothing between him and the damp softness of her sex except the cotton of his drawstring pajama bottoms.
Her hands framed his face, her touch like flower petals. Her scent was the same type of haunting fragrance. As he’d promised her that night in his board room, there were always fresh flowers in their bedroom. She handled them frequently, cupping the blooms, brushing her cheek or lips against the silken texture. The current bouquet, sitting on the glass table where they both sometimes did some work before bedtime—or shared an after-sex delivery pizza—was a mix of blue, purple and yellow blooms. He’d added a couple gardenia blossoms he’d cut from their backyard this morning, before she woke.
“I had to fight you that night,” she continued, her chin setting resolutely. “Because that was my nature, too. I was your conquest, brought before you in chains, but it wasn’t my subjugation you wanted. Surrender, yes, but surrender with a fight, because winning the castle wasn’t enough. You had to prove yourself worthy to be my Master. You wanted me to fight, to make it a fight worth winning…for both of us.”
She caressed his biceps in a languorous way, her eyes misted with the fantasy imaginings. He could see it in his own mind with surprising clarity.
He slipped the sash of the robe, lifting off her enough to spread the garment out on either side, revealing her lithe, nude body. Reaching down, he found the smoothness of her sex. The dampness was fast moving to slick wetness. His cock hardened in reaction, pressed against her thigh.
“Was your conqueror worthy?” he murmured against her lips.
The tip of her tongue moistened her mouth, her eyes sparking with both humor and arousal. “You’ll know, the day I call you ‘my lord,’ and mean it.”
She reached up between them to touch his lips. Her next words were more serious. “Had you been born centuries ago, you would have been one of those conquering warlords. But your heart…it would still be your heart. You are that man, now or a thousand years ago. But don’t worry. It’s a fantasy that can stay a fantasy. I like the way it plays out in my head.”
She understood him, understood how practical a man he was. Role playing was make-believe, and that was for children. He excelled at certain things because they were true to who he was. He was a leader, and yes, maybe somewhere inside him was the fire of those ancient conquerors. But he wasn’t a fanciful man. When other boys had been reading comic books and sword-and-sorcery novels, Matt was reading business success biographies and standing next to his father on oil rigs.
He saw himself as a leader in the context of the here and now, a contemporary setting, familiar landmarks. Yet as she’d told him her imaginings about that night, he realized he’d been pulled into how she told it.
He got the pajama bottoms out of his way, her agile feet helping, heels pushing the cotton off his ass, and he slid into her, her sweet cream making it a deep glide and lock. Her chin lifted, her throat moving in a swallow as her gaze held his.
She didn’t say a word, and neither did he, letting their eyes say everything. Conqueror, conquered. The lines blurred as to who was who, when they were joined like this. But as he embedded himself in her, he didn’t deny his surge of possessive pleasure, or the primal need to claim her through claiming her body. Thrust in the way that won her surrender, her body lifting to his movements, gasps coming from her lips.
Looking at all the possibilities The Resort offered, imagining them partaking of those offerings, meant that foreplay had been handled. But he realized her revealing her fantasy had also contributed to her aroused state. And maybe not just hers. Her responsiveness pleased him fiercely, her body already rocking urgently against his, her nails biting into his shoulder.
“Come for me, sweetheart,” he whispered, and savored the cry that broke from her pale pink lips as she obeyed his command. She tightened on him like a fist, and he followed her right over, thrusting into her harder, more demanding, egged on by the clasp of her legs and the sharp scrape of her nails.