"Helen of Troy," he murmured softly, "the face that beyond a doubt launched a thousand ships. Face and form..." Softly, tenderly, with an awed fascination, Rex explored her length with his fingertips as well as with his eyes. Breasts this lovely had never graced the pages of a fold-out magazine, he thought, then corrected himself. Well, all right, maybe they had once in a long while, but not often. Long, lean torso, slim waist, the most feminine flare of hips and buttocks...
Even her kneecaps were glorious.
"Sweetheart." He grinned at her. And then he groaned softly in mock agony. "Had they seen her body, too, they could have launched a million ships."
"Rex, stop!" Alexi protested, but he had her laughing and she couldn't help it. She laughed until his head dipped over her and his face brushed her nipple. Then he took it into his mouth, sliding his teeth, and then his tongue, gently around it. She felt a sharp sizzle of desire strike her anew just from that action, and her breath caught as she threaded her fingers through the deadly-dark wings of his hair, trying to draw him to her.
His eyes, darker than the sea at night, far darker than the midnight sky above them, met hers.
"I'm not, you know," she murmured. "I'm not anything like a real Helen of Troy at all. I'm..."
Quite ordinary. Those were the words she was looking for. She never had a chance to find them.
"No, you're not Helen of Troy. And you're not fantasy."
Rex smiled as he leisurely stroked his fingertip over her lower lip. She was really so beautiful that night. And maybe it was part fantasy. They were on the beach, and there was nothing on the horizon, nothing at all. They might have been the last man and woman on earth, or the very first. The breeze was gentle and balmy and the water was warm and the earth seemed to cradle them and blanket them in some welcoming, tender embrace. And she really didn't look like the Helen of Troy image at all; she was all natural. All...divinely natural, from wet hair and face to her gloriously naked body. Her eyes, her expression, the beauty in her features... were all innocence. The curve of her body was wanton and lush. The combination was nothing less than magical.
Rex dipped his head to kiss her mouth. He raised himself just a breath away from her.
"No, you're not Helen. You're Alexi Jordan, and I--"
He broke off abruptly.
And I love you very much.
Those had been the words he had been about to say, he realized. They stunned him; they shocked him. He'd known he'd wanted her. Any male over the age of twelve who lived and breathed would have wanted her. He'd known that he could enjoy her company, that she could be fun and feisty and proud and temperamental, and even soft at times.
He just hadn't known that he was falling in love with her. Nor was it a particularly bright thing to have done. She was Helen of Troy, right? A woman who would be returning to a certain world. A woman who probably needed that world, had to have a certain amount of adoration in her life. She'd stay awhile, and then she'd go, and then he'd...
He'd spend the rest of his life missing her.
"Rex?"
Something in her tone was very soft and vulnerable. He'd forgotten. She'd come to him after a bad finale to a bad marriage, and she was as delicate as the fine marble she so resembled. He had to fall out of love with her. But not now. Not tonight.
"Alexi Jordan," he whispered, "is far more beautiful than Helen of Troy could have ever been."
"Flatterer," she said accusingly.
"Mmm-hmm," he agreed. His one leg lay cast over her. The prickly hairs of his chest tickled the soft flesh of her breasts mercilessly. He casually cupped her cheek and murmured huskily, "Think you want to go again?"
His were bedroom eyes if she'd ever seen them, and this dusky velvet patch of earth and water was the most erotic bedroom she had ever known. She smiled, wondering at the infinite tenderness in the man. He'd known exactly what to say, and when. And he'd known exactly what to do, and when. She'd never known a man more the epitome of the male, and she'd never begun to imagine that such a man could show so much sensitivity.
"Think you can?" he asked.
She gazed into his eyes and stroked her fingers over his cheek, savoring the shaven flesh. "Piece of cake," she told him, and she set both palms against his face, bringing him down to her. She reached for his mouth first with the tip of her tongue, rimming his lips with that delicate touch before she molded her mouth to his. She felt the great rush of his breath and the fascinating hardening of his body, muscles tensing and stretching and tautening with his growing sexual excitement.
Earth, wind...and fire. It was Eden.
She felt his touch against her, her breasts, her hips, the curve of her buttocks, the soft flesh of her inner thigh. His kiss seared her, and when his lips left her flesh, the breeze came to kiss it afresh. He whispered words that meant nothing and everything, and she knew that she whispered in return, like a breath of the sea, like the cry of the waves. Each cry, each whisper, was fuel to the fire, and each fire was a lapping flame creating sensation anew, a heightened tension. She dared anything. She touched him intimately; she exulted in the swell and pulse of him. She soared to the heat and thunder of his rhythm, and she felt the tiny little piece of death that blacked out the world with the wondrous force of the climax that he brought to her upon the beach just as the very first touch of dawn burst upon it to bathe their Eden in beauteous magenta.
Floating as if she were indeed adrift upon the waves, Alexi returned slowly to the earth beneath her, feeling again the fine grit of the sand and the coolness of the ocean at her feet. His arms went around her, and she rested on them. Only then did she shiver, watching the sky as the first tiny arc of the sun peeked out over the horizon like a shy young maiden.
"It's morning," Rex murmured.
"It certainly is," Alexi agreed. She shifted up onto her elbows. Rex stood and walked into the water, hunching down to splash water against his face, then standing again to stare out at the rising sun.
Alexi smiled, biting her lower lip. The sun was beautiful--but not nearly so magnificent as the man who stood before it, a tall, strong silhouette against that golden arc. She liked the whole of him very much, she decided, from the breadth of his shoulders to the muscles of his buttocks and thighs. She wondered if there was any more wonderful way to meet a lover than to come to him in this Eden, as he termed it.
He turned back to her. At her expression, he arched a brow.
"I'm deciding," she told him.
"Oh?"
"Mmm." She hesitated just a moment longer. "Can't decide. I like the frontside as much as the backside," she told him at last.
His dark brow arched higher. "Saucy wench, aren't you?"
"I tell it like it is."
He laughed and reached a hand down to her. She took it and stood and slid her arms around his neck and enjoyed kissing him in the light bath of sunlight. She loved feeling their naked, sandy flesh brush together.
He loved the feel of her breasts and hips against him, the feel of his sex against hers....
No, no, no, no, no, he thought. He could fairly well guarantee the privacy of his Eden by night, but not by daylight. God alone knew when the meter reader might decide to show up.