Her heartbeat kicked up hard in her chest, beat against her ribs with a rhythm that fanned warmth to her breasts and slid lower. She thought back to the snippy comments she’d tossed at him yesterday, to the way she’d treated him most of her life. Emotions pinched her chest, closed her throat, made it hard to breathe.
He nodded toward the table before she could think of a single thing to say. “Those are some clothes I found in the crates on the beach. Thought you might want them. The shirt you were wearing…well, let’s just say it didn’t make it.”
She looked down at the blanket wrapped around her and realized he’d seen her naked. Again. Heat rushed to her cheeks. But for some reason knowing he’d stripped her bare didn’t disturb her, it electrified her.
Slowly, because she knew he was watching her, she moved up the steps to the stone table, ran her hand over the pair of denim shorts and the orange tank top folded neatly on top. “These weren’t in the bundle you brought up this morning. You went back?”
“We needed water. I had to go back out anyway. Didn’t think you’d want to walk around this place naked with me here.”
Her gaze shifted back to him. And in that instant she saw every one of her perceptions where he was concerned shatter like glass against the floor. This was not the stone-cold bastard she’d always believed him to be. This was an ándras—no, a hero—of honor.
Who would ever have believed she’d think that? Who would ever have thought she’d feel anything for him besides animosity?
Emotions that came out of nowhere and everywhere all at the same time pushed her feet forward. “You saved me,” she whispered. “You could have let me die.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why would you want me to live?” she asked, turning his question back around as she closed the distance between them and moved down two steps.
He didn’t step back or look away, but the wrinkle in his forehead said he wasn’t sure what she was implying and didn’t know how to react. “It’s my job to protect you.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Probably, but…you risked your life for me. Not once, but four times.”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement. As if it were a fact every other day of his life. And in the silence that followed she knew he was thinking the same thing as she. That something was changing right here between them. And if one of them didn’t put a stop to it, their relationship would never be the same again.
“You rescued me,” she said softly.
His black-as-night gaze roamed her face, but he didn’t answer. And he didn’t touch her, though deep inside she felt he wanted to. He just didn’t know how to bridge the gap.
“Maybe,” she said softly, hoping to bridge it herself, just a touch, “maybe one day I can return the favor.”
“You can’t save me,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because some things aren’t worth the effort.”
Her heart went out to him right then and there. As firelight flickered over his chiseled features, she saw secrets brewing in his eyes. Secrets that fed something dark in his past that kept him closed off from the world. For years she’d thought he didn’t have a soul, but as she stared into his eyes now, she knew she’d been wrong. He hurt, just as she did. And he longed, the same as she. While she’d curled into herself over the years, letting her father and everyone else make her decisions for her, he’d gone the other way, pushing every single person away until they all thought he was nothing but a cold, evil shell.
How wrong she’d been. How utterly hateful and horrid she’d been to him. As they stared at each other, she didn’t see him as an Argonaut. Didn’t see him as a fighter or even a hero, really. She saw him as a man. With the same humanity the gods both hated and envied. With the same frailties and faults she possessed.
She moved into him fast, burying her cheek against his chest and wrapping one arm around his waist while the other held the blanket closed at her front. He sucked in a surprised breath, but she didn’t let go. Against her skin he was alive and warm, and her body jumped to life everywhere they touched.
Gods, this felt good. This contact. With him. Right here and now. How long had it been since she’d touched anyone like this? Since she’d let anyone get close?
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Something I should have done days ago,” she murmured against him, sinking in deeper. “I’m thanking you.”
Chapter 13
Heat pricked every inch of Demetrius’s skin. Against his chest, Isadora was warm and soft and so damn tempting, it was all he could do to keep his hands at his sides and his eyes focused on the wall across the room.
She snuggled closer, and when the tips of her breasts brushed his chest, his heart rate skyrocketed. Shards of electricity shot from his chest to his stomach, then lower. And ah, gods, this was too damn good for words and the one thing he’d wanted to avoid. He sucked in a breath and held it, afraid if he moved she’d slide even closer and he wouldn’t be able to hold back.
She stood on the second step, not quite at eye level, but he felt her gaze boring into him when she looked up. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.”
“Your teeth are clenched.”
Were they? Skata. He relaxed his jaw. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Sweat popped out on his brow. “No.”
The corner of her kiss-me mouth curled, just a touch, and he couldn’t help it. His gaze shifted from the wall to her face. To her molten-chocolate eyes—as warm as the torchlight behind her, rimmed all in gold—to her small nose, her creamy skin, to the tiny mole on the right side of her succulent lips. Heat flared in his abdomen as his gaze ran over her face, and that part of him that had kept his distance for so long whispered, Give in, just once.
Her gaze settled on his mouth. And though indecision brewed in her eyes, the tip of her small tongue snaked out to lick her lips in a way that was so damn sexy he knew she couldn’t have planned it. Even before she pushed up on her toes he knew what she was going to do. Just as he knew he should stop her.
He tensed as her mouth met his, tentatively at first. Soft as satin. But his reaction would have been the same if she’d slammed her lips against his and knocked him to the ground. Sparks lit off inside him, around him, everywhere, like fireworks exploding in the sky, blinding and consuming all at the same time. Until she was all he could feel, see, sense, know. Until nothing else mattered but her.
She broke the kiss way too soon. Uncertainty creased her forehead. She took a quick step back up the platform. “I…I’m sorry. I—”
The loss of her heat shifted his body into immediate action. He closed the distance between them, snagged her around the waist, lifted her off the ground, and drew her back against him. And then he lowered his head and kissed her. The way he’d wanted to kiss her for far too long. The way he should never ever kiss her. Especially now.
Her hand landed against his shoulder. She let go of the blanket, pressed tight between them, and moved her other hand to his chest. Electricity hummed where skin met skin, supercharged his blood, pushed the little bit of rational thought to the back of his brain. A sound came out of her as he licked the seam of her lips—a gasp, a groan, a sigh—and then she opened, drawing him deeper into something he wasn’t sure he could climb free from.
Her tongue snaked out, hesitantly slid against his. As her fingers inched into the hair at the nape of his neck and she explored his mouth with her own, he had the distinct impression she’d never been kissed before. That she’d definitely never been manhandled. That he was getting the first taste of something sacred. And just the thought turned his pulse to a roar in his ears and sent desire careening through his veins.