Chapter 13
Quivering on the edge of ecstasy, Tallia returned Costa’s stare blankly, her hips arching upwards with undeniable hunger, impaling her on his hard fingers. Costa, however, snatched his hand away and sat back on his heels, a shell-shocked expression on his dark face.
"Costa," Tallia whimpered, almost beside herself with need. She didn't understand what was happening, her body was throbbing and a delicious, frantic fluttering had started between her legs. She felt as if she might explode if he would just touch her once more in the right place. Yet, inexplicably, Costa was drawing away as if she were a leper.
"We must stop," he gritted out harshly.
"Stop?"
"You are a virgin, Tallia," he said, scrambling off of her and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He reached out and snapped on the bedside light, blinding them both.
"Costa, you can not be serious," she groaned, squinting and sitting up, drawing her knees to her chest to hide her nakedness and wrapping her arms around herself as a sudden chill swept her skin.
"Tallia, you are a virgin-"
"Yes, I know! Please stop saying it like that," she hissed, his complete and utter abandonment making her feel freakish and revolting.
"I have no right," Costa snapped, turning his head to throw her a dark glare over one tense shoulder.
"No right?" she demanded hoarsely, hopelessly confused.
"The first time is… special, Tallia. It is an honor you owe your husband," he said with a hint of reverence in his voice.
Blinking dumbly at him, Tallia didn't know whether to curse or cry. This could not be happening, she thought, Costa could not be serious. He really meant to stop and leave her untouched because of some antiquated notion about virginal purity!
"Don't be ridiculous," she cried, "I'm not… some sacred virgin. I just haven't had sex before."
He turned again and regarded her as if she were stupid. "You've been saving yourself for your husband," he said as if it were obvious.
"No. No!" she denied hotly, looking at him and aching all over with hunger for him. "I just… never met anyone who I wanted to… you know."
Costa shook his head with an impatient frown, "You are not the sort of woman who engages in casual sex," he pronounced firmly. "I should have known," he added with grim finality.
"You're wrong! How can you act this way now when you were about to make passionate love-"
"Love," he echoed, pouncing on the word with the arch of a dark brow.
Tallia wished the light was still off as she knew her face turned as red as a fire engine. Oh God, the moment he said the word the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
I’m in love with Costa!
Her next thought was that she had to be the world’s biggest idiot. "Sex. I just want sex- with you," she amended insistently.
"No, you don't," he retorted. "You want love, Tallia, and you deserve love. You need to be treasured," he said, his tone softening to a heart-wrenching whisper.
“We can't do this, it would be wrong. Your first time is a gift you should give your husband or a man you love, not a stranger who crashes through your bedroom door and jumps on you like a pervert only interested in satisfying his own base lust," he growled, sounding enraged with himself.
"Costa, you're being ridiculous," she groaned. "This isn't the Middle Ages. I'm not some princess who needs to preserve her virginity for the marriage bed!"
"Tallia, you should not throw your virginity away on casual sex," he told her firmly, "you are beautiful and special and deserve to be loved and honored-"
"Oh my God, you’re insane," she hissed, suddenly furious with him.
"Yes, I must be to treat you so callously," he agreed and began to get up.
Forgetting her pride, Tallia threw herself at him, winding her arms around his thick neck and pressing her cheek to his, "You can't leave me like this Costa," she cried, her body beginning to tremble again as his heat poured into her wherever their bare skin touched. She felt him shudder against her and took hope from the reaction he could not hide.
"Tallia-" he began in an infuriatingly reasonable tone of voice, his hands moving to close around her arms
"Please, you started this," she groaned.
"We can not," he intoned resolutely.
"Don't make me beg," Tallia whispered against his ear, blushing with humiliation at her neediness and utter lack of pride.
"Oh Agapate, no," he moaned, sounding stricken. Turning suddenly and gathering her in his arms, he took her mouth in a tender, passionate kiss.
Tallia had no idea what changed Costa's mind, but the change in him was profound and immediate. Raking his hands gently through her hair, he pressed her down onto the bed, kissing her softly, his tongue sliding into her mouth to tease as he cupped her face, stroking her nose and brows lightly with his broad thumbs.
His hands smoothed over her body, worshiping her with slow, heated caresses. He kissed her chin and then worked his way down her throat. He dragged his body over hers, hot and heavy, as he made his way to her breasts, licking and suckling her nipples almost delicately.
Strangely, the more gentle he was, the more Tallia found herself craving his rough, oversexed impatience when he first came to her bed. The Costa who now touched her seemed too tentative and circumspect, a polite lover, intent only on giving her soft, considerate pleasure, not the hard, hungry, driving passion that drove her wild before.
Costa, however, was a very skilled lover, and Tallia could not help but bloom under his touch. He licked the hardened crests of her nipples lightly, kissing them until they throbbed and ached, and then slid his mouth, hot and wet, over her belly and lower still.
Tallia's breath caught in her throat as she realized what he intended. Her fingers clutched the sheets as she felt her anticipation ratchet up wildly. Costa's tongue stroked over the wisp of curls between her legs and dove into the cleft of her sex. She moaned unsteadily, her eyes wide and feverish as she watched him slide her thighs apart with his big hands and move to lie between her legs. He bent his dark head to slip his tongue into her hot cleft again and urged her thighs onto his broad, muscular shoulders.
Tallia could hardly contain her excitement at the erotic sight of him hovering over her, his strong back gleaming faintly, dark head bowed, long black lashes fanned across his cheeks. He was focused, intent on giving her pleasure with no thought to his own needs. When his mouth settled between her legs, she let out a soft shout, and her head fell back on the bed.
Costa's tongue followed the same path his thumb had taken only minutes earlier and swirled over her clitoris. The sensation was unbelievable, warm, wet, and drowning. Tallia could hardly draw breath as he repeated it over and over again, playing with the tiny point of ultra-sensitive flesh. His mouth was pure magic, flicking and sucking, nibbling and rubbing until she was moaning loudly and lifting her hips rhythmically, asking for more. But just when she thought she might go over the edge of the sensual precipice he was pushing her towards, his tongue delved lower, stabbing into the very heart of her.
Tallia knew no shame as he buried his tongue inside of her, and then drew it out to lap at the quivering opening of her sex. Threading her fingers through his thick hair, she held him to her and ground herself down on his mouth, sobbing breathlessly as the throbbing built inside of her. She could feel the fluttering convulsions beginning deep within and tossed her head, knowing instinctively she needed to have him inside her, part of her, to know true satisfaction.
"Please, oh please, Costa," she groaned, grabbing his shoulders and urging him higher, wanting him inside, deep inside.
With his big calloused hands, he pushed her thighs higher and wider apart. Tallia thought he would give her what she needed most. Instead, his tongue slipped from between the lips of her sex like a hot blade, to curl around her clitoris. Sucking the tiny button into his mouth, Costa bit down on it ever so gently and Tallia came apart with a gut-wrenching scream.
Her hips were bucking
violently, but Costa held her firm, his strong hands cupping her bottom and lifting her to his mouth. He pushed her to higher and still higher peaks of sensation, his teeth nipping expertly while his tongue drove her out of her mind.
Tallia had no memory of whimpering and pushing him away when the stimulation proved too much. She tumbled into sleep, swept away by ecstasy and worn out by Costa's skillful mouth.
Costa licked his lips, savoring the taste of Tallia as he pulled the sheet over her nude body, sprawled boneless across the bed. Her hair was a wild silver nimbus against the pale blue linens. Her skin so white in the dark room, she looked as if she were fashioned from marble.
He hesitated for a moment, letting his eyes drink in her stunning beauty, and then covered her up to keep temptation at bay and turned off the light. She was lovely beyond bearing and passionate beyond belief: temptation incarnate. It shook him still to think she was a virgin. She responded so hotly to his less than subtle lovemaking when he first came to her tonight, he never would have believed her innocence if he had not felt the proof for himself.
After two days of living with a permanent, agonizing erection, he had come home with only one thing on his mind, getting inside Tallia and riding her until they were both too sore or too spent to move. Costa couldn't remember the last time he felt so raw or driven, so desperate for a woman- for Tallia, he corrected himself angrily.
If he wanted, he could have bedded a dozen women in Athens. More than a dozen really, there were always women who were eager to make themselves available to him. He hadn't wanted a substitute though, he knew no woman who could substitute for Tallia. What woman could have such remarkable hair and skin, such soft, soulful eyes, such unaffected mannerisms?
Theos, all he could think of anymore was Tallia. Her eyes, her skin, her mouth, the sound of her laughter, the timber of her voice, the way she looked at him. Everything about her had him ensorcelled.
She would drive him mad if he spent any more time around her, of that much he was certain. He risked his life and that of his poor pilot returning to Seleni in the middle of a violent storm, but when a small window of calm weather appeared in the middle of the deluge, he seized the chance to be with her. Now he would be trapped with Tallia for the next day or two as the storm was expected to intensify tomorrow afternoon and into the following day, and he would have to keep his hands to himself.
Gathering his wet clothes, Costa quickly left her room and crossed the hall to his own. He was furious with himself. Furious for misreading her yet again, furious for jumping on her like a clumsy hormone-addled teenager, and- most of all- furious that he could not have her!
It was one thing, to his way of thinking, to take a woman who was willing and experienced, another to deflower an innocent virgin. Tallia was about as innocent as they came, in mind, body, and spirit, no matter how many times he stupidly assumed otherwise.
Costa thought of the way she reacted in the fig grove when he kissed her and wanted to kick his own ass. How could he not have realized she was a virgin when she looked at him the way she had after that kiss?
She had been in a daze, he recalled, her amethyst eye’s dreamy and unfocused. Her lips had remained in a pouty moue, as if still molded to his, as she followed him to the waters edge. It was the sort of look a woman wore after her first real kiss, her first taste of passion.
Flinging his clothes into a corner with a vicious curse, Costa shook his head in disgust. He felt like a cretin for not immediately realizing just how inexperienced she was. He let lust cloud his judgment, let his desire for her blind him to the obvious signals she threw out. He was worse than a cretin, he told himself. He was a worm, pond scum. From the moment he saw her he had been trying to convince himself Tallia was no better than a whore, so he could take her without hesitation or qualms. Ignoring all the obvious proof to the contrary, he had sought to denigrate her to make her like all the cheap women he was accustomed to so she would be available for a tawdry fling.
Tallia, however, was nothing like the sluts he consorted with, women who gladly crawled into bed with him in the hopes of trading their flesh for expensive baubles, a few nights in a luxurious hotel, publicity, or the cache of sleeping with a wealthy man. Costa felt unclean just thinking of all the soulless women he had screwed in his life. His past relationships suddenly seemed vile to him- beyond shallow, gruesome pantomimes of what should really exist between a man and a woman.
He sighed heavily as he realized just how different Tallia was and how strange she made him feel. Theos she was lovely, he thought. She was the sweetest, most desirable woman he had ever come across, and ripe for the plucking. He shuddered when he thought of how eager she was in his arms, the smell of her on his skin and the taste of her, still on his tongue, almost driving him out of his mind.
He could have her. She wanted him, and the thought was as tempting as it was maddening. If he knew he weren't such a bastard, Costa would have marched back into her room and had his way with her. He was a bastard however, a total creep. He'd treated Tallia like garbage since the moment she arrived on Seleni. Even if she forgave him for his horrible behavior, he could not forgive himself.
Costa knew a man like him did not deserve a woman like her. He coldly set out to seduce her from the moment his brother and her sister left them alone, seeing his chance and deciding to take it. He had thought that if she was going to be around for a few weeks he might as well make use of her, behaving as if she was a mere convenience.
For heaven’s sake, Costa thought with caustic self loathing, he came back in the middle of the night for the sole purpose of fucking her senseless. Making love had not figured into his plans, just carnal rutting, sating the basest animal urge.
Tallia deserved so much more. As he told her before, she deserved to be worshiped and adored, cherished and put up on a very lofty pedestal. Costa was profoundly disgusted with himself for letting his hormones get the best of him. He might lust after Tallia like a dog, but he certainly was not going to defile her. He had behaved towards her like a conscienceless pig, but no more. If he had to cut off his own cock, he was going to keep his distance and show her some much overdue respect. When Tallia left Seleni, she would go intact, without having to deal with the regret of losing her virginity to an ass like him.