An Heir for the Millionaire by Julia James Page A

of wine in her blood easing through her veins.
    She gazed out over the view, dim in the starlight and the shimmer of the pool lights.
    Her thoughts were strange.
    Unreal.
    Slowly she drank more wine.
    Across the table she could hear the chink of Xander’s knife and fork, but he did not talk to her.
    She was glad. Their stilted, deliberate conversations over dinner this last week had been an ordeal for her. Silence was easier.
    She eased back in the chair, stretching out her legs, and kepton gazing out to sea. She could hear the waves, murmuring on the shore, the wind soughing softly in the palms, the soporific song of the cicadas.
    Her body felt warm from the heat of the day. Warm and languorous.
    She felt herself easing more in her chair, stretching out her legs yet more.
    Lifting the wine glass to her lips.
    It was empty.
    Curious, she thought, and twisted her slender fingers around its stem, slowly replacing it on the table.
    Xander was watching her.
    He’d stopped eating. He was sitting there in his chair, very still. His eyes were narrowed, very slightly narrowed.
    Memory hollowed within her like a caverning space, enveloping time. She knew that look—knew it in the core of her body, in the sudden pulse of her blood. Her eyes locked to his. Locked, and were held.
    She could not move. Could only feel the heat of her body start to spread, like a long, low flush. Could only feel her heart in her chest start to beat with long, low slugs, a drum beating out a slow, insistent message that she knew—oh, she knew.
    Xander got to his feet. She watched him, eyes still locked to his, as he came around the end of the table to where she sat. He reached down his hand to her.
    And, ever so slowly, she put her hand in his.
    He drew her to her feet.
    For one last, long moment his eyes stayed locked to hers. And then the dark sweep of his lashes dipped and his head lowered.
    His lips were velvet on hers, touching her with liquid smoothness, dissolving through her. It was bliss—honeyed, sweetest bliss—and she felt her eyes flutter shut as she gave herself to the exquisite sensation. With infinite skill he played with her mouth, and yet with every touch his kiss deepened, strengthened. Somehow—she did not know how, could not tell—his hands had folded around her, one splayed across her spine at her waist, one at the tender nape of her neck, holding her for him.
    She felt herself sinking, yielding to the sensations he was arousing in her.
    From touch…exquisite touch.
    And, more potent still, from memory.
    Because her body remembered. Remembered as if four years had never been. Instinctively, as if she had always, always been in his arms, his embrace. As if no time had passed at all. As if it had dissolved at his liquid touch.
    How long she stood there, with his hands gliding down the length of her spine while his mouth gave play to hers, softly, arousingly, oh, so arousingly, she did not know. Did not know when it was that she felt the strong columns of his thighs pressing against hers, guiding her, turning her, or when his hand slid to hers, folding it within his fingers as his mouth, still dipping low over hers, drew back enough for him to start to lead her—lead her to where she could only ache to go.
    She was helpless, she knew. Knew somewhere in the last frail remnants of her mind that she could not stop, could not halt what was happening to her. Could only go where she was being led, along the terrace to another door, another room, a room with a wide, luxurious bed. He was guiding her towards it, his mouth dipping to hers, tasting her, caressing her, arousing her…
    And she was responding. She felt the heat flow in her veins, flushing through her skin, warming her with its soft, insistent fire. She could feel herself quickening, tightening, tautening—her body’s responses feeding off him, off itself. Her breathing quickened too, her pulse beginning to beat more rapidly.
    He was