Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (16 page)

Minutes later we were standing in a small alcove carved into the rock. It was perched on top of the cliff, and only about a short distance from the sheer drop into the waters below. Damien had spread a blanket out across the floor and scattered a few cushions around. He’d lit some lanterns, which drenched the walls in a warm glow.

“Welcome to the party,” he said, ushering me into the alcove and pulling out a cushion for me to sit on.

“So is this where you disappeared to?”

“It’s always the first thing I do when I get to these parties.”

“What is?” I suddenly had images of him making love nests for women.

He smiled at me; he seemed to have this uncanny ability to know what I was thinking.

“I’ve never actually attended one of these parties. What I mean is that I always come to these parties, but the only reason I do so is to watch the eclipse.”

I was surprised by this revelation, especially after everything we’d been through to get here. “So every year you come to a party just to sit alone and watch the moon disappear?”

He smiled that crooked smile at me again. “Basically. I told you, Lilly, I’m a bit of a nerd.”

“You know, I think you’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

“Really? I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“What?” I shrieked in genuine shock. “I’m about the most normal person you’ll ever meet.”

Damien shook his head smiling, “Not a chance Lilly, you are by far,
by far,
the strangest girl I’ve ever met!”

“Oh please. How?”

“Okay, first, I’ve never seen anyone dress like you did on that plane—”

I cut him off quickly. “But I had a perfectly good reason for it.”

He continued. “Not only that, but then you somehow managed to become an internet sensation, wearing arguably the worst pajamas ever created.”

“Hey, that was those Chinese tourists’ fault!”

“And then to top it off, you are the clumsiest person I’ve ever met. You set yourself on fire for heaven’s sake. Who does that?”

I laughed. I couldn’t argue with that one.

“You’re a little bundle of contradictions, because you’re also the strongest woman I know.”

“How’s that?”

“Who else goes on their honeymoon alone?”

I’d never thought of it that way. That I’d been strong, that this had been brave. And I liked it.

“And I’m very glad you did, come on your honeymoon alone…” Damien crept closer to me and I could feel the excitement churning in my stomach. He leaned in a little closer and my breathing quickened. He smiled at me. It was the sexiest, scariest, naughtiest smile I’d ever seen, and it made me shiver in the warmth of the evening air. The soft-pink light around us was changing with the moon and being whipped into a deep red. The color in the air only intensified Damien’s features and the sharp red shadows that trickled across his face made him look dangerous. Powerful.

And then he leaned in and kissed me. The kiss was gentle at first. It was slow and soft and tender and warm. His hot breath licked my lips and made my body tremble. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me even closer, intertwining his fingers in my hair. The tip of his tongue touched my lips and gently parted them, and my heart started beating in my ears at a giddy rate. He tasted sweet and salty, and I let out a moan as I felt one of his hands tighten around my waist.

And then everything changed. As if that little breathy sound had ignited something.

The kiss became frenzied.

We grabbed at each other.

Tore.

It was chaos.

It was hungry, angry and frantic.

Our lips and tongues engaged in a kind of desperate, erotic dance that went faster and faster and faster. Speeding toward something.

It was so animalistic and insatiable that I no longer felt in control.

It was the dizziest, most erotic moment of my life.

I arched my body toward him. My nipples were hard and the feeling of them pressing into his chest made my skin feel like it was hot and cold, burning and stinging all at the same time.

The pace of the kiss escalated until I felt Damien bite my lip, and then everything stopped.

He pulled away panting. I was gasping for air and my body was heaving from the exertion. I finally managed to open my eyes, and when I did, everything was red. Our bodies were painted crimson and the world looked like it was on fire. The rocks were embers. The sea was churning blood; the sky looked like it had been ripped open, exposing what lay beneath its skin. And the moon…the big, red moon hung low and ripe in the sky. He smiled at me. It wasn’t a scary, sexy smile anymore. It was something else.

Something quieter.

Something that enveloped us in our own little world.

And then he kissed me again. It was slow, soft and deep. There was nothing frantic or angry or rushed about this kiss, instead it felt like we had all the time in the world. That time was standing still just for us. He ran his hands through my hair and touched the side of my face, as the kiss became even slower…

But the slower it became, the more exquisitely intense it became.

The intensity overwhelmed me.

I reached up and put my hands on the sides of his face, it was the first time I’d touched his face and his hair felt rough against my hands. The kiss ended, and just the tips of our noses where touching. We looked at each other, our hands cupping each other’s faces.

He looked through me.

In that silence, not a single word was uttered, but everything was said and I’d never felt closer to another human being before.

The light around us had become even redder. I looked at Damien. His shirt was off, and he was bathed in the glow of the moon. He looked otherworldly, ethereal almost. The light accentuated the strong black lines of his tattoos and I reached up and touched one. I ran my fingertips up his arm, following the lines and shapes all the way up to his wrist. When my fingers reached his wrist, he opened his hand and I ran my fingers over his palm.

He looked at me with eyes that seemed to ask a silent question. And I understood. I looked back at him with my answer.

I wanted him.

The faintest smile made the corners of his mouth twitch, and his hands went to work on my sarong. He was quick and it soon fell to the ground. He moved closer to me still, wrapping his arm around my back and tracing his fingers down the length of my spine before stopping at my bikini strap.

I felt it loosen.

Both of his hands went to work on the straps, which he pulled down slowly, savoring the moment and letting his fingertips run over my shoulders and down my arms as he freed me.

A bolt of panic shot through me as my bikini top started to fall; instinctually I crossed my arms over my breasts. I felt so exposed, so naked and suddenly crippled by shyness.

But Damien wrapped his hands around my wrists and pulled my arms away. “I want to look at you.”

I shut my eyes tightly, not able to look as I felt my breasts tumble free into his gentle hands.

There was a slight breeze and the warm air caressed my nakedness.

“Open your eyes, Lilly.” Damien’s voice was gentle, yet commanding, and it gave me the courage to look at him.

That dangerous, hungry lust was gone now. Instead, he was looking at me the same way he’d looked at the stars.

Damien smiled at me. “You are so fucking beautiful, Lilly, and…” He looked so vulnerable right now. “…and I think, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

And with those words, I gave myself to him. Fully. I would let him take control, and do whatever he wanted to do with me.

I felt safe and cared for and…and,
I couldn’t believe he’d said it,
I felt loved.

The red light drenched us both and we melted to the ground kissing. His hands moved over my breasts and stomach, as he continued to kiss me slowly and deeply.

He never stopped kissing me, not for a second as his fingertips encircled my breasts and lightly touched my nipples. So lightly sometimes that it felt like a gentle breeze. I threw my head back as his lips left mine and worked their way down my neck to my breasts.

I could see the moon now. And I could feel the heavy base of the party below, as the sound pulsed through the thick red air like an electric list.

The air around us was alive, breathing and writhing and I was lost in the moment.

The exact physical details of the moment didn’t seem important anymore. They all just seemed to blur and combine into one overwhelming sensation that washed over me in waves

His hands seemed to be everywhere all at once, and I was putty in them. The speed of the kissing increased again as one of his hands moved down and pushed my legs apart. I gasped as I felt the cool air rush between my thighs. His kissing grew deeper and faster still as he pushed my legs apart even further and in one fluid motion, was inside me.

I could feel all of him. It was slow and deep and every movement was deliberate and purposeful.

I wrapped my legs around him, bringing him closer and deeper still. I wanted him to claim me.

Our legs and arms and lips tangled, and I no longer knew where I ended and he began.

We moved as one.

The thick red light started to dim and blacken as our bodies moved faster and faster to the invisible beat that controlled us.

The shadow’s black fingers were reaching out and leading us into their darkness as the moon disappeared into total blackness.

I could feel it rising up inside me and I knew it was totally out of my control.

It was not something I could stop, or temper or tame.

Damien’s breath grew faster and louder as we dipped into the blackness together.

“Look,” Damien whispered in my ear.

I opened my eyes just as the moon disappeared into the void, and everything went black.

The blackness awakened us.

There were no longer rules or inhibitions.

I felt free.

I clawed at him, grabbed and pulled.

Our bodies writhed and thrashed and I opened my legs as wide as I could, hoping he would disappear into me.

We were now a singular entity, and we’d both lost control.

I threw my head back and arched my back as the sensation slammed through me, almost breaking my body in half.

I cried out his name over and over again until it was too intense to even speak.

The music from below grew louder and the crowd roared.

Damien lifted my hips off the ground and pulled me onto his lap.

He let out one long guttural moan in the darkness.

We held onto each other, shaking.

All I could hear was our panting and thumping hearts.

Our bodies went limp and he lowered me gently onto the floor and collapsed on top of me.

He put his head on my chest and I ran my hand through his sweat-drenched hair.

We held onto each other without saying a word.

“Damien, I love you.” I hadn’t even been aware that I’d said it until I heard the words.

I felt his lips on my forehead. “Lilly…I adore you. You’re amazing.”

Chapter Fourteen

A lunar eclipse can only happen if a number of variables all come together in perfect symmetry, at the perfect moment in time. The full moon passes directly behind the Earth and is swallowed up by its shadow. But for this to happen, the Sun, Earth and moon have to align precisely. This is known as syzygy.

And that’s how my relationship with Damien was. So many things had to align perfectly, at just the right place, at just the right time and in just the right order for this moment to have happened. For this moment to even exist. Look a little closer at the seemingly disordered chaos of the past few days and a pattern emerges. A pattern that is ordered, structured and has a singular purpose.

Michael needed to leave me at the altar. I needed to be so distraught that I wore my pajamas onto the plane, thus attracting Damien’s attention. I needed to enter the toilet at the exact moment that he was exiting, so we could bump into each other and be introduced. I needed to get sick on the plane so that I would have a reason to talk to him later at the airport when I tried to apologize. We needed to be talking together and standing at just the right place and time for security to have seen and arrested us. We needed to be arrested so that Damien would lose all his money trying to save his dignity, and so that I would offer him a place to stay for the night. The following day we needed to be at the same restaurant, at the exact same time and he needed to have brought me to Burning Moon.

It was all so clear now. Everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to. Coincidence. Synchronicity. Call it what you like. But this whole time when I’d been cursing Karma for causing my life to fall apart, it was actually all coming together, I just didn’t know it…until now.

In fact, you could say that my entire life had been orchestrated so that this moment,
right here,
right now,
could happen.

We stayed up talking for most of the night, and with each word, every story and funny anecdote we told each other, my feelings for him deepened. They grew and increased and expanded at such a rate that I felt totally overwhelmed. Was it even possible to feel this way about a person? I’d been crazy about Michael when we’d first met, but it wasn’t like this, not even vaguely. In fact, they were beyond any form of comparison; my feelings for Michael were a tepid dripping tap, this was a raging waterfall.

In typical first-night fashion, we’d wanted to know everything about each other. Every detail: favorite color, favorite flavor of ice cream, first childhood memory, grade school teacher, first kiss, first date, favorite movie, band, TV series—and then we’d moved onto the bigger things, like previous relationships. I discovered that Damien had had one serious relationship, but that they’d just grown apart after three years. I tried to pry for her surname as subtly as possible, so that when the first opportunity arose I could stalk her on Facebook, look at all her pictures and see if we had any friends in common so I could ask them about her. You know, the usual. We spoke about his sister, his family and the expectations they had for him that he could not, and did not want to meet. I told him about Sue and Val and more about my mother; I had a lot of anecdotes to share about her.