CHAPTER ONE

      THEY made love on the third day, less than seventy-two hours after they met. “Come with me,” he said urgently.

      Without hesitation she took the hand he held out in invitation. “Yes.”

      And just that easily, while others in the group dozed through the worst of the afternoon heat or swam desultory lengths up and down the pool, he spirited her away up one of the trails leading to the middle of the island.

      She knew what the outcome of their clandestine rendez-vous would be. It wasn’t a question of right or wrong, of imprudence or immorality; it was a matter of destiny. She’d belonged to him from the moment he’d set eyes on her that first night and the only miracle was that they’d waited this long to consummate their union.

      Fingers linked tightly in his, she followed him, stepping nimbly to avoid the lush jungle growth that impeded the way and hid their escape from speculative or hostile observers at the plantation house. Eventually they came to a place beside a spring bubbling out from beneath a slab of rock, where the earth was tufted with moss and sweet-smelling flowers swayed from vines strung overhead like a canopy.

      Turning to face her, he spoke her name, “Leila...?” but it was not the voice of a CEO addressing his employee. It was thick and husky with passion, a lover’s voice.

      “I’m here,” she said.

      At that, he drew her to him until not the most slender beam of sunlight could come between them, and lowered his lips to hers.

      How could she possibly have grown into womanhood and not known that a huge part of her life lay untouched by real passions? Or deluded herself into thinking she knew what being kissed by a man was all about?

      His mouth seduced her completely in less time than other men had taken to ask her out to dinner. The person she’d been, the one she thought she knew, exploded in a series of tiny detonations that started where his lips touched hers and rippled throughout her body until not a part of her remained unmoved.

      She might have looked the same to the untutored eye but, in that instant, the womanly pattern of her changed forever. Her focus altered, her instincts grew sharper. A more primitive awareness shaped her intelligence. And her heart...oh, it had ceased to be hers to control three days before.

      Lifting his head, he broke the kiss just long enough to ask, “Are you sure?”

      Did the sun rise in the east? Soft and moist and willing, she swayed in his embrace and surrendered her soul. “Never more sure, Dante. I will follow wherever you lead.”

      He gathered a fistful of her hair and tugged her closer to let her learn how much he desired her. “I’ll never give you cause for regret, my love,” he vowed, and renewed the kiss, more deeply this time.

      She opened her lips and let her tongue mate with his in an eager, pulsing rhythm that even she, virgin that she was, recognized as bold acceptance of his invitation to share the greatest intimacy a woman could know with a man.

      His hands touched her, eager to discover her flesh. She did not remember sinking to the mossy ground or how she came to be naked or when he threw aside his own clothes. Like everything else about her life that had gone before, it did not matter. The ordinary world narrowed, too pale an entity to compete with the paradise he invoked.

      His heavy-lidded gaze devoured her, blazing a trail for his tongue to follow down her throat and along her collarbone to her breasts where he lingered, stirring her to aching unfamiliar pleasure. His hand dipped to her abdomen, the fingers splaying wide to seek the angled crease of her thigh where it joined her torso, then probing her most secret part and...oh!

      Sensing the sudden quiver of shock that fluttered within her, he paused and lifted his head. “This is your first time, isn’t it?” he said on a note of wonder.

      At her nod, he blew out a steadying breath and, turning on his side, he curved his hands around her and stroked the length of her spine, quieting her fears. “Don’t be afraid, Leila,” he said. “I’ll never hurt you.”

      Of course he wouldn’t. He was the man she’d been waiting for all her life, the one with whom she’d share eternity. She had nothing to fear.

      Wanting to please him as he pleased her, she pressed her lips to his chest and left a warm, damp imprint there to let him know her moment of panic had passed. Beneath her mouth his heart jerked a response, rapid, uneven.

      This time when he touched her, her vision narrowed, isolating her in a space just short of heaven and leaving her reaching... trembling... wanting....

      Disembodied, her voice called to him, begging for something she couldn’t