"Then how do you know what men want to ogle?"
"Because they never do. Okay? Men don't drool over me the way women drool over you. Heck, I'm lucky if they even realize I'm female."
"Grace," he breathed, moving from the bed. He went to stand at the foot of it. "Come here," he commanded.
She obeyed.
He stood her directly in front of her full-length mirror. "Tell me what you see?" he asked.
"You."
He smiled at her reflection.
Leaning down, he rested his chin on her shoulder. "What do you see when you look at you?"
"Someone who needs to lose fifteen to twenty pounds and buy stock in Porcelana fade cream for my freckles."
He didn't look amused.
He reached his hands around her waist, to the front of the robe where her belt tied it closed.
"Let me tell you what I see." He all but purred in her ear as he placed his hands on the belt without opening it. "I see beautiful hair as dark as night. Soft and thick. You have the kind of hair that a man loves to feel cascading over his bare stomach. Hair a man wants to bury his face in so that he can smell you."
She shivered.
"You have the heart-shaped face of a mischievous imp with full, sensuous lips that beg for kisses. As for your freckles, they are beguiling. They add a youthful charm to your body that is uniquely you, and utterly irresistible."
It didn't sound so bad when he put it that way.
He tugged open her robe and grimaced at the sight of her pink dorm shirt.
He parted the robe wider.
"What have we here?" he breathed, his eyes devouring her.
Before she could think to protest, he pulled the robe from her shoulders and let it fall in a pool at her feet. He returned to rest his chin on her shoulder as his gaze captured hers in the mirror.
He lifted the hem of her dorm shirt.
"Julian," she said, catching his hand.
They locked gazes in the mirror. Grace froze, unable to move as his hot, tender look held her enthralled.
"I want to see you, Grace," he said in a tone that let her know he would not be denied.
Before she could gather her thoughts, he removed her shirt from her, then skimmed his hand over the bare skin of her stomach.
"Your breasts are not small," he whispered, straightening to tower over her. "They're the perfect size for a man's hand." To prove his point, he reached up and cupped them in both his hands.
"Julian," she half moaned, her body on fire. "Remember your promise."
"I'm behaving myself," he said, his voice hoarse.
Leaning her head back against his hard pecs, Grace breathlessly watched him in the mirror as he released her breasts and ran his hands over her ribs, down to her hips, then under the waistband of her panties.
"You have a beautiful body, Grace," he said as he brushed his hand over her mound.
For the first time in her life, she actually believed it. He nuzzled her neck as his hand played in the short, dark curls.
"Julian," she cried, knowing if she didn't stop him now, she would never be able to stop him later.
"Sh," he breathed in her ear. "I've got you."
And then he separated the tender folds of her body and touched her core.
Grace moaned as heat tore through her. Julian captured her lips with his own and kissed her deeply and fully.
Instinctively, she turned in his arms to taste him better.
He picked her up then, never leaving her lips as he carried her to the bed. Somehow, he even managed to lay her back and join her on the mattress, all the while maintaining his kiss.
The man was seriously talented.
And oh, her body was hot. Afire from his touch. His wickedly erotic smell. With the feeling of his body lying against hers. Grace trembled all over as he separated her thighs with his knees and placed his fully clothed body against her.
His weight was wonderful. His body hard and virile as he ground his lean hips against hers. Even through his jeans, she could feel his erection pressing against the center of her body. As if magnetized, her hips rose to meet his.
"That's it, Grace," he whispered against her lips as he continued to grind his swollen groin against her in a masterful way that told her she would already be climaxing if he were inside her. "Feel me touching you. Feel my desire for you and you alone. Don't fight it."
She moaned again as he left her lips and trailed hot, searing kisses down her throat, to her breasts which he suckled gently.
She was delirious from pleasure as she buried her hands in his soft, tawny locks.
He tormented her breast with his tongue, and was relentless in his tasting of her.
Julian's entire body trembled from the amount of force he was using to keep his clothes on his body. He wanted to be inside her so badly that it was slowly shredding his sanity.
With every thrust of his hips against hers, he wanted to cry out from the agony of unspent lust. It was the most bittersweet torture he had ever experienced.
Worse, he felt her hands roaming over his back before she slid them into his back pockets and squeezed him tightly.
He shuddered from it.
"Yes, oh yes," she murmured as he quickened his strokes.
Julian's head spun. He had to get inside her. And if he couldn't do it one way, then by all the temples in Athens, he would get in another way.
Tearing away from her, he moved lower, trailing his lips over her belly to her hip as he pulled her underwear from her.
Grace's entire body shook from his unyielding power. "Please," she murmured, unable to take any more.
He nudged her legs farther apart. Grace obliged. He placed his hands under her, then lifted her hips up to let her legs fall over his shoulders.
Her eyes flew wide the instant he took her into his mouth.
Burying her hands in his hair, Grace threw her head back and hissed in pleasure as his pulsating tongue stroked her intimately. Never had she felt anything like it. Over and over, in and out, he delved and licked and tormented, making her breathless. Weak.
Julian closed his eyes and growled low in his throat as he tasted her for the very first time. And he reveled in it. The sound of her murmured pleasure echoed in his ears. He could feel her body respond to every careful, sensual lick he delivered to her. Indeed, he felt the quivering in her thighs and buttocks against his cheeks and shoulders.
She writhed sensuously in response to him.
His breathing ragged, he wanted to show her exactly what she had been missing. When she left this room tonight, she would never again flinch from his touch.
Grace moaned as he moved his hand slightly and dipped his thumb inside her while he continued to tease her with his tongue.
"Julian!" she gasped as her body involuntarily shook and shivered.
He moved his thumb and tongue even faster, deeper. Swirling and swirling, delving and caressing. Her head swam at the feel of his whiskers gently scraping between her thighs, rubbing her between her legs.
And just when she thought she could take no more of it, her release came so fiercely that she threw her head back and screamed from the deep, cascading waves of pleasure that rippled through her.
And still he continued, driving her pleasure on until she climaxed again, hard on the heels of the first one.
When he did it to her a third time, she thought she might very well perish from it.
Weak and more than spent, she rolled her head back and forth against the pillow as he continued his relentless pace. "Please, Julian, please," she begged as her body continued to spasm from his touch. "I can't take any more."
Only then did he withdraw.
Her breathing ragged, she throbbed from the top of her head, all the way down to the very tips of her toes. She'd never in her life known such intense pleasure.
He kissed a slow path back up her body, before he buried his lips against her throat.
"Tell me the truth, Grace," he breathed in her ear. "Have you ever felt that before?"
"No," she whispered honestly, doubting few, if any, women had ever experienced anything like what he'd just done to her. "I had no idea."
His eyes hungry, he stared at her as if he still wanted to devour her.
Grace felt his erection against her hip and realized he hadn't released himself. He had kept his word to her.
Her heart hammering at the knowledge, she wanted to help him experience what she had. Or at least a close proximity of it.
Reaching down, she started to unbutton his pants.
He caught her hand, then moved it to his lips where he kissed her palm sweetly. "It's a nice thought, but don't bother."
"Julian," she said chidingly. "I know it gets really painful for men if they don't-"
"I can't," he insisted, interrupting her.
She frowned. "Can't what?"
"I can't orgasm."
Her jaw dropped at his words. Surely he wasn't serious? And yet his eyes were deadly earnest.
"It's part of the curse," he said. "I can give you pleasure, but if you touch me right now, you'll only make me hurt more."
Aching for him, she reached out and placed her hand against his cheek. "Then why did you do-"
"Because I wanted to."
She didn't believe it. Not for a minute. She dropped her hand away from him and looked away. "You had to, you mean. It's part of the curse, too, isn't it?"
He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look up at him. "No. I'm fighting the curse, otherwise I'd be inside you right now."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I," he said, his gaze searching hers as if she held the answer. "Just lie with me," he whispered. "Please."
Grace winced at the pain she heard behind that simple request. Her poor Julian. What had they done to him?
How could anyone do such a thing to someone like him?
He picked up the book from the bed and placed it in her hands. "Read to me."
She opened the book while Julian piled the pillows up against the headboard.
He lay back, then leaned her against his side. Without a word, he covered them with a blanket, and cradled her tenderly with his arm.
The smell of sandalwood filled her head as she started reading to him of Wendy and Peter Pan.
They lay like that for over an hour.
"I love the sound of your voice. The way you speak," he said as she paused to turn another page.
Grace smiled. "I have to say the same of you. You have the most killer accent I've ever heard."
He took the book from her hands and placed it on the nightstand. Grace looked up at him. Molten desire filled his eyes as he stared at her face with a hunger that stole her breath.
Then, to her amazement, he kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose.
He reached over and grabbed her remote, then dimmed the lights to their lowest setting. Grace didn't know what to say as he snuggled up against her back and just held her close.
He brushed her hair back from her face and laid his head above hers. "I love the way you smell," he whispered, his arms tightening around her.
"Thank you," she whispered.
She wasn't sure, but she thought he might be smiling at her.
Grace snuggled even closer to his warmth, but his jeans rubbed against her bare legs. "Are you comfortable in your clothes? Shouldn't you change?"
"No," he said quietly. "This way I know my spoon will stay away from your-"
"Don't you say it!" she said with a laugh. "No offense, your brother is disgusting."
"I knew I liked you for a reason."
Grace took the remote from his hand. "Good night, Julian."
"Good night, my sweet."
She switched off the light.
Instantly, she felt Julian tense around her, heard his breathing change into short, sharp intakes. He pulled away from her.
"Julian?"
He didn't respond.
Worried, she turned the lights back on to see him, leaning on his arms, braced and locked, to support his upper body. His forehead damp from perspiration, his eyes were wild and panicked as he struggled to breathe.
"Julian?"
He looked around the bedroom as if he had awakened from some terrifying nightmare. She watched as he lifted one hand and placed it against the wall above the headboard as if to assure himself it was real and not a hallucination.
Licking his lips, he rubbed his hand over his chest and swallowed hard.
It was then, she knew.
It was the darkness. That was why he had only dimmed the lights.
"I'm so sorry, Julian. I didn't think."
He didn't speak.
Grace pulled him into her arms, amazed at the way a man as strong as this one held on to her as if he couldn't let go. Julian laid his head against her breasts.
Clenching her teeth, she felt tears sting her eyes. And in that moment, she knew she could never let him go back into that book. Never.
Somehow, they would beat this curse. And when it was over, she hoped Julian got his own revenge against the ones responsible.