Chapter Nine #2
Then she reached out, her hand cupping him, her thumb sliding over his hardened length. “You won’t,” she said. “You won’t walk away because you want it too badly. You’ve broken one of the most important rules in business, Christos. You’ve shown your hand. Or rather your…” She looked down.
“Have it your way,” he said, beginning to move away.
“Christos,” she said, reaching out toward him, nearly reflexively.
“I knew it. I knew that you would not allow me to walk away from you. Because you are hungry for me. Now, tell me what I want to hear. Say my name, Sylvie. Say it. Say it in anger if you need to, but I will have you screaming it in pleasure later.”
“I want you,” she said, her gaze meeting his, her eyes filled with anger. “Christos.”
He growled in triumph and walked her back toward the bed. The windows were open, the view of New York City pristine.
It was one-way glass, and no one could see in. But of course Sylvie wouldn’t know that, and she cast a slightly worried glance toward the view.
“We didn’t even see each other the first time,” he said. “I would not be opposed to the entire city watching this time.”
“I…”
But he could see the color mounting in her cheeks. She liked that idea. But he would not lie to her. “No one can see in.”
Her eyes cast down just slightly. “Oh. But you quite liked the idea of being watched.”
She tilted her chin upward. “Maybe I just like the idea of everyone knowing that ruthless Christos Onassis is not quite so hard when he’s with me.”
He lowered his head, pressed his forehead against hers. “Oh, I am very hard.”
He enjoyed the satisfaction then of watching her light up like a beacon.
“You know what I mean.”
“Tell me. Tell me exactly what you mean.”
“You soften for me. Even if you didn’t know it was me. We…we had real conversation those nights.”
“What did they matter?”
He asked that question, mostly for himself. “This is what matters. This is what’s real. Feelings, words that you can type into a phone, what does that matter?”
Yes. It didn’t matter. He knew that. It wasn’t real, and it never had been. A video game. That was what it had been.
“This,” he said, leaning in and tracing her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. “This is what’s real.”
She shivered beneath his touch, and then he claimed her mouth again, harder, deeper.
And as he kissed her, his desire built, and as his desire built, he made a vow inside of himself. He would make her understand.
He would make her feel the same intensity that he did. He would make sure she knew that this was the only thing that mattered.
You’re having a baby. She is your wife.
It didn’t matter. He had married her for the baby. But quite apart from that there was…
This need. Desire. Everything else was an illusion. Their prior relationship was an illusion. But this…this was something he could hold. He could touch her. He could taste her. He could have her.
And so he claimed her mouth, over and over again. He kissed down the tender side of her neck, made her shiver. Made her tremble.
“I didn’t know you could be such a very good girl,” he whispered.
He felt her quake. Not the same sort of shiver as before, but felt how close she was to orgasm with those words.
“Is that what you like? Do you like being told what a good girl you are? How you are perfection? Exactly what I want. Exactly what I need. Sylvie, you are the most glorious of creatures. I could not ask for more. I could not ask for better.”
She buried her face in his neck, and he heard a muffled cry on her lips.
“Is that all it takes?”
She met his gaze. “You’re a bastard, do you know that? How can you be so—”
“I might be a bastard. But I’m a bastard that you want.”
She grabbed hold of his face, stretched up on her toes and kissed him. And she poured all of her frustration into it. And then when they parted, it was like when she looked at him she saw straight down into his soul.
“I want you,” she said. “I have wanted you from before I really knew what it meant. And I was desperate to fantasize about a man who wasn’t you.
So desperate to feel something for the nice man who showed me compassion in my texts.
But you’re right. I always wanted you. I always wanted what you had.
That ruthlessness. I always wanted to know what it would be like to feel it…
For you to touch me. For your hands to be all over me. I always wondered.”
He felt a shudder not unlike the one he had just felt in her body go through his own. How was she doing that? How was she zeroing in on his weakness? On his vulnerability.
This aching, desperate need to be…
To be wanted.
Even thinking it made him feel small. Weak. Ridiculous. And yet, he craved it so much he could not silence her. He couldn’t tell her to stop. He wanted to hear it. Wanted to hear those words flowing endlessly from her lips.
That she had always wanted him. That there was something in him that she saw…
There is nothing in you.
He pushed that away, and he consumed her. Stripped her naked so that he could finally see her beautiful body.
She was glorious. More than he had ever imagined that she could be.
Her nipples, rosy and tight. Begging for his mouth.
Her curves a revelation.
That strawberry-gold thatch between her thighs, pushing his lust to extremes.
If he would’ve seen her that first night…
He would’ve walked away. This would never have happened.
He didn’t believe in fate. He didn’t believe that there was any larger, guiding force in the universe.
If there were, life wouldn’t be so brutal.
Some people wouldn’t be chosen to live, while others died.
You chose. You either found the hardness inside of yourself to push through whatever life gave you, or you didn’t.
But she made him want to believe. And something bigger. Because how was it possible that she was here, and they were having a baby?
He was having a baby.
Christos Onassis, a man whose heart had never beaten for anything half as soft as another human being, was going to be a father.
He gritted his teeth, pushed that thought away as he lowered his head and sucked one nipple deep into his mouth.
As he tortured her in the way that she had been torturing him.
Her words had nearly sent him to heaven. Or perhaps hell. It could’ve easily been hell.
He kissed his way down her body, brought his mouth between her legs and began to eat her.
He gripped her hips and looked up so that she could not pretend it wasn’t him. And he was only all too aware that it was her.
“Christos…”
He growled. “Yes. My name.”
“Christos,” she cried out.
And he felt her come apart in his arms. Felt her reach her peak.
He kissed his way back up her body, lifted her up and set her on the bed.
She began to tear at his clothes. He relished this. This animalistic desire. He didn’t think another woman had ever wanted him, not like this. Not in this personal way. This felt like it could only be about him.
And it was a high that he wanted to keep on chasing.
When she had him stripped completely bare, it was her turn to growl as she reversed their positions, bringing herself over the top of him, sitting astride his body as she moved her hands down his chest.
From his position lying on his back, he gazed up at her, looking his fill. At her round, generous breasts, her slim waist, her stomach. Which was now slightly rounded. With his child.
He moved his hands upward, spanning her waist, to the undersides of her breasts.
She arched her head backward, that red hair wild.
He had, on occasion, thought of her as unkempt. But he had been wrong.
She was fierce, ferocious and untamed. Everything he could ever want in a woman.
She would survive, he thought.
She would be the one who would live. Who would battle against all odds.
A warrior who would fight, just as he did.
She was his match.
He positioned her over him, guiding his hardened length into her body. She gasped as he slid in, inch by inch, and he gritted his teeth to stop himself from reaching his peak then and there. She was so tight. So perfect.
She began to move, her hips undulating as she found a rhythm that tormented them both.
And he felt…undone. Unraveled in a way he never had before.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, her mouth dropped open, a perfect circle as she made whimpering noises of pleasure.
It was like that night, but it was new.
It was a revelation.
Because it wasn’t a confusing thing now, that it had been Sylvie all along. Of course it was.
Of course.
It had to be.
She began to tremble, her whole body shaking, and when she came, she squeezed around him, tight, and pushed him over the edge.
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging hard into her as he shouted out his pleasure.
And it was like he was floating. Not in the air, not on the sea. It was like he had entered another space and time.
Christos was always connected with his body.
With everything that was happening around him. He never had the luxury of losing himself, and in fact, had never believed that it was possible.
But for suspended moments of time, the only thing was her. The only thing was them.
They were in a space created entirely for them. It was safe. And it was perfect.
It was like she had cast some sort of spell around him, one of protection, or maybe just an enchantment, but he, who felt like he had seen everything, known everything, suddenly felt as if he had never known anything at all.
And when the moment subsided, when he was brought back to reality, he felt something cold and hard double down in his chest. Expand there.
This wasn’t real. More than that, it wasn’t sustainable.
He was living in some kind of fantasy world. Still.
Finding out who she was, seeing her, it had done nothing to bring him back to reality.
He was a fool.
Yes, she was his wife. But she was having his baby, and logic was of the utmost importance here.
Keeping his mind sharp, his instincts honed, was essential.