Chapter Nine
Her thoughts were a whirlwind wrapped in a sensual haze. She couldn’t make sense of anything. A moment ago she had been yelling at Alex, and now he was kissing her.
Even more confusing, a moment ago she had stripped her dress off with him in the room.
Like she hadn’t thought this would be the end result.
Well, she hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d been feeling.
She had been ready to come out of her skin, and was tired, so desperately tired of having to make everything palatable.
Having to make herself palatable. Her feelings were confused and sharp and she wanted him to feel them. She didn’t want to hide them.
So she kissed him back. Deep and long, pouring every ounce of her anger, of her hurt, of the impossible to define, spiky feelings that she couldn’t even put names to, that attached themselves to her heart like barbs, hellish and painful, and impossible to dig out.
Kissing him seemed to make her feel better.
Or if not better, seemed to make her feel something else.
Something more. Something good mixed in with all of the bad.
It was intense; she hadn’t been wrong. She had known that this was the sort of connection that could consume her.
The sort of attraction that could crash over her like a tsunami and claim her.
She was jumping into it now. Without thought, without reserve.
He thought he had been protecting her by not kissing her? It was probably the best thing he had done in the last month. She would tell him that, when she decided to come up for air. But for now, she was reveling in this.
The heat of his mouth, the expert slide of his tongue against hers, the way that his large hands moved over her body, the way that he gripped her hips, and pulled her toward him so that she could feel the burgeoning length of his arousal.
She might be a virgin, but she knew how it all worked. She wasn’t afraid.
Because she had to face down her biggest fear.
She hadn’t even realized that this specific thing was her biggest fear, but if she had really sat down and thought about it she would have said that having her family at her actual wedding would have been her worst nightmare.
And she would’ve also said that it would only happen in her nightmares, because there was no way she would ever get married, and no way she would invite her family if she did.
But here she was, married to this man. And her family had been there.
She hadn’t died, but she had felt damn near close to it.
What could scare her after this?
Certainly not his kiss, which was expert and drugging.
Glorious and all-consuming. Certainly not his kiss, her first, the greatest. She was so glad she had gone on a date with Stavros, because would she have given him this?
Would she have surrendered her lips to him, her body, when it was so clear that this belonged to Alex?
That it had from the moment she had first met him.
What Verity was good at, very good at, was not just smoothing things over for everyone else, but for herself. She was so good at avoiding difficult feelings, and the truth about herself. But not now.
She was just admitting it, even if it was internal.
She wanted Alex.
She had from the very first moment she had laid eyes on him.
She had wanted to be near him. Every moment that she could be.
She had wanted him like this. Even if she couldn’t allow herself to so much as fantasize about it in the dead of night.
But it was so easy now. It felt so right now.
Because on some level she had always known.
He pulled away from her, and she leaned back against the bedpost, breathing hard.
Her lips felt hot and swollen; her breasts felt heavy.
That place between her legs was wet and throbbing, and needy.
She wanted him to touch her. When she had thought about her first time, she had imagined that it would be awkward.
That she wouldn’t know what she wanted, that she would feel hesitant.
That wasn’t true. Not at all. She knew exactly what she wanted. And she wasn’t ashamed.
“Take your clothes off,” she said, clutching the post for emotional and physical support as she watched him.
“Will that satisfy your anger?”
“It depends on how much I like what I see.”
“I’m not concerned,” he said, reaching for the knot on his tie.
Just then she felt like she was existing in two different spaces and times.
Like she was watching him in his position at his desk, eating his usual lunch, then angrily eating a salad, and then she was back here.
Watching him loosen the knot on his tie, watching him deftly unbutton his shirt.
Same man. It was a very difficult process.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Especially as he revealed more and more of his toned, glorious chest. Covered in dark hair, and sculpted like a work of classical art. Oh goodness. He was getting naked.
She had asked him to.
No, she had demanded it.
She wasn’t afraid. She was just a little bit in awe that it was happening. But that wasn’t the same as being afraid.
He stripped off his shirt, his jacket, let it all fall to the floor.
She was speechless, her mouth dry. He had muscles in places she didn’t even know men had muscles.
Definition all down that ridged abdomen, and glorious cuts that created an arrow leading her eye down to the waistband of his pants.
His hands went to the buckle of his belt, and he began to undo it slowly, his methodical movements maddening.
She had a feeling he knew it. She kept holding onto the bed.
Because if she didn’t she might fall to pieces. Because if she didn’t she might melt into a puddle. Because if she didn’t, maybe she would just fall over, like an imbalanced quail that couldn’t stand on its own two feet.
She refused to be a tilting bird. She would not tip over. She didn’t trust herself, though, so she gripped even more tightly to the carved wood, her nails scraping against the surface.
She watched with rapt attention as he removed the rest of his clothes, and she did feel lightheaded at the first glimpse she got of a fully naked man in the flesh.
And what a naked man he was.
She had seen quite a lot of naked male statues about Greece in the last few years, and as their masculinity could be easily hidden by fig leaves, it had never seemed like much to write home about, if Verity would write home about anything.
Alex would not be able to be concealed by a single fig leaf. Not even close.
And there were the virginal nerves. The ones that she had thought she had perhaps dodged. Right on time. But thankfully, the bedpost held her upright, and so she didn’t falter or collapse.
“I have done as you commanded, Cricket. Is there a reward for me?”
“I...am thinking about it.”
She was racking her brain trying to come up with what might be an equivalent reward.
“I think perhaps it is your turn to remove your clothing.”
She blinked. “That isn’t an equivalent trade.”
“Why?”
“Because you are... You look like that.”
“I can practically see all there is to see of you now, Cricket. I’m confident that what you have to reveal is better.”
This was even better than getting a compliment at work.
She was tempted to try and get more. Oh, she was so very tempted.
With shaking knees, she released her hold on the bedpost, reached behind her back and began to undo the clips on the corset.
Then, on a swift and drawn breath she let it drop to the ground, revealing the upper half of her body.
He made a short, masculine sound of approval in the back of his throat that sent her heartbeat into overdrive. And it was the approval she needed to take the rest of her clothing off.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. You’re a beautiful girl. Do you know how beautiful you are? I have never seen such glory.”
This time, when her knees went weak it was with pleasure. She could see that he was telling the truth. The way that he was looking at her didn’t lie. He was aroused, yes, but it was more than that. He approved of her. He was looking at her and finding her to be enough. To be perfect.
She would give him anything he wanted. Right then, she really thought she would.
She would live under his desk in his office, rest her head on his thigh while he worked, be on hand to fetch things for him, whatever, as long as he would look at her like that.
“Such a good girl,” he said, those words the final arrow in any resistance that might have remained.
She was his. He had seen into her, and she had been afraid of that. The way that he knew her, the way that he understood her, almost better than she understood herself, without giving any of himself. But right now it didn’t matter.
Couldn’t this just be about her? Her getting everything she wanted? Her having her every fantasy realized?
He thought she was beautiful.
And after today, after having to manage her family like that, didn’t she deserve something nice?
He might have delivered her worst nightmare to her doorstep, but now he was giving her the deepest, dearest fantasy she’d never quite known she had. It was terrifying. It made her quake inside and out.
Would she have slept with someone a lot earlier if she had realized? If she had realized what it would make her feel for a man to praise her like this?
No. The answer echoed inside of her, whispered through her with total certainty. Because just anyone’s praise wouldn’t mean anything. It had to be Alex. Because he was so exacting, so difficult.
She wanted to please him. She wanted to please him because doing so meant something. Healed something inside of her. So she would let herself have it.
Tonight, she would let herself have it, and damn the consequences.