Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Oscar
Rain splattered the bedroom window as thick, grey storm clouds gathered across the sea, the wind whipping the waves into stiff peaks. Marcus had been right that the weather wouldn’t be the best, and it seemed as if the cliché about April showers was going to hold out for the rest of the week.
Not that a little rain was going to stop me from enjoying our brief sojourn along the south coast.
“I’m guessing we won’t be taking that walk into town this afternoon, then?” asked Ilias. He was lounging on the beautiful four-poster bed in the sea-view room we’d been offered at August House, the hotel in Fowey that was our stopping point for the night.
He looked so effortlessly handsome like that—propped up on some pillows, flicking through something on his phone, his jeans hugging his thighs. I wasn’t sure when I’d started to truly appreciate how physically gorgeous Ilias was, but now that I had I could hardly tear my eyes away.
“Probably not. Unless you want to get wet,” I said, glancing back out the window in the hope of seeing a strip of clear sky on the horizon, but nothing had changed. “They have offered us afternoon tea if you feel like dragging yourself downstairs.”
“Done.” Ilias grinned at me and wiggled off the bed. “Do I need to change?”
“No… I think you look great.” He was still wearing the hoodie he’d travelled down in, but I didn’t think the hotel had a dress code for the lounge.
“You’re sweet, but on second thought, I probably need to put on something clean.” He glanced down at himself, pulling out the hem of the hoodie to examine something. “I think I dropped cream cheese on myself earlier.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“There’s a little white stain here,” Ilias said, pointing at a mark on the large, pouch-style pocket on the front. “It’s okay. I’ve got a clean shirt in my suitcase.”
He tugged the hoodie over his head, taking his t-shirt with it, leaving him standing half-naked in the middle of the room. I swallowed, suddenly tempted to reach out and run my fingers across his bronzed skin. I’d seen Ilias shirtless in Hawaii—in fact it was how he’d spent half his time—so I wasn’t sure why this was so different. It just was.
A new heat blossomed inside me, a pang of desire echoing through my body. New but not unwelcome.
“You okay?” Ilias asked, and I realised I’d been staring off into space. I blinked. Ilias was crouched on the floor, rummaging around in his suitcase.
“Yeah. Fine.”
He raised an eyebrow and hummed but didn’t say anything. He’d started to be able to read me, and that surprised me because I’d never had anyone get that close before. Not even people I thought I might have been in love with.
The only other person who knew me as well was Finn, and that was because I’d never been able to hide anything from him. He’d always had this uncanny ability to read me like a book. It was something Finn could do with our whole family.
Ilias pulled a white shirt out of his suitcase and slung it on, buttoning it part of the way up. It had a deep collar anyway, and with Ilias leaving a button or two undone, I could see more of his perfect chest.
He caught me watching and winked. “Like what you see?”
“Yes…” I said quietly, throwing Ilias off guard for a second because I’d never responded like that to his ridiculous flirting.
“That’s new.” He grinned and walked over to me, putting his hand around my waist. “I like it. Do you?”
“Yeah. I do.” I tilted my head and kissed him, reacquainting myself with the curves of his mouth. Fuck, I loved kissing him. I hadn’t gotten to do it nearly enough in Hawaii and definitely not enough since we got back.
I’d stolen some brief kisses after dinner last week and when we’d met for lunch, but I wished I’d invited Ilias over so we could have spent hours on my bed just doing this.
Ilias still smelt like peaches and vanilla, and it was starting to get addictive.
We broke apart slowly, and Ilias’s other hand reached out to cup my jaw. “I missed kissing you,” he said. “You have the best mouth.”
“And you’ve only seen a fraction of what it can do,” I teased.
Ilias’s smile widened, and there was a hungry look in his eye. His touch was still gentle though.
“Now I’m even more intrigued.” He leant forward to kiss me again, drawing me to him with his fingers. “We should go downstairs,” he said as he pulled away. “I don’t want to waste our afternoon tea or get us put on the naughty list for missing a reservation.”
I sighed, knowing he was right. Whatever I wanted had to come second to my job, at least for the moment.
Ilias grabbed the key card off the desk where he’d left it and reached for my hand. “Come on, I feel like we need to have a conversation, and what better way to have it than over copious amounts of food.”
I chuckled but followed him out of the room and down the corridor, taking everything in as I did.
The hotel had originally been built as a family mansion in the late nineteenth century by a local resident who’d made his fortune in Canada via the lumber trade, and after changing hands a couple of times in the fifties and sixties, it had eventually been bought and converted into a luxury hotel about twenty years ago.
According to the information we’d been sent, the current owners had done a lot of restoration work and returned a lot of their rooms to their original usages. And although I could see the odd bit of wear and tear—mostly because I was looking for it—it seemed to have been beautifully maintained.
When we got downstairs and finally managed to navigate to the right place, we found ourselves sitting in a corner of the library next to a window that overlooked the gardens and down to the estuary. It was still pouring with rain, but the room was warm and cosily lit with squishy armchairs. I sank straight into mine and wondered if I’d ever be able to get up.
A smiling member of staff brought over a tea menu and poured us a couple of glasses of champagne while we made our decisions, then disappeared once we’d chosen, promising that our drinks and food would be over shortly.
“A tea menu?” Ilias said, raising an eyebrow accompanied by a wry smile. “I’ve definitely not been to fancy enough afternoon teas if I get a whole menu of teas to choose from. Mind you, that might be because I’m more of a coffee person.”
I chuckled and reached for my glass. “And here I thought the fanciest thing about this afternoon was the champagne.”
“It’s definitely more my style.” Ilias winked, and my heart skipped. He picked up his own glass and took a sip, settling back in his chair and looking at me with interested eyes.
“So… when you said you liked what you saw—and I mean who can blame you—” I snorted, and Ilias ignored me. “What did you mean by that?”
“I’ve always thought you were attractive,” I said. “You know that.”
He shrugged. “I know, but you’ve never said it like that. And you’ve certainly never responded to me with anything other than an eye roll or snark.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, then realised he had a point. I took another sip of my champagne and glanced out the window at the rain. This was a world away from our first conversation about what I wanted, but it made me smile as I realised how many of our most heartfelt and intimate discussions seemed to take place over food: our first lunch in London, lunch at Nakoa’s, dinner on the beach…
Maybe food somehow made it easier to be open with him because the meal provided some form of distraction.
The waitress appeared with a large tray laden with two tea sets and some plates, carefully unloading everything onto the table while another member of staff appeared beside her carrying an enormous, three-tiered cake stand.
It was laden with neat finger sandwiches, little pastries in sweet and savoury, delicate choux buns with chocolate curls balanced delicately on the top, perfect miniature cakes, and several enormous, fluffy scones that were perfectly golden and studded with fruit. There were little dishes filled with thick clotted cream and three varieties of jam.
I really hoped we weren’t going to be expected to have dinner any time soon because there was only a five percent chance I was going to want anything more than some toast.
I reached for a couple of sandwiches, trying to think about where my train of thought was supposed to have been going.
“Like I said before, I’ve always thought you were attractive. But I guess it was more objective? Like I was looking at a picture or a painting or a model? I don’t know if that’s really the best analogy.” I took a bite of one of the sandwiches and chewed. Across from me, Ilias was pouring himself some tea but not saying anything like he was happy to wait for me to continue on my own time.
“But recently, or I guess today… something felt different. I like you, Ilias. I really do… You make me feel like I can be myself around you, even when I’m stressed and grumpy because you just take it all in stride and tell me to calm down. I missed you so much during the week, and I kept thinking I should invite you over, but I was so scared that what I’d felt… what we’d said in Hawaii was just a fluke but, now… now I know it’s not, and I’m starting to feel like I want more.”
“I missed you too,” Ilias said, piling his plate with sandwiches. “You could have just messaged me or called. But I know what you mean. This is different for both of us, I guess, and that takes some getting used to. And I’m just as guilty. I could have said something too.”
“We’re a right pair.” I snorted. “Was your week that bad?”
“No, mostly just being piled on by niblings.” He smiled at me. The smile had a hungry edge that seemed to have nothing to do with the sandwiches. “So, what does more look like to you?”
“I’m not sure that’s a conversation we should have in public,” I said, my voice low and teasing, and Ilias’s eyes widened almost comically.
“Now we definitely have to have this conversation. You’ll just have to whisper.”
“Fine. I want to lay you out and kiss you until you can’t remember your own name. I want to explore every inch of your body with my fingers and my mouth, find every little spot that makes you moan, every spot that makes you desperate, every spot that makes you beg.” I spoke quietly, barely above a whisper, but I knew Ilias had heard every word from the way he was staring at me.
“I want to go so slowly that it almost feels like torture, but you never want me to stop. I want to know what it feels like to have your hands all over me, your mouth wrapped around my cock. I want to lose myself in your kisses, your touch, and every breath you take. I don’t know if I want to fuck tonight—I’m not sure I’m ready for penetrative sex yet—but I’m sure I can think of enough other things for us to do.”
Ilias’s mouth was hanging slightly open, his food forgotten. He blinked at me, and I wasn’t sure if I’d stunned him into silence or scared him.
“Motherfucker,” Ilias hissed. “I take it back. We shouldn’t have been having this conversation in public! Now we’re going to talk about something really fucking boring until I can get up again.”
It took me a second to process what he’d said, then I burst out laughing, the sound bouncing around the walls of the library and drawing a couple of disgruntled looks from our fellow guests.
“Are you that desperate?” I asked.
“For you? Yes.”