Chapter Three #3
He growled and nuzzled closer, eating her, fingering where she was hot and wet and hungry.
His other hand muffled her scream. Caught in ecstasy, she clutched his hair, her hips writhing, pressing him closer to her.
Not that she needed to because his suction on her was total and his hold on her hard.
Neither of them relinquished the other even through her violently intense orgasm.
But when she finally went limp, he pulled away.
She panted, gazing up at him as he then braced both his fists either side of her body, pressing into the arm of the sofa.
Not touching her. His muscles rippled with the effort of restraint but she didn’t understand why he was now holding back.
‘Ares?’ she muttered, confused.
He shook his head. Pre-empting her plea. Rejecting her already.
She gritted her teeth. Desperately stopping herself from repeating his name.
From begging. She dropped her gaze. She wouldn’t let him see he’d just destroyed her.
Again. Not with that orgasm, but by not giving her all of himself when she’d given him all of her.
He’d given her pleasure. He’d made her lose control.
But he hadn’t given her the trust of letting himself go in her arms and body.
He’d held back—his body this time, his heart always. And it hurt.
‘We can’t, Bethan,’ he ground out. ‘I don’t have protection with me and I’m sure the last thing you want is my baby.’
She flinched as he pushed away and stalked across the room, tucking his shirt back into his trousers while she remained sprawled and stunned.
Once upon a time she’d wanted his baby more than anything.
She’d been so na?ve. Back then he’d skimmed over that discussion, merely mentioning in passing that she and any children would have a wonderful life on Avra.
That crumb had been enough for her to envisage a glorious future—her fantastical imagination had grown an entire paradise from that tiny seed.
Now humiliation burned. She quickly fixed her trousers and tee and swept up her blazer.
‘That shouldn’t have happened.’ He ruffled his hand through his hair, leaving it no less spiky.
No kidding. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure how it had. But there was a small balm in the fact he was still breathless.
As was she. One moment they’d been arguing, the next they’d exploded into a tawdry encounter in his office.
His door hadn’t even been locked and she’d ended up half naked on his sofa—exposed for anyone to see had they walked in.
Shame poured through her. She was so weak.
Brushing her hair behind her ear, she tried to release the remnants of that bliss to understand what had just happened.
Why had he made her come but not lost control himself?
Had he wanted to exert his sensual power over her?
Well, he’d succeeded. She’d given into it—him—so easily.
Angry energy fired through her system because she knew he’d wanted her too.
She’d heard his groans. She’d felt the hard ridge of his reaction.
He’d ravished her like a starving man...
Only to reject her when she was at the point of absolute surrender.
She turned her back and closed her eyes against the stinging tears. She needed to toughen up. She’d equated hot sex with heartfelt emotion before. Lust with love. She’d thought his inability to keep his hands off her had meant something more. She knew better now. And she really needed to leave.
She cleared her throat and hauled herself together. ‘Please summon a driver. I’d like to go to my hotel.’
In the ensuing moment of silence regret swamped again, a wave of futile longing that things could’ve been different—had he loved her. But he’d only wanted her and, even then, not enough.
‘We’ll meet with the lawyers tomorrow,’ he answered tightly. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to be alone with me again.’
Her humiliation was complete. They both knew that she’d wanted more—more than he had. Again.
‘I’ll escort you to the car.’
She really didn’t want him to do that, but as she couldn’t figure her way out of the too-high-tech building she had little choice.
She stood stiff and silent beside him at the back of the elevator, staring straight ahead.
She refused to cry or tremble but she’d never felt as empty or as alone and she’d never ached this much.
In all this time, there’d not been a moment as bad as this.
‘Bethan.’
She closed her eyes, blocking his damned intense whisper. She didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. But then his fingers stroked her jaw, coaxing her with all the tenderness she’d needed after such an explicit, raw encounter. But it was too late.
‘Look at me,’ he breathed.
Her eyelashes fluttered of their own volition.
His fingers gently nudged—turning her face.
As she fully opened her eyes she saw he’d turned to face her.
She stilled, surprised by the regret blooming in his eyes.
His cheeks flushed as something else that she couldn’t—shouldn’t—figure out deepened in his expression. Something intimate and exposed.
‘Bethan—’
Upbeat music suddenly intruded on their burgeoning intimacy.
But there was no music in this too smooth elevator.
Bethan heard a gasp but Ares’s sensuous lips were still pressed together.
She turned her head and saw the elevator doors had opened.
But they weren’t at the basement garage level, they were on another floor and there were people—so many people staring in at them.
‘Ares,’ Bethan hissed, wildly casting about for a button to close the doors but the lift was so modern you needed the blasted right biometrics to get it to do anything and she didn’t have them. ‘Ares, close the door.’
He finally turned from her. In a blink he took in the open elevator doors and the staring throng, grasped her arm and drew her forward with him, a wide smile pinned to his arrogant face.
‘Good afternoon, everyone.’
His transformation was instant and total—from intense and stormy to cool but polite. He propelled her so forcefully that she was almost lifted off the ground as he swept them into the hyenas’ den. It happened so fast she had no time to resist.
‘Five minutes,’ he muttered beneath his breath.
He couldn’t possibly be serious. She had stubble rash between her thighs.
Her mouth was swollen from the roughness of those kisses, she was sure her face was flushed and she could hardly breathe, let alone figure out what to do.
But one fact cut through her shattered emotions.
Ares was utterly controlled in this moment.
He looked utterly unaffected—as if those moments in his office—when his mask had dropped—had never happened.
How could he possibly be calm right now?
His remote demeanour was so unfathomable that an outlandish suspicion occurred to her—had he stopped the elevator on this floor deliberately?
Already beyond stressed in the last twenty-four hours, she now felt anger unlike any other brew within her.
But there were too many people around to cause more of a scene.
She had no idea why there were at least sixty people present, all in sharp cocktail attire.
It had to be a celebration—perhaps of their latest billion?
Another massive boat deal? But whatever it was, they didn’t give a damn about it now because whispers rippled the length of the impeccably decorated room.
She didn’t need to speak the language to understand, she saw the wide-eyed speculation and knew several clearly recognised her.
She’d walked into a hostile environment and faced whispers and condescension like this before.
The flashing memory of high-school bullies didn’t hurt today, indeed she could almost appreciate that relentless, horrible experience because it meant she almost didn’t care about these people doing the same now.
She was only interested in understanding the enigma that was Ares.
If he’d done this deliberately, why? What was he playing at?
But she couldn’t ask, he’d already been collared by two tall, loud men who were quickly telling him something terribly serious-sounding in Greek. In a second he’d effortlessly slipped into the CEO persona she’d never really seen in action before.
Keeping her head high, she lifted a glass of champagne from the tray a waiter offered, but downed it too quickly as she walked further into the crowded reception room, fuelling the angry fire she needed to face so many curious, judgemental stares.
And suddenly it wasn’t only anger hurtling through her, but jealousy too.
Sophia Dimou stood ten feet away. The woman Ares was meant to have married was everything Bethan wasn’t.
Tall, willowy and from a family already connected to the fine and mighty Vasiliadis dynasty.
When Ares had turned up in Athens after a two-week break with Bethan as his bride, shock waves had shuddered through the city and beyond.
Bethan had tried not to care about the opinions of those strangers, but she’d desperately yearned to be welcomed into his family.
Because her family were the ones who’d held her close and made her feel safe.
She’d ached to find that same from Ares’s family, given her own were gone.
So she’d wanted to make a good impression.
But she’d had no idea what they were like and Ares hadn’t warned her.
They were cold and haughty. And perfect.