Chapter Two #2
Zoe’s gaze flickered under the weight of his, and she glanced away. Muttering imprecations, she grabbed the garment bag and the flowers and strode off through a door near the altar, presumably to do what she was told.
Archimedes knew he shouldn’t feel satisfied about that, just as he shouldn’t be aware of this familiar yet unwanted energy coursing through his veins.
And it was unwanted. Zoe wasn’t the little girl he remembered, but she was still the foster sister he’d once protected, and feeling any kind of sexual desire for her was wrong.
Very wrong. Especially within the context of this ridiculous blackmail situation.
He couldn’t think why he’d even felt it in the first place.
Perhaps it was simply that he needed sex.
He’d been working hard and hadn’t put it into his schedule, which he normally did.
Sometimes he preferred a spontaneous hookup, but mostly he organised it in advance with one of his semi-regular partners.
Filing away a reminder to call Celeste once this was done, he ignored the tension and the strange flick of desire, and turned back to the altar.
Banks was looking at him speculatively, which he did not like. Had the old man seen that moment? Probably. He was sharp as a tack and picked up on most things, so he could use them against people at a later date.
Archimedes stared back, raising an eyebrow in wordless enquiry.
Banks only smiled.
A couple of minutes later, Zoe came back through the doorway, the colour in her cheeks still high, the belligerent spark in her eyes still there.
She’d ditched the jeans and the T-shirt and jacket for the gown he’d bought her, and despite her obvious fury at having to wear it, she looked…
Beautiful. There was no other word for it.
The fabric hugged and highlighted the generous curves he’d spotted earlier, cupping her breasts, pulling tight around her waist and hips, before flaring out in a swirl of white silk.
Her hair was in a ponytail, but he had a strange urge to pull it out of its elastic, let it fall in a long, soft fall of black to her waist.
Odd. He didn’t usually get hung up on a woman’s hair.
She came over to where he stood, temper fully on show, and presented her back to him. ‘Do up my zip, please.’ Despite the ‘please’ it was clear that it was an order.
Much to his own surprise, Archimedes found himself a little amused. She wasn’t letting him get away with anything, was she? Even when he’d supposedly won with the dress, she wasn’t conceding any ground at all.
However, it wasn’t until he’d grabbed the tab of her zip that he realised she’d won in other ways too, because in order to pull the zip up, he had to stand close to her.
And it made him suddenly aware of the expanse of bare, pale skin revealed by the unzipped gown.
The subtle heat of her body. Her scent, which was sweet and at odds with her barbed tongue, a dichotomy that was…
arousing. He found slowly doing her zip up arousing too, especially with his knuckles nearly brushing her skin as he did so.
It made him very aware that she’d also ditched her bra since the gown was strapless.
Had she done this on purpose to unsettle him? It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had played sexual games with him, and normally, he enjoyed them. But this was Zoe, and their relationship had always been strictly platonic, especially because she’d been three years younger than he was.
If she did it on purpose, it worked. You are unsettled.
He pushed the thought away, doing up the last bit of her zip before deliberately stepping away. She turned back to him and he noticed that the colour in her cheeks had deepened. Interesting. Apparently, that had unsettled her too.
Not that he was going to do a thing about it. They would get married and then they’d go about their lives as if nothing had changed. Perhaps he could even spend his ‘wedding’ night with Celeste, do something about this inconvenient desire. Yes, that was an excellent idea.
* * *
Zoe turned, her heart beating strangely fast for reasons she couldn’t quite identify. She could still feel the warmth of Archimedes’s hand almost brushing her bare skin as he’d zipped her up, and she didn’t like the way it made her feel.
She hadn’t liked that moment between them, when she’d stared belligerently at him as he’d told her that he’d invoice her for the dress if she didn’t wear it.
At first, she’d been too incensed to notice the tension in the air between them, and then, when she had noticed, it had shocked her.
And it was galling that the shock had made her look away from him, because it felt as if she’d given him a surrender she hadn’t meant to give.
She shouldn’t have said anything about a dress. That had been a stupid move, because now she had to wear a wedding gown and carry a bouquet of admittedly quite pretty flowers, as if she were getting married for real. As if all of this meant something to her, which it didn’t.
Still, since she hadn’t wanted to pay for the dress or the flowers, she’d stomped into the small room to change into the gown. Then she’d been unreasonably enraged to find that it fitted her perfectly, because of course Archimedes had got the size right.
It had been irritating that she hadn’t been able to do the zip up, and she’d felt very self-conscious as she’d come back into the church, because everyone had looked at her.
That wouldn’t have bothered her in itself, but the fact that she never wore dresses, and hadn’t been able to see what she looked like in this one, made her uncomfortable.
Electing to ignore everyone, she’d gone over to Archimedes to do her zip up because he was the one who’d bought the stupid thing, so the least he could do was zip her up. But as soon as she’d felt him grab the tab of the zip she’d known she’d made a mistake.
Because it had brought her close to him, and made her conscious of his tall, broad presence behind her, towering over her.
Of the heat of his body and the scent of his aftershave.
Bergamot, she thought, and maybe black pepper and cedar.
She loved scents, it was her one feminine indulgence, and the scent of him had set her on edge, because it really shouldn’t be so delicious.
Now, her heartbeat was fast and her breathing a little short, and she was even more annoyed than when she’d first walked in, because he should not, absolutely not, have any effect on her whatsoever.
Yes, she’d once had a giant crush on him, but that had died the day he’d walked out without a word.
Also, she’d been fifteen back then, and her crush had involved fantasies of kisses, nothing more.
Physical desire hadn’t factored into it, so why it was factoring now, she had no idea. But she resented the hell out of it.
Archimedes’s blue gaze was steady, betraying nothing. Which meant the unsettledness was all on her side. Great.
‘A thank you would be nice,’ he said.
A hot retort immediately sprang to her lips, but she swallowed it back. Bickering with him would only prolong this situation and there was no way she wanted that. So she merely shrugged her shoulders and turned, making her way over to where Banks stood at the altar.
‘Finally,’ he said warmly, smiling at her. ‘You look lovely.’
She didn’t smile back, nor did she look as Archimedes moved over to the altar to stand beside her. She kept her gaze stonily forward, clutching her flowers as the priest began the ceremony.
It seemed to take forever till she was to say her vows, and she was surprised when Archimedes dug into his pocket and brought out a pair of rings. Then he took her hand in his and every single thought she had went straight out of her head.
His touch was warm, making a fine net of electricity settle over her body, and sending prickles of heat sparking all over her skin.
It shocked her enough that she found herself looking up at him, meeting his gaze in surprise.
Again, though, he remained expressionless as he slid the ring onto her finger.
It was a plain gold band, nothing fancy, though there was another surprise in that he’d got one for himself too.
She put it on his finger in return, this time steadfastly avoiding his gaze as she let go of his long, blunt fingers.
She didn’t want to meet it, which felt too much like surrender for her comfort, but again, making a meal out of this situation purely because she was angry with him would be pointless.
The priest intoned the rest of the ceremony, pronouncing them husband and wife, and then that Archimedes may kiss his new bride.
Zoe didn’t expect that he would, so it came as yet another huge shock when those long fingers suddenly gripped her chin, tipping her face up, and his mouth brushed hers in the most featherlight and fleeting of kisses.
She froze. It was as if someone had hit her over the back of the head with something heavy, making her dizzy and her thought processes sluggish.
All she could think was that Archimedes had kissed her. He had kissed her. And the worst part of it was that even though it had been briefest of kisses, she could somehow feel it everywhere.
There was a heat clenching tight inside her, a part of herself she’d never paid much attention to.
She’d been kissed before, of course, and there had been a few boyfriends.
Not very many, but she’d had them, though she’d never slept with any of them.
Sex had seemed like a huge step, a surrendering of trust to someone, and she had never felt as if she could trust anyone enough for that.
The kisses she’d had had been pleasant and the touches okay, but nothing to write home about.
Nothing that had made her want to take off her clothes for anyone.
But the light brush of Archimedes’s mouth was a shock to the system, Sleeping Beauty being jolted awake, and then it was gone. He’d turned around to talk to Banks as if nothing had happened.