Chapter Six
Archimedes couldn’t do anything but stand there, leaning against the edge of the table, holding Zoe in his arms as she trembled and shook with the aftershocks of her orgasm. For the first time in his life, his mind was blank. There was nothing in his head, no chatter, no noise. Only peace.
He wanted to stay like that forever.
But he couldn’t, because as his consciousness gradually returned, he became aware of what had just happened, and who it had happened with.
After all the deals he’d made with himself, after all his protestations, he’d forgotten each and every one of them and done exactly what he was not supposed to do. He’d let his own desire get the better of him, and not only that but his temper too.
He’d told himself for years that her refusal of his job offer didn’t matter to him, that he didn’t care, but her telling him that it had only been a pity offer, that he didn’t want her really, had felt like a slap in the face.
He hadn’t followed up on it because she’d been very clear she didn’t want him to, and so he’d left it at that.
He wasn’t going to force her to work for him if she didn’t want to.
Except that wasn’t the only thing you were annoyed about, was it?
No, he had to admit it wasn’t. A deeply buried part of him, a part of himself he never acknowledged because he didn’t like people having power over him, was that he’d also been hurt.
Once he’d put his ten years in the criminal underworld behind him, he’d thought—hoped even—that she might leave Banks, and come to him.
Except she never had. She’d stayed with Banks, refused his job offer, and yes, that pissed him off and it hurt.
More than he’d ever wanted to admit to, and so he’d lost his temper with her, with her hostility and her barbed questions, and had said something he shouldn’t have.
Something that if he hadn’t been so angry, he wouldn’t have said.
And she’d been rightly furious with him.
But he hadn’t wanted her to leave, so when she’d shoved her chair back and started for the steps, all he’d been thinking was that she should stay. That they had to have this conversation.
Yet she’d kept on heading towards the steps, so he’d shoved his own chair back, reaching for her only to stop her, nothing more.
Except when he’d closed his hand around her arm and she’d turned to him, her eyes wide, the fierce thread of desire that had been coiling tight inside him all this time abruptly snapped.
He’d looked down into that pure silver gaze, now gone dark with desire, and he’d seen the frantic beat of her pulse.
Felt her silky skin beneath his fingers.
And the tension in the air, the tension that had been between them from the moment she’d walked into the church, had been too much.
He hadn’t been able to fight it and he didn’t want to. All he could see was her.
So he’d pulled her close almost without thinking about it, his hand sliding to the small of her back, fitting her against him, and she’d been so warm and she’d smelled so good.
Her eyes had darkened even further, so he’d slid his hands into her hair before he knew what he was doing and had bent to take that delicious mouth of hers.
Just a taste, that was all he’d wanted. Only a taste.
But he hadn’t counted on her hunger. Because as soon as he’d kissed her, she’d risen up on her toes to kiss him back, even hotter, even hungrier.
She’d taken fistfuls of his jacket, her mouth tasting of champagne and something sweet and tart, and he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t ever want to stop.
So he hadn’t. He’d slid his hand beneath the red silk of her dress to find the satin of her skin instead, so soft and smooth under his fingers. She’d made the sexiest little sound in the back of her throat, and the control he’d been desperately holding onto shattered into pieces.
He’d had her on top of the table, spreading her legs and pushing inside her even before he’d had time to draw breath. Feeling her around him had been so unbelievably good. She’d been all tight, liquid heat, so very, very perfect. She was perfect. In every single way.
He’d always been a generous lover and he made sure his partners always found satisfaction, but he hadn’t been thinking with Zoe.
Nothing was more important than chasing the intoxicating pleasure he was finding with her.
Her softness and heat and scent. The tight feel of her around him.
The sounds she made as he moved, and the clasp of her thighs around his waist. It had only been at the very last minute that he’d thought of her pleasure too, and had managed to send her over first before the orgasm had taken him, but it had been a near run thing.
He’d been like a teenage boy with his first lover.
Humiliating, you realise that, don’t you? After everything you told yourself.
An icy feeling wound through him, along with memories he didn’t want in his head.
Memories of all those years he’d spent relentlessly pursuing status and pleasure and power.
Dark, terrible memories that made him feel ashamed of everything he’d done, of how he’d let himself be at the mercy of his own addictive brain.
Control was everything and he could not lose it, and yet…
She made you lose it for the first time in a decade.
Archimedes shoved himself away from her, his heart beating suddenly far too fast. She made another of those soft sounds, maybe of shock or protest, he wasn’t sure which, but as he dealt with the condom and straightened, doing his trousers back up, he found her watching him.
Her gaze was wide and shocked, still dark with pleasure, and her cheeks were flushed.
She looked so beautiful, his heart felt sore in his chest.
He should say something, give her some reassurance at least, because given her unpractised response to him, he didn’t think she was all that experienced. Yet, perhaps for the first time in his life, he couldn’t think of a word to say.
You can’t leave her like that, not her.
Shame rose up in him then, hot and bitter, because he knew he’d crossed a line, a line he’d sworn to himself that he’d never cross. This wasn’t just some woman he’d had on the tabletop, this was Zoe. His North Star. His foster sister.
Also your wife, don’t forget.
He took a breath, restlessness filling every part of him, the urge to move, to turn around and leave so strong he could barely resist it. But he made himself stay there, looking into her eyes.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, forcing the words out. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She said nothing, her gaze searching his.
‘Zoe,’ he prompted, her name edged with an impatience he couldn’t hide. ‘Answer me.’
She blinked and looked away, the colour in her cheeks rising as she pushed herself off the table, smoothing down her dress.
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice husky. ‘I’m fine.’
She wasn’t fine, though, he could hear that too.
Do something, you fucking idiot.
But doing something would mean touching her again, and if he knew one thing all too well, it was that he couldn’t touch her again. She was a weakness, a flaw in his otherwise flawless control, and now he had to be on his guard around her. He could not, whatever he did, get close to her again.
‘Good,’ he said, adjusting his jacket and then, because he couldn’t keep himself standing there a second longer, he continued. ‘Please feel free to eat. I have a number of things to do, so if you’ll excuse me—’
He didn’t wait for her to respond. He simply turned around and went back up the steps to the villa. She didn’t say anything, didn’t call his name, and he was glad of that, because he wasn’t sure what he’d do if she had.
There was a gym in one wing of the villa and he headed straight there, pausing only to change into more appropriate clothing, before stepping inside and going straight to the treadmill.
Then he put it on its toughest program and threw himself into working out the restless, wired energy that crackled in his blood.
He had failed himself. He had given in. And he knew what happened when he did that.
If he kept giving in, if he kept surrendering to his appetites, he’d become that monster again, addicted to the rush of power and status and excess.
A monster Zoe would run a mile from, if he didn’t drag her down with him first.
The past he’d left behind wasn’t gone. There was still a hunger in him, a restlessness that made him unable to keep still or stay in one place for too long.
A need for new challenges, new thrills—new anything.
He funnelled all that restless energy into his work and into staying in control of himself and his hungers.
And he managed them. He kept a stranglehold on his control at all times, and for years now he’d stayed that way.
Yet within the space of a day, since meeting Zoe again, all those lessons he’d learned had been forgotten, all his good intentions burned to the ground.
It was unconscionable, and he only had himself to blame.
From now on, he had to be better. He had to stay on the right side of the line he’d drawn in the sand, and he couldn’t cross back over it.
She was a temptation he couldn’t afford to be around, both for his own sake and for hers. Because if there was one thing he knew without a doubt, it was that he would never, ever allow himself to drag her down into the dark with him.
* * *
Zoe made her way slowly back up the steps from the terrace where she’d lost her virginity.
Shock as well as pleasure were still echoing through her as she headed towards the villa, though right at that moment all she could think about was the look in Archimedes’s blue eyes after he’d pushed himself away from her and then had stood there, looking at her.