Chapter Ten #2
Her grey eyes were like summer rain, cooling the desperate heat inside him. ‘I shouldn’t do anything I don’t want to do,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to leave you.’
He gripped her wrists, pulling her hands away so he could press his mouth against each palm. ‘It would be better for you if you did.’
‘I don’t see how.’ She pulled her wrists from his grip, dropping her hands to his waist and pulling him against her. ‘If you want me to be yours completely then I will be. I already am anyway.’
She was soft against him, feminine musk and delicate heat. His North Star.
‘The family you want,’ he said. ‘You won’t have it if you stay with me. You understand that?’
Shadows moved in her eyes before quickly vanishing, but not before he saw them. It made an iron band tighten around his chest.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
This will hurt her and you both know it.
It would, he was well aware. But he couldn’t promise her something he couldn’t actually deliver. It was best she knew now, before things got too intense between them.
A little late for that.
He ignored the thought, trying to calm himself, still the frantic circling of his brain. She’d agreed to stay with him and so there was nothing for him to worry about, nothing for him to be desperate about, and nothing to be jealous about. She was his and she’d told him she was.
‘Demon,’ she said softly, the silver glitter of her eyes dazzling him, ‘I’m here for you.’
It was too much. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
Bending his head, he covered her mouth with his, wanting to taste the delicious flavour of her, to imprint himself so completely on her that she would never want anything or anyone else but him.
She didn’t hold back either, her lips parting beneath his, welcoming him with her own hunger, and he was lost.
He pushed her hard against the wall, already reaching to pull up her gown, and she didn’t protest. Her own fingers were at his belt, undoing his buttons and then the zip of his trousers, as frantic as he was.
She gasped as he slid his hands up her thighs, taking the skirts of her gown with it, before sliding his fingers between her thighs.
She was already wet and hot for him and she shuddered as he stroked her.
Her head fell back as he slid his hands to cup her rear, lifting her against the wall, readying her, before pushing deep inside.
She groaned and he kissed her, muffling her sounds with his mouth in a hot, desperate kiss.
They were in public, where anyone could see them, but he didn’t care and it was plain that she didn’t either.
So he didn’t stop. He moved, pushing deeper, harder, and her teeth sank into his bottom lip in reaction, which made him do it again and again.
This was how it should always be between them. Desperate, feverish. Hungry. The two of them joined together in pleasure, with him deep inside her, as close as he could be to her. This was how his brain calmed, how he could find peace, only with her.
This time he was good, he stroked her clit just the way she liked it as he moved, making sure to give her as much pleasure as she was giving him.
Then he eased the strap of her gown off one shoulder so one breast was bare for him to tease with his fingers.
She arched against the wall, another soft sound escaping her, and by now he knew her body.
He knew when she was almost there and so he drew it out, showing her how good he could make her feel.
Showing her that there was nothing better than them together like this and that she didn’t need anything more than this.
Then, when he was ready, he stroked her one last time, burying himself deep inside her, covering her mouth and stemming her cry of release, before turning his face into her neck and letting the orgasm swallow him whole.
* * *
Zoe slumped against Archimedes, her body held upright by his, shaking and shivering with the aftershocks of pleasure. She could feel his warm breath against her skin, the tension that had been gripping him so tight now gone.
She had no idea what had gone wrong out in the ballroom, but something had, and she didn’t think it was just because she’d been dancing with the Spanish duke.
They hadn’t been in Shanghai long, but she’d been looking forward to doing a bit of sightseeing with him. She’d loved him taking her around Tokyo and showing her all his favourite haunts, especially because she knew they’d become her favourites as well.
Yet she could tell he was finding things between them difficult.
It was subtle, tension in his body, the way he looked at her, the way he touched her.
As if he was at war with himself. Resisting her, that was what he was doing—or at least trying to resist her.
She’d wanted to talk more about it at their dinners together, but she didn’t want to rock the boat, especially when their pleasure at night was so intense.
So she hadn’t protested when he’d kept her close all night through, firmly at his side, and she’d only said yes to the duke because Archimedes had been talking with some colleagues.
Fury had blazed in his eyes when he’d cut in, his hands on her firm and possessive. He was jealous, she could see that, but there was something more to it, something desperate. She wanted to calm him, soothe him, ease whatever pain he was in, so of course she’d agreed to his demand that she be his.
There had been a slight waver in her resolve when he’d stated that he couldn’t allow her to have a family with him but what else could she say?
She either chose that or she chose someone else.
She couldn’t choose both. The thought of giving him up for a family that didn’t even exist yet wasn’t a sacrifice she could make, and so it had to be him.
You couldn’t have something for nothing, wasn’t that the lesson Banks had taught them?
She stroked his black hair, letting him rest against her for a long moment and a silence fell between them.
It didn’t matter that they’d just had sex in a public place.
The Zoe she’d been before she’d married him would have been appalled, but the Zoe she was now didn’t care. Having him was all she wanted.
Slowly, before she was ready, he lifted his head and began dealing with his clothing and then hers with careful hands. And that was when it hit her, like ice water down the back of her neck.
‘We didn’t use protection,’ she said, her voice shaky.
His gaze met hers, shock darkening the blue. He let out a breath, raking his fingers through his black hair. ‘I…didn’t think,’ he murmured.
‘I should have said something.’ Panic was beginning to set in, her heartbeat accelerating, because this could mean pregnancy. This could mean her being pregnant with his child, a child conceived in desperation and hunger, and then having to give that up…
‘I can’t get pregnant,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
Archimedes looked down at her silently, his face unreadable. He didn’t want this either, he’d already told her that, and now his desperation and hers had complicated an already complicated situation.
‘I need to see the doctor,’ she went on when he didn’t say anything. ‘Get something—’
But he silenced her with a finger across her lips, a familiar anger burning in his eyes. Except it wasn’t directed at her, just like it hadn’t been directed at her out on the dance floor. It was an anger directed elsewhere.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘No doctor.’
She pulled his finger away. ‘If I’m pregnant—’
‘If you’re pregnant, then you will have the baby,’ he finished as if that was a foregone conclusion.
Zoe stared up at him. ‘I told you in New York that I didn’t want to get pregnant like this. I don’t…want to give up a baby—our baby—to Banks.’
‘Then we won’t,’ he said as if that, too, was a foregone conclusion.
Shock wound through her. ‘But you don’t want children, Demon. You told me that. You were quite happy to give our child up to Banks.’
His gaze was cool and very, very certain, as if he’d come to some decision. ‘I didn’t want children, no,’ he said. ‘And yes, I was happy for Banks to bring any child of ours up. But I’ve changed my mind. If you’re pregnant then we’re keeping the baby, no argument.’
Her shock deepened. ‘He’s blackmailing you. And that’s not even mentioning the money he was going to pay me.’