Chapter One #3
For all she knew, this was another sick dare from his stupid friends.
So what? Did that matter, when she was also getting what she wanted?
And so much better this time, because her eyes were wide open.
She no longer had any fantasies about Aristotle being some tall, dark and handsome romantic hero.
He was an arrogant bastard, but he was also very, very good at the whole sex thing.
She had no intention of cutting off her nose to spite her face…
It had been four years since their first time, after all, and in the intervening years she’d only dated two men, neither of whom had managed to set her soul on fire.
‘Take me, Aristotle,’ she demanded, getting a thrill out of the rawness of her request. ‘Take me, here, now, and then leave me the hell alone.’
He pulled away from her, eyes glittering darkly. ‘That sounds like an excellent idea.’
A second later, he was unfastening his jeans, pulling himself from the confines of his boxer briefs and deftly removing her underwear at the same time.
It was all so fast, so desperate. Then, with the same hungry speed, he lifted her easily, wrapping her legs around his waist in the same moment he drove into her, making her see stars, heaven, God, the entire formation of the universe in Technicolor sparkles.
Everything glowed, everything shimmered. Pleasure tore her apart and there was no way Rosie had it in her to care.
It was the last thing he’d expected to happen.
And, quite possibly, the worst. Rosemary Richardson was a thorn in his side and little more, yet within minutes of her arrival he’d taken her, hard, fast, desperately, against the cold brick of the courtyard.
Taken her as though he’d been thinking about it nonstop for the last four years, when the opposite was true.
He hadn’t thought about Rosemary at all, except to be grateful she’d made herself scarce.
He hadn’t wanted to think about her, or that night when he’d slept with her, and discovered that she was a twenty-year-old virgin. All softly sweet and responsive, calling his name out in a way that had turned parts of him to liquid.
She was not his type, and he’d been damned stupid to forget that.
Yet here he was, four years later, and he’d done the same stupid thing.
Worse, he hadn’t used a condom.
The thought speared him in the side for a frantic moment, because of all the things he knew about himself, the fact he didn’t want children—ever—was one of them.
‘Christós,’ he groaned, pulling out of her and placing her down, voice more accusing than he’d intended. His body protested at his swift withdrawal, craving more of her. ‘I didn’t use protection.’ He cursed again, the word dragged from deep in his gut.
Her eyes widened and her hands, trembling slightly, lifted to her delicate face.
Her beautiful face, he thought, before he could stifle the thought.
But it was true. There had always been something charming about Rosemary.
Even as the fourteen-year-old who’d first arrived, she’d had an innate grace and wisdom in her features and the watchfulness of her gaze.
But it was at twenty that she’d really started to show what a stunner she was, with that flawless complexion, wideset green eyes, dainty freckles across her nose and full, pouty pink lips.
She had dimples in both cheeks when she smiled and a figure that was curvy in all the places he found most tempting.
Breasts, hips, butt, she was some kind of ancient sculpture brought to life, and his hands seemed to develop a mind of their own when he touched her, so he grabbed every bit of her and squeezed, felt, committed to memory.
‘I’m on the pill,’ she said, her throat shifting as she swallowed.
‘Thank God,’ he spat quickly, so her gaze narrowed a little and her features tightened, visibly rejecting him.
‘Oh, yes, heaven forbid you should have a baby with someone like me.’ She shoved at his chest then, and he was in such a state of shock from the realisation that he’d forgotten such a basic requirement of sex that he stepped backwards. ‘What would anyone think?’
‘It’s not about you,’ he corrected with the appearance of calm as he fastened his jeans back up, wincing a little at the way his cock fought the restriction.
‘It feels a little about me.’
‘I don’t want children,’ he said flatly. ‘Let alone in circumstances such as this.’
‘Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I can’t think of anything worse than carrying your baby, in particular.’
He ignored the brief, uncharacteristic flash of feeling that her statement caused.
An immediate image of her growing round with his baby, of him having a baby at all.
Despite the knowledge that he would never procreate, he couldn’t help but feel some ancient stirring of something when he contemplated the primal drive to reproduce. The anchor point he’d lost at fifteen?
‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go and see my father.’
She turned to stalk away but he reached for her on autopilot, not wanting to leave it like this. Or perhaps not wanting her to leave at all.
She spun around, lips quivering in a way that pulled at every fibre of decency he possessed—albeit buried deep inside his chest.
‘No one can know about this,’ he said, earning another flicker of her eyes, a look of hurt in their depths he couldn’t fail to read.
‘So you’ve said.’ She jerked her hand free, and he allowed it. ‘God, I really do hate you.’