Chapter Twelve #3
‘Oh, aren’t I?’ he questioned as her words sank in and every warning cry which was engaging his brain was silenced as he began to walk towards her.
In the pin-drop silence which followed he could read the anger blazing from her eyes, but he could see the hunger too, her pupils darkening with desire and making them resemble two big chunks of burning coal.
The atmosphere between them was so hot it was almost combustible, but he didn’t touch her—dampening down his own desire with characteristic composure.
Let her wait, he thought furiously. Just as he had waited—going out of his mind with worry that she might have fallen over the edge of those damned cliffs.
As he waited every single day, counting down the cruelly lingering seconds until he could have her in his arms again, because only that way could he reassure himself that he was still in control .
‘Perhaps, in future, you might let me know your travel plans,’ he told her coolly. ‘And if you’re planning on going out walking, I can easily provide you with a map.’
Grace stared at him with growing incredulity as she silently listed his most irritating faults.
His studied politeness. His growing distance from her.
His outrageous controlling demands that she keep him informed of her movements at all times.
But more than that, his icy control, evident now in the way he was looking at her.
As if he were a machine, not a man. A cold and unfeeling machine. ‘Why, you…you…’ she breathed.
‘What is it, poulaki mou ?’ he taunted, his sapphire eyes meeting hers in mocking challenge. ‘What names do you want to call me?’
And that was what did it. The flicker which sparked the flame.
Which drove all reason from her head and replaced it with a red-hot fury.
With a little yelp, she launched herself at him, planning to drum her fists against his chest, or maybe to shove him out of the door to show she didn’t need him, or want him.
But who was she kidding? Because that wasn’t happening.
His mouth was on hers—hot and hard and urgent—and she was kissing him back as if her life depended on it.
Her hands were all over his body, as if she were discovering it for the first time, and he was doing the same to her.
Palming her breasts so that the nipples became hard and painful.
Trickling her finger down over his belly, she began scrabbling at his belt, and as she slithered his jeans over his thighs she thought he’d never felt this big before.
‘Oh!’ she gasped.
‘So what are you going to do now, Grace?’ he goaded.
‘This.’
With the flat of her hand she pushed his accommodating body back until he was lying flat on the floor. He was watching her from between slitted lashes, a muscle working frantically at his cheek as she found a condom on the nightstand and opened it so slowly that some of his control seemed to crack.
‘Just hurry, will you?’ he husked out.
That urgent plea pleased her more than it should have done because there was no measured quality in his deep voice now, was there?
Grace revelled in his helpless groan as she finished sheathing him with fingers which incited and excited, using skills he had taught her.
And then she took off her panties and boldly climbed on top of him, taking him deep inside her, deeper than he’d ever been before—at least, that was how it felt.
He was hot and hard. He was beautiful, and he was hers.
Hers. A wave of emotion swelled up inside her as she cried his name and his hands were on her breasts as she rode him, his bronze fingers splayed decadently over the pale fabric of her sundress.
She gripped his shoulders, feeling the pleasure build to a pitch which was sweet and unbearable, until she could resist it no longer.
A low, keening sound erupted from the very core of her as suddenly she was torn apart, her body blitzed by sensation as she felt the first pump of his seed.
Dazed, she slumped on top of him, resisting the sleep her body was so desperately craving, remembering the futility of her thoughts in the middle of that frantic lovemaking. Because Odysseus wasn’t hers , was he? He never had been and never would be.
And that reaction had frightened her.
It was frightening her now. Observing the ebony sweep of his closed lashes and the satiated smile curving his lips, all she could feel was a great swell of misplaced longing, which was totally one-sided.
Which was probably going to get worse. Because she was fast discovering that affection, or love, or whatever you wanted to call it, was a funny thing.
It grew, even when you didn’t want it to.
It made you vulnerable and it made you hurt.
She couldn’t carry on like this and she needed to tell him, before their strange marriage whittled away her sense of worth completely. But not here and not now. Not while she was still straddling him and could feel him inside her.
‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she announced, aware of his lashes fluttering open and his hot blue gaze burning into her as she peeled herself away.