Chapter Three
WHAT THE HELL are you doing, man? You were meant to tell her who you were as soon as you arrived. This is such a bad idea, tell her now—but at the feel of Cassie’s small hand sliding into his, all of Ares’s thoughts stopped dead.
This had to be better than sitting next to her and breathing in her evocative scent, musky and flowery and earthy all at once.
It had taken all of his control not to let his fingers touch her hair, test if it felt as silky as it looked.
Even with those lurid colours through it, nothing could dim the golden blonde strands.
He led her to the small space where other couples had moved together as the music changed and became more sultry. He turned and faced her. She was taller than he’d expected her to be. Even without the heels she’d be above average height.
He tugged her towards him and she came with a tiny stumble that brought her flush with his body.
She was all slim, lithe curves and her breasts pressed against his chest. He already knew they were bigger than he might have first thought because he’d seen her cleavage, unwittingly presented when she’d folded her arms in front of him.
And then, on the bike, pressed against him.
She wore no bra. The thought of those perfect orbs of flesh, loose and unbound—Ares gritted his jaw to try and maintain some semblance of control as he spread his hand across her back.
She felt incredibly delicate and yet there was a latent strength. He had a sense not to underestimate her. After all, she’d managed to ditch her bodyguards and avoid her brother.
He looked down at her and she lifted her face.
She smiled. It made something inside Ares ache.
Why was she so smiley? So perky? She was a princess way out of her depth.
She could have been unconscious somewhere now if it hadn’t been for him.
But again he had that sense that perhaps she would have surprised him by managing to get out of that predicament.
She was using a false name to avoid detection.
Then his gaze went to her mouth. It opened slightly and he had a glimpse of pink tongue. White teeth. A fire started raging in his blood. He’d never been more tempted by a woman. By a woman who was so far out of his bounds that—
Before Ares could formulate another word, she’d reached up and pressed her mouth to his, a chaste and surprisingly sweet gesture. But any thought of sweet fast dissolved as the kiss morphed into burning hot heat and intense need. Ares couldn’t resist. Didn’t want to resist. So he didn’t.
Cassie’s heart was thumping so hard she felt sure the entire island must be able to hear it.
One minute she’d been looking up into that gorgeous face, at that provocatively sexy mouth, and the next she’d done the most audacious thing.
She’d kissed him, reaching up on tippy-toe. Winding her arms around his neck.
His mouth had felt hard and unyielding under hers. Warm but unmoving. She’d made a bad mistake. This guy wasn’t remotely into her at all. She’d been about to pull back, her insides curdling with humiliation, and she’d taken a breath against his lips and then everything had changed.
He’d reciprocated. No. He’d taken over. Masterfully. Pulling her even closer with his arms, welding her to him so tight that she swore she could feel every ridge of his hard musculature. His arms were like steel. And she loved it.
His mouth moved over hers now, coaxing a response that Cassie gave instinctively.
She had been kissed before but she’d always had to make the move because guys were so intimidated and then nothing much had happened.
They’d been like deer in the headlights.
Those experiences had only reinforced her impression that perhaps she wasn’t destined for a life of passion.
But now…she was being given a crash course.
Ares’s tongue touched hers and an electric shock went straight to between her legs. She pressed her thighs together as if that could contain the sense of burgeoning tension and excitement.
The kiss deepened and became explicit. Testing, tasting. Luxuriating. It was as if they had all the time in the world for this exquisite pleasure. Bodies pressed together, tongues duelling.
Slowly, Cassie realised that her back was against a wall. Ares had manoeuvred them off the main floor to a corner near the booth.
He broke the kiss and lifted his head. Cassie felt drunk. It took an age for her to be able to open her eyes. And he was blurry at first and then came back into focus. Her mouth was tingling, and between her legs felt swollen and hot and damp.
As if reading her mind, he inserted a thigh between her legs and Cassie almost whimpered as the movement caused a friction that made her bite her lip. She wanted to rub against him, to alleviate the building tension.
He put his hands on her waist and his hands and the wall were the only things holding her up. He shook his head. ‘You are…a temptress.’
Cassie felt like giggling. But then she didn’t as one of his hands moved up over her waist, tracing the curve, moving closer and closer to the underside of her breast. And then she sucked in a breath, all thoughts of giggling gone as his hand cupped the weight of her breast. And then his thumb moved back and forth across one tight and tingling nipple.
Cassie’s thighs tightened around Ares’s and she felt a flutter of sensation at her core. She was holding onto his arms and she couldn’t reach all the way around they were so thickly muscled.
She felt primitive. Him man, her woman. She wanted to climb him and wrap her legs around him. She said, without even really thinking, ‘Please, Ares, touch me, show me…how it can be.’
He cupped her breast more firmly and bent his head and captured her mouth in another searing hot kiss.
Deep and explicit straight away, no leading into it.
Cassie welcomed it, wrapping her arms around him again, opening herself up to his hands, inviting him to touch her, moving against him in a way that had her starting to gasp with need as an elusive peak shimmered in the distance.
Ares’s hand on her breast squeezed hard, fingers trapping a nipple. Cassie suddenly wanted more, wanted to feel his mouth on her there, surrounding that tight peak in heat and moisture.
Ares took his thigh from between hers and replaced it with his hand.
He cupped her through the soft denim, right there over where she throbbed.
He moved his hand against her, watching her.
Cassie felt a little exposed because he oozed such confidence and experience but suddenly she stopped thinking because she was pressing against his hand and he was moving in a rhythmic motion and a force she’d never felt before held her body in an alien grip before it exploded into a rush of pleasure so intense that she would have called out loud if he hadn’t taken her mouth again and swallowed her orgasmic cry.
The world and reality came back slowly. The sounds of the bar, music. People laughing. Cassie was grateful that Ares was shielding her from everyone else. No one would know that she’d just had her first orgasm with a total stranger in a bar in Crete. Ares. Not a total stranger. But as good as.
A million and one things were rushing through Cassie as this sank in. Ares seemed to be watching her warily as if she were a bomb about to go off. She had just gone off, against his hand. Heat climbed into her face. She was glad of the dark.
He put his hands on her arms and somehow, sensing a shift in the mood, Cassie managed to straighten up. Her legs were still working. Albeit wobbly. He must think she was so gauche.
‘I…’ Her tongue felt thick as she tried to formulate something.
Ares shook his head. ‘You don’t have to say anything. Not a word. This is on me. My fault.’
Cassie felt a trickle of unease trace down her spine. That was an odd thing to say. ‘What do you mean, your fault?’
He let her arms go and took a step back. Ran a hand through his hair, making it messier. He looked at her. ‘Because we should never have come here.’
Something occurred to Cassie and she reared back. ‘You’re married.’
A look of disgust crossed his face. ‘Theos, no. I’m not married.’
Cassie was confused. ‘You have a girlfriend?’
The disgust again. ‘No. I don’t do girlfriends.’
He took her arm in his hand and had started to guide her back out of the bar, through the couples mingling and dancing, before Cassie even knew what was happening.
When they were outside and fresh air hit her, she stopped, forcing him to stop too. ‘What are you doing?’
He let her go and looked at her. ‘We need to leave.’
Something about the return of that censorious tone and the fact that he had decided to leave stung Cassie somewhere vulnerable.
Had she been such a bad kisser? Had her orgasm been such a faux pas?
A turn-off? The expression on his face hadn’t been disgusted or bored, it had been intense. But had she imagined that?
She felt even more exposed. ‘You might have decided that you no longer want to stay here but that’s your decision.’
He gritted his jaw. He really was such a taciturn man. Cassie wondered what on earth she found attractive about him. Everything. She wanted to scowl. She’d certainly found him pretty attractive just a few minutes ago. Her body still felt hot inside, as if something had melted.
‘I brought you here, I’ll take you back.’
Now she was offended. ‘Charming, like a parcel you’ve suddenly decided you no longer want.’
She tossed her hair and drew herself up to her full height, which was still a good few inches short of his. In heels. ‘You don’t have to take me anywhere, Ares. I’ve decided I like this bar and I’m staying. Goodnight.’
She turned and went to walk back into the bar, her insides fizzing and jumping with a mixture of hurt, confusion and anger, when from behind her she heard, ‘It’s not that simple, princess.’
Cassie’s feet stopped. She wondered if she’d heard that right.
Princess. Surely she was just being paranoid, he’d meant it as some sort of figure of speech.
Inappropriate though, because clearly he had no interest in her and was just trying to salve his conscience now by returning her to where he’d picked her up. But it was still weird.
She turned around. ‘What did you call me?’
‘Princess.’
Her insides tightened. This man was a total stranger, he couldn’t possibly—
‘Princess Cassandra Mansur de Roche. Crown Princess, to be precise. You’ll have to forgive me for not remembering your middle names, there are quite a few, but I’m assuming Cloe is one of them.’
For a moment Cassie heard nothing but a dull roaring sound, and then she was suddenly light-headed.
She was going to faint. No. He moved towards her as if sensing her shock.
She put up a hand between them, as the full enormity of what this meant rushed through her brain and body with a million and one ramifications hitting her all at once.
He said, ‘I’m not from the press or anything like that. I’m a friend of your brother’s. He sent me to track you down because he was worried about you.’
Cassie felt a flash of anger at her brother for interfering when she didn’t need him and for not being around when she did need him. She knew there was no point denying who she was. ‘I’ve taken some time off. He doesn’t need to be worried. I told him I was OK.’
‘But not where you were. If he’d seen what I saw earlier he would have had reason to be worried.’ Admonishing her when a moment ago she’d been all but climbing him like a tree and orgasming into his cupped hand.
Cassie felt her blood start to boil, eclipsing the shock. This man had known who she was and hadn’t been fully honest with her.
‘For your information, Mr Ares Whatever Your Second Name Is, I’m skilled in self-defence, I’ve been taking classes since I was small so I would have been absolutely fine.’
‘Not if you’d been unconscious due to a drug in the drink. And my second name is Drakos, Ares Drakos.’
It suited him, she thought a little churlishly, curt and abrupt like him. ‘I wasn’t going to take the drink. I didn’t trust them.’
‘You trusted me.’
Cassie folded her arms at the humiliating reminder and it struck her then that perhaps, somewhere deep down, she’d suspected that he wasn’t just some gorgeous man who’d appeared as her guardian angel. Ha! Guardian devil.
The sense of exposure was compounded now by feeling acutely self-conscious. She’d allowed herself to believe him to be a total stranger who had been overcome with lust for her. She’d revealed herself to him in ways she’d never done with anyone else. He’d brought her to orgasm. In public.
Mortification and the heat of shame crawled upwards through her body. ‘You should have told me you knew who I was.’
‘Yes,’ he said immediately, ‘I should have. It was a lapse of judgement.’
Cassie was a little taken aback by his straightforward admission of guilt. She frowned, thinking of something belatedly. ‘Why did my brother call you?’
‘I own a private security company. I will stay with you until your bodyguards have you under their protection again.’
Cassie shook her head and started to back away. ‘No, you won’t. We’re done here, Mr Drakos. You found me and you had your fun at my expense.’
She looked around, feeling panicky. She needed to get away from this man and those dark eyes and that unsmiling face. And that mouth and those hands that had played her like an instrument for his amusement.
She saw a line of taxis about a hundred feet away and she walked quickly towards them. From behind her she heard, ‘Princess Cassandra, wait.’
But she didn’t turn around, she jumped into the back of the first taxi and, with her heart hammering and her insides tight with humiliation and embarrassment, she gave the address of her hotel.
She looked out of the window as the taxi turned to go in the right direction. He was standing there, a tall, powerful figure. And everything they’d just shared was tainted. He knew who and where she was now, her peace was shattered. In more ways than one.
She never wanted to see that man again.