Chapter Nine #2
His smile grew and turned wicked. ‘Are you quite sure about that? Not even one more time?’
Breathless now, Cassie said, ‘Well, just to be sure, maybe one more time.’
Ares shook his head. ‘Not here. Next time, I want to take you on a proper bed, where I can lay you out and explore every inch of you.’
Cassie’s insides clenched at the thought of that, and of being able to do that to Ares. To have him spread out for her delectation. ‘That sounds nice.’
His expression turned serious. Seriously sexy. ‘Oh, it’ll be more than nice.’
‘This big bed…where would we find it?’
‘Spetses.’ Ares named another Greek island, in the Saronic chain of islands.
‘Spetses,’ Cassie repeated.
Ares nodded. ‘I have a villa there.’
‘That sounds…perfect.’ She felt a little giddy at the thought he didn’t want to run away from her at the first opportunity. She stood up from Ares’s lap, dislodging his hands from her body. ‘There’s one more thing I want to do here before we hand the boat back.’
He looked up at her and he was so beautiful and wild against this oceanic backdrop that he took her breath away. Cassie undid the robe and let it fall from her naked body. She went and stood at the stern of the boat and glanced back over her shoulder. ‘I’ve never been skinny-dipping before.’
And then she turned and executed a perfect dive off the boat into the clear blue-green waters. When she surfaced it was just in time to see an equally naked Ares poised to join her. He said, ‘You’re going to kill me before we even see another bed, aren’t you?’
Cassie grinned and flicked water up at him and then watched with very feminine appreciation as he also executed a perfect dive into the sea.
Cassie breathed in, taking in her idyllic surroundings. Dusk was bathing everything in a lavender hue, and lavender scented the air as Cassie walked down a path lined by bushes and shrubs and cypress and olive trees.
A sprawling villa lay behind her and the sea glistened at the end of the path. She walked all the way to find steps leading down to a private beach.
She looked at Ares, who had come to stand beside her. ‘This is just stunning. How long have you had it?’
‘A few years.’
They’d landed on a helipad not far away a short while before in the helicopter that Ares had organised from Mykonos, after docking the boat at a small private marina where it would be picked up by the boat company.
Ares’s estate on the Spetses coast was completely secluded and protected by trees and a perimeter fence. He’d shown her a beautiful infinity pool on the other side of the villa set at the end of a series of rolling lawns.
It was utterly quiet and still and it soothed something inside Cassie. The palace on Sadat was beautiful too but it was always busy and full of people. There was no corner that was truly quiet. She hadn’t even realised until now how much she appreciated this kind of space and peace.
‘Let me show you around the villa.’
He led her back up towards the building with its white walls and terracota-hued slate roof. One end of the villa was two-storey and Cassie could see a room with a balcony that would give views out to the sea. The master bedroom, she presumed.
The rest of the villa seemed to be one-storey and there was a patio on one side.
Ares walked in through open French doors, muslin curtains fluttering gently in the warm breeze.
Cassie thought back to the moment earlier that day when she’d been in the sea, the water silky against her naked skin, after Ares had joined her, and how he’d swum under the surface, catching her legs and pulling her down, kissing her under water.
It had been magical. And so had drying off on the deck of the boat, which had inevitably led to more.
Cassie followed Ares into a large airy reception room, with soft couches and low coffee tables laden with hardback photographic books on every subject.
‘As you can probably notice, I have more picture books than word books.’
Cassie’s heart squeezed as she thought of his dyslexia. She waved a hand. ‘Word books are highly overrated.’
Then he showed her a formal dining room, which led into a huge state-of-the-art kitchen where a man in black trousers and black T-shirt was chopping on a marble island.
‘Cassie, I’d like you to meet Declan, my chef. He’s been kind enough to come and prepare some food for us.’
Cassie shook the man’s hand and smiled. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too.’
They kept going. There was an informal sitting room with a massive-screen TV. Guest suites. A gym. An office.
Upstairs, the master suite was indeed the one with the balcony overlooking the gardens and sea. It was unashamedly masculine, decorated in dark tones with a massive bed. Cassie glimpsed an en suite with a shower open to the elements and a bath as big as a small swimming pool. Two sinks.
As Ares stood beside her on the balcony she asked as casually as she could, ‘So do you have many guests here?’
‘Only royalty.’
It took Cassie a second to understand his meaning and when she did she looked up at him. ‘You mean…’
‘Do I have to spell it out?’ he asked with a smile.
That smile made Cassie’s insides melt. She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Let me show you your room.’
Cassie appreciated his consideration in giving her her own space.
She followed him out of his suite and to another, further down the corridor.
Ares opened the door, showing her into a sumptuous suite decorated in lighter tones than his.
There was a vast bathroom and dressing room, where Cassie was surprised to see a woman hanging up her clothes.
‘This is Marta, my housekeeper.’
Cassie shook her hand. The woman said in accented English, ‘If you need anything, let me know.’
She left them, closing the bedroom door behind her. Cassie said, ‘Marta and Declan…do they stay here too?’
‘Marta lives with her husband, my caretaker, on the grounds, in their own smaller villa. Declan lives down in the town with his partner.’
The bed looked very inviting, dressed in cool white cotton.
Ares took her hand and led her over to the French doors. He opened them and Cassie saw that there was a small terrace outside, with views over the other side of the grounds and sea.
She felt inexplicably emotional for a moment, not even sure where it was stemming from. Swallowing it down, terrified Ares would see something, she said, ‘Thank you for bringing me here…and I’m sorry again about the boat. If I’d known—’
He stopped her words by squeezing her hand. She looked up at him. He said, ‘I told you, no one knows. Not even my own family.’
‘Caius?’ Cassie asked.
Ares shook his head. ‘We don’t go into too much personal stuff.’
Cassie let out a laugh. ‘I’m not surprised. I call my brother the clam, he’s so secretive.’
Then she thought of something and went a little cold inside. She pulled her hand free. ‘Ares, did you just bring me here because it would be easier to keep me protected?’
It was certainly conveniently cut off from everywhere else and Cassie was just realising how adroitly he’d managed to get her to deviate from her plan. But then her conscience struck her. He hadn’t faked that panic attack. She believed him about the kidnapping.
A sense of exposure skated over Ares’s skin. Cassie wasn’t meeting his eye. It would be so easy to say yes, that had been his plan, exactly. And it was a good plan to keep her out of the public eye and harm’s way. But that hadn’t crossed his mind once.
‘No,’ he said simply, turning his back on the view and resting against the terrace wall to look at her. ‘You’re free to go, Cass.’
She glanced up at him. ‘And what would happen then?’
‘I’d get one of my team to shadow you.’
Her hands went to the wall. ‘So, you are ready to let me just…go?’
The thought of her leaving sent a visceral response through him.
No way. ‘No, I’m not. But if you wanted to leave, I couldn’t go with you.
It wouldn’t be a good idea for us to stay together because I could no longer be professional.
’ Ha! Ares hadn’t been thinking professionally since about five seconds after he’d seen her for the first time.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Yes. Oh. I want you, Cass. It’s not about me letting you go, it’s about whether or not you want to stay and to explore this…heat between us.’
She looked up at him, a smile playing around her mouth, her extremely distracting and provocative mouth. ‘That’s what it’s called—heat?’
He reached for her, pulling her into him, relishing the feel of her lithe body and curves pressed against him. She made him feel lighter. Thée mou, he would pay for this transgression but not now. Not yet.
‘Among other things like lust, chemistry, desire. Take your pick.’
‘Yes, I’d like to stay, and I like lust,’ she said with a devilish glint in her eye. Ares thought of watching her dive into the sea naked, how she’d looked like a faerie nymph, a mermaid, with her long golden hair and blue eyes and perfect skin.
She might have been innocent but she was a fast learner and she was moving against him now in a way that was fast short-circuiting his brain cells.
Obeying some semblance of self-protection from deep down, he forced himself to say, ‘You know that this…between us can’t go beyond here, out into the world, into our real lives. ’
She went still and pulled back, suddenly avoiding his eye.
‘Of course, I know that. We both want very different things, and I…do want a marriage that will be as real as I can make it. Caius might have been happy to have a marriage in name only for heirs and appearances and keep someone on the side, but I want more than that.’
She was a romantic. She might deny it but Ares could read between the words. But then he thought of her with some chinless well-bred prince and a red mist coloured his vision. He told himself it was just because he felt possessive of her. He’d been her first lover.