Chapter Seven #2
She gasped, the hurt on her features something he wished he didn’t see, and didn’t care about, but the past was a complex beast, and tangled up in his anger and disappointment with her was the warmth he’d once held, too.
The understanding of her—more of an understanding than he’d probably ever allowed himself to feel for another person.
‘Why are you like this?’ she asked, her features still pinched.
‘Why do you think?’
‘Your upbringing? Did someone hurt you? I don’t know, Theo. You were always a closed book about your past—’
‘My past? Annie, don’t be obtuse. If you’re wondering why I’m like this, then look in a goddamned mirror.’
Another gasp, this time, with her hand lifting to cover her lips. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I thought we agreed to be honest.’
She flinched.
‘You were the first person in my life I ever really cared about,’ he said, almost conversationally, aware that the words had washed through him so often they’d lost their power to cut him now.
‘What about the Georgiadeses?’
‘I liked and respected them, and that was mutual. I did not care for them like I did you. And you discarded me without a backwards glance, because your parents asked you to.’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t, it wasn’t—’
‘You did, and it was,’ he contradicted fiercely. ‘But don’t worry—I’m glad. You showed me who you really are. What you really value. And you also reminded me of something I already knew but somehow, had let myself forget.’
She stared up at him, blinking quickly.
‘I don’t like people,’ he said, and then, he reached out and put his hands on her hips, pulling her to him, so his cock nestled against the fabric of her pants, but his chest was hard to her soft, rounded breasts.
‘I particularly don’t like rich people.’ His lip lifted in a cynical smile, as he saw the way her eyes shifted, the inner battle she was waging between her mind’s indignation and her body’s needs.
‘You’re rich,’ she pointed out, voice trembly.
‘No, I have money. It’s not the same thing. You were born rich, and you have the prejudices to prove it.’
‘I hate you,’ she whispered, and in that moment, he knew she really did mean it.
‘Yes, but you still want me.’
She looked away from him, her breath held, her chin angled in a pose of pure defiance, before she glared up at him, her eyes practically fulminating with rage. ‘Yes,’ she said, finally. ‘I do.’
It was hardly the plea he’d been hoping for and yet, it was enough. It was more than enough. It was still a concession for her, that no matter what she might think of him, desire was ravaging her as it was him. He could only wish he wasn’t stuck in the same metaphorical boat.
‘But you want me, too,’ she said, with a hint of angry resentment.
He stared down at her, admiration shifting in his chest. ‘Do you need to hear me say it, Annie?’
She bit into her lip, a lip he was desperate to taste for himself, and nodded once, but her eyes were awash with uncertainty.
‘I have no problem admitting that I want you.’ He leaned closer, his voice brushing her ear. ‘I am not a coward.’
‘Do you really think that?’ she asked, lifting one of her small hands and pressing it to his shoulder, like she was trying to physically shake him.
‘I did, Annie. But coming to me for help was brave. Marrying me was braver still.’
Her eyes flicked to his, and she opened her mouth to say something, but he forestalled it.
‘Then again, we both know there’s no limit to what you’d do to keep your daddy happy.’
Her eyes shut as his words hit their mark—and he wished, almost more than he’d ever wished for anything, that he could take them back.
‘Just shut up and fuck me,’ she whispered then, blinking her gaze open and letting it land on his. And then, the word he thought he’d wanted and quickly came to despise, fell from her mouth: ‘Please.’
He blotted out the horrible feeling spreading through him, ignoring anything but this. Later, he’d work out why he felt like a part of him was being torn to shreds. For now, he just wanted to experience this woman—this pleasure he’d denied himself, the whole time they’d dated.
‘Good, Annie,’ he murmured, lifting her higher in the water, and he kissed her as he wrapped her legs around his waist, supporting her weight, his hard body seeking her, needing her, so he broke the kiss only long enough to say, ‘Are you on the pill?’
She nodded quickly, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted. ‘Yes.’
‘Thank Christ,’ he groaned, nudging aside her briefs and then saying, for good measure, ‘I’m clean. I presume—’
‘Of course,’ she said, and then, she hesitated, so he waited, though it was an agony not to plunge into her. He still waited, for her to say whatever she was thinking. She stared down at him and then, on a sob, repeated those awful words, ‘Please, Theo, please.’
He drove into her with all the desperate, angry, years-old need that had been tormenting him right to his core. It was not gentle, and it was not soft, it was the act of a man driven by passion, who felt that answering need from his would-be lover.
But the second he thrust into her and she cried out, not in pleasure, but from pain and discomfort, and her face contorted, he connected her tightness with the cause of it and swore, staring at her face, his body buried too deep in her to move, to take it back.
Anger though was firing through him, along with a sense of confusion.
‘What the hell?’
She glared at him.
‘You were—are you a virgin?’
‘Well, not now,’ she snapped with an impressively withering tone, given the situation, and digging her heels into his back and shifting a little, moving on his length so he had to reach for her hips to hold her still, because the pleasure was too good, and he needed to damn well think.
‘You’re telling me you were a virgin until a minute ago?’
‘So what?’
‘So what?’ He stared at her, disbelief a whip, slashing through him. ‘How the hell—’
‘Can we possibly talk about this later?’ she asked, her cheeks flushed, lips parted, as she moved again, and this time, he let her. Hell, he couldn’t take it back, even if he wanted to.
‘Damn it, Annie, we are going to talk about it,’ he muttered, but he began to move, this time, more gently, slowly, careful to give her time to adjust to the fullness, to the feeling of being with a man for the first time.
He was still reeling from that, when she dug her nails into his shoulder and snapped, ‘No, Theo, not like this. Don’t treat me like you might break me. I want you to take me. I want you to treat me like you would if I was any of the woman you usually sleep with.’
He ground his teeth together, knowing instinctively he could never do that, because even now, Annie was different.
Not just because she was his wife, but because she was Annie; it would always be more complicated between them.
‘Please,’ she whispered, and he grimaced at the sound of surrender in her voice, at the knowledge that he’d taken something that should have been born of mutual passion—begging one person to pleasure them, and be pleasured in return—and turned it into a power play that she resented.
He felt the world spinning, out of his control, the decisions and instincts he always listened to now suddenly seeming questionable.
‘Theo,’ she said, sharply, so he gave up on thinking, questioning, analysing and wondering and just lost himself in her, and this, until she tipped over the edge and he held her shaking, trembling body against his own, murmuring reassurances in Greek, until her breathing returned to normal and he could trust himself to speak again.
Then, he pulled out of her, still rock hard and aching for his own release, and eased her down, so she could stand on the ocean’s floor. The water was much deeper for her than him, so he kept his hands on her hips, in case a wave came that she needed to be lifted over.
But Annie could hardly meet his eyes. He ignored the pang of something rolling through him, hardening himself to anything like pity or doubt.
Nonetheless, he heard himself ask, albeit grimly, ‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘I told you, I don’t want you to treat me like—’
‘It was your first time,’ he said, swallowing back another curse as the reality of that landed like a thud against his chest. He didn’t want to wonder why.
He didn’t want to question any of the suppositions he’d made about her lifestyle and choices in the years since they’d dated.
Instead, he focused on his anger with her, at having been caught out like this.
‘It should not have happened here, like this. It should not have happened with me.’
She closed her eyes, so her lashes were two dark crescents against her cheek. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it is a beach… It is—’
‘Why not with you?’
He dragged a hand over his jaw. ‘Because you hate me, for one,’ he reminded her crisply.
‘Yes, but you’re also my husband.’
‘Do you think I would have married you if I’d known?’
‘Yes,’ she said, grimacing. ‘But I don’t think you would have slept with me.’
A blinding light of clarity exploded before his eyes. ‘You did this on purpose.’
Her eyes lifted to his and clung there a moment.
‘You chose not to tell me.’
‘Would you have slept with me, if you’d known?’
‘Of course not. I have no interest in virgins.’
She frowned. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t sleep with me, back then?’
He thought back to that time, to how much he’d wanted her, yet had resisted, and he couldn’t say why, except it had felt somehow important to wait. To show her that she was different to the many women he’d slept with before her.
But he was quiet too long, and apparently Annie drew her own conclusions from his silence. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you thought I’d gone and gathered a heap of experience in the last five years, you were wrong.’
‘You are twenty-seven,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘I’m just trying to understand—’
‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t,’ she said, but her voice wobbled a bit, belying the anger she was trying to infuse into her words. ‘Maybe you should just stick to what you’re good at and keep being an arrogant bastard.’ She sniffed, and he had a sinking feeling that she was about to cry.
Hardly how he would have wanted her first time—or any woman’s—to go. Guilt tore through his gut, along with a very familiar sensation from his childhood. A sense of not being able to keep precious things and people safe, of not being able to do the right thing by anyone. Of being not good enough.
‘Excuse me, but I’ve had enough swimming for one day.’ He didn’t look back over his shoulder to see if she was following him; he told himself he didn’t care, either way.