Chapter Six
She’s a virgin. The words blasted through Axel’s head like a klaxon.
He was in hell. The hell of being so close to heaven and knowing that what he should do was deny himself heaven.
Because she was innocent and he did not initiate innocents.
But her hands were on his hips and he’d never wanted someone so badly.
Everything about her called to him and demanded a response and, for the first time in his life, he couldn’t override his base desire.
Tensing his jaw, he thrust deeper and saw how Hope’s eyes widened and her cheeks flared. She was tight. He could feel her contracting around him.
‘Just breathe, Hope…’
She did, and her breasts lifted, distracting Axel.
He bent his head and sucked one peak into his mouth and she trembled all around him and when he lifted his head he was seated so deep inside her, it felt as if time had stopped for a moment.
And then he started to move and he had never known such exquisite torture as he called on every atom of his being not to explode into a million pieces.
The tension in Hope’s expression was gone. Now she was flushed, gaze glazed, mouth parted, breaths coming short and fast. He knew she was close and he shamelessly used his experience to help her along, but only because he knew he wouldn’t last.
He put his hand between them and found her clitoris, pressing and circling the flesh, and she tensed under him, before she broke apart, muscles contracting around his body with such force that he couldn’t hold back any more and came in a blinding rush of ecstasy, the like of which he’d never felt before.
* * *
It took long moments for Hope to return to her body. Axel was crushing her to the bed but she loved it. She felt a sense of bone-deep satisfaction and something else. Peace.
And then he moved, levering himself off her, disconnecting their bodies. She winced a little. He got off the bed without looking at her and disappeared into the bathroom. Hope lay there, splayed.
Axel was gone for a minute and then he came back, naked. She noted somewhere dimly that even at rest his body was impressive. He scooped her up from the bed as if she weighed nothing at all and brought her into the bathroom, which was already filling with steam from the running shower.
She was still too dazed after what had just happened to do more than let Axel bring them both into the shower, under the spray. He put her down and she had to lock her knees to stay upright, but Axel held her.
Without saying anything he washed her all over and shampooed her hair. Hope had never been tended to like this in her life and the magnitude of who was doing it and after what they’d just done was too much to parse out so she didn’t try.
Axel shut off the water and towel-dried Hope, rubbing her hair. She didn’t even want to think about how it looked, all sticking up. Then he fed her arms into a thick towelling robe and, after tying a towel around his hips, he brought her back into the bedroom.
Hope sat down on the side of the bed. Axel stood before her, bare-chested, hair damp and slicked back. He was distractingly gorgeous enough for her not to really take much notice of how he’d just put his hands on his hips. She couldn’t believe they’d just—
‘Hope, why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?’
* * *
Axel was doing his damnedest not to notice Hope’s scrubbed-clean pink skin. Or the way her hair was so adorably dishevelled from the shower. She looked tiny in the voluminous robe and yet they’d fitted together like two missing jigsaw pieces.
He couldn’t think of that now. He had to hang onto his righteous anger and make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea.
She looked up at him and he saw her tongue flick out to moisten her mouth. His cock stirred. He cursed his helpless reaction.
‘Hope?’
She looked sheepish. She opened her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you. But I didn’t think that it would be noticeable.’
That only brought back the incendiary memory of how it had felt to thrust into Hope’s hot, tight sheath. Skata.
‘Well, it was.’
She gulped. ‘Was it that bad?’
Bad? Axel’s conscience pricked for giving her the wrong impression. ‘No, it was amazing. But I could have hurt you, Hope. I’m much bigger than you. If I hadn’t noticed…’
‘But you did. And it wasn’t so sore…only for a moment. I didn’t want you to stop.’
Once again her honesty caught him off guard. Axel was glad she had no clue how difficult it would have been for him to pull back from that brink of extreme pleasure.
‘How are you still a virgin in this day and age?’
Now she avoided his eye and plucked at the sheet. She mumbled something incoherent.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Axel said softly.
She looked up at him. ‘I said, I never felt inclined before now. That’s all.’
Axel looked at her suspiciously. There was more to it than that but he was reluctant to push her.
He had a sense of her not trusting people easily after her past, her experience of growing up…
discarded, unwanted. She trusted you. And Axel knew that was a red flag but then, as if hearing his thoughts, she said with a touch of bravado, ‘What’s the big deal anyway? ’
Axel didn’t believe it for a second. He folded his arms and didn’t miss the way her eyes tracked the movement, lingering on his biceps. His body stirred more forcibly. But he couldn’t take her again until she knew exactly the situation.
‘I don’t sleep with virgins, Hope.’
She blinked. ‘I hate to point out the obvious…’
‘What I mean is that my lovers are experienced and know how things work.’
‘How things work.’
‘Yes. As in…they know not to confuse sex with emotion. They know sex doesn’t mean that I want more.’
‘I know that. You’ve made it abundantly clear.’
He was trying to gauge if she was being sincere.
She asked, ‘You really don’t believe in love at all, do you?’
‘No.’ But then Axel thought of his brother and the feeling in his chest whenever he’d looked at him and had known he’d failed him. It had been like a vice tightening around his heart. Painful.
He looked at Hope. ‘But you do believe in it, Hope, and I need to be really clear that it’s not on offer. Ever.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Axel, I get it. Don’t fall for you. I really don’t see you in my future. You can relax.’
Why didn’t he feel reassured? Why did that actually niggle at him? The way those words just rolled off her tongue?
‘So what happens now?’ she asked.
It was very irritating to feel that somehow Hope had a better grasp on what was going on here than he did.
He said, ‘This will recalibrate things.’
She put her head on one side. ‘Do you always talk like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re discussing a business strategy?’
Axel forced down the totally irrational spike of irritation that she was taking this with such equanimity. ‘This is a business strategy. It’s a strategic relationship. That hasn’t changed. I don’t do warm and fuzzy.’
Her cheeks went pink and Axel thought of the heat they’d just generated.
Hope stood up. ‘I understand what you’re saying, Axel, and you don’t need to worry. The only question I have now is can we do that again? I never thought it could be…so amazing.’
Maybe it was good that she didn’t know that it wasn’t like that for everyone. Or every time. Axel was hard again. He fought to maintain some level of control. It wouldn’t be as good the next time. It couldn’t be. ‘You’ll be tender.’
She shook her head and started undoing her robe and Axel could see her pale body underneath, the curves, those perfect breasts. She said, ‘I’m fine. I want you to teach me everything about making love, Axel.’
She shucked off the robe and stood before him naked. Within seconds Axel’s towel was on the floor and Hope was under him on the bed, moving against him like a sinuous cat, pressing kisses against his chest and running her tongue over his nipples.
For the first time in his life, Axel’s main focus was not on his life’s ambition. It was on how he could get through these next moments without spilling like a teenager.
And it was as good this time. Even better.
* * *
Hope was more than a little disturbed by what Axel had awoken in her. A voracious hunger. She couldn’t believe she’d denied herself for so long. Although she had to concede that no one else had managed to get through her walls of defence the way Axel had, just by looking at her.
And now she couldn’t remember why it had been important to keep herself protected.
There was no danger of emotional harm here and it was liberating.
She looked at Axel across the aisle of the plane.
They were en route to New York. He was engrossed in work and a lock of hair had fallen forward as he frowned at whatever was on his laptop.
Sleeves rolled up, top button open. Dark trousers. Mouth-wateringly gorgeous. Even more so now that she’d seen just how potent he was.
As if sensing her regard, he looked up, dark golden eyes narrowing on her. ‘I can feel you looking at me, Hope. I’m trying to concentrate.’
Hope grinned and his eyes moved to her mouth and then back up, full of golden fire.
Within a second, he’d pushed aside the laptop and surged to his feet. Hope let out a little squeak as he reached for her and pulled her to her feet before tugging her towards the back of the plane.
He brought them into the bedroom suite and let go of her hand and closed the door and she pressed back against it.
Axel faced her and came close and put his hands over her head, caging her in.
She looked up at him. She loved the way he made her feel so petite.
It appealed to a hitherto unexplored very feminine part of herself.
She bit her lip. She felt a bit bad. He was a busy man. ‘I don’t want to take you away from your work.’
‘Well, then, don’t look at me like that.’
‘Like what?’ Hope was genuinely caught up in a wholly new sense of excitement, and yet was also slightly mystified by the effect she seemed to have on a man like Axel. She was definitely fulfilling her fantasy of seeing him lose control and it was beyond exhilarating.
Axel said, ‘Like I’m the big bad wolf. It should scare you.’
Hope shook her head. ‘I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of how you make me feel.’
‘How do I make you feel?’
‘Hungry and needy.’ Too hungry and needy to even feel self-conscious. She’d never known she could be like this.
Axel looked down at her. ‘Are you always this honest with people?’
Hope shrugged minutely. ‘I’ve nothing to hide, why wouldn’t I be honest?’
‘I would never tell anyone what was in my head.’
‘Well, that must be pretty exhausting. And lonely.’
Axel lifted a hand and touched her jaw, trailing his fingers across it and down to the hollow at the base of her throat.
Hope was wearing a short T-shirt and loose trousers, clothes she’d deemed suitably travel-friendly, but now she wished she were wearing something sexier.
Not that Axel seemed to mind all that much.
His brought his hand down and found the bare skin under the T-shirt above the waistband of the trousers. He said, ‘I don’t feel exhausted. Or lonely.’
Hope swallowed. ‘No, um, you don’t look exhausted, you look very…well.’
‘I think you’d look better with less clothes on.’
Hope was very aware of the bed in the background and something occurred to her. ‘Have you done this before? On a plane, I mean?’
He shook his head as if surprised himself. ‘No. I usually use this time to work.’
Hope remembered George telling her that and she felt relieved.
She reached for him, coming up on tiptoe and winding her arms around his neck and pressing close.
She still couldn’t quite believe she was here with him like this.
If she wasn’t careful he would ruin her for commercial air travel for ever.
He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up against him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He walked them over to the bed and said, ‘This’ll have to be quick. I do have work to do before we land.’
He laid Hope down on the bed as easily as if she weighed nothing. She revelled in that show of strength. She looked up at him. ‘Well, Mr Drakos? What are you waiting for?’
He stripped naked with such speed and efficiency Hope was seriously impressed and then he tended to her, helping her out of her clothes, throwing them aside.
The decadence of being naked and on a plane thousands of feet in the air was too overwhelming to acknowledge so Hope pushed it aside and reached for Axel, who’d just rolled a protective sheath onto his erection.
He came down over her and put a hand between her legs, fingers exploring where she was already slick and ready for him. She bit her lip as he touched a spot that had her arching her back.
He said, ‘I could watch you responding to my touch all day.’
Hope thought to herself she wouldn’t survive a day of succumbing to his touch. She was nearly ready to explode. ‘Please, Axel…’
‘What is it?’ He punctuated this by lowering his head and drawing a tight nipple into his mouth, sucking it deep and then flicking with his tongue.
He lifted his head again and Hope insinctively reached for his erection, wrapping her hand around it, lamenting the sheath in the way of skin-to-skin contact but knowing that there was no way he wanted to risk pregnancy.
And she should be grateful because nor did she.
Not now, and not with someone who had such an avowed aversion to the prospect, except as a business strategy.
She stroked him and watched his eyes glitter and cheeks flush.
He took pity on her and moved his body, dislodging her hand from his stiff column of flesh and putting himself between her legs.
Then he was thrusting inside her and Hope sucked in a breath, still getting used to that delicious first contact and how it made her feel so stretched and full.
He started to move and she grew more slick around him, accommodating his body, and it wasn’t long before she became frantic and gasping, begging for release.
It broke over her in a blinding rush, and her own orgasm pushed Axel over the edge.
He stilled over her on his hands, every muscle drawn taut, veins sticking out, before he shuddered against her and found his own release.