Chapter Eight #2
Axel made a sort of growling noise at the back of his throat and broke the kiss, saying something to the driver. Hope vaguely heard the sibilant hiss of the privacy screen going up and then Axel was lifting her onto his lap and her legs were either side of his thighs.
This was much better. Their mouths were fused again and Hope scrabbled for his bow tie, undoing it and opening his shirt buttons so she could put a hand under his shirt and spread her fingers across his chest.
Meanwhile Axel was pulling up her dress to expose her thighs and placing his hands on her bottom, hauling her closer. She could feel his erection under her and moved against him, making him curse. That made her smile.
Axel drew back, breathing unevenly. ‘Witch.’
Hope pouted. ‘That’s not very nice.’
Axel smiled and it was dark and feral. ‘I can be nice too.’
He reached down under her dress, to where her flimsy silk underwear wasn’t much of a barrier to his exploring fingers.
He stroked her, over the material, right over that sensitised cluster of nerves, and Hope’s whole body arched in response as Axel stroked her to the point where she was ready to fall but then he stopped. She whimpered, ‘Please, Axel.’
Feeling desperate, she reached down and found his belt and buttons and zip, undoing them, releasing his stiff column of flesh into her hand. Clearly they’d gone beyond a point of no return.
Urgency gripped them. Hope rose a little while Axel found protection and smoothed it onto his flesh and then he held her hips and with one hand pulled her underwear aside and guided her back down onto his body, and she sank over him, taking him in, inch by delicious inch, until she couldn’t breathe, or think or move.
She wanted to stay like this for ever, feeling the exquisite stretch of Axel’s body in hers. But soon that urgency built again and, of its own volition, her body had to move or she would die.
It didn’t take much. She’d been so primed that with a few deep thrusts, she was climaxing around Axel and he was moving faster and harder until he fell only moments afterwards.
Her head was in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Their skin was sheened with sweat. Hearts thumping hard enough to hear.
The outside world slowly came back. The sound of the traffic around them, obscured by the tinted windows.
Hope couldn’t believe the audacity of their actions.
It was like being in some kind of a blackout and then waking to realise what you’d done, but she couldn’t feel any sense of regret.
Not when their bodies were still joined and Axel’s arms were tight around her.
She could stay like this for ever. She felt a profound sense of connection and peace as if this was where she was finally home.
That little revelation, more than anything else, helped her to disengage from Axel, who looked slightly stunned too.
She adjusted her clothes beside him and he did the same. Hope couldn’t help but feel an encroaching sense of shame at her wanton behaviour. Safe to say that the women Axel was used to dating didn’t maul him in the back of a car like someone crazed.
‘Hey…what are you thinking?’
Hope looked at him reluctantly. ‘That the women you usually see don’t behave like this.’
He turned to her and said, ‘Hope, there were two of us just now. There is nothing to feel ashamed about.’
The sense of shame dissolved a little and Hope had to drum it into her brain that he was just referring to the sex. But still, he hadn’t had to reassure her.
‘Thank you.’
‘No, thank you. That was amazing, moro mou.’
He reached for her again, pulling her into him, and Hope snuggled close.
And then she said, ‘I feel bad.’
He looked down at her. ‘About what?’
She pulled away a little. ‘Something did happen in the bathroom. I met your mother again.’
Instant displeasure crossed Axel’s face. ‘What did she say to you?’
Hope shrugged a shoulder minutely. ‘Oh, you know, just who did I think I was and that you’d never marry me.’ She rushed to say, ‘Which obviously we both know. But I was a bit mean to her.’
Axel’s look of displeasure faded slightly and he said, ‘Somehow I can’t imagine that.’
Hope pulled back and looked up at him, worrying her lip. ‘No, it’s true, I told her that I might have been abandoned but at least I hadn’t grown up knowing that my parents hated me. That there was a chance I’d been loved.’
Axel’s eyes widened. ‘You said that to her?’
Hope felt terrible. ‘It was awful, wasn’t it? I mean, she’s your mother, obviously she loves you on some level.’
Axel barked out a laugh. ‘No, Hope, she really doesn’t.’ He looked at her. ‘I can’t believe you stood up to her.’
‘She makes me feel angry and I don’t like it. I’m not an angry person.’
Axel didn’t respond to that and Hope let the lassitude following sex take over, sinking back into him.
When they returned to the apartment, Hope’s legs were still a bit wobbly. Inside the main door, Axel surprised her by scooping her up into his arms and bringing her to his bedroom. She looked around. ‘This isn’t my room.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ he responded dryly.
He put her down and bent down and said, ‘Lift your leg.’
She did, obediently, putting a hand on one wide shoulder to balance herself, and he slipped off her sandal and then did the same to the other foot. Then he came up and said, ‘Turn around.’
Hope did. He pulled her zip down and the dress loosened around her chest. There was nothing overtly sexual in his undressing her but she shivered with awareness all the same.
He tugged the dress down and then her underwear. She was fully naked but still too full of the heady aftershocks of what they’d done in the car to be too concerned.
Then Axel stripped off with zero self-consciousness and brought her into the bathroom, turning the water onto hot and washing Hope with a thoroughness that had her whole body aching again.
As if sensing her need, Axel put his hand between her legs and brought her to a shuddering and intense climax in seconds.
She was liquid by the time he shut the water off and got big fluffy towels. Hope said. ‘But you didn’t—’
‘It’s OK.’
Axel rubbed her hair dry, and then he found a T-shirt and pulled it on her, making her put her arms in the air.
He led her to the bed and she climbed in, falling asleep before her head hit the pillow.
* * *
Down a couple of levels from the bedroom, changed into sweats and a T-shirt, Axel stood at the window, oblivious to the view.
He was still feeling the sting of frustration after not giving into the urge to find his own completion with Hope after she’d shuddered to climax against his hand and fingers.
But he’d still been feeling too unnerved after throwing out numerous rules he’d always lived by his whole life.
For one—he didn’t make extravagant financial gestures like bidding on Caribbean villas in public.
Second, he really didn’t indulge in public displays of affection but when Hope was beside him, he didn’t even notice he was doing it.
Thirdly…the interaction Hope had had with his mother.
The fact that she’d so obviously felt angry on his behalf was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
No one had ever stood up for him. Except once, a long time ago, his brother had.
When they’d been very little. They’d been playing—back in the days before their parents had separated them out because Axel had shown more academic prowess.
There’d been an accident involving breaking an antique vase or something similar—Axel couldn’t even recall what it had been now. The silence after the crash had been deafening and then their father had appeared, incandescent with rage.
‘Who did this?’
Axel had known that it had been both their faults, but Ares had stood in front of him, even though he was younger and smaller.
‘It was me, Papa.’
Their father had looked at Axel and said, ‘Go to your room.’
‘But—’
Ares had looked at him, only about six years old, and had said, ‘Go, Axel.’
And to this day, Axel still felt the burn of shame that he had. He’d heard the sound of Ares’s wails as their father had meted out punishment. It had been that act of self-sacrifice that had burned brightest in Axel’s head when he’d threatened to leave home after Ares had been kidnapped.
The fact that Hope had done a similar act of defence this evening was…affecting him in some profound place. He’d unthinkingly brought her to his room, left her in his bed.
He felt a moment of stomach-dropping panic. Had he completely lost it? No. He wanted her with an unprecedented level of desire, that was all. And having her in his bed was practical as well as necessary. This was about sex. Nothing else. The sex was amazing.
He picked up his mobile phone and made a call. Michalis answered sleepily on the other end. ‘Axel, do you have any idea what time it is?’
Axel ignored that. ‘I’ve bought a villa in the Caribbean.’
Instantly his legal advisor was awake. ‘What? You don’t make impulsive purchases. Was this at the auction?’
‘Yes. I’m going to take Hope there. Can you discreetly inform the right people who will ensure our trip is documented?’
‘I presume this is with a view to impressing Baros with your new-found dedication to one woman?’
‘Of course.’ Axel was curt. He pushed down the niggle of his conscience that reminded him that his purchase of the villa had been more in reaction to Hope saying that his parents made her feel cold than because of any forward strategic planning.
‘Consider it done. By the way, the pictures of you and Hope at the premiere in London are getting a lot of attention. Everyone wants to know who she is and the chemistry between you is pretty palpable.’
That was all it was: chemistry. Something eased inside Axel. ‘Go back to sleep, Michalis.’
Axel terminated the call. He went back up to the bedroom where Hope was asleep on the bed, sheets thrown off, curled on her side, hands under her face in a disarmingly innocent pose.