He pulled at her hair roughly, trying to grab her attention. “Stop it,” he whispered, fighting the heat building inside, the need clamoring at him to just let go. “I don’t want to hurt you. Theos, Leah, I just...” He felt something in him clench tight against her, as if she could wreak infinite hurt on him. “I could not bear it if I hurt you anymore.”
“Stavros...won’t you look at me, please.”
The pleading, persuasive tone would have pulled him into hell.
He opened his eyes and was lost instantly.
Her eyes glittered with raw emotion, and once again, he found himself stunned at how much she could feel, how much Leah risked despite all her lies.
In a sensuous movement that was born more of need than finesse, she brought her mouth to his. Slowly, softly, seduced him with long kisses and lingering strokes. Set her tongue to his mouth and made love to him like he had never experienced before.
Her breath was a harsh whisper against his mouth. “You will hurt me if you stop now. I started this knowing what I wanted, I started this because you finally saw me as your equal. Not a thing to be protected and controlled. Right?” When he remained silent, she buried her face in his neck, a catch in her throat. “From the moment you stood there at the airport to pick me up, all haughty, forbidding, so contemptuous—”
He groaned. “You tried to run away to Paris while Giannis waited on tenterhooks for you in Athens.”
“—I had such a crush on you. I have had dreams that you would look at me like you did tonight. Please, Stavros. Tell me that I didn’t imagine that look in your eyes. Tell me that you’re doing this because you want me and not because you feel sorry for me or because it’s your duty.”
Tenderness joined fiery desire now. Tilting her chin up, he caught the tear that ran down one soft cheek. The sight of that lone tear undid him as nothing ever had. A fist could be squeezing his chest for the tightness there. “My want...for you, my need knows no reason, Leah... That I do this when I should be...” He searched for the words to say it right, searched his own feelings, as raw and strange as they were. “You make me selfish, Leah. You make me angry, and sad, and laugh and...just so unbalanced. You sink under my skin, pethi mou, and I can’t breathe for wanting you.”
Such a smile dawned on her lips that the beauty and joy in it made his breath catch.
Her shoulders tense, she slowly thrust her hips forward. “It doesn’t hurt...” When he glared, she added, “...that much.” Wrapping her hand around his nape possessively, she leaned in. “Give me this tonight, Stavros. Please. Give us both what we want.”
That raw, unabashed request coming from that perfect little mouth was enough to shred his will.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, falling deeper and deeper into her spell. “Tell me if it becomes too much,” he commanded. “I will stop, Leah.” Even if it killed him.
She nodded, like a good little dutiful wife when the cunning minx was anything but.
Palming her breasts, he rubbed her nipples, and the tight points curling his muscles into a new frenzy.
“You like it when I do that.” She moaned into his mouth, a smile curving her lush mouth. “I could do it all day, pethi mou, caress your breasts, suck your nipples until you...come just from that.”
With every word he said, he started moving again. And her heat welcomed him, sending a current of need through his nerve endings. “Tell me what you feel,” he said, continuing to kiss her, tease her nipples with his fingers.
“No more pain,” she said against his shoulder.
He thrust in again, slowly but forcefully. Reminded himself to speak again through the delirious heat enveloping him. “Now?”
“It feels achy...full...incredibly hot...” she half sobbed.
“Hold on tight to me, thee mou,” he whispered, and pulled all the way out.
She whimpered, like a kitten denied her treat. “I feel empty now,” she said, meeting his gaze, unbuttoning his shirt.
He thrust back in again, heat curling through his muscles as she slapped those long fingers over his chest. Scraped a flat nipple with her nail. “Now?”
“Oh God, Stavros...” a guttural groan escaped her.
Grabbing her hips, he locked her against him as he built up a rhythm. His climax was rushing at him, hard, explosive. Spots were beginning to dance behind his eyes. His pulse raced, his lungs burst. Every thrust brought him closer to the edge and he couldn’t contain the momentum, couldn’t control his pace.
Desperation took the place of finesse, animal lust destroyed concern for her.
“Leah...I can’t slow down now, pethi mou.”
“Don’t.” She opened her mouth against his chest, and he jerked. Pleasure hung around on a serrated edge as she dug her teeth in, harder. “I want all of you, Stavros. I want everything you give.”
Clutching her bottom, he tilted her and thrust again.
“I want to die, now. It’s so much,” she moaned.
“Look down,” he commanded, raking through the sheer lust to find an iota of control, determined to push her to the edge one more time.
She did. A raw groan fell from her mouth.
“Touch yourself, galika mou.” The desk shook with his thrusts, blood whooshed in his ears.
Shock flashed in her eyes. “No. I...can’t. That’s...just...” Her innocence tugged at him even as she undid every one of his rules with her innate sensuality.
Christos, this need for her would not stop here, would never stop consuming him.
He licked the rim of her ear, and pleaded, as he had never done before. “Imagine that it is me touching your wet heat, imagine it is me licking you there... Do it for me, Leah. Please.”
Color streaking her cheeks, she met his gaze. “You would like it?”
“It would be the most erotic sight I would ever see.”
Her mouth trembling, she snuck her hand between their bodies. Her long finger reached between them slowly. “Go on...”
Her head went back, her back arched as she stroked herself.
Stavros groaned, pumped into her, hard and fast, pleasure drenching him in sweat, robbing his breath from him.
“Come for me, Leah.”
For once, in his life, the firecracker that his wife was, complied.
Pleasure burst in his veins, in his blood, in his muscles as Leah came with a long, drawn-out groan and her contracting muscles pulled at him.
His climax knocked his breath out, and his mind blanked out as he broke apart into a thousand pieces and got back together again.
Theos, he had waited because it had been the right thing to do, because his honor wouldn’t let him cheat on his wife even if he didn’t live with her. But, he had never expected it to be this life-changing, mind-numbing experience with her.
Leah was in his blood now, a craving in his gut. He would never have enough of her. Of her lithe body, of her glorious smile, of her sometimes infuriating words.
He had never known this exhilaration as he did with Leah, he had never felt so alive. He had never felt so needy as he did with her. He had never wanted to change, never wanted to risk his emotions as he did with her.
He had never wondered what else he had been missing out on as he did with her.
Running his hands over her shaking form, he hugged her to him. She was so fragile. And yet he felt like he was the one who was risking everything. “Leah, say something,” he whispered into her scalp.
“Hmmm?” she said, lazily snuggling into him.
“You are all right?”
Her mouth opened against his chest. “I want more of you, more of this.”
Laughter burst out of him. The tightness in his chest relented as she vined her arms around his waist, opened her hot mouth against his shivering muscles and kissed him. He let out a long breath, unmanned by her tenderness.
“We’re only getting started, pethi mou,” he said, enfolding her in his arms.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, Leah was so busy that she didn’t have a moment to sift through the storm building through her. The night that Stavros had made such explosive love to her, she had asked if they could return home to his estate while they had been in the shower.
It was an intimacy Leah had cherished as much as the sex itself. Every little moment with Stavros, she realized, taught her more about herself.
He had stopped midway, his hands incredibly gentle as they washed her. After he had carried her to the en suite bathroom of his bedroom, turned on the shower and demanded to know if she was hurting anywhere. Had looked so vulnerable when he had said he didn’t usually behave like a rutting animal.
How he believed that she could think that of him when he had honored the vows he had made to her, she didn’t know. But his concern had touched her on a fundamental level.
The first thing the next morning, they had returned here. Once the servants had unpacked for her, and he had carried her from her bedroom to his, declaring in that arrogant tone that she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else but his bed, only then had she realized that she had called it home.
But that’s what his estate felt like to her.
Home.
She had been accepted to present at the Independent Fashion Week in New York in September. When she had told him after Helene had called her personally, he had smiled at her, fierce pride glinting in his eyes, and told her that he wasn’t the least bit surprised.
After a few meetings with Helene and another fashion director, the scale and the scope of her collection was even more than she had dreamed. She had added four more designs to it.