Claimed by the Sicilian Tycoon(20)

She laughed softly. “Then you will do as I asked? Give me what I want?”

He shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“But you want me, so why not?”

“Because I do not take mistresses, difference or no. It is not something that appeals to me.”

“I see.” She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table. Andros wished he knew what was going on in her mind, what she was plotting. But then she spoke, and he realized that whatever he might have guessed at was far from what he heard. “Then I guess it is time for me to leave.”

“Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “If you want me, Andros, it has to be the way I said.”

She’d managed to shock him again. Andros did not like it. “Why?” he demanded.

“Because right now, in my life, that is what I need.”

“Need?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can’t just spend the next few weeks sleeping with a guy—even one as hot as you—as and when he demands, with no security attached. I need some sort of security in my life right now.”

“And you think this is the way to get it?”

“It is one of the ways. It’s the one I prefer over the others at any rate.”

Others? Andros felt anger fill him as he imagined what those other ways might be. He hoped to God she was not talking about other men because that was not going to happen. The thought of another man burying himself exactly where Andros wanted to be was unacceptable. He clenched his fists as his competitive instincts kicked in. Since he was young getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, had been what drove him. It was that drive that had allowed him to amass an eye watering fortune, to put himself in the absolute elite. And the fact was, he wanted Lyra. Why, he didn’t know, but there was something about her. Something that made him lose a little bit of judgment. She was just so fucking hot. Everything about her screamed sex and pleasure. He wanted to fuck her until he was sated. Until he tired of her. It wouldn’t take long, a few weeks at most…

“What are the other ways?” he demanded, his mind already planning ways to remove those obstacles.

She took a sip of her espresso, grimacing slightly as she did so. “You don’t want to know, Andros. Didn’t we talk about me keeping a little mystery?”

“Last night I fucked you until you screamed.”

“And?”

“Mystery between us is nonsense now. Answer my question.”

“I won’t and I disagree. The mystery is probably more important than ever. We don’t want you getting bored, now do we?”

“I doubt any man could get bored with you.”

She sighed. “No, you’re probably right, and a lot of them would jump at this offer.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But I do not take mistresses.”

“Then I’ll be your first. I like that idea.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“We can learn together as we do this.”

He scowled at her words, not liking the way she was trying to maneuver him, but then he realized exactly what she was insinuating, and his heart seemed to skip a beat. “Then…I would be your first protector? You have not done this before?”

She smiled, that dimple peeking out all over again. “Indeed you would. I like that too. It feels right.”

“It feels like madness,” Andros said, compelled into being completely honest. “Madness in many ways.”

“This sort of thing so often is,” she agreed. “What else was that last night if not its own little bit if insanity?”

“I want you, Lyra,” he grated. “I will not deny it. But on my terms. To see you when I want to see you.”

“You’re missing the point, Andros. That’s exactly what a mistress is,” she said. “Someone tucked away just for you.”

Just for you. He scowled some more because the idea of Lyra being completely his for as long as he wanted…already it was growing on him, was a pervasive thought.

“I need to think about this,” he said. “To consider it.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower. I feel sticky. Maybe while I’m gone you can have a think about what you’d like me to do? How crazy this is going to become.”

She got up and stalked towards the door, his shirttails swishing around her thighs. Her tanned, trim thighs.

Tanned?

A red head?

The two did not match. Nothing fucking matched, he thought. She was contradiction on top of contradiction.

But how he wanted her.

“Oh by the way,” she said, halting at the door. “I used your tooth brush.”