With a flourish intended to convey sarcasm, Pixie whipped off her shoes before she boarded the yacht. ‘And we abandoned our guests on our night out,’ she remarked in a stinging tone. ‘Some hosts we make.’
‘If you think Holly and Vito want to come back and find themselves in the middle of a marital spat, you’re mental. They’ll stay out until dawn,’ Apollo forecast, grim-mouthed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PIXIE SLUNG HER shoes across their stateroom in a gesture of frustrated fury. Apollo had acted like a total ass all evening and then somehow made a fool of her as if she were the one in the wrong? How was that fair? How was she supposed to forgive him for that? How was she supposed to cope with being married to such a maniac? So much for the business arrangement!
The door clicked open and Pixie spun. ‘I’m not sleeping in here with you tonight.’
Apollo simply depressed the lock and studied her. ‘You’re not sleeping anyplace else.’
‘You’ve got ten guest cabins. What is the matter with you?’ Pixie exclaimed furiously. ‘What do you want from me?’
Apollo surveyed her steadily, concealing his growing bewilderment at his own actions with difficulty. He had lost his head and he didn’t ever do that.
‘Are you going to answer me?’ Pixie asked impatiently, one hand planted on her hip while her foot tapped cheekily on the floor.
He just wanted her. Somehow she was like a missing puzzle piece he had to have at any price. The sex had been amazing. It was the fireworks and the sex that attracted him. She was having the weirdest effect on him. Problem solved and sorted, he told himself stubbornly.
‘Any time soon?’ Pixie prodded in frustration. ‘Like...tonight?’
Apollo unbuttoned his shirt for want of anything better to do. A knock sounded on the door and he answered it. Hector raced in, paused in horror at the sight of Apollo, gave him a very wide berth and shot trembling below the bed. Apollo locked the door again. ‘You’re my wife,’ he told her finally, and as far as he was concerned at that moment that covered everything he needed to say.
Pixie was perplexed by that response. ‘But not a real wife...’
‘We’re legally married, having sex and I’m trying to get you pregnant. How could it be any more real?’ Apollo enquired. ‘Tonight I felt married.’
Her smooth brow indented, grey eyes shimmering with indignation. ‘Well, if that’s how you behave when you’re married, I wouldn’t like to have been around when you were still single.’
‘I wasn’t expecting you to hit back,’ he admitted with startling abruptness, his beautiful wilful mouth curling with a sudden amusement that enraged her even more. ‘Clever move, koukla mou. Guaranteed to get a rise out of a guy as basic as me.’
Her breasts swelled temptingly over the top of the corset as she breathed in very, very deeply. ‘You think it was some kind of strategy to get your attention back?’ she shouted at him in disbelief.
‘It worked,’ Apollo pointed out drily. ‘So, presumably it was deliberate?’
‘No, it freakin’ well wasn’t deliberate!’ Pixie launched at him, bending to scoop up a shoe and hurl it at him in furious rebuttal of that conviction. ‘How dare you be so big-headed that you can think that?’
‘I’ll let it go this once,’ Apollo murmured silkily. ‘But if you ever let another guy touch you like that again you’ll pay for it.’
‘Threatening violence now?’ Pixie questioned, scooping the other shoe and holding it like a weapon.
‘No, you’re rather more violent than I am. You’ve already punched me once and now you’re throwing stuff at me,’ Apollo pointed out deadpan.
Pixie threw the second shoe but he was quick on his feet and she missed. Hector started to whine below the bed.
‘I can allow you to do a lot of things I haven’t allowed a woman to do before, koukla mou,’ Apollo intoned as he strode forward, ‘but I really can’t stand by and allow you to frighten that dog!’
Hauling her up into his arms, Apollo sat down on the bed. ‘Settle down,’ he instructed, pinning an arm round her to stop hers from flailing. ‘You’ve got my full attention.’
‘And now I don’t want it!’ Pixie yelled at him, so wound up with emotion she almost felt tearful over her inability to express herself.
‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with it,’ Apollo told her, dropping his arm to frame her face with big controlling hands. ‘I want you.’
‘No!’ Pixie snapped, striving to clamber off him again.
‘You want me too, you just won’t admit it,’ Apollo opined in frustration.
‘Do you ever listen to yourself? Marvel at the little megalomaniac remarks you make?’
His beautiful stubborn mouth claimed hers in a scorching kiss and her temperature rose like a rocket. She felt hot, she felt faint, she spread her hands against his shoulders and, meeting shirt fabric, slid her fingers beneath the parted edges to find warm brown skin. His tongue dipped and plunged and one of her hands delved into his luxuriant black hair. As she knelt over him, he pushed up her skirt and ground her hips down on him. Suddenly she was achingly aware of the long hard thrust of him behind his zip. Liquid warmth surged between her thighs and she gasped, her nipples swelling and tightening. Yanking down the zip on her top, Apollo cast it aside and bent her slender body back over one arm to suck at a pretty pouting nipple, a manoeuvre that dragged an agonised moan from low in her throat.
‘I’m not speaking to you!’ Pixie exclaimed in consternation.
‘Since when was speech required?’ Apollo groaned, reaching with difficulty below her skirt to rip at the fragile lace of her panties and then touch her with frighteningly knowing fingers in the exact spot she could least resist.
‘Apollo!’ Pixie muttered furiously, helpless in the grip of the sensations flooding her and blaming him for the fact.
He met her shaken eyes and he smiled with sudden brilliance. ‘I want you much more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman,’ he breathed in a raw and shaken undertone.
Oh, the combination of that smile and those tantalising words, it left Pixie dizzy and without her conscious volition her arms slid round his neck and she leant against him, momentarily hiding her face, her thoughts in a messy whirl. What’s wrong with me? Why do I still want him? What happened to the anger?
Lifting her head, she clashed with black-lashed gorgeous green and her heart gave a hop, skip and a jump as though he had hit a switch. And she told herself she couldn’t possibly be falling for him. No, she was too sensible and not at all the type who would build herself up knowing she would only be broken down by the end of the relationship. It was lust, wild, wicked lust, and it was merely hitting her harder because she was a late developer.
Apollo stroked her, teased her tingling core, reducing her defences to forgotten rubble until all she wanted, all she craved, was for the ravaging, greedy hunger to be sated. He tipped her back, removed the tight skirt to the accompaniment of a ripping sound that implied damage, unzipped and came down on her without even undressing. ‘Can’t wait,’ he growled. ‘Have to have you now.’
He pushed into her with scant ceremony but that hard, driving fullness was absolutely what her body needed and desired just then. A cry of compliance left her lips, followed by an ecstatic sigh of gratification when he moved. He changed position to hit her at another angle and she jerked and moaned with pleasure, hearing herself, inwardly cringing for herself but wanting him and that feeling so powerfully she couldn’t fight her own hunger. The waves of pleasure rolled faster and faster, the sensual power of him overwhelming. Her climax engulfed her like an avalanche driving all before it, emptying her of thought, breaking her down into a blissful bundle of pure satisfaction. In the aftermath she was weighted to the bed by Apollo and she decided she might never want to move again.
He scooped her up and slotted her into bed, kneeling over her to almost frantically wrench himself out of what remained of his clothing. That achieved, he crushed her mouth under his again. ‘Hope you’re not tired,’ he breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I think I could go all night...’
They were at peace again. Apollo told himself that that had been his ultimate goal but he already knew that what he craved most was the joy of sinking into her honeyed depths again. There was simply something about her, something that acted on him like an aphrodisiac. He wasn’t going to think about it. Why should he? What was the point? Fabulous sex didn’t need to be dissected: it simply was. Gritting his teeth, he slowly edged an arm round her and she didn’t need much of an invitation after that. In fact she scooted across the divide between them and clamped to the side of him like a landmine, doing all the work for him, he conceded in relief.
‘Women like hugs,’ Vito had told him as if it were some great secret known only to the precious few. Apollo didn’t like hugging women but he believed he could learn to pretend that he did...particularly if it encouraged sex, he reflected with a sudden wolfish grin. Be nice, Holly had told him without much apparent hope that he could possibly deliver on that suggestion.