‘But—’
The kiss that silenced her lasted all the way down to the bedroom. It was like plunging a finger into an electric socket. Excitement and shock waved through her. He brought her down on the bed. Surfacing, Maxie stammered in complete bewilderment, ‘B-but you don’t want me any more...you imagined me—’
Engaged in ripping off his clothes over her, Angelos glowered down at her. ‘I didn’t imagine that clever little brain or that stinging tongue of yours, did I?’
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped.
‘What I should have done when I woke up this morning to find you exploring me like a shy little kid...I didn’t want to embarrass you.’ Angelos focused on her, his sheer incredulity at that decision etched in every line of his savagely attractive features. ‘How could I possibly have dreamt that you could be embarrassed? Beneath that angelic, perfect face you’re as tough as Teflon!’
Maxie was flattered to be called that tough. She didn’t mind being told she was clever, or that she had a sharp tongue either. This was respect she was getting. It might not be couched in terms most women would’ve recognised but she knew Angelos well enough to see that she had risen considerably in his estimation since the previous night. Indeed, it crossed her mind that Angelos responded beautifully to a challenge, and that acknowledgement shone a blinding white light of clarity through her thoughts. She sat there transfixed.
‘Why are you so quiet?’ Angelos enquired suspiciously. ‘I don’t trust you quiet.’
Maxie cast him an unwittingly languorous smile over one shoulder. ‘I presume we’re not heading for a divorce right at this moment...?’
‘Theos, woman...we only got married yesterday!’
The heat of his hungry gaze sent wild colour flying into her cheeks. He still wanted her. He still seemed to want her every bit as much as he had ever wanted her, she registered in renewed shock. And then he brought his mouth to hers again and her own hunger betrayed her. Her hands flew up to smooth through his hair, curve over his hard jawline. The need to touch, to hold was so powerful it made her eyes sting and filled her with instinctive fear.
‘I won’t hurt you this time...I promise,’ Angelos groaned against her reddened mouth while he eased her out of her dress virtually without her noticing. He cupped her cheekbones to stare down into her sensually bemused eyes, his own gaze a tigerish, slumberous gold. ‘To be the first with you...that was an unexpected gift. And telling me crazy stories in an effort to level some imaginary score is pointless. You ache for me too...do you think I don’t see that in you with every look, every touch?’
Crazy stories? The will, her godmother’s will. Obviously, after a moment of reflection, he hadn’t believed her after all. But Maxie couldn’t keep that awareness in mind. She did part her lips, meaning to contradict him, but he kissed her again and she clutched at him in the blindness of a passion she could not deny.
‘Why should you still fight me?’ Angelos purred as he freed her breasts from the restraint of her bra and paused to run wondering dark eyes over her. He brushed appreciative fingers over the engorged tip of one pale breast and then lingered there in a caress that stole the very breath from her quiveringly responsive body. ‘Why should you even want to fight me?’
There was something Maxie remembered that she needed to tell him, but looking up into those stunning golden eyes she could barely recall what her own name was, never mind open a serious conversation. Angelos angled a blinding megawatt smile of approval down at her and it was as if she had been programmed from birth to seek that endorsement. She reached up and found his lips again, a connection she now instinctively craved more than she had ever craved anything in her life before.
His tongue played with hers as he lay half over her. He smoothed a hand down over her slim hips and eased off the scrap of lace that still shielded her from him. With skilled fingers he skimmed through the golden curls at the apex of her slender thighs and sought the hot, moist centre of her. A whimper of formless sound was torn from Maxie then. Suddenly she was burning all over and she couldn’t stay still.
And, as straying shards of sunlight played over the bed, Angelos utilised every ounce of his expertise to fire her to the heights of anguished desire. When she couldn’t bear it any more, he slid over her. He watched her with hungry intimacy as he entered her, the fierce restraint he exercised over his own urgency etched in every taut line of his dark, damp features.
The pleasure came to her then, in wave after drugging wave. In the grip of it, she was utterly lost. ‘Angelos...’ she cried out.