Jumping out of bed, he pressed a button on it, which brought up the screen issuing the alert. It was from the camera and the sensors in the secret passageway.
Peering closely, he saw a figure moving stealthily along the passageway, getting closer and closer to his room. With his heart in his mouth he watched as she hesitated, and willed her to take the final step and knock on the door.
* * *
Amy stared at Helios’s door, not quite certain what she was doing or how she had got to this point.
Knowing she was vulnerable to temptation, she’d accepted an invitation to go to one of the other curator’s apartments for a drink: a mini-soirée she would usually have loved attending. She’d tried so hard to pull herself out of the trance she’d fallen into, but her contribution to the conversation had been minimal. She couldn’t remember a word of it. It was as if she’d been floating above it all, there in body but not in spirit.
She wanted to blame the alcohol, especially the mojitos Helios had given her, but that would have been a lie. It was all down to him.
She’d gone back to her own apartment after just one drink, but before she’d even stepped into her bedroom she’d stopped and stared at the door that led to the secret passageway. Her breaths had shortened as a deep yearning had pulled at her.
Impulse had overridden common sense. She’d unlocked the connecting door and stepped into the passageway in the same dreamlike state she’d ridden back to the palace in, not consciously thinking about where she was going. But now, standing at his door, sanity had pushed its way back through into her mind.
She couldn’t do this. It was all wrong.
Closing her eyes, she pressed the palm of her hand to his door, holding it there.
This was as far as she dared go. If she were to knock and he were to answer...
She heard the telltale click of the lock turning.
She snatched her hand away, her breath catching in her throat.
The door opened.
Helios stood in the doorway, naked, nonchalant, as if Amy sneaking up to his room and doing nothing but touch his door was an everyday occurrence. Except the nonchalance was only on the surface. His chest rose and fell in tight judders. His jaw was taut; his nostrils flared. His eyes bore through her as he did nothing but stare.
And then he moved, sending out a hand to wrap around the nape of her neck and pull her to him and over the threshold. As soon as they were in his room he held her firmly and pushed the door shut. He pressed her against it, trapping her.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked roughly, leaning close enough for his warm, faintly minty breath to touch her skin.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
She didn’t know. The closest she could come to describing it was her subconscious overriding her resolve. Now, though, the opposite was true. The sensations darting through her had overridden her subconscious and every inch of her had sprung into life. There was not a single atom of her body that wasn’t tilting into him, yearning for his kiss, his touch.
‘I know.’
Then, with a look that suggested he wanted to eat her alive, he brought his mouth to hers and caught her in his kiss.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF HIS KISS had been the demanding assault she’d anticipated Amy would have been able to resist and push him away. But it wasn’t. His lips rested against hers but he made no movement, stilling as if he was breathing in her essence. Amy inhaled deeply in turn, letting the warmth of his breath and the scent of him creep through her pores and inhabit her.
It was as if everything that had happened in the past ten days had been blown away, and with it all the reasons why being alone with him in his apartment and in his arms was all wrong. This was everything she wanted, everything she needed. How could something so wrong feel so right?
And now she didn’t even want to think about right and wrong. All she wanted was to be in his arms. For ever.
She was the one to part her lips, to dart her tongue into the darkness of his mouth, to wind her arms around his neck and press into him. She was the one to break the kiss and drag her lips over his stubble-roughened cheeks and jaw and down the strong length of his neck, to run her tongue over the smooth skin, tasting his musky, masculine scent. And she was the one to draw her tongue back up his throat, dig her nails into his scalp and capture his lips with her own.
A tiny sob escaped her mouth when Helios growled and drew his arms around her. He crushed her to him. His lips parted and he kissed her so deeply and so thoroughly that in the breath of an instant she was lost in him.
A large hand dived into her hair whilst his other hand roamed down her back to clutch her bottom, which he squeezed before spreading his palm over her thigh and lifting it. He ground into her and she gasped to feel him huge against her, her underwear the only barrier to stop him entering her there and then.