Never before had she come so alive in his arms, never before had she unleashed the control she held about her like armour. She was stripped of everything and relishing it. It fired his blood, settling deep within him. The sound of her breath, pants littering the air about them, came quicker and more urgently, her pleas flung into the night, begging and wanting, the very thing he had taunted her with before now serving only to increase his own need, his own arousal.
He pressed his finger, one first then a second, deep within her and she cried out, reaching her own completion, falling forward and catching herself on the stone balcony. He held her body as she shuddered, each time her core gently tightening around his fingers.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Now it was his turn, now it was what he needed.
He pressed his hands between the backs of her thighs, spreading her open to him, catching his curse before it could be let loose. She was incredible. He ran his hands over the curves of her backside, dipping his hands between her legs, casting his thumb out to catch the overly sensitised flesh and revelling in the way it sent a jolt through Anna’s body, as she reached out to hold on to the stone balustrade.
He plunged deeply into her until there was nowhere left to go, and failed utterly to prevent the feral growl he unleashed into the air about them. The feel of his skin inside her, the easy glide as he slowly withdrew almost completely, before thrusting back again, quick, hard, deep. It still wasn’t enough. As if sensing it too, she spread her legs wider, leaning back into him until she rested against his own thighs.
He thrust into her again, and again, never tiring of the feeling he was chasing, never tiring of the need to bring them together to an explosive completion. Once again, he drew his hand over her perfect breast, feeling the weight of it against his palm, moulding it, his fingers playing with her hardened nipple, forgoing the pleasure of taking it into his mouth, utterly overwhelmed with the intense passion her body was giving him. He dipped his fingers into the dark curls at the apex of her thighs, his thumb smoothing over her once again.
Her hot, fevered hand reached for his hip, grasping, pulling him into her more deeply, as if she was driven as much by this insanity as he. He wanted her to feel what he was feeling, that same sense of madness that was consuming them, that same sense of what they had become. It was exquisite torture as he pushed them almost to the brink, forcing himself to keep them there, hovering on the edge of the infinite nothingness of their own completion.
All about them, heavy on the air, their cries rang out into open air, the sound of his skin striking against hers the most intensely arousing thing he’d ever heard. All those nights in prison, never had he imagined the truth of their coming together, never had he been able to taste the strength of need, almost choking him now as he pushed them closer and closer to the edge.
That was his last thought, before his final thrust pushed them into oblivion.
* * *
Whether moments, seconds or hours had passed before his presence of mind came back, Dimitri couldn’t have said. Anna was cradled in his embrace, all strength in her body lost. Picking her up in his arms, he walked them through to the bedroom, passing the bed and continuing on into the bathroom. Still with her in his arms, he walked into the large, glass-fronted shower and turned the handle, waiting for the water to become hot before he put her down on unsteady legs.
The intensity of their lovemaking seemed to have robbed them both of words. He poured gel into his hands, pressing it into her skin, her muscles, soothing away the aches he imagined she might have, over her breasts, between her legs, down her thighs. When she did the same for him, Dimitri pulled her back into him, desperate to once more claim that same completion.
He turned the shower off, covered her with a towel and dried them both before leading her to the bed. The entire time her eyes had watched him, his hands, his actions with an intensity that scared him. Something between them had shifted tonight, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to look too closely at it.
Just before sleep could claim him, Anna asked a question that surprised him. She wanted a honeymoon. Not to go anywhere, but just some time with him and Amalia alone on the island. Without Flora, without work... And, just before he fell into a deep sleep, he was pretty sure that he agreed.
CHAPTER NINE
Dear Dimitri,
I never guessed. I could never have imagined it could be like this.
DIMITRI KNEW INSTINCTIVELY that he’d made a terrible mistake. Whether it was three days ago when he’d agreed to Anna’s request for a honeymoon, or three minutes ago when he’d gone to war with his demanding daughter over breakfast. He had spectacularly underestimated the calming influence Flora had on Amalia. Spectacularly. The heat from the night before had been stifling and Amalia had woken up pitching to throw a fit. He empathised.
For the first time in months, years almost, he had nothing to do, or at least nothing he was familiar with. This ‘honeymoon’ idea of Anna’s had exiled him from his business, business that had taken him two days to wrap up. His father had been almost gleeful to be rid of his brooding, obsessive need to pull their company back from the brink of the destruction Manos had caused. Encouraging him to enjoy his honeymoon, his wife and his daughter, his father had almost smiled as he had bid him farewell. Dimitri shook his head at the memory—wondering at the new tentative bonds of their relationship, amazed at the way it had begun to soothe some of the past hurts.
Had he really been that punishing at work? He cast his mind back over the months since he had come out of prison, all the days merging into one: fraught meetings with the board, impossible targets reached, devastated clients soothed and brought back into the fold—and all of which was done at an adrenaline-pounding pace. The trip to the Buenos Aires horse race last month and then one to Dublin, the only time away that Dimitri had allowed himself.
And he’d liked it like that, because it had kept him from thinking...from focusing on Manos’s betrayal. But since the night in Kavala, since the night he’d opened up to Anna, shared some of his past, and his pain, he’d felt...lighter. And that scared him. Because he was simply not used to it. Since the age of seven, he’d been solely reliant on himself. And now he was beginning to trust the bonds that had been woven between him and Anna. But what scared him the most was that Anna had been right.
The moment that she had suggested speaking with his half-brother, a sense of ease opened up in his chest—his chest that had been in a vice-like grip ever since Manos was charged with the fraud and cover-up. Perhaps it was because for the first time he didn’t feel as if he was facing his brother alone—that he had Anna and Amalia to return to, to share some of the burden with. Having Anna’s support...it was different to the kind offered by Danyl and Antonio. It was healing. And he only hoped that he could do the same for her.
He turned from the kitchen table when Amalia cried out loud, forgetting the cup of coffee he carried. The searing heat as the hot liquid spilled
from the rim of his cup drew a loud curse from his mouth.
Anna chose that exact moment to come into the kitchen and in once glance seemed to take in both his burned hand and furious mood, along with her daughter’s loud, plaintive, dry-eyed crying.
‘Can you do something about that?’ he demanded roughly, distracted by the burn and thrusting his hand under the cold-water tap. He caught her raised eyebrow and instantly realised his mistake.
‘Did you just call my daughter “that”? Really?’ she demanded.
‘Come on, Anna, I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.’ To his own ears he sounded exasperated.
‘One of you in a mood I can handle, but both you and Amalia? Too much. As you have gone to such extreme lengths to “claim” your child, as you so artfully put it, this is what it’s like, Dimitri. This was why I wanted a honeymoon. You wanted a wife and child—here we are. And now, I think, it’s your turn to find out what parenting is truly about. Not just the happy breakfast times, but the hard times, when there’s no reason other than our daughter’s own demanding personality—one that I can only imagine she inherited from you—for her to throw a tantrum.’
‘Did you even take a breath during that nice little speech?’