Tigger: fun, bouncy, always in trouble—he wasn’t so old that he couldn’t remember the animal’s appeal. He had to smile at the irony because his tiger was neither fun nor bouncy, but it certainly meant to cause him a lot of trouble where Eve Herakleides was concerned.
Reaching over he gently placed Tigger on Eve’s lap, then sent him a wry man-to-man look. ‘Lucky guy,’ he told the toy, and pressed a button that would recline her into a more comfortable position for sleep. A sigh whispered from her as she resettled her body. A glance at her eyes to check if he had disturbed her showed him the fine bruising around the sockets, which told him she was still suffering the effects of last night.
He’d forgotten about that. How had he forgotten about that? Because his mind had become fixed on more lusty things, of which he really ought to be ashamed.
He returned to his papers for a little while, but not very much later succumbed to the need to sleep himself. Halfway across the Atlantic he woke up to find that Eve had curled up on her side facing him, and her hand was splaying across his chest. But that wasn’t all—not by a long shot because a couple of her fingers had somehow found their way into the gap between his shirt buttons and were now resting against his warm skin.
He liked them there, had no wish to move them, even though a call of nature was nagging at him. So he closed his eyes again and saw his own fingers slipping down the front of her gaping top in a quest to caress the warm golden globe he’d caught sight of as he’d glanced at her.
Then he thought. No way. He forced his eyes back open—just in case he might do in sleep what he had been fantasising about while awake. Been there, done that once already today, he ruefully reminded himself. Instead he gave in to the other desire and gently removed her hand from his chest so that he could get up.
She was awake when he came back, and her seat had been returned to its upright position. ‘Drink?’ he suggested.
‘Mmm.’ She half yawned. ‘Tea, I think, and can you see if they can rustle up a sandwich?’
‘Sure.’ He went off to find a flight attendant. When he came back Eve was not there and he presumed she’d gone where he’d just been. She slipped back into her seat as the flight attendant arrived with a china tea service and a plate of assorted sandwiches.
She’d freshened up, he’d freshened up, both looked a bit better for it. Ethan poured the tea while Eve checked the fillings between neat triangles of bread. ‘Any preference?’ she asked him.
You, he thought soberly. ‘I don’t mind,’ he answered. ‘I’m starving. We slept through dinner apparently.’
‘You too?’ she quizzed.
‘Mmm,’ he answered.
‘Did you manage to finish your work before you slept?’
‘Mmm,’ he said again.
‘Is that all you can say?’ she mocked. ‘Mmm?’ It was like talking to a bumble-bee, Eve thought impatiently.
No, it wasn’t all he could say, she discovered the moment he turned his head to look at her. Dark grey eyes locked with green, and the air was suddenly stifled by the kind of feelings that didn’t belong in the cabin of an aeroplane. He wanted her. She wanted him. If they touched they would go up in a plume of fire and brimstone, it was so sinful what was happening to both of them.
They didn’t touch. Eve looked away, picked up her cup and grimly drank the hot tea in the hope that it would outburn everything else. That damn ring flashed again and Ethan wished he hadn’t put it there. It had been a mad impulsive gesture to make. This arrangement was a sham. The ring was a sham. But when he looked at that thing, Eve belonged to him.
CHAPTER TEN
THE rest of the flight was a lesson in how to avoid giving off the wrong kind of signals. They dropped down into Heathrow airport in the early morning local time, then had to hurry through transit to catch their connection to Malaga. That flight was full and noisy with excited children off on holiday to Spain. It was early afternoon by the time they cleared the formalities there.
Ahead of them lay a two-hour drive south to San Estéban, but one glance at Eve put the cap on that plan. Travel fatigue was casting a greyish pallor over her beautiful skin and she looked fit only to drop down and sleep where they stood.
Ethan had used a hand to guide her into a convenient seat in the airport arrival lounge. ‘Sit,’ he quietly commanded.
Subsiding without a single murmur, she watched him park their luggage trolley next to her through listless eyes and didn’t even seem to notice that he then walked off without telling her where he was going.
He came back five minutes later to find her sitting more or less how he had left her. As he came to stand in front of her she looked up and, stifling a yawn, she pointed at their assorted luggage. ‘Just think,’ she said, ‘how convenient it would be if we ever got married.’
Following the direction of her pointing finger, Ethan found himself looking at two sets of suitcases, both of which wore the same initials embossed on their leather like a sign from the devil of what the future held for them. He didn’t like it. His mouth turned down in a show of dismay because those near-matching suitcases spoke of one giant step over that fragile line between, I can deal with this, and, The hell I can.
Eve saw he didn’t like it. ‘It was a joke, Ethan,’ she sighed out wearily.
‘Time to go,’ was all he said—heavily.
Taking hold of her arm he pulled her to her feet when all Eve wanted to do was curl up in a dark corner somewhere, go to sleep and not wake up again while he was still in her life!
Then what did he do to throw that last thought right out of her head? He placed an arm around her shoulders, gently urged her to lean against him then kept her that close while pushing the trolley in front of them as they walked outside.
I like him this close, she confessed to herself. I love it when he makes these unexpected gestures of concern. ‘You’ve no sense of humour,’ she muttered in grim rejection of her own weakness.