He obliged, passing restive fingers across her puckered flesh over and over, before pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. His other hand cupped her backside, kneading her soft flesh before he pressed her closer to his arousal. She whimpered as fierce need tore through her. Her senses on fire, she ran urgent hands under his shirt and sighed with satisfaction as she encountered muscled hardness. She yearned to feel him against her, naked, skin-to-skin. Another moan escaped her lips as Nick pressed his thighs against hers.
He freed her mouth, gave them a chance to inhale much needed air, but his assault on her senses didn’t abate. With the precision of a shark, he followed the vein to the pulse in her neck and explored it with his mouth and tongue. The rush of air from his lips heated the soft whorls of her ear, and she gasped at the pleasure overload.
“God, yineka mou, you’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted to be with you like this,” he muttered hoarsely as his hand left her breast and started lowering the thin strap of her dress.
With the cool rush of air on her exposed skin came reality.
She tore herself out of his arms and took several steps backwards. Heaving deep breaths, her fingers found and held onto the safety of the table behind her.
“Well, that’s too bad, Nick. I stopped being your wife a long time ago, and I won’t sleep with you just so you can scratch an itch.” She cursed the huskiness of her tone.
Shock and disbelief darted across his face. “Is that what you think this is?” he asked, his voice sandpaper-rough. Arousal still blazed in his eyes, and she could see his hard-on pushing against the zipper of his trousers. With her own need sharply thwarted, she swallowed hard and looked away.
“What else can it be? Your testosterone levels are so off the charts right now you can barely see straight. And I haven’t forgotten how much you love sex.”
He inhaled sharply, a sound that brought her eyes back to his. “I’ve never hidden the fact that I’ve always enjoyed sex, but if you think I can jump from our bed to another—” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what to make of that.”
Pain lanced through her. Looking into his face, she could almost have sworn she saw hurt there. “What am I supposed to think? You barely paused to take a breath after we separated before you were out partying and carrying on as if you were single again. Granted, you’re extremely photogenic, but seriously, did you have to pose for every single photographer in London, with every single beautiful model?”
“My life didn’t stop just because you’d decided to storm off in a tantrum.”
“Don’t belittle my feelings. What was wrong between us was more than just a childish tantrum. Or maybe that was the problem? You wanted a biddable wife, someone who could never be your equal—except maybe in the bedroom. At least your libido recognizes equality a lot more than you do.”
“My libido rages out of control only with you, glikia mou, and trust me, it’s damned inconvenient when all you want to do is fight instead of making love with me.”
“I don’t want to fight—”
His harsh laugh stopped her. “You’re doing a cracking impression, baby. As to thinking you were biddable, hell no. Stubborn and extremely infuriating, yes. Biddable? Not in this lifetime.”
“You tried to control me, Nick. When I refused to let you take over my life, you chose to punish me.”
His brows drew together. “Punish you? How did I punish you?”
“Don’t play games with me, please. You know how much I want a child. How much I want a family.”
His head jerked away, his skin paling a little as he stared out over the terrace. For several minutes he didn’t speak. When he turned back, his eyes were shuttered. “And you walked out because you thought I was punishing you by refusing to give you what you wanted?” His tone was devoid of any emotion.
“What was I supposed to think after you made me give up the job I loved, the master’s degree I wanted to take, and then dismissed the
subject of children outright without even talking about it?”
“Did you stop to think there might have been reasons for everything? For goodness’ sake, we’d been married only a few months. Was it wrong to want you to concentrate on just us?”
“No, it wasn’t. But refusing to discuss it was. You shut me down again when I mentioned it by the pool. And let’s talk about you continuing to have your life while you expected me to give up mine, shall we? You didn’t give up a single thing, Nick, while I was supposed to turn my life upside down for you, and you gave me nothing in return. God, you wouldn’t even let me redecorate your precious bachelor pad, the place I was expected to live!”
“So your solution was to walk away?” His face was granite-hard and his hands balled into fists, as if he held onto civility with a thin thread. “With the expectation that I would run after you and beg you to come back?”
“I guess we’ll never know. I didn’t return, and you didn’t come after me. I’m only here because your sense of duty forced you to bring me here.”
He glared daggers at her. “What if I told you that you were wrong? That not a single day went by that I didn’t want to storm into that excuse for a hovel you chose to hide in and drag you back kicking and screaming?”
Her heart thumped wildly. Then she blinked back foolish tears. “I’d say every single paparazzi shot of you attending a premier or a benefit gala or a polo event with your newest paramour when we were apart makes that statement a lie. And I may be still weak physically, but I’m far from bird-brained. Your actions spoke volumes of how you felt about me leaving. Did you ever even love me, Nick?”
He froze, raw rejection stamped across his face before his features morphed into blank indifference.
Big shock.
She whirled away from him. How could she have voiced the one insecure question she’d held at bay for so long? “I guess I have my answer.”