Giving up her struggle, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “What do you want from me?”
“All I’ve ever wanted is the truth, pethi mou.” His fingers circled her nape with a possessively delicate touch. Her heart thudded as if it would thunder out of her chest as she raised her head. Molten heat filled his eyes. “But you won’t give me that. So, I will claim what I can of you.”
Somehow she shook her head, even mesmerized by how low and silky he sounded, by how astonishingly expressive his face was.
How had she always seen only one facet of Stavros?
There were so many sensations—the rough texture of his hands against hers, his bruising grip on her wrists, the sudden heaviness of her breasts as they jutted against him, the beckoning hardness of his thighs against her hips—she should have expired from so much sensory input. It was as though her body was one pealing, pulsing mass of sensation...
He was everything she ever wanted and yet she couldn’t give in. “I don’t want this. I...”
“In this, you’re not a good liar.” He placed a finger on the pulse at her neck, feral satisfaction filling his gaze. “Your pulse betrays you...your darkening eyes betray you.” With every word he said, his accent became thicker, her breaths came faster. “Even your mouth betrays you...” His long fingers framed her cheeks, pulling her closer.
Her hips nudged his thighs apart, and the hottest sensation zigzagged through her. His thighs were so hard and powerful, his touch possessive and potent.
How was she supposed to resist him when he looked at her like that?
“I will not be your wife soon. I won’t—”
He smiled then, and the sinful curve of his mouth, the dark laughter in his eyes undid the last layer of her willpower. “Now, tonight, in this moment, you’re still mine, yineka mou. One kiss for all the trouble you have caused me, Leah, one kiss for everything you deny me...”
He had turned her life upside down, and now he was doing the same to her heart.
Even as he staked his claim, he didn’t take the kiss. Long lashes hiding his gaze, his arm around her waist a heavy weight, he paused. But sinking under a deluge of emotions, Leah stared, transfixed, at the bow shape of his leanly sculpted mouth, felt need trump every fear.
Covering the last millimeter, she pressed her mouth to his. His savage growl shocked her as much as the incinerating texture of his lips...
His mouth was hot and hard, and a million sparks exploded under her skin.
With erotic strokes, he left her no air to breathe, gave her no room to think. Sensation exploded as he slanted his lips this way and that, his fingers in her hair holding her immobile for him. Teeth bit into her lower lip and punished. When she moaned, he softly blew at the spot before nipping again.
One hand slid over her hips, moved possessively over to her buttocks and then pulled her closer until she was straddling him. But not close enough for her to feel the part of him that she wanted to...
Even that, he controlled.
Her breasts felt full and aching as he crushed her against the wall of his chest with a palm at the base of her back. She panted, her breath balling up in her throat. Trembling, she ran her fingers over her mouth, and her cheek where his stubble had scratched her skin.
That mouth that could lacerate her with words, God, it could weave such erotic magic...those hands that had dumped cold water on her, they could evoke such heat in her; the cradle of his arms, it made her feel so alive...
He didn’t kiss softly, he didn’t seduce, he didn’t cajole.
He wrung the response out of her as he did everything else with her. Impinging his will on her senses, imprinting his hard muscles over her soft ones... The way he ruled her life, the way he decided what she needed.
She could have spent the next hundred years wedged against his hardness, lost in his kiss, delirious with the pleasure he brought her. But not let him tell her what she needed, not accept what he deigned to give her.
No!
In that, she couldn’t let him decide her fate, couldn’t let fear rule her.
Determined to give him a fight, determined to demand her due, she pulled her mouth away from his, trailed it along that hard jawline, buried it in the crook of his neck. Tasted the salty tang of his skin. An insistent pull began at her sex, and she moaned against his bristly jaw.