‘If I don’t pay,’ she muttered, battling against a powerful desire to throw herself back into his arms and abandon her principles, ‘then I’ll have to go home.’
‘You didn’t seem to have a problem with the concept of accepting my hospitality when we were in Paris.’
‘That was different. You wanted me to help your father. I was doing you a favour.’
‘And I want you to do me several more favours,’ he breathed, the exasperation in his eyes suddenly replaced by something much, much more dangerous. ‘Come to bed and I will show you.’
‘Don’t tease me.’
‘Why not? I love it when you blush.’ He slid a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘I want you, and I want you now. And you want me, too. You are aching for me—aren’t you?’ His fingers moved purposefully down her body, his touch skilled and sure as he transformed her into a quivering wreck with just the stroke of his hand.
‘You’re not playing fair, Angelos—’
‘You are the one who is not playing fair.’ His hand lingered on the curve of her hip in a deliberately intimate caress. ‘Imposing all these ridiculous rules on our relationship.’
‘Just one rule,’ she gasped, trying to ignore the seductive stroke of his fingers.
‘You can stop this foolishness, agape mou. I’m suitably impressed. And none of that matters any more. All day I have been thinking about last night.’
‘Impressed? What do you mean?’
‘I’m impressed by your determination not to take my money. It’s very refreshing. But there’s no need to go over the top.’
‘I’m not saying it to impress you,’ she moaned, pushing against his chest. ‘And you’re not listening to me.’
‘I’m listening. I just don’t like what I’m hearing.’
‘Do you always ignore things you don’t like?’
‘No.’ He gave a casual shrug. ‘I just turn them into things I do like. And I don’t understand your problem. We are in a relationship and I am spoiling you. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Everything, if the spoiling is financial.’ Desire sizzled between them and her struggle to ignore it seemed impossible.
He was clearly fighting the same battle. His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered there. ‘And what if I took you out to dinner? Would you insist on paying?’
‘Of course I would.’
Incredulous dark eyes lifted to hers. ‘You’d be pushing a pile of used euros into my hand at the end of the meal? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Maybe. Gold credit cards aren’t the only way to pay, you know.’ She looked away from him and reminded herself why she was doing this. ‘If I let you pay, it would mean that you were buying me.’
‘If I pay, it means I’m spoiling you.’
‘But you only want to spoil me because we had sex.’
‘I want to spoil you because that is what people do in a relationship. That is normal behaviour, Chantal!’ Driven to the point of explosion by the conversation, he ran his fingers through her hair. ‘This conversation is going round and round in circles, and I don’t even want to be talking.’
‘I don’t want to talk, either,’ she whispered, her heart pounding as his bronzed fingers slid over her shoulder and toyed with the narrow strap of her costume. ‘Take the money and the conversation ends.’
He bent his head and touched her shoulder with his mouth. ‘I will not take the money.’ His mouth was hot against her flesh and her eyes drifted shut.
‘Yesterday you thought I was a gold-digger and you weren’t very pleased about it. Now I’m trying to pay and you’re not very pleased about that, either. That’s very contradictory behaviour.’
He lifted his head and inhaled deeply, clearly at the limits of his patience. ‘All right. If it makes you more comfortable, I will take the money.’ He lifted the roll of cash and tucked it into his pocket with an exaggerated flourish. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Yes.’ Her heart bumped hard against her chest. ‘I’m glad you agree with me.’
‘At this precise moment I’m prepared to agree to just about anything. Anything you want, the answer is yes. Now can we stop talking?’