Thanos wasn’t the kind of man to offer ‘more’—the elusive promise of something beyond the physical. He had no interest in anything other than sex, and never had done. It was one of the reasons he generally kept his ‘relationships’ to a one-time affair. It was a lot harder to hurt someone if you only spent a night in each other’s company.
And that had worked for him—it had been easy. Guilt-free.
But there was danger here, so much danger. Because everything was different with Alice. The intensity of his need for her was unlike anything he’d ever known. The sex had been mind-blowing, just as she’d said, so he’d been insatiable for her, wanting more and more and more. Even now, after knowing the pleasures of her body, her hands, her mouth all night, he was still filled with a hunger for her, a desperate craving that wouldn’t quit.
But by far the biggest danger they faced was that he couldn’t simply walk away from this. He couldn’t kiss her on the lips and fly off in his helicopter, back into his real world. He couldn’t turn his back on her and never see her again, as he ordinarily might.
She was his wife, and, even though they both knew their wedding was practicality at its finest, they were inescapably bound.
Sex complicated that. It complicated it in a way that meant he couldn’t make his peace with it, and yet he already knew he couldn’t walk away from it either. What he needed was to regain a sense of control; to put some boundaries in place. Because she was right. He hadn’t lied to her, and he didn’t intend to. Not with words, certainly, but not with actions either. He owed it to both of them to show he could control the passion that flared between them. It was a delight to be carefully enjoyed, not a need that should be allowed to overtake them.
He wouldn’t allow it, and he was Thanos Stathakis so naturally he didn’t, for one moment, doubt his chance of success.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHAT HAPPENED WITH your father?’
He lifted his gaze from the newspaper he was reading to find Alice watching him with undisguised curiosity.
The yacht had been a bad idea. A very bad idea. If he’d been wanting to prove to himself that he could control this flame of desire, suggesting they take his yacht out onto the Balearic Sea had been foolhardy in the extreme.
From the minute Alice had appeared in a floaty sundress with a huge wide-brimmed hat, he’d felt a pulsing of warmth in his body that had had less to do with admiration than it did amusement—a sentiment he feared was just as dangerous.
She’d brought a huge bag with her, packed with books of all things, and a big bottle of water, as though she didn’t realise his yacht had a commercial-grade kitchen on board as well as an army of staff to keep them fed and serve them drinks of any variety.
But it was when she’d removed her sundress to reveal a bright red bikini that he’d known it was going to be harder than he’d banked on to control his need for her.
Alice Smart—no, Alice Stathakis—had the most tantalisingly creamy skin he’d ever seen. Flawless and pale, with golden undertones, and toes that had been painted a surprising black matte in colour. She’d wiggled them as she’d read, and he’d found the sight of that infuriatingly erotic.
He’d had to fight an urge to ask her what she was reading. To ask her if she read often. What her favourite books were. To ask her anything and everything. Because asking, he feared, would lead to knowing her better, and, more than that, it would lead to looking at her and wanting to strip that scrap of Lycra from her body and make love to her right here on the deck of his yacht, with not a care in the world for the possibility of drone cameras overhead or long lenses on shore.
‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,’ she offered, an apologetic heat creeping into her cheeks.
He frowned, not perfectly able to recall what she’d asked.
‘I guess it was pretty hard for you. Having him be sent away.’ She turned back to her book, her dark hair plaited in a single braid, which she’d pulled over her shoulder. The tasselled ends landed against her breast; a breast he’d touched and tasted and was hungry to feel again now. Her skin would be sun-warmed and salty from the ocean.
‘It wasn’t hard.’ The admission surprised them both. Him, because he rarely spoke of Dion Stathakis to anyone. Even he and Leonidas, by unspo
ken yet mutual consent, had formed a silence when it came to their father and his wrongdoing. Of course, Leonidas had so much more to resent the man for than Thanos did—Leonidas who had lost his wife and child in a madman’s revenge against Dion. But Thanos had still lost enough to hate his father with all his soul.
‘No?’ She pressed a finger into the pages of her book and placed it on her lap. His eyes followed the gesture.
‘I wish he’d received a life sentence. No, sometimes I’ve wished he’d been put to death.’
Her breath made an audible gasp as she processed this.
‘You may think that’s harsh,’ he said softly. ‘But you have to understand the damage he did, the life he took.’
‘Whose life?’
Thanos let out a laugh—but not one of amusement. ‘Mine, my brother’s, my grandparents’ legacy, and theirs before them.’ He shook his head in disapproval. ‘He ruined everything and not because he needed money, but because he wanted power. Not the kind of power you can have when you own half the hotels in Europe,’ Thanos pointed out with a wry shift of his lips. ‘He wanted people to fear him. He wanted them to tremble when he entered a room.’
Alice was quiet for a moment and Thanos wondered if she was regretting asking the question. But after a moment, she shifted her body weight, pushing onto her side so she could face him properly. And even in the midst of recounting a time in his past he loved to forget, his eyes were drawn to the sway of her breasts, and desire offered a very welcome reprieve from the darkness of his thoughts.
‘Were you afraid of him?’
The question was not at all what he’d expected.