“To marry you?” She fixed him with a cool stare that hid any emotion easily.
“Your father was traditional,” he answered his own question. “And my father’s dearest friend. But you were raised in America. By all reports --,”
She interrupted him. “You mean, according to Apollo?”
He dipped his head forward in silent concession. “You were raised by your mother. You are American. You are independently wealthy. I cannot see why you agreed to this.”
“Does it matter?”
He expelled a sigh. “You are the only person in my life who does not answer me when I ask a question.”
“And you don’t like it.”
His frown was just a flick of his lips. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Chloe laughed. “I would. You hate that I don’t fit into the box you think I ought to.”
“And what box is that?” He leaned forward, arresting her with the strength of his gaze. “Don’t tell me. You said last night. Submissive. Quiet…”
“Yes. You think I should do what you say, not have a mind of my own, a brain of my own.”
“When have I ever given you that impression?” He asked with a softness that his political opponents would have known to fear.
“Do you even need to ask?” She demanded fiercely. “Last night you tried to make me beg for you, just to prove you could. What does that say, except that you’re outrageously egotistical?”
He stared at her for several beats before sipping his wine once more. “Or,” he placed the glass down. “What if I value our arguing. Like it, even. But want you to let me teach your body what pleasures it’s capable of?”
Her breath hitched in her throat, but she wasn’t going to be silenced by her inexperience. “And for that I have to be demeaned? Humiliated? Made to beg as though my right to pleasure is something only you can grant?”
He expelled a breath, frustration evident in his features. “I was wrong last night, and for that I apologise.”
“You apologise?”
He nodded. “Now, stand up.”
“Why?”
He pushed his chair back and stood to his full height, moving towards her and extending a hand. “Because you’re sexually frustrated, and that’s my fault.”
“Yes, it is your fault,” she stayed in her seat, so that he groaned and knelt before her.
“Because you just wanted to feel this,” he lifted his hand between her legs, finding her underwear and pushing it aside, so his thumb could brush against her most sensitive cluster of nerves. “You’re a twenty two year old virgin, and you’re my wife, and I want you to feel every pleasure you have ever imagined.”
And before she could answer, he slipped a finger between the apex of blonde curls between her thighs, his own breathing ragged when he felt her warm, moist core.
“Raffa,” she whimpered, turning her body more fully to grant him better access. “Raffa!”
And through the fabric of her dress, he lifted his hand and palmed her breast, cupping the weight of her in his large, strong hand, brushing his thumb and forefinger over her nipples, plucking them until they were hard and aroused.
“I don’t need you to beg for me because I want to demean you,” he said, kissing her roughly before dragging his lips down her throat and nipping her flesh at the base of her neck. “I need to hear you say you want this. I need to know this is okay.”
His confession did something to Chloe, infiltrating her dark spaces, spreading warmth over a coldness that was locked deep in her heart. There was true desperation in the words, something close to self-condemnation.
Chloe shifted a little, so she could see his face more clearly.
Hadn’t she sworn she’d be cold in his arms? Hadn’t she promised herself she wouldn’t respond to him?
What foolish, petty resolutions! He was a man, and she was a woman, and this fire that burned between them needed to be addressed, needed to be quenched – or flamed? She didn’t know! Only that she couldn’t lie to him about her body’s wants any longer.