‘It won’t.’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. I witnessed enough relationship breakdowns in my childhood. They’re difficult to watch from the side-lines. Seeing people you care about hurt each other is not something I want for my son.’
‘First of all, this isn’t a relationship. Not in that sense. It’s just an...arrangement.’ She grinned, the sexiest smile he’d ever seen. ‘And, besides, we can make sure no one knows about this.’ She shrugged. ‘Especially Cameron.’
‘And can you say with confidence that you will feel that way in five weeks’ time, when you leave the island?’
She laughed, shifting a little, bringing their bodies into more intimate contact. ‘You think you’re so irresistible, don’t you?’
His eyes held a warning.
‘You think every woman on earth is at risk of falling in love with you.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I’m more worried that you’ll fall in love with me,’ she said with an impish lift of her shoulders, drawing his gaze to the dusky pink aureole of her nipple. ‘After all, I’m quite unique, you know.’ She laughed, to show she was joking, but he didn’t.
His expression was deadly serious. ‘I don’t believe in love—not romantic love, in any event. I don’t ask you not to love me because I’m arrogant, so much as because it’s utterly futile. I will never return it. This is just sex.’
* * *
A small smile moved across her face as she lifted her head, resting her chin lightly on his bare chest. He slept. Breath moved in and out, rhythmically, reliably; beneath her his heart beat, strong, regular, deep. Day was just preparing to break, whispering its promise beyond the window, urging the night to fade into nothingness, emerging in a blaze of triumphant orange somewhere near the horizon. It had been a warm night and they’d fallen asleep with the windows open. The curtains billowed a little, adding to the magic of that pre-dawn moment.
Do you think I want to wake up beside you every morning I’m here?
She’d thrown those words at him after they’d first slept together, the absurdity of the expectation making them ring with defiance in that moment.
But it was exactly what she’d done several times now in the three weeks since that afternoon in the pool house, when they’d both been so angry and passion, tension and need had spilled over, offering them the best kind of balm.
She woke early—it was part of her make-up, her overactive mind rousing her into the day well before light broke across the sky—and she never stayed in his room once she was awake. But this morning, she was tempted.
New to the ways of intimacy, she hadn’t realised that hunger could be impossible to satiate. She couldn’t have understood that each time they were together only seemed to increase her dependency on him, not lessen it as she’d anticipated.
Desire hammered through her veins now, thready and demanding, so that she ignored her usual pattern of behaviour—sneaking back to her room before anyone else was awake. Instead, she slowly eased the sheet from his broad, tanned body, exposing him inch by delicious inch, her eyes feasting on a chest that was broadly ridged—so familiar to her now that, despite her lack of artistic talent, she knew she could easily and confidently sculpt it from clay, just from memory alone. When the sheet reached his waist he moved just a little, shifting in his sleep. She stiffened, staying perfectly still, her eyes locked to his face until his breathing had resumed its steady, rhythmic pattern.
She pushed the sheet down his thighs lower still and then let it drop back to the bed with an almost silent swish, pressing against him. She bit down on her lip, her pulse rushing through her at an unbearable speed, and then she moved slowly in the bed, her eyes on his face as she moved.
He worked long hours. Despite the beauty of this island, he left it each morning at seven-thirty, like clockwork, and returned about twelve hours later. He spent around half an hour with Cameron then, and she worked, trying not to think of him when the fact he was in the house made it almost impossible to concentrate.
They only saw each other at night. And every night had made her more aware of her body’s needs and likes, of what she was capable of, of what she could feel, of how all-consuming physical desire was, until she found herself wondering how she’d ever existed without something as biologically imperative as sex.
He had driven her wild, showing her how her body liked to be pleasured, using his fingers, himself, his mouth, to drive her to orgasm after orgasm.
With a small smile tingling her lips, she dropped her mouth over his arousal, his guttural noise in response shooting barbs of pleasure through her. She felt him shift, and when she blinked her eyes towards his face saw that he was watching her, his eyes still heavy with sleep, his lips parted in slumberous sensuality.
She’d never done this before—never even imagined doing something so intimate, at first—but as he’d continued to teach her what her body was capable of, she’d begun to harbour fantasies of how she could visit that upon him. She knew her experience might make her less than spectacular, but feminine instincts were driving her, so she moved her mouth up and down his length, letting her tongue brush over his tip before pushing him deep into her mouth once more, so he hitched against her throat. She made a small murmur of appreciation—he was so large, so hard; and, as she continued to take him deep into her warmth, he spoke in Greek, low and husky, the words impossible to comprehend, yet she grasped his meaning.
He was as filled with desire as she had been the night before, when he’d lashed her with his tongue, his strong hands holding her legs apart, permitting him full access to her femininity.
‘Amelia, please.’ There was a plea in his words but she didn’t answer it. She didn’t know what he wanted and she wasn’t sure she cared. This was perfection. Feeling him like this, inside her, and seeing the answering wavering of his control, was some kind of fantasy come to life.
‘You must stop.’ His hand pressed at her shoulder. She paused, lifting her gaze to his while her lips stayed pressed to his tip.
‘Why must I?’
‘Because if you don’t...’
‘Yes?’ She took him deep into her mouth then and he cursed—in Greek, yet his tone made the meaning of his word abundantly clear.