‘You’re a client,’ she reminded herself and him, saying the words aloud in a desperate attempt to bring sanity back to her mind.
‘Not tonight.’ His head dropped closer to hers, so close that if she pushed up she could take his lips for her own. Blood formed a pounding cacophony in her ears, an orchestra of need like a tidal wave she was cresting over.
‘No? What are you then?’
She sucked in a gulp of breath but the stars in her eyes didn’t go away.
‘They are your rules,’ he responded without answering directly. ‘To break or ask me to abide by. I’m in your hands.’
The imagery conjured was too much. How could she explain to someone like Ares Lykaios that she was nothing like his usual companions? How could she explain to him that she didn’t simply go on dates with handsome strangers and kiss them beneath the bright Venetian moonlight? How could she explain to him that she was, of all things, a twenty-nine-year-old virgin?
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ she whispered. Because surely whatever happened next would be wildly disappointing for him—and possibly earth-shattering for her. The imbalance in their experience was terrifying. ‘I’m really, really not your type.’
Despite the tension thickening between them, his smile reached inside and calmed Bea’s nerves. Her body was, if anything, moving closer to his.
‘If you want to retain our original agreement, then I’ll respect that. But make the choice based on your feelings, not what you believe mine to be. I know exactly what I want right now.’
Her heart lurched completely off-balance. ‘And that is?’
He moved so close that their lips brushed and whatever willpower she had left to resist him disappeared completely. ‘I want to spend the night with you.’ His finger ran along her cheek, and she was trembling against his body, the desire he was invoking too much to resist. ‘Just one night, nothing more.’
It sounded so simple! So easy! Sex, plain and simple—except nothing with Ares Lykaios would ever be plain.
‘But I’m—’ The words trailed into nothing.
Then, to hell with the rules, he was kissing Bea and she was kissing him back, their lips enmeshed in a way that blew all Bea’s preconceptions of such a thing well out of the water. Unlike the passionless encounters she’d had in the past, every movement of his mouth stirred flame in her blood, so that she couldn’t sit still. If she did, the fire would engulf her; she had to move.
The boat rocked from side to side as she pushed up into his lap, needing to be closer to him, so much closer than their clothes and public location allowed. His hands moved inside his jacket that she wore, wrapping around her slender waist, holding her there as he drove his tongue into her mouth, the rhythm fast and urgent, leaving her in no doubt as to just how badly he did, in fact, want her. One hand on her hip moved lower, cupping her bottom, and she groaned, flinching a little at the completely foreign contact but welcoming it too, needing it—and him—in a way that shook her to the core of her being.
She often felt too tall, too ungainly, but in Ares’s hands she was dainty and petite, his size engulfing her, his strength dominating her completely as he shifted and by degrees moved her with him, so she was straddling him, the voluminous skirts of her dress forming a circle around them, her fingers pushing through his hair and joining behind his neck, her breasts crushed to his chest as his mouth continued to torment hers, his expertise and experience meaning that the kiss alone had the power to make her stomach swoop all the way to her toes.
But then he rolled his hips, lifting a little on the seat of the gondola, so she felt something unfamiliar and unmistakable between her legs, his hard arousal striking panic into her heart even as ancient feminine instincts came to the fore, reassuring her that she’d know what to do when the time came. Her hand dropped to his shoulder, then lower still to his shirt, her fingers curling into the fabric and squeezing, holding on tight.
He tore his mouth away but held her head steady where it was, calling Italian words over his shoulder.
He was kissing her again before she could ask him what he’d said, but the gondolier took a side canal, so she could only presume Ares had given a change of course. And, with any luck, to a hotel!
Why was it that he, of all people, could affect her like this? She’d spent her entire adult life believing she was immune to the opposite sex and yet here he was, stirring her to a fever pitch on a boat in the middle of Venice.
‘To hell with the rules,’ he growled.
His hand pushed under the fabric of her dress, resting on her thigh. He kept it there, not pushing higher, as though he sensed it was a limit for her, that she needed time to process that sensation first, to reconcile herself to the intimacy before he took another. And God, she hoped he would take another and another and another. Sparks of anticipation flew through Bea’s blood as she realised what was about to happen: Finally, she was going to have sex. She was going to lose her virginity, so she could have some understanding of what all the fuss was about. And with Ares Lykaios she knew it would be a night to remember!
A low, throbbing noise was sounding in her ears, running through her body, vibrating in her chest. She attributed it to her heart until her brain kicked into gear. Pulling back from him and staring—dazed—into his hooded grey eyes, she pressed a hand to his torso. ‘You’re ringing.’
He looked as swept up by passion as she felt. He stared at her for a beat before the words resulted in action. He lifted his shoulders, pulling her closer. ‘I don’t care.’
She moaned softly as he parted her lips with his, sliding his tongue in more slowly this time, the enquiry gentle, but no less urgent. She rolled her hips, a primal wisdom beating in her heart, showing her how to answer her needs, how to act.
The throbbing began once more, vibrating through Bea’s chest, so she pushed away, her breath laboured, her eyes sparkling. ‘Answer it, then switch the damned thing off.’
His brows flexed and with a forceful exhalation he reached into his pocket. A frown crossed his face as he glanced at the screen, and then he swiped it to answer, his other hand still on her thigh, his thumb stroking gently over the skin there, as though he knew he could keep her in his sensual thrall with that slight contact alone.
‘Yes?’ Frustration emerged in the clipped tone, taking Bea back to their first meeting, when he’d spoken to her like that. She was glad not to be on the receiving end of his impatience any more, and pitied whoever had called.
They were in close proximity and she could hear the string of high-pitched words without being able to understand any of them, owing to the language in which they were being spoken. His thumb stopped moving; the weight of his hand on her thigh grew lighter.
He barked something into the phone in Greek, his eyes on Bea’s face without, she suspected, seeing her. Ares was gentle yet insistent as he dislodged her from his lap, shifting her back to the seat at his side, his features looking as carved from granite as ever but harsher now so they were jagged and sharp. For no reason she could think of, a shiver ran down Bea’s spine.