She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want him standing so close. She didn’t want to be here with him. And she very much didn’t want to feel the aching heaviness that sat deep inside her, or the crackling, spitting electricity that prickled over her skin the instant she’d seen him in the doorway.
For three months she’d told herself that her response to him that night in Thailand had been an aberration, a trick of being somewhere new and exciting, and that once she left, once he wasn’t in her vicinity, it would disappear.
Yet she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head.
Ares sitting arrogantly in that chair, with his big, hard muscled body so close.
Ares cradling her hand in his, slowly turning it palm up and pressing his scarred mouth to it.
The memory of that mouth on her skin had haunted her, and even now, months later, she could still feel the burn of his kiss on her palm.
‘This is desire.’
She hadn’t known. She hadn’t ever known what it was until he’d shown her. Until she’d realised what a fool she’d been, thinking to use sex against him, thinking it didn’t matter. And that was the problem. She could feel the power of it inside her now and she knew it made everything different.
Because desire did matter. It did. It wasn’t abstract any more, and while being in the outside world had certainly shown her that it was possible to want a man and that sex could be pleasurable, there was a part of her that had never quite believed it.
But she did now. She knew what it felt like to want someone, and she hadn’t liked how vulnerable it made her feel, not to mention stupid.
Stupid to have offered herself to him so many times without even the faintest clue about what it meant.
Facing him again after that night in Thailand had felt impossible, the power she’d thought she had an illusion. Wanting him had frightened her, because wanting anything had been a dangerous thing for a prisoner. She’d avoided him the whole rest of the week, which she supposed made her a coward, but she hadn’t been able to process this new knowledge about herself with him around.
Rose swallowed. This was silly. He hadn’t hurt her—he’d only kissed her palm, for God’s sake—so why she was acting like the scared little girl she’d once been, she had no idea. She didn’t want to be afraid. Not the way she had been back in the compound. Afraid and powerless, a victim.
No. Not again.Neveragain.
Gathering her courage, Rose turned around and met his gaze.
Instantly all the breath left her body.
She’d known he was standing behind her, she’d felt his heat, but she hadn’t realised how close. Only inches away. And he towered over her. So tall, like a building or a tree, like one of the oaks she’d seen through the car window as they’d driven up to the manor. Huge, encompassing, his wide shoulders and muscled chest seemingly taking up the entire world. Before, in Thailand, he’d been sitting down and, apart from that one time as he’d stood beside the sun lounger, she hadn’t understood just how tall he was or how that would affect her. One kiss in the palm of her hand had set her alight, but him standing so close, his body hotter than the fire at her back, the spicy, masculine scent of his aftershave all around her, was making her burn.
He wore another expertly tailored business shirt tonight, though this time in black and his suit trousers were also black. He seemed dark, powerful, the very epitome of who he’d been named for, the god of war, and that should have made her afraid, but it didn’t.
His mesmerising silver-green eyes reminded her of olive leaves, so startling in his dark and scarred face, and she found herself staring up into them, her breath coming faster, shorter.
‘I need to tell you something,’ he said. ‘I was hoping that since Ivan is being dealt with, I could also bring your friend Athena to you, but I just had news today that it appears she has already escaped.’
He’d emailed her a month earlier to tell her that steps against Ivan were being taken and that he was making enquiries about Athena, and she’d been so shocked that he was actually doing what he’d promised that it had taken her a good ten minutes to reply.
She’d felt helpless to do anything for her friend, and yet Ares, in one fell swoop, had not only brought Vasiliev to justice, but had maybe rescued Athena as well. Except, obviously, he’d been too late.
She swallowed, even now afraid to hope. ‘Escaped? But...she’s alive?’
‘Yes.’ There was a strange expression in his silvery-green gaze, one she couldn’t immediately identify. ‘It seemed she escaped a week before the authorities raided the compound.’
‘She wasn’t sold? She wasn’t taken—’
‘No. My sources told me that Ivan was furious, so it really was an escape attempt.’ His expression remained as inscrutable as it always was, yet that there was a certain...softness in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you better news. I had hoped to tell you she was safe and well and that you could see her. But I thought you’d want to know that she got out.’
That look in his eyes was concern, she suddenly realised. Concern for her. As if he cared what this news might mean for her and whether she would be upset.
And an odd feeling spread out inside her, warmth shot through with sparks. No one had ever been concerned about her feelings. No one had ever been concerned for her at all.
No one except this hard, frightening man who apparently cared more than he let on.
That warm, sparking feeling pulsed lightly in her chest, and completely without conscious thought, Rose lifted a hand and touched his scarred and melted cheek.