knees beside her, his hand reaching to caress her under her suit jacket. “Undressing you is like unwrapping a present.”
He’d used to say that too and she found herself suddenly too choked to answer. So she just smiled, the first one that came naturally to her since arriving in New York.
“Do you look the same under these layers?” he asked as his lips whispered down the side of her face to her neck.
“I’m a little thinner.”
He stopped moving, lifting his head to stare at her. “Surely you had no extra weight to lose.”
For the first time, trepidation filled her. She looked a bit more like a scarecrow than sexpot these days, not that she’d ever had a curvaceous figure.
He didn’t give her anxiety a chance to build. Showing he read her, at least in the bedroom, every bit as well as he’d ever done, he kissed away her worries as his hands began work on her blouse.
Words whispered against her skin that she could not quite make out as he took off her clothes, his fingertips leaving a heated trail of pleasure as he touched each newly revealed patch of skin.
By the time he had her completely naked, she was shivering with need. He’d very purposefully not touched her most erogenous zones, but had still managed to bring her to the point of begging.
Only biting firmly on her bottom lip was keeping the words inside.
He lifted his head to smile at her, his expression knowing. “You never were very patient the first time out of the box.”
“Since this may be our only time, maybe you should get a move on,” she gritted out, though in sexual frustration, not anger.
His expression turned intent. “You think so, do you?”
“You live in New York, when you’re even in the country. I live in Oregon. We’re not exactly well suited for casual hookups.”
“On that, at least, we agree.”
She didn’t get a chance to ask what he meant by that because he touched her breasts. Finally. And she nearly climaxed without him ever going near her clitoris.
But he remembered exactly what kind of touch to her nipples and breasts pleasured her the most and was intent on giving it to her. In abundance. He used his hands and mouth to bring her body taut like a bowstring and then one hand slipped between her legs.
Her mouth opened to scream and he kissed her, swallowing the sound as the ultimate pleasure crashed over her in a tsunami of bliss.
He pulled back, his fingers still touching her, but gently, causing small aftershocks to wrack her body. “It has been a while for you, I think.”
She might be blissed out. She might even still love him. But no way was she answering that implied question. “None of your business.”
“Your body does not lie.”
“Think what you like.” She looked away, knowing her expression would tell him the truth even if her mouth didn’t.
Then a very disturbing thought occurred to her. Was he using sex to disturb her equilibrium further in this business game only he seemed to know the rules to?
A gentle hand brushed her cheek. “Hey, stay with me, Chloe. We are far from finished.”
“No more questions about my private life.”
“Only one.”
She glared at him, sealing her lips.
“Are you in a relationship?”
“Surely whatever spies you have watching your business interests told you the answer to that.”
“I do not have investigators watching you.” By his tone, he considered he’d shown restraint and expected her to appreciate that fact.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t think of a reason he would have wanted to in the first place.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because he said, “There is very little related to any of my business interests that I do not know.”
Okay, but again, why? She wasn’t one of his business interests any longer. Even though he still held a big chunk of shares in Dioletis Industries, she had nothing to do with the company and even less to do with him.
Their currently somewhat intimate circumstances aside.
“Arrogant much?” she asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
She used to find his arrogance charming. Maybe part of her still did, but really—what had she been thinking?
He merely smiled.
Well, Mr. Arrogance hadn’t known she was on birth control during their short-lived marriage. And technically, it had been just another business arrangement. So, he didn’t know everything now, did he?
Despite falling head over heels for the gorgeous jerk, the one thing she’d been adamant about was that she wasn’t trapping him or herself into marriage through a child. Not unless they both wanted to be there permanently, and obviously he hadn’t.
“Do you honestly think I’d be on this couch if I had someone waiting for me back in Oregon?” she asked, to get her mind back where it needed to be.
She wanted this, and even she wasn’t going to ruin it for herself.
“No, but I would appreciate hearing the words.” He almost sounded humble.
Which was enough of a shock for her to acquiesce that much. “I’m not in a relationship.”
“Good.”
“I assume you aren’t in one either?” Not that she thought for a minute they defined the word the same way.
They certainly hadn’t agreed on what it meant to be married.
“No.”
“Then we can continue without guilt.”
“Ne. We will continue.” That single slip into Greek to say yes indicated more than his body coiled tightly with sexual tension, or even his hard-on, that Ariston was not in absolute control.
And then the tension snapped and the whirlwind that was her tycoon lover for the afternoon swept over her with touches and kisses and bodies rocking together until she spread her legs, silently begging him to enter her.
He grabbed a condom from the pocket of his slacks and she tried very hard not to think why he might carry those around. “Help me put it on.”
She nodded, and with trembling hands, did exactly that. He groaned as her fingers rolled the condom down his generous length.
Stilling above her, he implored, “Don’t move. Not your hand, not your body. Nothing. Please.”
It
