didn’t intend to fall on you like a wild animal the minute I came through the door,’ he volunteered impatiently. ‘I was planning on having dinner first.’
Erin averted her gaze, the victim of unwelcome memories of a passion that had never gone off the boil. ‘You were never very good at waiting. It was always like this for us—’
‘There is no “us” any more.’
Erin lowered her lashes. He was wrong. Lorcan and Nuala were a wonderful combination of their respective genes and unless she was very much mistaken her toddlers had inherited his volatile nature. Lorcan was wilful and hot-tempered and Nuala was sharp as paint and mercurial, neither of them demonstrating an iota of their mother’s quieter, more settled personality. But she was grateful that Cristo didn’t know about them. Lorcan and Nuala would never get the chance to emulate their father’s tough cynical outlook on the world, where what he wanted always came ahead of what was best for other people. He would not get the chance to turn them into spoilt, selfish children and, after the manner in which he had corralled her back into his bed, she refused to feel guilty about the fact.
She glanced up in the silence.
‘You look like you’re plotting,’ Cristo remarked thoughtfully.
He towered over her, naked and aroused, gazing down at her with hot golden eyes of appreciation. She was appalled when her body reacted deep down inside, her nipples tingling as dampness formed at the heart of her.
‘What on earth would I be plotting?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stroked the tight set of her sultry mouth with a considering fingertip. ‘But you’re wearing the same face you wore when you found out I’d taken business associates to a lap-dancing club, koukla mou.’
Erin flushed as he came down beside her. ‘Not one of my better memories.’
Cristo unclasped the hands she had tightened round her knees and pulled her back against his warm, hair-roughened torso. ‘Nor mine, but unfortunately that kind of venue is par for the course with certain men.’
Her breath scissored in her throat as he found her breasts again, gently, surely shaping and tugging at the swollen tips. He pressed her back against the pillows, long brown fingers dipping below the waistband of her knickers, moving across bare smooth skin to stroke her clitoris. As the ache between her thighs intensified, she shut her eyes tight. He kissed her with hot driving force, skimmed off that last garment and pressed his lips to the smooth slope of her belly. Her eyes flew wide because she had silvery stretchmarks there from her pregnancy and she quivered as he trailed his expert mouth over her abdomen and then lower, startling her with that move. He found her with his mouth and his fingers, delving into the honeyed heat of her until she moaned, hips squirming as the pleasure built. He tipped her back, drowning her in sweet sensation that sent her out of control. Her breath sounded in audible gasps as she shifted helplessly up to him, wanting, needing and then response took over to send her racing into an explosive climax.
‘I love watching you come … it must be the only time in your life that you let go of control,’ Cristo husked, looking down at her with an unusually reflective light in his keen gaze. ‘You’re so different from me.’
Emerging dizzily from the tremors of ecstasy still rocking her body, Erin looked up into his lean dark face and the stunning eyes engaged in tracking her every change of expression. She felt exposed, vulnerable, shaken that he had already seduced her so thoroughly that she could barely recall what day it was, never mind how they had ended up in a bed at such indecent speed. ‘I don’t want to be here doing this with you,’ she said fiercely.
‘Liar.’ He brought his mouth down on hers and her tongue slid against his again and that single kiss was so passionate she shivered.
Cristo donned a condom and came over her like a one-man invasion force, tipping her legs over his shoulders and driving into her so hard and deep that her head fell back in a curtain of shiny silver blonde hair, neck arching feverishly in reaction. It was good, hell it was amazing, she thought furiously, angry with herself, enraged that she hadn’t found it possible to lie there without responding and destroy his desire for her. She knew him well enough to know that if she had held back and failed to respond he wouldn’t have persisted. He shifted position and ground into her faster with hungry pounding strokes that made her heart race as though she were in a marathon. He groaned with unashamed pleasure as she cried out, bucking up to him, reacting helplessly to the delicious friction of his fluid rhythm. And she felt the heat mushrooming up from her pelvis again until an explosion of light shot through her like a flash of white-hot fire, shooting wild hot tension along every limb. He pulsed inside her and groaned as she came apart at the seams in another shattering orgasm.
By the time she came free of that shattering onslaught of raw pleasure, she was trembling and, surprisingly, he still had his arms round her, one hand splayed across her stomach as he pressed his sensual mouth to her damp cheek. ‘You’re amazing. That was so worth waiting for, koukla mou.’
But she hadn’t made him wait; they had ended up in bed five minutes after his arrival. I’m easy, she decided painfully, marvelling that she was still lying in his arms and revelling in that unbelievable sense of closeness with him again. How could she possibly feel connected to Cristophe Donakis again? It felt as if almost three years had vanished in a time slip to deposit her back to when she had cherished such private and vulnerable moments with the man she loved. Only she didn’t love him any more, she told herself bitterly, and he had never loved her and, what was more, he had ruthlessly blackmailed her back into his bed. As she began to reclaim her wits and pull away Cristo pulled away from her to disappear into the bathroom.
She listened to the shower running and wondered how she would live with the victory she had given him, how she would ever look in the mirror and like herself again. It was all right to tell herself that she had done what she had to do to protect her life and her children’s, but what she had just allowed to happen went against her every principle. It was a punishment to appreciate that she had participated in and enjoyed her own downfall.
Lithe, bronzed and truly magnificent, Cristo reappeared with a towel wrapped round his lean hips just as a knock sounded on the bedroom door. ‘I told Vincenzo to bring up dinner,’ he remarked carelessly.
Erin scrambled out of bed naked and vanished into the bathroom to use the shower. She was on automatic pilot, desperate to escape his presence lest she lose what little distance she had contrived to achieve. Stepping out of the shower again, she saw the black towelling robe hanging on the back of the door and made use of it because she hadn’t packed anything that practical. She rolled up the sleeves, tied the sash tight.
Cristo had donned close-fitting jeans and a black tee. A heated trolley now stood beside the small table in the corner.
‘How did Vincenzo get all that food up here?’ she asked stiffly.
‘There’s a lift. The last owner was an elderly lady with mobility problems.’
‘When did you buy this place?’
‘About a year ago. I wanted somewhere to relax between business trips,’ Cristo said, sounding amazingly calm and distant after what they had just shared. ‘What would you like to eat?’
‘I’ll see to myself.’ Her tummy rumbled as, maintaining a scrupulous distance from his lean, powerful body, she studied the tempting array of dishes. She was surprised that she was so hungry but then nervous tension had pretty much killed her appetite over the previous forty-eight hours while she was
