we’re going to do this over and over again,’ Acheron decreed with lethally sexy assurance. ‘No more cold showers, no more separate beds, no more posing in teeny tiny bikinis I can’t rip off.’
‘Sleepy,’ she framed apologetically.
‘Sleep...you’re going to need all your energy,’ he said.
WHEN TABBY WOKE for the fourth time in twelve hours, she was totally disorientated and she blinked in the strong sunlight flooding through the French windows. A split second later, she sat up and checked her watch to discover that it was mid-afternoon.
My goodness, she had slept half the day away! In guilty dismay, she clambered awkwardly out of bed, learning that Acheron had got it right when he had suggested she would feel better in the morning. Her hip still ached like the very devil but the pain in her ankle had become more bearable. Curious to see her surroundings, having arrived in complete darkness the night before, she limped over to the French windows with the aid of her stick and went out onto the sunlit balcony to stand at the rail.
A craggy cove stretched out below her, the towering rocks encircling a stretch of pure white sand lapped by a turquoise sea so clear she could see the ocean bottom. The lush tree-filled gardens ran right to the edge of the beach. It was absolutely idyllic and very beautiful but Tabby’s attention was drawn straight to the couple standing together in the rippling surf. Amber’s pram was parked in the shadow of the rocks and Melinda, clad in a minuscule red bikini that exaggerated her bountiful curves, was talking with apparent urgency to Acheron, whose lean, powerful body was sheathed only in trunks.
It was an unexpectedly intimate and disturbing sight, and Tabby couldn’t take her eyes off the couple, jealousy spearing through her with an immediacy that appalled her. She jerked in dismay and snatched in a startled breath when Melinda rested a hand down on Acheron’s arm. To his credit the contact only lasted for a second because he took an immediate step back from the forward blonde and with a brief final word strode back across the sand towards the house. Tabby hobbled back hurriedly indoors to get dressed, her brain struggling to encompass what she had seen at the same time as she accepted that, yet again, the very foundations of her relationship with the man she had married had been demolished and everything had changed.
Sexual desire had stimulated that change, she conceded, shame slivering through her. No boundaries, Acheron had proclaimed with passion and he was certainly correct on that score: the rules she had tried to impose had been blown right out of the water along with her nonsensical belief that she could resist him. Even more pertinently, seeing Melinda touch Acheron had inflamed her with ferocious possessiveness and the sort of angry jealous feelings she had never before experienced. What did that say about her intelligence? What was she letting him do to her? Where were these violent conflicting emotions coming from? She was behaving like a lovesick idiot! Was that the problem? Had lust first sucked her in and then left her childishly infatuated with him?
Opening her as yet still packed cases, she extracted underwear and a long, loose sundress before stepping into the bathroom to freshen up. The whole process took her much longer than usual having to wash her hair in the sink, which was a challenge, and left the bathroom floor swimming by the time she had finished. When she finally emerged after mopping dry the floor, however, she felt more like herself with clean, tidy hair and a little make-up applied.
Acheron strolled into the bedroom and there Tabby was; captured in a patch of sunlight, long golden hair rippling down to softly frame her delicate features, her tiny body sylphlike in a pale blue dress that reflected her amazing eyes, which were currently pools of anxious troubled violet that evaded his. She was so open, so honest in her reactions, it literally shocked him. Nothing was concealed; nothing was hidden from him. His broad chest tightened as he expelled his breath and gritted his teeth. He could not begin to imagine how frighteningly vulnerable that lack of concealment and reserve made her. If he didn’t act first, she was undoubtedly about to unleash a rash volley of accusations and questions about their renewed intimacy, which threatened to put them both right back where they had started after their car crash wedding night and her proclamation of her unnecessary rules.
‘Tabby,’ he murmured evenly, noting avidly that he could see the little points of her deliciously prominent nipples showing below the fine material of her dress as well as the slender outline of her shapely legs. An overpoweringly strong urge to claim her again assailed him.
‘Ash,’ she said breathlessly, studying his lean, darkly handsome features with a sinking heart because that fast she was out of breath and dizzy just looking at him. ‘We need to talk.’
‘No, we don’t, glyka mou,’ Acheron contradicted with stubborn assurance as he drew closer. ‘Let’s do this my way. We don’t talk, we especially don’t agonise over anything. It is what it is and we just enjoy it for as long as it lasts.’
He had snatched the confused words out of her mouth before she had even collected her thoughts enough to speak. She suspected that his solution was vintage Acheron in the field of relationships—say nothing, do nothing and the problem will go away. ‘I wasn’t about to agonise over anything,’ she protested, swaying slightly because she found it hard to stand still for long and had to grip the walking stick in a tighter hold.
He closed hands round her forearms to steady her and slowly trailed his hands down to her waist. ‘You can’t help yourself.’
As she looked up at him, her lush full lips tingled and she was conscious of a sensation like prickling heat curling low in her pelvis. He angled his mouth down and kissed her with intoxicating urgency.
‘Oh...’ she said in breathless surprise at the development, her body humming into ready awareness with an enthusiasm that disconcerted her.
He lifted her dress slowly, brazen dark golden eyes locked to hers, daring her to object. Anticipation pierced her, sharp as a lance, liquid heat pooling between her thighs. His gaze not once leaving hers, he found her with his fingers, eased below her lace-edged panties and stroked and that fast she was hotter than the fires of hell, leaning up against him for support, making no objection when he gently lowered her back onto the bed. The stick fell forgotten on the floor.
‘I only just got up,’ she exclaimed, her surprise unconcealed.
‘You should’ve waited here for me, glyka mou,’ Acheron told her sibilantly.
‘I can’t believe you want me again already.’ Tabby studied him with confused and wondering eyes.
‘The instant I look at you I want you,’ Acheron admitted in a slightly raw undertone because there was a lack of control and a weakness in such a truth that deeply disturbed him.
‘Not the very first time you saw me,’ she reminded him stubbornly.
‘You swore at me...not your finest hour, glyka mou,’ he mocked. ‘Now that I know you, it wouldn’t bother me at all or make me stop thinking that you’re the hottest woman on the planet.’
Eyes wide with astonishment, Tabby was transfixed by that statement. ‘You really mean that?’
‘You have to ask? Here I am throwing you down on the bed to ravish and you have to ask how much I want you? I can’t wait to get you horizontal and that’s not OK,’ Acheron groaned, yanking off her panties with scant ceremony and splaying her legs with a voracious hiss of all-male satisfaction, fully appreciating the pink glistening femininity he had exposed.
