had left the party almost immediately—smiling through the rose petals and rice showering down on their heads. But the journey home had been tense and silent, in direct contrast to their teasing banter at the wedding reception. He hadn’t trusted himself to touch her and maybe Ellie had felt the same because she’d sat apart from him, her shoulders stiff. The tension in the car had grown and grown until it had felt as if he was having difficulty breathing. And wasn’t he terrified that she’d changed her mind?
Her face had been paler than usual as they’d ridden up in the elevator. The space had seemed to close in on them until the ping announcing their arrival at the penthouse had broken into the silence like the chime of a mighty bell. He’d convinced himself that she had changed her mind as he’d unlocked the door to his apartment. But it seemed she hadn’t. Oh. She...had...not—and the minute the door had closed behind them they had been all over each other.
Their first kiss had been hungry—almost clumsy. They’d reached blindly for each other in the hall as some ornament had gone crashing to the ground, and he’d ended up pushing her up against the wall with his hand halfway up her dress until he’d realised that he hadn’t wanted to do it to her like that. Not on her wedding night. Not after last time. He wanted to show her he knew the meaning of the word consideration. He wanted to make love to her slowly—very slowly. And so she had allowed him to lead her to his bedroom where now she stood, looking around her with a slightly nervous expression on her face.
‘I suppose this must be the scene of a thousand seductions?’
‘A rather inflated estimate,’ he responded drily. ‘You don’t want me to lie to you? To say you’re the first woman I’ve brought here?’
She gave a funny little smile. ‘No, of course not.’
‘I haven’t asked you about any of your former lovers, have I?’
‘No, that’s right. You haven’t.’
He wondered what he was trying to do—whether he was trying to sabotage things before they’d even got started. Why the hell hadn’t he just told her that in her silvery gown she eclipsed every other woman he’d ever known? That she was beautiful and soft and completely desirable? With a small growl of anger directed mainly at himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again and he heard the gasping little sound she made as she caught hold of his shoulders. He kissed her for a long time, until she started to relax—until she began to press herself against his body and the barrier of their clothes suddenly seemed like something he couldn’t endure for a second longer. He led her over to the bed and sat her down on the edge, before getting down on his knees in front of her.
‘What are you doing?’ she joked weakly as he began to unstrap one of her shoes. ‘You’ve already made the proposal.’
He lifted his gaze; his expression mocking. ‘I thought it was you who did the proposing?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She tipped her head back and expelled a breath as he started rubbing the pad of his thumb over her instep. ‘So I did.’
He removed both shoes and peeled off her silvery wedding dress before laying her back on the bed and kicking off his shoes and socks. He lay down next to her, pushing the hair from her face and brushing his lips over hers, taking his time. ‘You are very beautiful,’ he said.
‘I’m—’
He silenced her with the press of his forefinger over her mouth. ‘The correct response is, thank you, Alek.’
She swallowed. ‘Thank you, Alek.’
‘But I’m afraid of hurting you.’
She reached her hand up to brush a strand of hair off his forehead and suddenly her face looked very tender. He felt his heart clench.
‘Because of the baby?’ she asked softly.
He nodded, still wary around that shining tenderness which instinctively put him on his guard. ‘Because of the baby,’ he repeated.
‘The doctor said it was okay.’ She leant forward and kissed him. ‘But that maybe we should avoid swinging from the chandeliers.’
‘I don’t have any...chandeliers,’ he said indistinctly, but suddenly the flirting word games of foreplay became swamped by a far more primitive need to possess. Refocusing his attention, he began to explore her properly—touching the coolness of her flesh above her stocking tops as she began to make soft little sounds of pleasure. Did she feel his uncharacteristic hesitation as his fingers tiptoed upwards? Could she hear the loud pounding of his heart? Did she know that suddenly—ridiculously—this felt completely new?
‘It’s no different from how it was before,’ she whispered. ‘I’m still me.’
He kissed her again. But it was different. She was like a ship carrying a precious cargo. His baby. He swallowed as his finger trailed over her navel and he could tell she was holding her breath, expelling it only when he eased his hand beneath the elastic of her panties and cupped her where she was warm and wet.
‘Oh,’ she said.
His mouth hovered over hers. ‘Oh,’ he echoed indistinctly as, blindly, he reached for his belt and suddenly she was unbuttoning his shirt, making a low sound of pleasure as she slipped it away from his shoulders. And he stopped thinking. He just gave himself up to every erotic second. There was a snap as he released her bra and her breasts tumbled into his eager hands. He felt the slide of her bare thigh against his as she used her foot to push his trousers down his legs. He could smell the musky aroma of her sex as he peeled off her panties and threw them aside.
Their eyes met in a long moment and he felt shaken by the sudden unexpected intimacy of that.
He slid the flat of his hand over her hip. ‘I don’t want to hurt you—’
She bit her lip, as if she was about to say something controversial but had thought better of it at the last moment. ‘Just make love to me, Alek,’ she said with a simple sincerity which tore through him like a flame.
Slowly he eased himself inside her, uttering something guttural in Greek, which wasn’t like him. But none of this was like him. He’d never felt this close to a woman before, nor so aware of her as a person rather than as just a body. It rocked him to the core and, yes, it intimidated him, too—and he didn’t like that. He wasn’t used to being out of control. To feeling as if he were putty in a woman’s hands. He groaned. Maybe not putty. Because putty was soft, wasn’t it? And he was hard. Ah, neh. He was very hard. Harder than he could ever remember. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to come too soon.
This is sex, he told himself fiercely. Sex which you both want. So treat it like sex. Breaking eye contact, he buried his face in her neck as he began to take command, each slow and deliberate thrust demonstrating his power and control. He smiled against her skin when she moaned his name and smiled some more when she began to gasp in a rising crescendo. ‘Oh, yes...yes!’
He raised his head and watched as she came. Saw her tip her head back and her eyes close. He saw her body shudder and heard the disbelieving little cry which followed. And then he saw the first big fat tear which rolled down her cheek to be quickly followed by another, and he frowned. Because hadn’t she cried last time—and wasn’t the deal supposed to be that this time there were no tears? No regrets. His mouth twisted. No nothing—only pleasure.
‘Alek,’
