DIDN’T ANSWER straight away. It was easier to watch the Atlantic crashing on the rocks in the distance and to listen to the crackle of the fire, rather than having to face up to what Jess had just told him. He’d never heard her be so frank and realised it must have taken a lot for her to put her feelings on the line like that. And even though he was determined to hold something back, that didn’t mean he couldn’t proceed with caution, did it?
‘What if I told you that the reason I don’t have a home is because I don’t know how it works?’ he said. ‘And that I’ve never been sufficiently interested in the concept to find out?’
‘Well, there you go. You’ve answered your own question.’
‘But you could show me,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t interrupted.
She stared at him and there was a mutinous look in her eyes as if she didn’t believe him. As if she was waiting for him to pull out the punchline and start laughing. But he wasn’t laughing, he was deadly serious and maybe she picked up on that. ‘Because I don’t feel this thing we have between us has run its course,’ he said.
‘This thing?’
‘Don’t get hung up on words, Jess.’ His voice deepened. ‘I’m Greek, remember?’
‘As if I’m likely to forget.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘And I don’t really understand what you’re suggesting.’
He shrugged. ‘That I move in here with you and see whether I’m compatible with home life.’
She laughed. ‘But you’re an international playboy.’
He gave her a slow smile. ‘That could be negotiable.’
‘And you have a job.’
‘I also have a computer and a phone—and the ability to pull back and delegate.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘And it’s been a very long time since I had a vacation.’
Jessica stared down at her fingernails, her initial disbelief at his suggestion morphing into a feeling of confusion. She suspected he was motivated more by ambition than any real emotion. He’d said himself this thing felt unfinished and maybe that was bugging him—because he was the kind of man who didn’t like to leave things unfinished. Maybe this was all about great sex and the fact that they were still so attracted to one another. Was he banking on that attraction burning itself out, so that he could walk away? Just using the lure of home as a legitimate way to get his foot in the door?
Yet if he left now, what then? Would she spend the rest of her life regretting it and wondering what if? Too scared to face up to something which had lain beneath the surface of her life for so long, something which subconsciously might have been holding her back. There had been many times she’d wished she had the chance to do it all over again and now the opportunity was presenting itself. By allowing him access to her life, mightn’t the pedestal she’d placed him on begin to crumble, freeing her from his power over her?
‘If I said yes,’ she said slowly, ‘it could end at any time.’
‘I can’t guarantee—’
‘No, Loukas.’ She cut him off with a shake of her head, embarrassed that he thought she was trying to back him into a corner. ‘I’m not asking you to pledge anything or promise anything. I’m trying to be practical because I’m a practical person.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘If either of us wants out, at any time—any time at all—then we have to be able to say so. No questions. No post-mortems. Just a shrug and a smile, and a simple goodbye.’
His dark eyes gleamed. ‘This is beginning to sound like my dream scenario.’
‘I aim to please,’ she said lightly.
He stood up and walked across the room and Jessica could almost feel the testosterone radiating from his powerful body.
‘You certainly do. You please me very much.’ His voice dipped. ‘But if this is such an equal and such a practical arrangement, then surely I get to make a few requests myself, koukla mou.’
Something in the darkness of his face made her throat turn to parchment. ‘Like what?’ she questioned breathlessly.
‘We may be playing house, but we aren’t going to be constrained by house rules. We don’t clock in and clock out. You won’t start slamming cupboards if I’m late for dinner.’
‘But you might be the one cooking dinner, and I might be the one who’s late.’
‘I might.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Just so long as you don’t try to change me,’ he said as his gaze travelled slowly over her body and seemed to linger there. ‘And no rules about sex, either. We don’t use it as a weapon or as a negotiating tool.’
‘Gosh. You sound as if you’ve had some pretty bad experiences with women.’
‘You think so?’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘I’d say it was the normal experience of a wealthy and attractive man who happens to be good in bed. And before you start pulling faces like that—I’m trying to be honest.’ He paused. ‘But again, in the pursuit of fairness—perhaps I should ask you the same thing. Have you had bad experiences with men?’
She hadn’t been expecting the question and therefore hadn’t prepared an answer, but now was not the time to make the announcement that there hadn’t been anyone except for him. Apart from making her look hopelessly out of touch, mightn’t it also make him wary? He might realise that nobody else had come close to making her feel the way he had done. That she had fallen for him big time. That she was expecting a whole lot more than he could ever give.
So she smiled. ‘I thought we were going to have fun,’ she said. ‘Not rake up stuff about the past. The past has gone, Loukas, and this is what we’re left with.’
‘So it is.’ He pulled her to her feet, tipping her chin upwards so that there was nowhere to look except at him, and when he spoke again his voice had deepened and suddenly it no longer sounded steady. ‘I want you, Jess.’
‘Let’s go upstairs to bed,’ she whispered.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. Draw the curtains.’
Her hands were trembling as she did as he asked, turning back to see his face looking shadowed in the suddenly subdued lighting broken only by the dancing flicker of the fire.
‘Loukas,’ she said uncertainly, and suddenly he was all over her. His hands were fumbling with the zip of her jeans, yanking them down to her ankles before impatiently tugging them off and hurling them to one side. He was peeling her sweater over her head and she was urging him on—silently positioning her body to make access easier. She shrugged the leather jacket from his broad shoulders and heard it slide to the floor. She eased the zip of his jeans down, but he was so aroused—the hard ridge of him so big beneath her still-trembling fingers—that he pushed her hand away.
‘No. Let me,’ he said succinctly, before freeing himself.
She gasped as he did so and it felt so deliciously decadent to be stripping off in the shadowy firelight that she reached down to cradle him in her hands but, again, he pushed her away—rapidly disposing of his own remaining
