she came to, like someone coming out of a trance. She moved away from him, water streaming down her naked body and slicking back her hair, appalled realisation swamping her eyes.
She opened her mouth but no words come out and Angelos knew she was beyond embarrassed. And yet he was not, even though he’d been sitting in the shower fully dressed, cradling a naked woman, for the better part of an hour.
Calmly he reached up and turned off the taps. The bathroom was plunged suddenly into steamy silence; Angelos rose, conscious of the way his shirt stuck to his body and his hair was plastered to his head.
‘Let me get you a towel,’ he said. Talia didn’t answer. He reached for one of the big fluffy towels piled on a shelf and she rose from the shower on unsteady legs, one arm braced against the wall as she stepped out of the shower.
‘I...’ she began, her voice wobbling all over the place.
‘Don’t,’ Angelos said. Gently he wrapped her in the towel, covering her nakedness. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, I mean,’ he clarified. Her face was fiery, and not just, he knew, from the heat and steam of the shower. She’d ducked her head low so she didn’t have to look at him.
‘How can I not be?’ she returned in a suffocated whisper. She closed her eyes and a single tear squeezed out, trickling down her cheek.
‘Talia...’ Angelos’s heart constricted with unfamiliar emotion as he wiped it away with his thumb. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t realise how storms affected you.’
‘How could you know?’ Her eyes were still closed, and another tear snaked down her cheek.
‘Oh, Talia.’ Without thinking Angelos gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. He laid her down gently on the bed and she stared up at him, clutching the towel to her.
‘You’re soaked.’
He glanced down at his drenched clothes. ‘And dripping onto your floor.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I should go change.’ He saw, to his gratification, a flicker of disappointment pass across her face like a shadow. ‘I’ll come back,’ he promised. ‘To check on you.’
She nodded and reluctantly he left the room. Back in his bedroom Angelos peeled off his damp clothes, wondering at his audacity at stripping his nanny naked, cradling her in the shower—what had he been thinking? But he hadn’t been. He’d simply been reacting to her pain and need, and also to his own.
It had felt amazingly good to hold a woman after so long. To comfort a woman, to be the person she needed in a crisis. He’d needed to be needed. He’d craved being the comforter and protector, being enough.
Was it wrong of him, to have taken advantage of her pain to soothe his own?
But no, he’d helped her, or at least he hoped he had. And she’d helped him.
He pulled on a pair of loose pyjama trousers and a T-shirt, clothes he didn’t normally wear since he preferred to sleep in a pair of boxer shorts or nothing at all. Then, combing his fingers through his damp hair, he went back to check on Talia.
In his absence she’d taken the opportunity to change into another billowy T-shirt and shorts, and she’d brushed her hair so it curled about her face in damp tendrils. She was sitting on her bed, her knees brought up to her chest, her eyes huge in her face. In the distance thunder rumbled.
Angelos sat on the edge of the bed. ‘The storm’s moving off now, I think,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes.’ She nodded jerkily, her chin bumping the tops of her knees.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked, and she let out a shaky laugh.
‘Not particularly.’ The thunder rumbled again, and lightning flashed briefly, barely lighting the room, but it was enough to have Talia tensing again.
‘You don’t have to talk, if you don’t want to,’ Angelos said. God knew he had a few secrets himself. He glanced at the shuttered window. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
She nodded again. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t sound fine,’ Angelos said.
‘It’s okay...’
But it wasn’t okay. Even though the storm was moving away from Kallos, Talia still looked frightened. And Angelos didn’t want to leave her alone. He wouldn’t leave her alone, refused to leave anyone who needed him.
Except Sofia. You left Sofia.
But his daughter was better without him. At least, he’d thought she was, until Talia had started showing him otherwise.
‘Move over,’ he said, and her eyes widened, her spine straightening as she looked at him.
‘What...?’
He nudged her leg with his own, and then gently took her by the shoulders and moved her to the side of the bed. He stretched out alongside her, smiling a bit at her obvious surprise. ‘I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘Until the storm ends completely.’ And then, because it felt so natural and he couldn’t keep himself from it even if he had wanted to, he took her into his arms.
Talia remained rigid in his embrace for a few seconds, and then, just as she had before, she relaxed into him, her body softening against his as she let out a breathy little sigh of contentment.
Angelos rested his chin on top of her head, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, the simple closeness of another person. She smelled like almonds and she was so warm and soft and slender. His libido stirred insistently; it was impossible not to imagine sliding his hands under her voluminous T-shirt, feeling her warm, satiny skin under his palms as he cupped the small, perfect breasts he’d seen earlier, kissed each freckle...
As surreptitiously as he could Angelos shifted slightly away from Talia. The last thing she needed right now was to feel the hard evidence of his arousal. It was, he acknowledged wryly, going to be a long night.
TALIA WOKE TO sunlight and an empty bed. She blinked the world into focus, her heart giving a funny little dip at the sight of the smooth expanse of sheet next to her. At some point in the night, and she had no idea when, Angelos had left her.
Talia flipped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling as memories of last night unspooled through her mind like scenes from a movie. Angelos coming in and seeing her drenched with sweat and shaking with terror. Angelos gently removing her clothes, stepping into the shower with her, holding her in his arms.
And she’d let him. Of course she’d let him. She’d never felt so treasured, so protected, and it had been the most amazing and incredible feeling in the world. It had felt deeper and more important than any physical desire that she’d felt for him, although there had been that last night too.
Resting her cheek against his chest, hearing the steady thud of his heart as he cradled her...she’d been so tempted to tilt her head upwards and let him kiss
