‘Yes. Please. I want you.’
Her fervent whisper transformed him. Transported him to a higher plane. Between one heartbeat and the next, he’d tugged on a condom and her flimsy lace and silk was a useless tangle on the floor.
‘I will take it slow next time. Worship you as you deserve. But you will admit you’ve driven me to the brink, wife?’
‘Yes, worship later. Need you…now.’
Her grasping hands reached for him, and she loved it when he leaned down over her, then moved her onto her side. Slotting in behind her, he pulled her hip into his, holding her steady with one hand.
With the other speared into her hair, eyes as rich and dark as the cosmos at night, Nelios surged into her. His groan synced with her scream, a private, decadent symphony of lust and pleasure never before experienced by her. And, from the words that fell from his lips, she would wager a great deal that it was unique for him too.
‘Vayle… Vayle… You feel…so good.’
‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop,’ she begged hoarsely, her fingers scrambling back to clutch him any way she could, ensnare him in this divine space with her.
‘Impossible,’ he growled, his voice barely coherent.
When the hand on her hip moved to circle her waist to trap her harder against him, she felt her throat clog, tears springing to sting her eyes. She was thankful for the former, because it prevented her from pleading for him never to let her go. To want her beyond what a piece of paper decreed. Even beyond what this insane chemistry had thrust upon them.
Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered to the majesty of making love with Nelios. She didn’t even care when he wrecked her by keeping her poised on the edge of climax for an eternity before, with a guttural command to, ‘Open your eyes for me,eros mou. Show me your desire,’ he kept her waiting for another sublime minute before diving with her off the cliff into a sea of pleasure so pure, she knew in her soul it was changing her for ever.
Realigning her very existence in ways she might never recover from.
The days that followed blurred into a golden haze, each moment so exquisitely saturated with bliss it bordered on the surreal. Their impromptu honeymoon unfolded like a fantasy spun from silk and starlight, each hour with Nelios a heady mix of seduction and serenity that lodged itself deep beneath her skin.
He made her laugh—deep, unguarded laughter that burst free before she could stop it—then kissed her until the world fell away, until fear and caution melted like sugar on her tongue. Until she couldn’t remember what she’d ever needed protecting from.
He was present at each feed of Angelos. And in the mornings, she woke tangled in heat, scent and masculine strength, his arm heavy across her waist, his breath a whisper against her nape. His touch—possessive even in sleep—anchoring her in a reality that felt too good to be true.
And that was the danger, wasn’t it? Because, in those precious moments between night and day, when dreams lingered and reality hadn’t yet sharpened its claws, she let herself imagine that this was real. That this wasn’t just chemistry or obligation dressed in silk sheets and sun-drenched kisses. That maybe—just maybe—he felt it too.
But always, without fail, reality slid in on quiet feet. In the way his gaze sometimes drifted, shadowed and unreadable. In the way his silences occasionally stretched too long, heavy with words he refused to say, more often than not after her conversations with Agnes. But she told herself that, as much as it hurt to watch him retreat to that fortress with no drawbridge, she wasn’t about to neglect her contact with Agnes to please him.
Unfortunately, the tension was what kept her heart in limbo. The clause they’d so spectacularly broken had been her last defence, the final line between falling and freefall. And she’d leapt, willingly, into his arms.
Yet, as the blissful weeks turned into a month, then closer to two, it was less a soaring through ecstasy and more like plummeting straight towards heartbreak.
Because, as soul-searing as it was, this had never just been about sex—not for her. It washim. The man who held her at night as if she was the only thing tethering him to the earth. The man whose past stood between them like the Great Wall.
So, even as they danced barefoot on moon-washed sands, she held part of herself back. She clung to hope desperately, even as it slipped through her fingers.
Because fairy tales weren’t meant to last.
Were they?
CHAPTER TEN
NELIOS SAT ONthe beach, arms resting on his knees, watching the sun rise and the waves crash from the sea he’d just swum in.
For a man neck-deep in the most pleasurable weeks of his life, his gut churned far too agitatedly for his liking. It was what had driven him from his bed when he should be wrapped around his wife.
But… The feeling of time running out wouldn’t leave him.
In all the years he’d thought of the parents who’d abandoned him, he’d never been this riled upemotionally. Sure, there’d been much fury and bitterness, as was his right. But it’d been ruthlessly overlaid with icy, implacable resolve. And, once he’d divorced himself from the past and got down to the very real business of surviving, he’d locked any superfluous emotions away.
Yes, they’d been ruffled when he’d come face-to-face with his mother and tangled with Vayle and her last year. But control had soon reasserted itself, as it so often did, when he’d won and then triumphantly walked away.
He didn’t feel so much in control now. The growing emotions he didn’t really want to label as nerves and…panic…but couldn’t see any other way to describe them, tunnelled a different path through him.
