"Making you some tea." He nodded to the bowl she had pushed aside and was grateful that she had eaten more than three quarters. "Finished?"
"You don't have to wait on me hand and foot."
"I'm aware." Leaning over, he took up her bowl. "Why don't you go upstairs while I clean up? I'll bring up the tea."
She sat there staring at his back, her expression mutinous. She wanted to fight and he wasn't accommodating her. He had toldher he loved her and she had bitched and still he was there patiently tending to her needs.
The tears were perilously close, and she had no idea what she wanted to cry about. It was her life, the way she had been brought up and the memories that had come tumbling back just this morning.
"I won't be a good mother," she blurted out.
Standing at the sink, Christos struggled with the flood of emotions at her pitiful remark. Straightening his shoulders, he turned to look at her. His heart took a deep dive at the despair coating her expression and evidence of tears in her magnificent eyes.
"Perhaps not." He almost smiled as her eyes widened. "With your background you're more likely to mess things up. After all, the odds are stacked against you, aren't they? A very cold and traumatic upbringing will certainly guarantee that you will be the worst mother of the century."
He grinned then as her eyes flashed fire.
"Good thing I happen to be the father and will balance things off." He walked towards her, ignoring her effort to evade him as he spun her stool around. "Was that what you wanted to hear?"
"Go to hell."
"I have a feeling that's where I'm headed," he murmured.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking you to bed." He scooped her into his arms as effortlessly as he would a child. Reaching behind him, he turned the stove off.
"If you think I'm going to be having sex with you, you'd better think again," she huffed, pushing against a chest that felt like a mountain.
"We never have sex. It has always been a mind altering experience between us. All fire and incredible heat." Bending his head, he started to take her lips, settling for her throat when she turned her head away. And considered that this was a fine substitute.
She smelled like a garden of flowers. Her skin was like satin and tasted like honey. The desire was already raging inside him.
"Stop that." She hated that she sounded weak and ineffectual. But in truth, she felt her bones melting and her heart racing.
"In a minute." With unerring skill and accuracy, he bounded the stairs, all the while, ravaging her throat.
Pushing the bedroom door open, he strode towards the bed and dropped her from his lofty height, causing her to bounce once.
"Look..."
"Enough," he ordered quietly. "I've been listening to you insult me for the last few minutes, throwing my love back in my face. It's time to be quiet."
"How dare you talk to me like that."
"I will be daring a hell of a lot of things." He had removed his sweater and undershirt and watched as her gaze became transfixed on the play of muscles on his wide chest.
"Like what you see?" he asked silkily, toeing off his boots.
"Don't flatter yourself."
"I intend to flatter myself even more." He unzipped his jeans, drawing it down slowly. "You see, no matter what your lips are saying, you have a very expressive face that says different. You want me darling, that has always been the case."
He rolled the pants over his thighs and kicked it aside.
Her eyes drifted helplessly from his wide chest with the dustings of dark hairs to his narrow waist. A moan escaped her when she went further down.
"And I want you," his voice had thickened as she continued to stare at him, "more than my next breath."
