But she lifted a hand to his chest, her fingers splayed wide. ‘You can’t process her loss. You’re just treading water, keeping your head in the sand, because you’re afraid to move on.’
His nostrils flared. ‘What gives you any right to think you know so much about me? We’ve just met.’
‘Am I wrong?’ she demanded, lifting up onto her tiptoes and grabbing his face with both hands, holding him still, their eyes locked.
His lips parted on a rush of breath.
‘Am I wrong?’ she repeated fiercely.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, dropping his head, so their mouths were almost touching. ‘Whether you are right or wrong, it is my life, and how I choose to live it is my business. I would ask you again to keep your opinions on this matter to yourself.’
And before she could answer, he was kissing her with all the pent-up passion, frustration, grief, guilt and need that was flooding his system, kissing her as though it could somehow fix everything. And she was kissing him back in the same way, her mouth mashing to his, their tongues meshing, teeth clashing as they let passion control them completely. His hands, so big, broad and strong, curved around her bottom and pushed her against his erection, so she groaned into his mouth.
‘Please,’ she moaned, moving her hips as those same hands moved to her dress and ruched it in his palms before lifting it, pushing it over her head, leaving her naked except for a lace thong. He cursed against her skin as he moved his mouth to the curve of her neck and kissed her there, as his hands fumbled between them, unfastening his trousers and freeing his cock from the confines of fabric. A moment later, he was lifting her, wrapping her legs around his waist, and moving one step forward, so her back was bracing against the cold glass window as he drove into her in a single motion that had them both crying out on a wave of sheer, giddy relief.
‘Nikos,’ she cried, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, gripping him hard and tight, the pleasure of his possession unlike anything she’d ever known, even from this man. It was the heightened tension they’d felt in the lead-up, the argument that had been both hyper-emotional but also a form of foreplay. Or maybe that had been the time they’d spent apart, after having each other completely to themselves, on the island. But when he drove into her, it was like the bursting of a bank, and she was incapable of doing anything to stem the tide. She surrendered to it completely; let it catch her and take her out to sea.
‘It is bad enough,’ he said, dropping his mouth to her breast and flicking her nipple with his tongue, while his hand moved between her legs and brushed her clit, ‘that you make me feel like this when we have sex. That in this moment, I feel as though I am a god on earth, that all is right. It is so much more than I deserve, more than I told myself I would ever have.’ He moved his mouth to her other nipple and drew it into his mouth sharply, sucking hard enough that she cried out at the agonising form of pleasure. It was almost too much to bear.
‘You do deserve—’
‘I deserve nothing,’ he said, dragging his mouth back to hers and kissing her with the same fevered passion as the tide of pleasure burst around her again, so she cried out at the orgasm he delivered her so swiftly and easily. ‘Only the knowledge that this is temporary allows me to give into this. Just for now, not for ever. When you are gone, everything will once more be as it’s meant to be.’
He would have had no way of seeing the tears that sprang to her eyes, because she squeezed them shut and sought his mouth with hers, trying to kiss into him the peace she wished he could feel. How could she make him understand?
James was not rocking in a corner in their apartment in Washington, thinking of all the ways in which he’d failed her. He was not bemoaning the poor choices he’d made during their marriage. Because he was the worst kind of man. But Nikos? Nikos was all good. The evidence of that was in his guilt, his grief, and his inability to forgive himself. She wished she could make him understand.
But if there was one thing she’d learned through and through, in her marriage, it was that one person could not change another. Not unless they truly wished to be different. And she had no reason to suspect, let alone hope, that Nikos ever would. He’d chosen his path and, unless he chose to stray from it, she had to leave him to walk it. Alone, as he so clearly wanted.
It wasn’t until much later, in the early hours of the morning, when naked with limbs entwined, wrapped in the luxurious million-thread-count sheets of the master bedroom, with the yacht gently bobbing from side to side, and Nikos asleep beside her, that Genevieve realised she hadn’t so much as thought of whatshewanted. And a fear began to curl through her, wrapping around her organs, making it hard to breathe, as she faced the reality of their situation: she hadn’t protected herself. Not enough. She’d told herself she would never fall in love with another man, that she would never want what had the potential to hurt her, and yet, in a few short days, she’d fallen utterly and completely under the spell of someone who was determined to be miserable for the rest of his life.
Talk about a glutton for punishment.
It was barely five in the morning when he became aware of the buzzing of his phone, on the bedside table. He reached for it quickly, not wanting to wake Genevieve, who was fast asleep in the crook of his arm. They’d spent hours making love the night before—hard and fast at first, filled with pent-up emotions and frustrations, and then long and slow, with him delighting in delivering the best kind of torture, driving her wild and then bringing her back from the precipice, showing her what her body was capable of, how prolonging release could enhance pleasure exponentially. And then, as proof of how far she’d come since they’d first met, he’d watched as she’d pleasured herself, her cheeks flushed as she’d tipped over the edge, crying his name and reaching for him, even then, wanting—needing—more. Despite that, the buzzing of the phone had woken him, and made him aware that he was already hard and aching for her anew.
He would have silenced the call and turned off his phone, except for the fact that, at the last moment, he saw the call was coming in from Washington, and he had a premonition that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
He eased himself from the bed, walked as swiftly from the room as he could and then swiped the phone to answer.
‘Konstantinou.’
Silence met his pronouncement.
‘Yes?’ he barked down the line, aware who it was likely to be.
‘Senator James Wilson,’ came the voice he already hated from the man he loathed and despised. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Do we?’ Nikos drawled, moving deeper into the yacht, further from the bedroom suite. ‘About what?’
‘You, and my wife.’
‘Ex-wife. And I think you mean my fiancée.’
Silence. But a silence that was loaded with animosity; Nikos felt it and understood it. But what grace could he give this man? He’d had Genevieve in his life, his bed, her loyalty and love in his hands to treasure, and he’d treated her like a piece of dirt. For all Nikos had made mistakes in his marriage, it had never been intentional, nor cruel. The effects had been the same—he’d hurt his wife—but that had never been his aim. Far from it.
‘Is she there?’
The question was flooded with angry indignation. There was no way Nikos was going to pass the phone to Genevieve. ‘She’s sleeping.’
