Page 13 of Seasons of Sin

She grinned at the description. “So I’m your sex-slave, huh?” She asked huskily, already pushing the sheet from his legs so that she could straddle his waist. “That’s funny, because all this time I’ve been thinking you’re mine.” She dropped her mouth to his. It was heaven in a kiss. His lips were life-sustaining.

He tangled his fingers in hers and spread her arms wide, then he pushed up so that he could wrap his arms around her back,holding their torsos close together. “What reality is there beyond this?” He demanded, flicking one of her nipples punishingly.

She groaned against his mouth. “I would have thought that you’d have work to do anyway, Mr Konstanides. Aren’t you some big-shot tycoon?”

His smile was distracted. “I am on vacation.” It was an interesting statement and it caused her to look at him with renewed interest. She’d spent so much time thinking about what she was running from that she hadn’t given a moment’s contemplation to his normal life.

“A vacation? From work?”

He nodded, but his lips clung to hers.

“Where are you based?”

“All over,” he mumbled, reaching down and gripping her buttocks so that he could hold her firm against his growing arousal.

“Come on. Are you in London? Athens? Rome? New York? Where? Where’s your office? I presume a guy like you has one.”

“I have several,” he said simply. “And I work from whichever needs my attention most. Until recently I was stationed in London.”

She swallowed. London. In another life, another time, might they have met? “Where in London?”

It was the first attempt at conversation they’d had in days. And while he was already craving the sweet release her body offered, he forced himself to slow down. He pulled her down onto the bed beside him and lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed it gently. “My office is at Docklands.”

“And you live …?”

“I have a place in Hampstead.”

“Hampstead?” A flush stole into her cheeks.

“Yes. Do I take it from your reaction that’s significant to you in some way?”

She bit down on her lip. “I live in Notting Hill. Not so far from you.”

He traced an invisible circle pattern over her bare shoulder. “With this friend you need to call?”

A slight flush spread over her cheeks. “Yes.”

“Will she be worried that you have disappeared?”

“No.” She swallowed, and her fragile neck knotted visibly. “I doubt it.” She pushed up on one elbow. “Okay, where’s your favorite place to spend time?”

“Here. Now. With you.”

She laughed. “You’re devilishly charming, you know that? I should warn you, I’ve recently become quite cynical about men and their words. So you’d do better not to waste them on me.”

It was a very telling statement. He filed it away into the little dossier he hadn’t realized he was keeping on her.

“I’m serious,” she playfully punched his chest. He caught her hand and held it there, against his wall of rock-hard abdominals. “Where do you really live? Where’s that one place you call home?”

His frown was genuine. “I don’t know,” he said after several moments. He angled his head to face her. Sunlight formed a pretty, golden pattern across his cheek. “I grew up here. On this island. Until I was sixteen, this was home.”

“Sixteen? Did your family move?”

“I didn’t have a family as such,” he said, the timbre of his voice thick with memories he rarely gave voice to. “My parents died when I was a boy. They … weren’t close to my grandfather. In fact, when they died, he didn’t know about me at all. It was only that my father had a lawyer, who thought to contact Aristotle.”

“Aristotle Konstanides?” She said with a small smile. “That’s a formidable and intimidating name.”

Thad nodded. “He was an intimidating and formidable man.”