Brazen and bold, she had slowly stripped every single piece of clothing from her body even as he was still on the video call. He had looked at her with darkening eyes, daring her to continue.
Of course, she had never been able to resist a dare, especially when it came to riling, or in this case, arousing Stavros.
He had even held out for a few minutes.
Her skin on fire, her body craving him, she had refused to back down. She had touched herself, her breasts first, rolling her aching nipples between her fingers, imagined it was those rough fingers of his. Like he had begged her to do that first night.
Dark color streaked his cheeks, and the pen he had been holding to make notes had clattered to the ground. But still, he hadn’t given in.
Her throat had felt like parched paper, her grasp on her emotions tenuous at best. She had become a slave to his will. Even worse, she had become a slave to her own need for him.
Throwing her hair back, as she had seen one of the models wearing her own creation do, she had strutted farther into the room. He had lasted another two seconds before he had minimized the screen, marched to her, picked her up, called her his doom, and taken her against the wall, even as the call was going on.
All the while his mouth had covered hers, swallowing her moans and finally the sound of her climax. There had been no finesse to his raw thrusts, there had been nothing of his will left by the time he had climaxed, his skin damp to her touch.
She had won that day. But the fear that she wouldn’t another day, another moment, gathered like a black cloud. Because as invested as he was in their madness, she knew he was retreating. As if she and his desire for her, they were a rope that was slowly binding him and he...he was struggling against it.
He refused to discuss the state of their little deal. Every time she tried to talk of the past or the future, he evaded her or worse, seduced her. And the coward that she was, Leah let him be. Settled for the warmth of his arms, for the heat of his caresses, for the fiery intensity of his passion.
“Are you happy?” she had asked him one morning when he had brought her breakfast in bed.
He had covered her body with his, taken her mouth in such a tender kiss that it had brought tears to her eyes. “I don’t know about happy,” he had said against her mouth with that trademark honesty. The question seemed to have thrown him, but lost in the magic his mouth weaved, Leah hadn’t cared. “But I’ve never felt more alive, agape mou.”
There was something disconcerting about that answer, she remembered thinking.
Almost a month passed by like that. And from the dreamy, drugged state, something else emerged. A tiny sliver of fear for the future. Of what she was letting happen, of what it was going to hold for her and Stavros.
For a few weeks, she had been hinting about going to Paris for a small fashion event that Helene had mentioned. It was like puncturing the bubble they seemed to exist in, but she pushed the matter anyway. Sooner or later, they would have to emerge from it and for her part, she wanted him to acknowledge their relationship outside of his estate.
Finally, the night before the event, he had given in. Surprised her by joining her the next evening. And any thoughts she had that their relationship would change evaporated in the week they had been in Paris.
Leah dragged him on a tour of the beautiful city and shopping while he dragged her back to their luxurious hotel suite on the Champs-Elysées every time the mood struck him. Which was much too often, she had complained once laughingly.
But she hadn’t denied him, not once. She was just as addicted to him as he seemed to be with her.
They had been in Paris a week when, one evening, someone knocked quite rudely on the outer door of their suite.
Leah laughed, and hid her face in Stavros’s chest while he continued to lick and kiss her breasts with no thought to the caller. Soon, she was as lost as he was when he lazily pushed into her and struck a slow, mind-numbing pace toward release. The elegant side table, whose design she had only remarked on earlier, bumped against the wall as his thrusts became harder and faster.
“What you do to me, Leah,” he whispered, leaning into her.
She kissed his sweat-beaded brow when he suddenly stilled.
And Leah heard it—the sound of footsteps coming closer toward their bedroom.