“What did I tell you about not flirting with me?” Rather than the sort of shaky, sexy unease she usually felt when he flirted with her, she only felt anger. He had no right to do this to her. No right at all. He had been on a date with another woman. A date that, ideally, would be the beginning of a ‘til-death sort of relationship.
“You told me not to.” He stepped closer to her, his movements lithe. Graceful. Like a panther. “But I find I can’t help myself.”
“Then get some help from an outside source,” she growled, tightening her arms around herself.
“You are upset with me?” he asked, a boyish, teasing glint in his eye.
“Yes, I am upset with you. I don’t understand you. You kiss me, you act mad about it, you apologize, you go on a date with another woman and now you’re flirting.”
“Victoria was fine.”
“Fine?”
“Adequate. I should like to see her again.”
“What? That’s all?”
“I would like to marry her,” he said between clenched teeth.
“And you came out here flirting with me?”
He shrugged. “I told you why I’m doing this. It has nothing to do with personal feelings or excitement on my part and everything to do with getting things in order for Kyonos.”
“Great,” she said, annoyance deserting her, replaced by a sadness she had no business feeling.
“I prefer it when you smile,” he said, injecting a playful note to his voice.
“I don’t feel like smiling.” She turned away from him, her focus pinned decidedly onto the scenery.
“Why do you do this?”
“Why do I do what?” she asked, not looking at him as she responded.
“Why do you make it impossible for me to reach you?”
“Why are you trying?”
“Because I can’t take a breath without thinking of you,” he said, his voice suddenly real. Raw.
“I don’t …”
“Jessica,” he said, regaining some of his composure, “you know my situation. My obligations. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see where our attraction takes us.”
“Yes, Stavros, yes, it does mean that,” she said, panic fluttering in her chest. Panic and a desperate desire to believe the words he’d just spoken.
His dark brows locked together. “That kiss … it haunts me. It’s eating at me. I need …” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I need you. Tell me you need me, too.”
“I …” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if I do.”
His expression shifted, a veil dropping, revealing unguarded hunger. Stark and nearly painful to witness. “Let’s pretend that it does.” The desperation in his tone, the raw need, was beyond her. And yet it called to her, echoed inside of her. “Let’s pretend, like we did the other night, that none of the other stuff exists. That I am just a man. And you are just a woman. A woman I desire above all else.”
She sucked in a breath that tore at her lungs, leaving her raw and bleeding inside, and tried to keep the tears from falling. How could he tempt her like this? “Stavros … that’s the problem, all of that, that stuff we tried to ignore? It is real. And we can’t pretend it’s not. It won’t change anything.”
“Tonight it doesn’t have to be real,” he said, his voice dark, tortured.
“I am not your best bet for a last-minute, commitment-phobic fling,” she admonished. “I am the last woman you should want for that.”
“Why? The attraction between us is real. And you said yourself, it isn’t as though you’re a virgin. You’re an experienced woman who knows what she wants.”
There was no ease now. No flirtation. And he was harder to resist now because of it. Because this was real. What she’d witnessed when he’d first come out onto the terrace, that had been the fake. This was her evidence that he really did want her.
It was unfair. It was too much.
Anger, unreasonable and not entirely directed at Stavros, spilled over. “I’m pointless, don’t you know? Can’t you tell? I can’t have a baby. I am a testosterone killer. I make a man feel like he isn’t really a man. I can’t be pleased sexually. Don’t I know what that does to a man?” She knew she sounded crazy, hysterical. She didn’t care. “I am cold. And frigid. A bitch who cares more for her own comfort than the dreams of her husband, than the hope of a family. Does that sound like the sort of woman you should have a fling with?”
She stood, her hands clenched at her sides, her breathing harsh. Speaking those words, giving voice to every terrible thing she’d been called, every horrible feeling that lived in her, made her feel powerful. It made her feel a little sick, too.
“Jessica … who said those things to you?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Who do you think?”
“Your husband?”
“Ex,” she said, the word never tasting so sweet.
“He was wrong,” he said.
“You don’t know that. I just turned you down, didn’t I?”
“And my ego remains intact.”
“Just go.”
“No. Help me understand,” he said. It was a quiet statement, a simple gesture. It was more than anyone else had ever asked from her or offered her.
“This is one of those things men don’t like to hear about. And by that I mean it contains the word uterus and pertains to that particular ‘time of the month’ that means a man can’t get any action.”
“Try me,” he said, his dark eyes never leaving hers, his jaw tense. “Scare me, Jess. I dare you.”
She forced a laugh. “Fine. I’ll give it a shot. I had endometriosis. I might have it again someday, since it’s still possible to have a flare-up. I don’t know if you really know what that is but it’s incredibly painful. I was one of the lucky ones for whom it was especially bad. It causes bleeding and … pain. Lots of pain. Lots of blood. For me it caused pain during sex. After orgasm. It could last for days for me. And … I started just not wanting to have desire anymore. I didn’t even want to want sex. The reward was too fleeting for what I had to go through and … I rejected my husband. Often. I made him feel undesired. And you know what? He was.”
She was sure that had to have done the trick. That had to have scared him. “I think that’s your cue to turn and run.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m not a runner. Did it hurt you all the time?”
“Most of the time. I’ve had …” She always tripped over the word hysterectomy because there was something so defeating about it. “I had a procedure done to help, and it has, but … I haven’t tested how well it worked in terms of … it still scares me.”
“Jess …”
She was the one to take a step back. She shook her head. “It’s not worth it, Stavros. For one night? It’s not worth it. I’m way too much trouble. If you want one more fling before you get married make it with someone who’s easy. And I don’t mean that in the general sense. Make it with someone who actually wants sex.”
The idea of trying it again, of failing again, destroyed her. It was more than just what it might mean to him. It was that she wanted it so much, and the thought of desiring yet one more thing that remained out of her reach was too painful to even