His proud bone structure pulled taut, his exotic cheekbones prominent, the shadowy hollows beneath adding stark definition. ‘I’ve never been into casual encounters and I didn’t want to rush into anything either. I won’t let sex control me or push me in the wrong direction again.’
Her lashes fluttered, bemusement claiming her. She was barely breathing as she listened because he had never told her that much before and, ironically, he both gave to her and then took away again with those words. First, he implied that what he had shared with her had not been casual and then he suggested that sexual desire had once got him involved with the wrong woman. Did he mean her or his ex-wife? Or some other woman from his past?
What did strike her almost dumb was that Eros, for all his gorgeous vital masculinity and electrifying sexuality, had almost as many quirks, inhibitions and fears as she had. Nothing had ever shaken her as much as that revelation because it simply transformed her view of him, turning him from the ruthless, dishonest sexual predator she had believed him to be into a much more human male with his own secrets and vulnerabilities.
Winnie stared up at him, her heart-shaped face solemn. ‘You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?’
An ebony brow quirked. ‘Why would I lie about something like that? What man boasts about celibacy in this day and age?’
Winnie closed her eyes because of the scratchy sting prickling at the backs of them, fighting off the threat of tears. Her feathery lashes drifted down onto her cheeks to conceal her expression. With a husky groan, he hauled her into his arms. Passionate urgency sprang from every line and angle of the lean, fit body pressed hard against hers. His hungry mouth crushed hers, his tongue sliding between her lips to delve deep until a shudder racked her slight frame.
‘I don’t want to rip the dress,’ Eros muttered roughly, spinning her round in front of him and addressing his attention to the many buttons still to be undone.
‘Why not? I’ll never wear it again,’ Winnie murmured, already wondering what lay ahead for them now because they were racing fast into unknown territory and, although she knew she ought to step back and demand her own space and resist the intimacy he wanted, she was as still as a statue, her pupils dilated, her body all of a quiver in anticipation of what he would do to her and how that would make her feel.
Eros ran through hook after hook, impatience gripping him in waves, and he too was fighting off second thoughts. He was picturing her as she’d walked down the aisle towards him, reminding himself that that had all been showmanship designed to fool him and lull him into a false sense of security. She had never intended to be his wife, never intended to share his bed and his fury at that reality that was still dug down deep inside him. What was he playing at? Getting entangled with Winnie again was like playing with fire and it would be all the more dangerous because of her connection to Stam Fotakis, who would destroy him if he could.
He stared down at the subtle line of her smooth back and the violin curve of her shapely hips slowly being exposed, and ferocious need broke through the defensive barriers his brain was trying to resurrect. Suddenly nothing mattered beyond having her again. He pushed the parted edges of the bodice apart and watched the wedding dress fall down to her feet in a silky pool of lace. Underneath she wore white lace panties and pale thigh-high stockings and he took his time appreciating that view of feminine perfection.
Slowly he turned her back to face him and then he dropped to his knees in front of her to smooth lean brown hands very slowly up over her beautiful legs until he reached the delicate skin above the lace stocking tops. Winnie went rigid beneath the caress, staring down at him with almost dazed eyes as he gently nudged her slender thighs apart. She could feel every brush of his fingertips across her inner thighs and it set up a chain reaction in her pelvis, awakening a surge of heat that made her squirm.
‘There’s so much I want to do that I don’t know where to begin,’ Eros said softly as his hands curled into the edges of her panties and slowly peeled them down.
Winnie literally stopped breathing, fierce colour sweeping up her throat to engulf her face. She had never been more conscious of being bare.
‘Am I still the only guy to see you like this?’ Eros growled as he tugged the undergarment free by dint of delicately lifting each stiletto-heeled foot in turn.
Winnie toyed with the idea of lying out of pride but then her innate practicality squashed that idea. ‘When would I have had the time?’ she muttered ruefully. ‘First I was pregnant and then I had Teddy and then I was struggling to look after him and work unsocial hours.’
Smiling with unashamed satisfaction, Eros leant forward and planted a kiss on her lower belly. ‘I’m grateful,’ he confided quietly.
Her tummy muscles tensed. Alarmingly conscious of the stretch marks that were slowly fading into silvery lines there, Winnie swallowed hard, wondering if he had noticed, reckoning he was too smooth to comment on her flaws. And, of course, there were flaws, she scolded herself, because a body that had carried a baby changed and there was nothing to do but live with those changes.
Impervious to her insecurities, Eros vaulted upright and scooped her up to settle her down on the wide bed. As he stood over her, he threw off his jacket, jerked loose his grey silk spotted tie and unbuttoned his crisp white dress shirt. All male purpose blazed in the smouldering green eyes welded to her.
‘I have never wanted anything so much as I want you at this moment,’ he told her rawly, and she recognised the faint hint of anxiety that accompanied that admission as if that level of desire spooked him.
Yet he had always made her feel like that, she acknowledged, as though she was especially sexy and necessary to him, as though he truly needed her on some deep fundamental level. It was hardly surprising that she had fallen in love with him. But all Eros had ever needed from her was sex, she reminded herself ruefully. Quickly, she shrugged the thought away again, possessed as she was by a powerful need of her own to live in the moment and look neither forward to a dim future nor back to a past that still wounded her.
Eros pulled off his shirt, exposing a bronzed torso straight out of her most feverish feminine fantasy, lean muscle rippling with his every movement to define powerful pectorals and a stomach that was a taut flat study of hard, corrugated sinew. She stared, her hands falling back from the curves she had been trying to cover, the foolishness of such reticence with her child’s father sending a tide of self-conscious red up into her cheeks. It was a little late in the day for modesty, she told herself impatiently, particularly when there was nothing modest about what Eros made her feel.
Excitement was already licking up through her like a storm warning, her mouth dry, her heart beating so fast it felt as if it was pounding through her entire body. Eros had always had the ability to make her feel like a very different woman from her quiet and sensible self. He only had to look at her a certain way, touch her a certain way and she was transformed into a wanton creature that wanted, craved, needed...
‘I have no patience, moraki mou,’ Eros breathed as he stripped off his trousers, revealing black boxers that he skimmed off with a similar lack of ceremony.
‘You never had,’ Winnie whispered shakily, striving not to stare at his body, a hot flush surging at the heart of her and a wave of desire she could not suppress.
Eros laughed, assailed by memories he hadn’t examined in years, and acknowledged that when it came to her patience had never been his strong suit. Desire had ridden him hard, frustrating his attempt to keep their affair cool and within bounds, demanding more from him than he had ever wanted to give. He shook off the disturbing memories to concentrate on the pale voluptuous vision of loveliness that was Winnie lying across the bed, her wondrous curves exposed for his appreciation.
He came down to her in one lithe movement, all controlled grace and masculine heat, claiming her mouth with demanding, shattering force and for several long moments Winnie was in heaven because nobody could kiss like Eros. Big hands cupped her full breasts, pushing them together to enable him to hungrily