There it was again, her name in his mouth, being kissed by his accent. Her knees felt shaky; she wasn’t sure she trusted them to carry her across the room.
‘A change,’ she said cryptically. ‘And you?’
His lips twisted and she felt something sharpen within him, something that sparked a thousand little questions inside her. ‘It’s routine. I come here every year.’
‘What for?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he strode across the room, champagne flute in hand, passing Hannah’s to her as though he were fighting himself, as though he were fighting this.
And she couldn’t understand that.
If it weren’t for the gale-force strength of her own needs, she might have paused to ask him why he was looking at her with such intensity, why he stared at her in a way that seemed to strip her soul bare.
But the incessant thrumming of her own desire was all Hannah was conscious of.
‘Habit,’ he said simply, swallowing so his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
She bit down on her lip, and his eyes dropped to her mouth, so her desire became louder, more urgent, desperation rolling through her. This was crazy. Madness. Necessary.
Outside, a spark of colour exploded through the sky—bright red, vibrant, its beauty an imperative they both resisted.
‘Happy new year,’ she said quietly, unable to take her eyes off his face.
Happy new year? He stared at the woman he’d brought up to his penthouse, completely at a loss for what the hell had come over him. For four years he’d come here to pay his respects to Amy, he’d undertaken this pilgrimage, he’d come here to remember her.
For four years he’d resisted any woman he found desirable, he’d ignored his body’s hungers, he’d resisted anything except the debt he felt he owed Amy.
Then again, no other woman had ever slammed into his body. She had literally hit him out of nowhere, and the second his hand had curled around her arm, simply to steady her, his body had tightened with a whole raft of needs he no longer wanted to ignore.
He’d sworn he’d spend the rest of his life single, celibate.
Amy’s.
But right here, with the starlit sky exploding beyond the glass wall of his penthouse apartment, something within him shifted. It was as though an ancient, unseen force was propelling him to act, was reminding him that grief could coexist with virility, that he could have sex with a woman without it being a betrayal to his wife.
He had loved Amy, even when their marriage had been fraught and neither of them particularly happy. She was his wife, he’d made a promise to her, and he had sworn he’d love only her for the rest of his life. So wasn’t it loving another woman that was the true betrayal?
What did sex have to do with it?
No, denying his libido wasn’t about what he owed Amy. It was punishment.
Punishment for being the son of a criminal mastermind. Punishment for being careless, for thinking he could turn his back on Dion Stathakis and live his life without the long, gnarled fingers of that man’s sins reaching in and shredding what he, Leonidas, possessed.
He had been punishing himself because he deserved to feel that desperate pain of denial, that constant throbbing of need.
And he still should.
But there was something about Hannah that weakened his resolve to the point of breaking. He didn’t believe in angels and ghosts, he didn’t believe in fairy tales and myths, and yet, in that moment, it almost felt as if she’d been sent to him, a fragment of his soul, a promise that he could weaken, for one night, and go back to hating himself again tomorrow.
In the light of day, with the breaking of another year over this earth, he could resume his uneasy life.
But for tonight, or what was left of it, he could forget. With determination in his gaze, he put their champagne flutes down, knowing there was no turning back from this, no changing the immediate future.
‘Happy new year.’ And he dropped his head, surprising her completely if her husky little gasp was anything to go by, parting her lips so he could drive his tongue deep inside her and feel every reverberation of her body, he could taste her desire and welcome it with his own.
Just for this night, he would be a slave to this—and then, everything could go back to normal…
PERHAPS SHE’D EXPECTED him to kiss her gently, to explore her slowly, but there was nothing gentle about this, nothing slow. It was a kiss of urgency and it detonated around them.
She made a groaning noise into his mouth, her desire roaring through her body, taking control of her.
This was not a warm, comfortable kiss. It was a kiss that redefined everything in her life, pushing new boundaries into place. She clung to his shirt for dear life and he kissed her deeper, his mouth moving over hers, demanding more of her, his tongue duelling with her own, his body cleaved to hers so not a breath of space remained between them.
It was a kiss of complete domination and she succumbed to it utterly.
‘Just this one night.’ He pushed the words into her mouth as he spun her body, tightening his arms around her waist and lifting her in his arms. He sat down on the sofa, pulling her onto his lap, pushing at her dress and making a guttural sound of frustration when he found the cotton of her underpants.
It was everything she wanted—the impermanence, the perfect treatment. She wanted to lose her virginity—it seemed ridiculous to be twenty-three and not know what sex was all about, yet the idea of a relationship made something inside her shrivel up and die.
She’d never trust another man, she’d never want love, or believe in love. She’d never be foolish enough to believe she was lovable.
But sex?
This?
This was a balm to her soul.
She tilted her head back as he pushed her dress higher, over her arms and then from her body altogether, so she wore only her underwear, flimsy cotton, with no care whatsoever that this man she’d met less than an hour ago was seeing her like this.
If anything, she found her total abandon to this—to him—liberating.
There was no room for any such rational consideration, though, when he unhooked the bra and discarded it carelessly, then began to trace one of her nipples with his tongue, circling the peach areola lightly at first, so she was trembling on top of him, straddling his lap.
He moved his mouth closer to the tip of her nipple and, finally, surrounded it completely, sucking on her flesh in a way that burst starlight behind her eyes.
She swore, uncharacteristically, and he echoed it in his native tongue, reaching between her legs and pushing at the trousers of his designer suit, unzipping them, unbuttoning them so that the arousal she could feel through the material was hard and naked.
He transferred his mouth to her other breast and the first, so sensitive from his ministrations, felt the sting of the cool, air-conditioned air and she arched her back in response.
It was completely overwhelming.
Or, she thought it was. But then, he moved his hand between her legs and through the waistband of her underwear, sliding a finger into her moist core, and she cried his name.
He stilled for a moment then moved his finger deeper,