‘You certainly do. You please me very much.’ His voice dipped. ‘But if this is such an equal and such a practical arrangement, then surely I get to make a few requests myself, koukla mou.’
Something in the darkness of his face made her throat turn to parchment. ‘Like what?’ she questioned breathlessly.
‘We may be playing house, but we aren’t going to be constrained by house rules. We don’t clock in and clock out. You won’t start slamming cupboards if I’m late for dinner.’
‘But you might be the one cooking dinner, and I might be the one who’s late.’
‘I might.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Just so long as you don’t try to change me,’ he said as his gaze travelled slowly over her body and seemed to linger there. ‘And no rules about sex, either. We don’t use it as a weapon or as a negotiating tool.’
‘Gosh. You sound as if you’ve had some pretty bad experiences with women.’
‘You think so?’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘I’d say it was the normal experience of a wealthy and attractive man who happens to be good in bed. And before you start pulling faces like that—I’m trying to be honest.’ He paused. ‘But again, in the pursuit of fairness—perhaps I should ask you the same thing. Have you had bad experiences with men?’
She hadn’t been expecting the question and therefore hadn’t prepared an answer, but now was not the time to make the announcement that there hadn’t been anyone except for him. Apart from making her look hopelessly out of touch, mightn’t it also make him wary? He might realise that nobody else had come close to making her feel the way he had done. That she had fallen for him big time. That she was expecting a whole lot more than he could ever give.
So she smiled. ‘I thought we were going to have fun,’ she said. ‘Not rake up stuff about the past. The past has gone, Loukas, and this is what we’re left with.’
‘So it is.’ He pulled her to her feet, tipping her chin upwards so that there was nowhere to look except at him, and when he spoke again his voice had deepened and suddenly it no longer sounded steady. ‘I want you, Jess.’
‘Let’s go upstairs to bed,’ she whispered.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. Draw the curtains.’
Her hands were trembling as she did as he asked, turning back to see his face looking shadowed in the suddenly subdued lighting broken only by the dancing flicker of the fire.
‘Loukas,’ she said uncertainly, and suddenly he was all over her. His hands were fumbling with the zip of her jeans, yanking them down to her ankles before impatiently tugging them off and hurling them to one side. He was peeling her sweater over her head and she was urging him on—silently positioning her body to make access easier. She shrugged the leather jacket from his broad shoulders and heard it slide to the floor. She eased the zip of his jeans down, but he was so aroused—the hard ridge of him so big beneath her still-trembling fingers—that he pushed her hand away.
‘No. Let me,’ he said succinctly, before freeing himself.
She gasped as he did so and it felt so deliciously decadent to be stripping off in the shadowy firelight that she reached down to cradle him in her hands but, again, he pushed her away—rapidly disposing of his own remaining clothes until they were both naked before the golden flicker of the flames.
‘Now,’ he said, but his voice sounded so tight and urgent that it was almost as if she had never heard him speak before. She was breathless and wet as he eased the condom on himself with an exaggerated amount of care, as if only by doing that could he hang onto a self-control which seemed perilously close to deserting him. And then he positioned himself over her, that first deep thrust making her moan and his subsequent rhythm making her moan ever more. Until he stopped and a mumbled protest fell from her lips.
‘L-Loukas—’
‘Open your eyes,’ he ordered. ‘Open your eyes and look at me.’
Reluctantly she let her lashes flutter apart to meet his smoky black gaze, afraid of what he might be able to read when all her defences were down. She tried to tell herself that this was what every woman felt when she was having sex with a man, but on some fundamental level she knew that wasn’t true. Because surely it wasn’t normal to feel as if your heart were on fire. As if you wanted to burst with joy. Those were the feelings you associated with love.
But Loukas wasn’t looking for love. The reason he wanted her to open her eyes was to gauge her level of satisfaction, and there was no hiding that.
Her lashes flickered open completely, and he smiled.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you like, Jess. Tell me what you want me to do to you.’
She wondered what he expected—a verbal map to indicate just which zones she found most erogenous, or an expressed preference for a different position? But in reality, there was only one thing Jessica wanted Loukas to do to her.
‘Just kiss me,’ she said, because that was the closest she could get to asking him to love her.
BE CAREFUL WHAT you wish for.
Jessica stood at her bedroom window, watching Loukas in the garden below as he chopped logs and added them to the growing pile. It made for a compelling image. His strong arms swung in an arc as the blade splintered into the wood—drawing attention to the honed definition of muscles rippling across his shoulders and his broad back.
Her throat dried. How many times had she longed for a scenario like this, in those lonely moments when her fantasies about him wouldn’t respond to censorship, no matter how hard she’d tried? She’d dreamed of Loukas being back in her life and in her bed—with the freedom to conduct their relationship openly in a way which had never been possible before. And now she had it. No more moments of passion sandwiched in between the strictures of her career and the demands of his billionaire boss. Now he was the billionaire—although she no longer had a career, she thought wryly. Still. It should have been great. It should have been almost perfect.
So why the questions which still whirled around in her mind, which felt as if they had no real answers?
Ever since he’d moved into her Cornish cottage, they’d behaved like a couple. They’d done stuff. The normal stuff which other people did. They’d cooked dinner and shopped for food, and at first it had been disorientating to see Loukas in the local store, standing among all the villagers and the occasional tourist. People stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him and it was easy to see why. With his leather jacket and faded jeans, he looked larger than life—tall and indomitable. A dark, head-turning presence who seemed to come from a very different world.
Because he had. That was exactly what he had done. He’d known violence, rejection, pain and despair and those things had given him an edge which marked him out from other men. No wonder everyone else had always seemed so pale and so tame in comparison. No wonder no other man had ever been able to coax her into his bed.
Very quickly Jessica discovered that she liked having him around. She liked being part of a couple and doing coupley things. It made life more interesting to have a man to watch a scary film with, and play the old-fashioned board games which she taught him and which he was soon winning. She liked the feel of his warm, naked body when she got into bed at night and his arms wrapped around her waist when she woke up in the morning. She liked knowing they could make love whenever and wherever they liked.
But she was also aware of the subtle boundaries which surrounded them. The unspoken, instinctive restrictions. They never talked about the future and they never used the word love. He might have seamlessly slotted into having a home, but it still felt like her home, not his.