by Pippa Roscoe
‘I simply cannot fathom why you would have married a man who—’
‘What, Theo? Wasn’t you?’ she demanded, cutting into his sentence before he could cause even more pain by maligning Antoine. ‘For all this talk of vengeance and needing to teach me the consequences of my actions—yes, I was paying attention in Paris—what is it really? That I dared to marry another man? Is your ego really that significant to you?’
His head reared back as if he’d been slapped and the thin shred of satisfaction at the sight made her feel both jubilant and petty at the same time.
‘What would make you feel better, Theo? To hear that I didn’t love him? Well, I did. He was a good, kind man who understood me, understood what I needed. Who also understood what my position meant in a way that you never will. I am truly sorry that you’ve faced such hardships, Theo. I am sorry that you feel responsible for them, I am also sorry that you believe that I caused that, that I did that to you. But if that’s what you need to do, then so be it.
‘And if you need to hear that Antoine and I didn’t have the chemistry you seem to effortlessly taunt me with, then fine. We didn’t. Does it please you to know that he took lovers? That it shamed him as much as me? Would that help? Do you need to know that each and every touch left me cold and more alone than I can possibly describe? Because the only person whose touch I had ever craved was you? The only person I had ever imagined sharing that part of myself with, was you? Would that ease your ego?’
Shame and misery sobbed in her chest, and tears that had formed without her knowledge or permission gathered behind the lids of her eyes, casting both Theo and the room about them in a blurry haze. She couldn’t stand it any more, couldn’t stand here knowing that he had drawn from her a secret that she had shared with no other.
So she fled her engagement party, turning her back on the gathered guests, picking up the skirts of her dress as she almost ran from the ballroom.
* * *
There were very few times in his life that Theo could remember being shocked into silence, and each and every one of them involved Sofia. But none of them had hit him with the power of a tsunami. Waves of something he did not want to put a name to crashed against him as he followed in her wake. He didn’t care if he drew the curious glances of strangers as he left the ballroom with determined steps. He didn’t care if they would have to come up with yet another story to define or excuse their actions and their engagement.
All he cared about was what Sofia had revealed to him, and if it made him want to beat his chest with pride and need, and ego, then so be it, even if it made him a bastard. His pulse raged and he felt the burn in his thighs as he took several steps at once towards her suite, feelings that he relished as he ate up the distance she had tried to put between them.
She had told him many lies in the past, but what she had said about her first husband, what she had said about him? That was most definitely the truth, and had somehow worked to lift the self-imposed barrier he had placed between them. Now, though, now there was no turning back.
Even as he stalked the palace hallways towards her room he felt the rush of desire, the swelling of arousal in his groin, the thickening of this band of want and need around his chest and throat. It might not have changed his plans for her, no. He would still have his revenge. But perhaps if he gave in to this insane desire burning between them, then he might finally be able to rid himself of the devastating hold she had over him. No, not him. His libido. He was a man of flesh and blood, and he would not deny either of them a taste of their basest desires.
He flexed his hand as it trembled ever so slightly in the space between him and the door to her rooms, and thrust it back by his side. Instead, he pushed the door open and kicked it shut behind him as he stepped over the threshold and drank in the sight of his prey.
She sat at the dressing table, staring off into the distance, looking as alone and isolated as she had claimed to be only moments earlier. Her golden hair, swept back into a chignon, glistened in the dimly lit room, matched only by the sparkle of the diamonds around her neck, dipping towards the V in her chest, and he stood half mesmerised by the sight of the rise and fall of her breasts, the only outward sign of her distress...
For the first time in years he felt an affinity with her, as he recognised that they were both in thrall to the spell of desire wrapping around them in great swathes of need.
‘Stop.’
‘Stop what?’
‘This,’ she said, gesturing between them. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, just stop.’
‘I would if I could, Princess, trust me.’
‘You don’t even like me,’ she said, unable to help the smallness of her voice.
‘I don’t have to like you to want you,’ he growled, the admittance rough on his voice. ‘It’s as if it’s ingrained in me as much as my childhood lessons. When I should have been learning algebra, instead I learned the cosine of your skin, the angle of your chin, the circumference of your waist and the weight and feel of your breast. When I should have been learning French, instead I learned the language of the sighs of your pleasure, the rhythm and cadence of your pulse and your desire—’
‘Stop,’ she tried again, but failing to hide the pleading tone in her voice. And that plea called to him, taunting him, challenging him.
‘No, Sofia. Because while I learned all these things, you seemed only to learn self-denial and how to lie.’
‘And you are here to teach me my own body, Theo?’ she asked, incredulity clear in her oceanic eyes.
He couldn’t help the bitter laugh that left his lips. ‘I would teach you how to demand the pleasure you so desperately plead for, beneath your cultured, perfect words. To unearth the truth of what your body craves beneath your mind’s barriers. Theé mou, the Sofia I knew would have not hesitated.’
‘I don’t have to like you to want you.’
The words echoed in her mind. No, ‘like’ was too easy a word for what lay between them. He blamed her for every awful thing that had happened to him since that night ten years ago, and she blamed him for blackmailing her into this farce, for stealing her choice, even as he professed to give her a choice over this.
‘I don’t have to like you to want you.’
As if that one true acknowledgement had the power to unlock the cage she had just placed her inner self, her desires and wants into, need escaped as if his voice, his words were the key, twisting again and again within a lock so secure she had thought it never to be opened again.
‘You want me?’ Sofia said, with a voice raw with desire, turning to stand from the chair and stepping towards him. ‘Take me,’ she demanded.
He shook his head. Slowly. Not once taking his eyes from hers. ‘Oh, no, Sofia. You’re going to have to do better than that. You will not be passive in this, I won’t allow you to hide behind excuses, proclaiming that I drove you to this. No. If you want me...then take me.’
The spell that had bound her from her wants and needs lifted, the challenge he laid at her feet rose into her accepting hands. Hands that tingled with the need to feel his bare skin beneath them.
Could she? Could she really do this? His words were a call to action, but her insecurities held her back. She wanted this. Wanted him with a need that shocked her, scared her even. But she had never done this before, certainly not with her husband... In truth she’d always dreamed of what it would be like with Theo. Fevered dreams, ones that had left her heated and wanting and unfulfilled.
She crossed the distance between them in shaking strides and when she stood before him, a hair’s breadth between them, it was as if she didn’t know where to start. She wanted it all. Years of hunger made her body stronger than her indecision. Her fingers trembled as they reached just beneath his perfect suit jacket to slip it from his shoulders, and leave it discarded by their feet.
They were on fire as they went to the silk tie
around his neck and fed it through the loop that held it secure. She slid it from the collar of his shirt, focusing on the top button and fumbling slightly.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded. But she wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t ready for him to see the desire and need and...innocence she felt shining from her skin, let alone her eyes. She wasn’t ready for him to see the truth of her need for him, because if he did he would know. Know that she hadn’t the faintest idea of what she was doing.
She slipped the button through its moorings, her thumb tracing a small pathway over hair-roughened skin, the heat from the contact spreading across the back of her hand, up her elbow and straight to her chest. Another button undone, and another tantalising glimpse of the hard planes of his chest...her hands awkward as they lifted the shirt tails from within the belt of his trousers.
Her fingers slid beneath the white cotton onto his deeply tanned abdomen, rippling beneath her touch, causing her to wonder at the evidence of the effect of her caress. His chin nudged her head to the side as he sought access to her neck. But she pulled away from the reach of his lips. He had told her to take him. So she would.
Unconsciously she arched against his chest like a cat, and when he nudged her thighs apart with his own she nearly cried out loud. The thick muscled thigh rubbing the soft silks of her skirt between her own legs was driving her senses wild. The low thrum that had started at her core now roared to life, pulsing with need for satiation, for his touch, for him.
She pushed him back against the wall, relishing her power, never having guessed that she would feel such a thing in this moment. Their bodies collided as his back pressed against the wall, her breasts aching for him.
She slid the shirt from his shoulders, broad and powerful from hard work and intense labour, and her hands swept behind him as he leant forward, allowing her nails to scratch at the thick, corded muscles, bunched with tension. His head rocked back as she did, a growl on his lips she desperately wanted to silence, because it heightened her own need and pleasure.
A pleasure she sought desperately from him as she learnt the adult body of a boy she had once desired, whilst punishing him by withholding a kiss...because if they kissed she might never find her way back. Instead of seeking his lips, she pressed hers against the suntanned skin of his chest, finding the spot beneath his ribs that caused him to suck in a lungful of air.
His hand came round to grasp her hip, and she brushed it away, refusing to let him share this moment of power she had only just discovered for herself. Within herself. The power that somehow he had given her to finally take what she’d wanted for so, so long.
Her tongue found his hard, flat nipple and flicked, the slight bucking of his body speaking only to the leash of control he was holding so strongly. She hated it, hated that he might have control over something that was almost totally overwhelming her.
Her hands went to his belt and drew the leather apart with a snap. The hiss as she undid the zip on his trousers was the only sound other than that of their pleasure, loud in the room.
His hands bunched the silk of her skirt at her thighs, pressing it against her skin as he drew the material higher and higher. Her hand went to his wrist, halting his progress, and a battle of wills ensued, finally drawing her eyes to him. He waited, tension evident in the dark blush against his exquisite cheekbones...waited for her permission to continue, and she marvelled at it. This game of power that was unspoken but clear in every movement, every sigh, every touch.
She released the hold she had on his wrist, and he lifted the skirts of her dress to her waist, one hand pinning the material, the other, pressed between her legs, paused, waiting, allowing the heat from his hand to soothe the ache caused by sheer need.
Sofia couldn’t help a blush of embarrassment, as the evidence her desire had dampened the silken thong, and her body rippled as his thumb slid beneath the thin barrier to find her, wet and wanting.
Her head was flung back as the pad of his thumb found her clitoris and he stroked and stroked, ringing a pleasure so acute her legs began to shake. She had no idea that it could be like this, that somehow she had denied herself this all these years. She shifted as his hand turned, as his finger plunged into her, the strong, thick cords of his forearm almost holding her in place, holding her where he wanted and where she needed.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded, and this time she was unable to refuse. The deep brown of his eyes were drowned in pupils so large with desire she lost herself in the dark depths of them.
His lips crashed down upon hers, his tongue prying them open and plunging into her mouth as if he needed to consume her whole. As his tongue delved, so did his fingers, deeper and harder, bringing her to a point she didn’t yet want to reach.
Her hands flew back to his trousers, pressing gently at the hard ridge of his arousal, even while her inner sense reeled in shock at her actions, and this time she felt the growl building in the back of his throat. Her fingers reached beneath the waistband of his underwear, desperate for the hot, silken skin covering a steel-like need. A string of Greek curses, too quick for her to decipher, littered the air.
‘Bed,’ he demanded against her lips.
‘No.’
* * *
He prised open his eyes to take her in, the fierce look of need and want calling to him in a way he had never imagined, her eyes a shimmering turquoise he had never seen before.
‘I need to be very clear on what you are saying no to, Sofia,’ he said with a growl.
‘The bed, I’m saying no to the bed.’
She glanced at it as if fearful...and perhaps it was not the bed itself but the intimacy it invited. And, while they might be tearing clothes instead of strips off each other, perhaps for her that kind of intimacy between them was not welcome.
‘If there is anything else you need to say no to...’ He had been called a lot of names in his life, some of which he’d earned, but one thing he would never do was force a woman against her will. There was a special circle in hell reserved for men like that.
He held his breath. It would be hard, but if she asked, he would walk away. Walk away and not look back. He watched as his tone settled about her and she realised the truth of his words.
‘I’m saying yes, Theo.’
‘You always were contrary,’ he growled as he crushed his lips against hers, knowing that there would be no going back. No walking away. Not yet.
CHAPTER SIX
HE TOOK CONTROL as easily as she had given it away.
Peeling his back from the wall and walking her in his arms backwards towards the daybed, he spun them round and pulled her down with him as he lay back on the large expanse of what was probably an original Louis XVI chaise longue.
She still wore her dress, and he his trousers, but frankly he didn’t care. The entire length of her body was pressed against his, and it welcomed the light pressure with a sigh.
He had meant what he said. He didn’t have to like her to want her. But maybe, he prayed, if they finally gave in to the power of the sensuality that held them together, it would be over. It would sever its hold. Because no matter what woman had graced his bed until now, it had always been her. Sofia. It was she who had called to him in his most fevered of dreams. But the soft-as-silk skin beneath his touch, the heated flesh that seemed to warm even the coldest depths of him, was not a dream, nor a fantasy. She was here. In his arms. And he couldn’t get enough.
He drew a knee upward to secure her, imprison her between his legs. The long length of his thigh encased her hip, and she pressed her hands down onto the seat beneath them, holding herself up on toned arms that were deceptively strong.
He didn’t want her above him, he didn’t like the way she looked down upon him, but the slender neck exposed by the upsweep of her hair called to him. He could resist no longer. His lips and teeth gently nipped at the exposed sweet flesh there, and he inhaled, deeply drinki
ng her in, the soft blueberry and bay scent, heated by her skin, almost a mirror of the first wine he had produced. Theos, had he been consumed by her even then? The story he had woven for the obtuse minister came back to haunt him, as did his proclamation that the greatest lies held a kernel of truth.
But he didn’t want to think of the past, nor the future, he only wanted to think of now. Her sigh brought him back to the present as easily as if she were a witch who had summoned him.
She placed a hand on his chest, his heart leaping there beneath it, as if it had finally found a missing piece of itself, and he itched to bat it away. Instead, he took her hand in his and pressed his lips against her palm, and even as his body cried out for quick release from this sensual prison he forced himself to stop and savour her as he would a wine. Surely only when he had identified each of the individual flavours, notes of what was unique to her, he would be satisfied, he would know.
He took each of her fingers, one by one, into his mouth, his tongue gently sucking on them, relishing the different sounds that fell from her lips as he did so. With one hand he traced the line of her delicate wrist, up to the elbow joint, around the firm muscles beneath her shoulder, and back up to her neck.
She rubbed against him, cradled in his hips, drawing an arousal so acute, so swift, it was almost painful. Once again the game of power was being played between them as she moved to take what she wanted.
He pulled her into his arms, and turned them so that her back was now against the chaise longue, and he was above her, surrounding her with his shoulders and body, and she knew it from the look that entered her heated aquamarine gaze. There was too much assessment there, too much calculation. He wanted her blind with pleasure, as blind as he was at risk of becoming.