by Lucy Monroe
She curled her fingers around the hard flesh and gave him a heated look. “I’m not feeling so nice myself right now.” She squeezed the flesh in her fingers.
He groaned. “That feels very nice to me.”
And then it began again, the passion between them building to slow and easy this time as he let her touch and explore in the way that gave her the most pleasure. By the time she put her mouth on him, he was shaking and swearing though.
In Greek. He was too far gone to use another language.
She loved the earthy taste of him, the way his hardness felt in her mouth. This was her man. No one else would ever get to see him like this, much less touch him with the freedom she had to do so. Their marriage was not perfect, but this part? The passion? The desire? The way they pleasured one another?
It was as out of this world as it had been the very first time.
When she knew he was on the verge of climax, when Polly herself could take no more waiting, she climbed on top of him. “My turn.”
His inarticulate sound of agreement turned her on even more.
She positioned herself over his thick erection and lowered herself, gasping as his bulbous head slipped inside her tender flesh, sensitized from their first round of lovemaking.
“That’s so good,” he said in a guttural tone she loved.
“Yes.” She pressed down until he was fully sheathed inside her and then stilled, just savoring the amazing feeling that had not gotten old through five years of marriage and two pregnancies.
“Please, agape mou.”
“What? You want me to move?” Her tease would have been more effective if she wasn’t so breathless and her hips weren’t jerking in little tiny movements without any volition from her.
“Ne!”
Oh, yes. That was what she wanted. Polly began to move, rocking her hips, and rode him to first her completion and then only a moment later, his.
His hoarse shout was still ringing in her ears as she collapsed down onto his chest, so replete even her baby bump didn’t make it awkward.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HELENA WAS ECSTATIC at her first helicopter ride. She pointed to everything out the window, jabbering away, unconcerned that her parents could not hear her well enough to answer.
But then Polly and Alexandros both smiled at their daughter and nodded at easy intervals.
Polly’s eyes caught her husband’s, and they shared a moment of understanding, their smiles turning intimate and warm for a moment out of time.
They landed on the helipad on top of the Kristalakis Building, Alexandros handing Helena to a bodyguard, while he personally helped Polly out and then leaned protectively over her body to shelter her from the wind generated by the slowing rotor blades.
The penthouse apartment he led them to wasn’t anything like Polly had been expecting. Warm colors made the high-end rooms feel welcoming, and there was a chest filled with toys for Helena in the main living room as well as her perfect princess bedroom.
“How long has the apartment been set up for family?” Polly asked, looking around in wonder.
Helena made a beeline for the pretty white bookcase filled with her favorite stories and pulled out brand-new copies of the ones that had become dog-eared in her room in the villa. “Look, Mom! All my best stories!”
“I see that, sweetie.”
Helena was in her element, but Polly was overwhelmed. There could be no question that Alexandros had gone to great lengths to make sure his daughter would be comfortable.
Polly turned and stared up at her husband. “How long?” she asked again.
He shrugged. “Pretty much since Helena’s birth.”
“But you never said.”
“I was waiting for you to say you wanted to come.”
“What? Why, for goodness’ sake?” she demanded. “How was I supposed to know you wanted us here? That’s not the way it seemed to me.”
But the evidence of her eyes said something entirely different. It said that he had wanted her in Athens with him. “If you wanted us here, why did you move me out to the villa?”
“I did not realize that you would consider the move as a statement of intent.”
“How was I supposed to take it?”
He grimaced, for once his ready brain stuck for an answer.
“You were waiting for me to say I wanted to come?” she asked in disbelief. “But I never wanted to move out of Athens in the first place. I would have thought that would have been a given.”
Only very clearly, it had not.
“I thought you would be happy to move to the country. I thought your anger was over me choosing the house without your input. You’d made it clear you wanted to move out of the family home.”
“But I said…” What had she said back then? She couldn’t even remember now. She knew how she’d felt, but she’d been so angry, so resentful that by the time he bought the villa, she was halfway to closing her heart off from him already. “I really hated living with your mother and your sister.”
“I am sorry I did not understand how bad it was for you.”
She nodded. She believed him. She just wasn’t sure if she could trust him. He was paying attention now, but he hadn’t. Not then. Not later.
“I learned not to talk to you about the important stuff.” She sighed and then made a conscious effort to go for the positive with a small smile. “But we’re here now and it’s a really nice place to be.”
“I am glad you think so.” He didn’t look happy so much as relieved.
He wasn’t used to being criticized. She’d figured that out early on. And Alexandros had been deeply offended when she reacted to his gift with anger instead of enthusiasm.
She let her smile grow. “It’s a beautiful apartment.”
“It makes me think of you.”
That was worth a reward. She leaned up and kissed him. “I like that. Are you saying that all those nights you spent on your own up here, you were thinking about me?”
“What else would I think about?”
“Business?”
“Well, naturally without you and Helena around to keep me balanced, I tend to work very long hours.” He said it like admitting a grave sin.
She just grinned and took him by the arm, leading him into the living room, where they could sit down together. “I would expect nothing less. That’s why your family is so good for you.”
“You are good for me, agape mou. And yes, so is our daughter and this little one.” He laid his hand over her belly.
The baby kicked and she grinned. “He knows his daddy’s touch.”
They settled onto the spice-colored sofa together, Alexandros pulling her close into his side. Neither spoke. She was basking in the present, enjoying the knowledge that she and their daughter were not only welcome here, in the bastion she had considered an adjunct to his business, but desired.
“What are you thinking?” she finally asked him after several long, peaceful minutes.
“I am enjoying your presence here in my arms and the sound of our daughter telling herself stories in her bedroom. I dreamed of just such a moment many times.”
Polly didn’t remind him he should have invited her if he’d wanted her there, but she did ask in a soft teasing tone, “So what have we learned about vital communication between a husband and a wife?”
“That it is vital.” There was no humor in her husband’s voice, just conviction.
“I agree. Is there anything else you’ve been wanting and not telling me?” she thought to ask, though with very little expectation of a positive reply.
Billionaire tycoons weren’t known for not expressing their needs, or desires.
“I want to date again.”
“What?” Polly pulled away so she could see her husband’s face. “What do you mean? We go out together.
”
“To fundraisers and social functions necessary for my business.”
“Well, yes, but that is our social life.”
“I want more.”
“You do?” She found that really hard to believe.
“Your sisters have date nights with their husbands. I’ve heard them talking about it when they come to visit.”
“They do, but they don’t have social calendars anything as packed as ours,” Polly acknowledged ruefully. “In fact, they’ve all expressed envy at the galas I get to attend.”
“But those galas aren’t the best way to rekindle romance.”
“They could be.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not about where we go, or even what we do when we are out together. It’s whether we’re together or just attending the same function.”
“Of course we are together.”
“Are we?” she asked, thinking how little time they actually spent in one another’s company at most of the social events they attended.
He looked down at her and stopped to think, which she appreciated. He wasn’t just giving her a knee-jerk reaction. “Please explain.”
“On a date, your focus is on me. My focus is on you. The venue, the entertainment, the others around us, they are secondary, right?”
“Agreed.”
“So, a gala could be a date, but only if our focus remained on each other.”
“However, as it stands, you and I both end up talking to different people, socializing in different circles.”
“Yes. You to advance your business interests.”
“And you to make connections for your charity work.”
“Some of the time. Others, I’m just catching up with friends,” she informed him. “But regardless of our reasons, we are both in the habit of going our own way once we arrive at a function.”
“That used to bother me about you,” he informed her.
“What? You expected to me to stand by your side in silent companionships while you talked business and political interests related to your business?” she asked with a tinge of mockery.
But his serious nod stunned her. “Yes.”
“Faithful Penelope, I am not,” she informed him.
“So I learned. Not that you lack fidelity, but you do not see yourself as a satellite to my life.”
“I’m not.” What a strange thing for him to say.
“My mother was, to my father.”
“But she has so many charity interests now. Are you saying she didn’t when he was alive?”
“She did, but she still spent most of their evenings out in his near vicinity.”
“I’m not sure how she managed that, but I’m not her.”
“No, and I do not expect you to be.”
“Are you sure?” Because that was something she’d often thought he did in fact expect and was destined to be disappointed by.
“Let me rephrase that,” he said with one of his devastating smiles. “I have learned not to expect you to be. I have come to realize that if you were like my mother, I would have had no more interest in marrying you than the women she’d been throwing at my head since I became an adult.”
Polly’s own smile was tinged with mockery. “Sexual chemistry has a lot to answer for.”
“Our relationship is not just sex.” His dark gaze bored into hers.
“Of course not. We have a daughter together and a son on the way. We have a family.”
“It has never been just sex.” He sounded really offended.
“I didn’t say it was?” she asked, rather than stated, because something she said had garnered this reaction.
“You said I married you because of sexual chemistry.”
“Didn’t you? I mean if we hadn’t been so explosive in bed, I don’t think you would have made the effort, considering our differences and your busy schedule.”
He opened his mouth, like he was going to deny her assertion, but then he shut it with a snap. “That may be true, but I proposed because I was in love with you.”
She’d thought so too, at the time, but Polly had long since realized what she’d thought was love was a mixture of genuine liking and sexual compatibility.
“I’m pretty sure that if you loved me, you wouldn’t have been so content to be away from me so much. You wouldn’t have expected me to do whatever your mother wanted, no matter how miserable it made me.” She sighed and stood up, needing to put some physical distance between them. “I learned to accept that you like me. A lot. I know you’re sexually attracted to me, more than you have ever been to another woman.”
“I hear a but coming.”
“But I think what you call love, I might call affection.”
“And these emotions are not the same to you?”
“No.”
“How are they different?”
“When you love someone, you consider their needs, their wants, their comfort. You want to protect them and make their life better for them.”
“You do not think I feel any of these things for you, harbor any of these desires?”
“So long as you are not inconvenienced, maybe.”
“But if I am inconvenienced, you think your needs, what you want, your very comfort becomes secondary to me?”
“Until very recently, to your mother and sister as well.”
“And when I tell you I love you?”
“You haven’t actually said those words very much.”
“But I call you agape mou.”
“Which means my love, but doesn’t necessarily mean you love me. It’s more like calling me darling.”
“In some instances, yes, but not between us. Not when I say it to you.”
She shrugged, not willing to argue Greek semantics. When it came down to it, it was his actions that told the real story, and until very recently the story they told hadn’t been a very romantic one. She wasn’t sure what they said now. Guilt? Competition with his brother? Competition with himself even? Alexandros was always top marks in whatever he did.
“But you do not believe me.”
Stifling another sigh, she looked at him. “Do we really need to talk about this? Only I’ve really been enjoying our fresh rapport and don’t want it spoiled with an argument.”
“Because you know it will upset me for you to acknowledge you do not believe me when I say I love you?”
“Because you don’t like being wrong. Full stop. So, if we get into this and I refuse to agree that you love me, yes, you’ll become upset, but worse, you’ll feel the need to convince me.”
“And you don’t think I can,” he said in dawning understanding.
She shrugged.
“Ohi, say what you mean.”
“Fine. No I don’t. Because you think if you throw enough words at it, you’ll change my point of view, only it’s based on five years of your actions, and those cannot be dismissed or recategorized with mere words.”
“Why not? Did we both not come to realize that you had misread my actions in not inviting you to come stay in Athens with me as I misread your actions in not coming at all?”
“If you wanted a concession in a business deal, would you expect the other party to know, or would you ask for it, demand it even?” she asked, getting irritated with him for his unwillingness to let this conversation go.
Polly had accepted her husband’s lack of love and found a contentment in her marriage despite it. What right had he to stir up feelings she’d settled long ago?
“My marriage is not a business deal!” He’d raised his voice, but not to scary deep, angry levels.
Even so, Polly worried Helena was going to come searching to see what had her precious papa upset.
“No, it is not, but my point is simply that the very fact you didn’t ask for
what you say you wanted would indicate that it wasn’t that important to you.”
“Not so important I might actually be afraid of your rejection?”
“You aren’t afraid of anything.”
“You are wrong about that, Polly. And you are wrong about what I feel for you.” He stood up in one fluid movement and joined her, pulling her into his arms, his head coming down so his lips hovered right over hers. “If actions convinced you my feelings weren’t as deep as they are, then actions are what is needed to change your mind. Not more words.”
On that, at least, they agreed.
She didn’t get the chance to say so because he kissed her and she fell into it like she always did. His mouth moved over hers even as he pressed his big body against her, the evidence of his arousal pressing into her stomach.
Flames of need flared through her core.
She wanted him. She always wanted him.
“Papa, you sure do kiss Mom a lot.” Helena’s little voice broke through the passionate haze surrounding Polly.
Polly went to jump back, but Alexandros stayed her with his hands. “Give me a moment,” he practically pleaded.
She stilled and let her own breathing settle as she felt him will himself to calm down.
Polly turned her head to see Helena’s sweet little face. “Are you finished reading your stories?”
Although Helena didn’t actually read, she called it that when she told herself the stories from her books.
“I’m hungry.”
“Then I’d say it is time to eat.” Alexandros released Polly and stepped back, quickly angling himself away from their daughter. “Do you want to cook?” he asked Polly, “Or should we order takeaway?”
“If the fridge and pantry are stocked, I’d prefer to cook.” Polly was warmed he’d thought to ask, because ordering delivery was what she knew his natural inclination would have been.
But Polly loved to cook. And he was respecting that reality right now.
“I left instructions for them to be.”
“Good.”
They spent the next forty-five minutes very pleasantly as a family while Polly prepared dinner after whipping up a quick snack so Helena would not grow fractious waiting.