He’d go from A to Z, he thought grimly. But “Assault” was too general. “Beating” was too simple.
“Castration” was a lot better. He stayed with that scenario until sleep finally dragged him under.
Something woke him.
The moon had disappeared, chased into hiding by wind and rain. The room was as black and frigid as Hecate’s heart.
Damian padded quickly to the French doors and closed them. Damn, it was cold! Was Ivy warm enough under the comforter? It was too dark to see anything but the outline of the big bed.
He turned on a lamp, adjusting the switch until the light was only a soft glow. Ivy lay as he’d left her but the covers had dropped from her shoulder.
He shut off the light. Carefully leaned over the bed, began drawing up the comforter…
Zzzzt!
A streak of blinding light, then the roar of thunder rolling across the sea.
Ivy sprang up in bed, saw him leaning over her…and screamed.
“Ivy! Sweetheart. Don’t be afraid. It’s me. It’s only me.”
He caught her in his arms, ignored the jab that caught him in the eye and held her against him, stroking her, whispering to her. An eternity seemed to pass until, finally, she shuddered and went still.
“Damian?”
Her voice was thready. He drew her even closer, willing his strength into her.
“Yes, agapimeni. It’s me.”
Another shudder went through her. “I thought—I thought—”
He could only imagine what she’d thought. Rage, deep and ugly as a flood tide, filled him, left him struggling to keep his composure.
“You thought it was old Hephaestus, playing games with lightning bolts on Mount Olympus,” he said with forced cheerfulness.
Was that tiny sound a laugh?
“Storms here can be pretty fierce during the summer. They scared the heck out of me when I was little, and it didn’t help that my nanny would glare at me and say, ‘You see, Your Highness? That’s what happens when little boys don’t listen to their nannies.’”
He’d dropped his voice to a husky growl that was less his long-ago nanny’s and more a really bad Count Dracula, but it worked. His Ivy laughed. A definite laugh, this time, one that made him offer a silent word of thanks just in case old Hephaestus happened to be within earshot.
“That wasn’t very nice of her.”
“No, but it was effective. For the next few days, I’d be the model of princely decorum.”
“And then?”
Lightning, followed by the crash of thunder, rolled across the sky again. Ivy trembled and Damian tightened his arms around her. “And then,” he said, “I’d revert to the catch-me-if-you-can little devil I actually was.” His smile faded. “You’ll be fine, glyka mou. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
She leaned back in his embrace and looked up at him, her face a pale, lovely oval.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For—” She hesitated. “For being so—so…For being so nice.”
Nice? He’d bullied her, berated her, accused her of being a cheat and a liar. He’d forced her to come with him to Greece, told her he owned her…
“I haven’t been nice,” he said brusquely. “I’ve been impatient and arrogant. It is I who should thank you for tolerating me.”
That rated a smile. “We’re even, then. I’ll forgive you and you’ll forgive me.”
He smiled back at her. A moment slipped by and his smile faded. “Ivy? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.” God, how he wanted to kiss her. Just one kiss to tell her he would keep her safe from lightning and thunder and, most of all, safe from whatever terrible thing had once happened to her. “Good,” he said briskly, and cleared his throat. “So. Let me tuck you in and—”
“Where are you sleeping? If I’m taking up your bed—”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“But where…”
“Right in that chair. I, ah, I thought it would be a good idea to be here in case, you know, in case you needed me.”
“You? In that little chair? Where do you put your legs?”
He grinned. “They say a little suffering is good for the soul.”
“It looks like a lot of suffering to me.”
“Easy,” he said lightly. “First you tell me I’m nice. Then you say I’m a candidate for sainthood. If you aren’t careful—”
“Sleep with me.”
Her voice was low, the words rushed. He told himself he’d misunderstood her but he hadn’t, otherwise why would a pink stain be creeping into her cheeks?
“Just—just share the bed with me, Damian. Nothing else. I just—I don’t want to think of you, all cramped up in that chair.” She licked her lips. “If you won’t share it, I’ll have to sleep in the guest room. Alone. And—and I really don’t want to. Be alone, I mean. Unless—unless you don’t want—”
“Move over,” he said, his voice gruff, his heart racing.
Ivy scooted away. He climbed onto the bed, slid under the covers, held his breath and then thought, to hell with it, and he put his arm around her waist and drew her into the curve of his body.
“Good night, agapi mou,” he murmured.
“Good night, Damian.”
He closed his eyes. Time passed. The storm moved off. Ivy lay unmoving in his embrace, so still that she had to be asleep and he—he was going to lose his mind. He would be a candidate for sainthood, by morning.
“Damian?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes, sweetheart?”
Slowly she turned toward him. He could feel her breath on his face.
Her hand touched his stubbled jaw; her fingers drifted like feathers over his mouth.
“Ivy…”
Her hand cupped the back of his head and she brought his lips down to hers.
His heart turned over.
“Ivy,” he whispered again but she shook her head, kissed him and drew even closer.
One of them had to be dreaming.
Her lips parted. The tip of her tongue touched the seam of his mouth. He wanted to roll her on her back, open her mouth to his, savage her mouth with kisses.
But he wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
He would do only what she asked of him. He was not a saint but neither was he a beast.
Ivy whispered his name. Lay her thigh over his.
Damian groaned, caught her hands and held them against his chest.
“Sweetheart,” he said raggedly, “glyka mou. I can’t—” He cleared his throat. “Let’s—let’s sit up. In the chair. I’ll hold you and—and when sunrise comes, we can watch it together and—and—”
She silenced him with a kiss that told him everything a man could hope to hear. Still, he held back and she took the initiative, rolling onto her back, holding him close, arching her body against his.
“Ivy,” he whispered, and let himself tumble into the hot abyss with her.
He kissed her mouth. Her eyes. Her throat. She gave soft little cries of pleasure and each cry filled his soul.
He kissed her breasts through the thin silk T-shirt, sucked her nipples into his mouth and she went crazy beneath him, sobbing his name, clutching his shoulders, and he thought, Slow down, slow down, God, slow down or this will end much too fast.
But he was lost.
Lost in Ivy’s scent, in her taste, in the silk of her hair and the heat of her skin.
He pushed up her shirt. Bared her breasts. Kissed the creamy slopes, teased the pale pink nipples, her sweet cries urging him on.
He sat her up. Pulled the shirt over her head. Unhooked her bra and her breasts, like the most precious fruit, tumbled into his hands.
He kissed them, kissed her belly, round and taut with his child and thought, as he had before, how perfect it would be if he and she had made this child together.
Then he stopped thinking because she was tug
ging at his sweatshirt.
He reared back and tugged it off. She arched against him, her breasts hot against his chest, and her moans of ecstasy almost unmanned him.
Her panties were the merest whisper of silk. He drew them down her legs and she arched again so that he sank into the spread of her thighs.
“Ivy,” he said thickly.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, yes.”
She lifted her face and he kissed her, tasting her tears, tasting her sweetness, and something stirred deep, deep inside him, something stirred within his heart.
And then he was inside her. Inside her and she was so tight. So tight…
“Damian,” she sighed, and put her hand between them.
The world spun away.
He groaned, thrust forward and Ivy cried out and came apart in his arms.
He held on as long as he could. Sheathing himself within her. Pulling back until it was torture, then sinking deep, feeling her come again and again until, finally, he let himself go with her. Fly into the night, into the sky, into the universe.
And knew, as he collapsed against her, that sex was, indeed, only sex. Making love was what really mattered.
And though he’d been with many women, he had never really made love until tonight.
CHAPTER TEN
DAMIAN was asleep.
Ivy had slept, too. For a little while, anyway, safe and warm in his embrace.
Then she’d awakened.
And, just that quickly, the memories came rushing back.
She’d lain beside him for another few minutes, telling herself not to let this happen. Not to spoil the wonder of Damian’s lovemaking with the ugliness of those memories.
It hadn’t worked.
Finally, carefully, she’d slipped from under the curve of her lover’s arm and risen from the bed.
A soft cashmere throw lay at its foot. She’d wrapped herself in it, held her breath while she opened the French doors and stepped out on the terrace.
When would she finally be able to forget?
A little while ago, when the fury of the storm had invaded her dreams, it spun her back in time to another night a long, long time ago.
No, she’d whimpered, deep in the dream, no!
It hadn’t mattered.
She’d come awake in terror. And when she saw the figure bending over her, that terror had wrapped its bony hands around her throat.
“No,” she’d screamed—and then Damian had spoken her name.
He was the man leaning over her bed, not a fat monster who stunk of beer and sweat.
He hadn’t grabbed her breast, squeezed it, laughed as he ripped her nightgown open.
He hadn’t clamped a sweaty palm over her mouth as she tried to fight him off, her fifteen-year-old self no match for a man who earned his living swinging a pick ax.
Not a sound, he’d said, his stinking breath washing over her. You make one noise, just one, I’ll tell the social worker you stole money outta my wallet and you’ll be back in Juvie Placement so fast it’ll make your head spin.
She hadn’t stolen anything. Ever. The first time, in a different foster home, they’d said she’d taken a hundred dollars. She hadn’t—but Kay said she had to be lying because the only other person who could have done it was her. Kay. Was Ivy accusing her of theft?
Kay stayed in that home. Ivy was sent back to the Placement facility. Eventually they’d put her in another foster home.
Kay turned eighteen and left the system.
“See you,” she said.
And Ivy was alone.
Six months in one place. Three in another. Bad places. Dirty places. And then, finally, a place where the woman just looked right through her and the man smiled and said, Call me Daddy.
Ivy had felt her heart lift.
Daddy, she’d said, and even though he wasn’t like her real daddy—whom she barely remembered—or her stepfather, Kay’s father, whom she’d loved with all her heart—even though he wasn’t, he was nice.
At least, that was what she thought.
He bought her a doll. Some books. And when he began coming into her room at night, to tuck her in, she’d felt a little funny because he also took to kissing her on the cheek but if he was her daddy, her real daddy, that was okay, wasn’t it?
A light wind blowing in over the sea raised goose bumps on her skin. Ivy shuddered and drew the cashmere blanket more closely around her.
And then it all changed. One night, a storm was roaring outside. Lightning. Thunder. Rain. It scared her but she finally fell asleep—and woke to see the man she called Daddy standing over her bed.
Even now, all these years later, the memory was sheer agony.
He’d hurt her. Hurt her bad. He came to her each night, night after night, and when she finally tried to tell the woman, she’d slapped her in the face, called her a slut…
And Kay had come.
Ivy had flown to embrace her but Kay had pushed her away.
“What’d you do, huh?” she’d said coldly. “Don’t give me that innocent look. Did you play games with this man like you did with my father?”
“What games?” Ivy had said in bewilderment. “I loved your father. He treated me as if I were his own daughter.”
The look on her stepsister’s face had been as frigid as her voice. “Only one problem, Little Miss Innocent. He already had a daughter. Me.”
She’d lived with Kay for a few months but she knew she was in the way. And then, a couple of weeks after she turned seventeen, a man walked up to her on Madison Avenue, handed her his card and said, “Give me a call and we’ll see if you have what it takes to become a model.”
Kay had said yes, fine, do whatever you want. Just remember, never tell anybody what you did because they’ll tell you how disgusting you really are.
Ivy moved out, the agency sent her to Milan, moved her into an apartment with five other girls. She sent Kay cards and letters that all went unanswered until she made the cover of Glamour Girl and Kay called to say she was so sorry they’d lost touch and how proud she was to be her sister…
“Glyka mou?”
Ivy spun around as Damian walked out onto the balcony. He’d pulled on his sweatpants. They hung low on his hips, accentuating his naked chest, muscled shoulders and arms, the abs most male models worked like machines to develop.
Beautiful. He was so beautiful. And so good and decent and kind…
“Sweetheart.” He gathered her into his arms. “What’s the matter?”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, afraid that if she did, the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat would give way and she’d burst into tears of joy.
“Agapimeni.” He tilted her face to his and brushed his lips gently over hers. “Tell me what’s happened. Why did you leave me?”
I’ll never leave you, she thought. Never, not as long as you want me!
“I just—” She swallowed, blinked away the silly burn of tears. “I woke up and—and I could still hear the storm, way off in the distance, and I wanted to—I wanted to see…”
Smiling, he cupped her face and threaded his fingers into her hair.
“A little while ago, you were afraid of the storm.”
“That was before you made me see I had nothing to be afraid of.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes. “Never,” he said fiercely. “Not as long as I’m here to protect you.”
Her heart lifted. How wrong she’d been about this man. Arrogant? Overpowering? Never. He was simply sure of himself, and strong.
And tender. And caring. And she felt—she felt—
“It was more than the storm you feared.” His arms tightened around her. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Yes. God yes, she did! But not yet. Not now. Not when her feelings were so new, so confused.
“It’s all right.” He kissed her. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me.”
“It isn’t that. It’s just…�
� She hesitated. “What’s happened. This. It’s all so—so new…”
“You mean, us,” he said. When she nodded, he lifted her in his arms and carried her through the French doors. Gently he lay her on the bed and came down beside her.
“Are you happy?”
She smiled. “I’m very happy.”
Slowly he eased the cashmere blanket from her shoulders, revealing her breasts, her belly, her body to his eyes.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” he whispered. “And I’m the luckiest man.”
He dipped his head. Kissed her throat. Bent lower and circled a nipple with the tip of his tongue.
Ivy trembled. “Oh. Oh God, that feels—it feels—”
He licked the nipple. Sucked it into his mouth. She wound her arms around his neck, stunned at the sudden sharp longing low in her belly.
“How does it feel?” he said gruffly. “Tell me.”
“Wonderful. Damian. It feels—”
His hand slipped down her belly, into the curls between her thighs, into the heat between her thighs, and found her clitoris.
Ivy moaned with pleasure and arched against his fingers.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Please, what?” he said, and the thickness in his voice added to her excitement.
“Please,” she sighed, “make love to me again.”
He kissed her mouth. Kissed her belly. Parted her thighs and put his mouth to her and the first touch of his tongue sent her flying.
And then he was inside her, deep inside her, and she was lost. He said her name and she disintegrated into a million, billion pieces that flew to the far ends of the universe…
And knew the truth.
She had fallen in love with the complicated, impossible, wonderful man in her arms.
She lay beneath him, arms wrapped around him, his weight bearing her down into the mattress, his heart racing against hers, his skin damp from their lovemaking.
Until this moment even thinking about those things—a man’s body on hers, the thud of his heart, the scent of his sweat…Just imagining those things, remembering them, was enough to bring a dizzying wave of nausea.
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