by Lucy Monroe
There was just learning to live without. Which she had done and could do again, but not right now.
The aftermath would come soon enough.
For once, she was going to take something for herself before worrying about the interests of others. She could still ask Ariston what Rhea needed her to. And he would most likely say no, just as he would have before this amazing kiss, but that was for later.
Right now was for them, well, for her … but he certainly seemed every bit as into it as she was.
With that thought, Chloe let her body relax into his, feeling the evidence of his arousal pressing against her stomach. Oh, yes, he was most definitely enjoying himself, too.
He made a sound of triumph and lifted her, carrying her to the couch without ever once breaking the all-consuming kiss. He laid her down, but pulled away.
“No.” She reached for him; she knew he wanted it, too.
His eyes burned with a passion she’d become very familiar with during their short marriage. “I must lock the door. It would not do to shock Jean’s sensibilities.”
It was so like something he’d said once before when they’d made love … had sex … in this very office during their marriage. Chloe was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu and couldn’t respond.
He didn’t wait for her to anyway, but moved quickly to the door. The sound of the lock clicking into place was loud in the cavernous office, silent but for their excited breaths.
He had already removed his tie and was working on his shirt buttons by the time he came back to her and Chloe’s breath stalled only to start again with a quick pant. “I’d forgotten how efficient you can be.”
“Did you really?” he asked, sounding like he didn’t believe it at all.
“Maybe not.” Honesty compelled her to admit, “You’re not very forgettable.”
“Nor, yineka mou, are you.”
He’d used to call her that all the time. It could mean “my woman,” or “my wife,” depending on the intent. Neither fit any longer, but she wasn’t going to argue about him getting possessive during sex.
She liked it too much. Besides, he’d told her she was hard to forget, too.
She didn’t mind hearing that at all.
He finished undressing without an ounce of false modesty, his eyes caressing her with a heated stare the whole time. He didn’t suggest she do likewise and she wasn’t surprised, or worried.
Apparently he still liked the idea of undressing her as much as he used to.
So she lay there, getting her own Greek tycoon striptease and enjoying every second of it. Even if it was done with moves more efficient than overtly sexual, her excitement escalated to near unbearable levels.
Her body vibrated with the need to have him inside her, her nipples ached to have his lips on them, her core convulsing involuntarily as if in memory of what it felt like to be joined.
She loved him. She’d never been able to stop. But right now? She just wanted him.
“You look very pleased with yourself.” He didn’t quite smile, but he didn’t seem to mind either.
She shrugged. “Pleased with what I see, more like. You keep your body in amazing shape, Ariston.”
He had changed in this one way. He’d been gorgeously muscular before, but now his body was hard all over and while he didn’t look like some kind of muscle bound Hulk, he clearly took his regime more seriously these days.
“I work out every day. Cardio in the morning, weights at night.”
“That’s pretty dedicated.” He’d used to only work out once a day, five days a week.
“It helps me sleep.”
“I don’t remember you needing much sleep.”
He didn’t answer, but dropped to his knees beside her, his hand reaching to caress her under her suit jacket. “Undressing you is like unwrapping a present.”
He’d used to say that too and she found herself suddenly too choked to answer. So she just smiled, the first one that came naturally to her since arriving in New York.
“Do you look the same under these layers?” he asked as his lips whispered down the side of her face to her neck.
“I’m a little thinner.”
He stopped moving, lifting his head to stare at her. “Surely you had no extra weight to lose.”
For the first time, trepidation filled her. She looked a bit more like a scarecrow than sexpot these days, not that she’d ever had a curvaceous figure.
He didn’t give her anxiety a chance to build. Showing he read her, at least in the bedroom, every bit as well as he’d ever done, he kissed away her worries as his hands began work on her blouse.
Words whispered against her skin that she could not quite make out as he took off her clothes, his fingertips leaving a heated trail of pleasure as he touched each newly revealed patch of skin.
By the time he had her completely naked, she was shivering with need. He’d very purposefully not touched her most erogenous zones, but had still managed to bring her to the point of begging.
Only biting firmly on her bottom lip was keeping the words inside.
He lifted his head to smile at her, his expression knowing. “You never were very patient the first time out of the box.”
“Since this may be our only time, maybe you should get a move on,” she gritted out, though in sexual frustration, not anger.
His expression turned intent. “You think so, do you?”
“You live in New York, when you’re even in the country. I live in Oregon. We’re not exactly well suited for casual hookups.”
“On that, at least, we agree.”
She didn’t get a chance to ask what he meant by that because he touched her breasts. Finally. And she nearly climaxed without him ever going near her clitoris.
But he remembered exactly what kind of touch to her nipples and breasts pleasured her the most and was intent on giving it to her. In abundance. He used his hands and mouth to bring her body taut like a bowstring and then one hand slipped between her legs.
Her mouth opened to scream and he kissed her, swallowing the sound as the ultimate pleasure crashed over her in a tsunami of bliss.
He pulled back, his fingers still touching her, but gently, causing small aftershocks to wrack her body. “It has been a while for you, I think.”
She might be blissed out. She might even still love him. But no way was she answering that implied question. “None of your business.”
“Your body does not lie.”
“Think what you like.” She looked away, knowing her expression would tell him the truth even if her mouth didn’t.
Then a very disturbing thought occurred to her. Was he using sex to disturb her equilibrium further in this business game only he seemed to know the rules to?
A gentle hand brushed her cheek. “Hey, stay with me, Chloe. We are far from finished.”
“No more questions about my private life.”
“Only one.”
She glared at him, sealing her lips.
“Are you in a relationship?”
“Surely whatever spies you have watching your business interests told you the answer to that.”
“I do not have investigators watching you.” By his tone, he considered he’d shown restraint and expected her to appreciate that fact.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t think of a reason he would have wanted to in the first place.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because he said, “There is very little related to any of my business interests that I do not know.”
Okay, but again, why? She wasn’t one of his business interests any longer. Even though he still held a big chunk of shares in Dioletis Industries, she had nothing to do with the company and even less to do with him.
Their currently somewhat intimate circumstances aside.
“Arrogant much?” she asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
She used to find his arrogance charming. Maybe part of her still did, but really—what had she been think
ing?
He merely smiled.
Well, Mr. Arrogance hadn’t known she was on birth control during their short-lived marriage. And technically, it had been just another business arrangement. So, he didn’t know everything now, did he?
Despite falling head over heels for the gorgeous jerk, the one thing she’d been adamant about was that she wasn’t trapping him or herself into marriage through a child. Not unless they both wanted to be there permanently, and obviously he hadn’t.
“Do you honestly think I’d be on this couch if I had someone waiting for me back in Oregon?” she asked, to get her mind back where it needed to be.
She wanted this, and even she wasn’t going to ruin it for herself.
“No, but I would appreciate hearing the words.” He almost sounded humble.
Which was enough of a shock for her to acquiesce that much. “I’m not in a relationship.”
“Good.”
“I assume you aren’t in one either?” Not that she thought for a minute they defined the word the same way.
They certainly hadn’t agreed on what it meant to be married.
“No.”
“Then we can continue without guilt.”
“Ne. We will continue.” That single slip into Greek to say yes indicated more than his body coiled tightly with sexual tension, or even his hard-on, that Ariston was not in absolute control.
And then the tension snapped and the whirlwind that was her tycoon lover for the afternoon swept over her with touches and kisses and bodies rocking together until she spread her legs, silently begging him to enter her.
He grabbed a condom from the pocket of his slacks and she tried very hard not to think why he might carry those around. “Help me put it on.”
She nodded, and with trembling hands, did exactly that. He groaned as her fingers rolled the condom down his generous length.
Stilling above her, he implored, “Don’t move. Not your hand, not your body. Nothing. Please.”
It was as out of control as she’d ever seen him and she did as he asked. His eyes shut, his head thrown back in repose, he took several deep breaths, letting each one out more slowly than the last.
When he looked down at her again, his azure eyes were dark with desire. “Now.”
“Yes.”
He pressed inside her and her body convulsed around him. Not in climax, but in absolute pleasure and relief at finally being connected to him in this way again. For her, it was a moment so profound, she could not speak.
He did not look as if he needed words, but seemed lost in his own passion, and for that she was grateful.
Even more so when that passion took them on another journey to fulfillment, this time her orgasm gripping her entire body in contractions so intense that though she opened her mouth to scream again, no sound came out.
He muffled his own shout of completion in the juncture of her neck and shoulder, kissing her over and over again between words like Yes, and So good, and Fantastic.
Afterward, they cleaned up in his office’s en suite, neither speaking, but the silence between them not really awkward at all.
It should have been.
She should be having all sorts of regrets, but she wasn’t. She’d wanted this and had enjoyed it far more than even she had thought possible.
She realized he wasn’t feeling quite so sanguine when he looked up from buttoning his shirt, his expression clearly chagrined. “I did not intend to jump you in my office like that.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“Yes, well …” He seemed at a loss for words at her response.
“We’re both adults, Ariston. Whatever else was between us, the sex was always good.”
“Better than,” he agreed firmly.
She found herself grinning, really grinning, for the first time in a very long time. “Much better than.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Without thinking, she reached out to straighten his tie. “Okay.”
They still had to talk about the company and his shares and what he planned to do with them.
“Good.” He stepped back, forcing her hands to drop away. “Jean can give you restaurant and time details. We can discuss whatever it is you came here to see me about then. We seem to have used up our time with other things.”
“I’ll stop by her desk on the way out.”
“I will see you then.” He left the bathroom and was back into full business mode, even taking a call when she followed him a few moments later.
She’d needed time to collect herself.
So the silence hadn’t been awkward, but she wasn’t giving him five stars on postorgasmic afterglow either.
He took a sip of what had to be cold coffee by now and grimaced. A small tendril of satisfaction unfurled in her. Ariston wasn’t picky about the temperature of his coffee, just the taste.
And right now he was suffering through her favorite. Whatever the reason for that, it made her feel just a little like she was getting her own back.
CHAPTER THREE
ARISTON set the phone down, the need for pretense gone now that Chloe had left his office.
Feeling unsettled in a way that was totally alien to his nature, Ariston cursed volubly in Greek. Just like the first time around, nothing was as it seemed with Chloe.
None of the motives he’d attributed to her actions during their marriage withstood the revelations she’d made in his office. And damn it to hell, he hadn’t intended to have sex with her. Not yet.
No matter how much he’d enjoyed it and knew the pleasure to be reciprocal, he didn’t like being out of control. And he had been. He didn’t like deviating from the plan. And he had done.
Frustration and a touch of something he absolutely refused to acknowledge, but someone else might label fear, went through him. He took a deliberate sip of his coffee and the unwelcome flavor pouring across his tongue hit him as another testament to his loss of control.
With another low curse, he threw the cup against the bulletproof glass of his oversize office windows. The sound of shattering crockery was a lot more satisfying than his own thoughts.
Jean opened the door almost immediately. “Is everything all right in here?”
“Is she gone?” Ariston demanded.
“Yes.”
“You gave her instructions for where to meet for dinner?” Plans he’d made before Chloe ever set foot in his office this morning.
“I did.” Jean looked at the broken china cup and coffee spilled against the window. “I know you don’t like that blend, but was that entirely necessary?”
“Have maintenance in to clean it up when I’ve left,” he instructed without answering her gentle gibe.
She nodded, her expression revealing concern he had no desire to see. “Do you need anything?”
“Just privacy.” The words came out harsher than intended, but he wasn’t about to apologize.
Jean, being the highly efficient and intelligent PA that she was, closed the door with a soft snick, disappearing on the other side.
His meeting with Chloe ran over and over in his mind, his superior brain having difficulty aligning newly discovered realities with beliefs he had held for two years.
She hadn’t confirmed it, but he now believed there was a strong possibility that his wife had walked out on him because of the divorce papers her father had told her about.
Divorce papers Ariston had drawn up in his absolute fury at discovering Chloe’s deceitful actions.
Actions that no longer fit into the scenario Ariston had first assigned to them, but behavior that was no less a heinous betrayal of both his grandfather and himself regardless of what had motivated it.
How else could he see her use of birth control when one of the major reasons for their marriage contract was to provide his grandfather with the certainty of the next generation of Spiridakous?
Ariston had believed that marrying Chloe as part of a business bargain would take the messy emotional sid
e out of his need for children to pass the Spiridakou empire onto. His own father had messed up spectacularly in that arena repeatedly.
And Ariston’s one foray into the world of romance had had him crashing and burning, not to mention losing several million dollars on a business deal gone bad in the bargain.
So when his grandfather had come to him and asked him to consider a contractual marriage to ensure the next generation, after careful consideration, Ariston had agreed. As he’d reminded Chloe, it wasn’t so uncommon among the men at his level of power and wealth.
He knew Eber Dioletis was looking for a single investor to infuse capital into his company.
Eber didn’t want to give enough shares of the company for the investment capital he expected in return, but the marriage deal made it possible for both men to find a win-win.
Emotions were messy and devastating.
Business was something Ariston understood and knew how to control, so finding a wife as the result of a business deal appealed very much.
He now realized his certainty that a business marriage would come without the complications he’d sworn off, not once, but twice in his life—first because of his parents’ devastating mistakes and then because of his own—was one of the reasons he’d been so livid with Chloe for lying to him.
She’d let him down personally, but more important, Chloe had betrayed him on a business level, just as Shannon had done. Only this time, Ariston’s grandfather had been hurt as well and Ariston found that untenable.
The one person in his life he could trust and wanted to protect, and Chloe had betrayed them both.
Ariston hadn’t discovered what she’d been up to until a couple of months before their third anniversary. He’d been looking for his wife’s favorite pair of earrings so he could have a complementary necklace and bracelet made as a gift to celebrate the occasion.
He’d also hoped to use the jewelry to soften her toward having fertility tests done. Ariston hadn’t said anything, but he’d been to his own doctor and tests had confirmed that there should be no problem with conception coming from his side.
He’d thought Chloe might need fertility treatments because three years of sex at least once a day, often more frequently, should have resulted in pregnancy.