by Kendrick, Sharon; Lawrence, Kim; Crews, Caitlin; Milburne, Melanie
She traced her fingertip around the sculpted perfection of his mouth, her core giving a little aftershock at the thought of the ecstasy his sensual mouth and potent body had given her. Pleasure she could still feel in every cell of her flesh like the echo of a far-off bell.
A thought suddenly crept up on her. What if Draco ceased to be satisfied by her? What if he became bored and went in search of someone else? She had witnessed first-hand her mother’s shame at being shunted aside for a new mistress. It had made her mother even more depressed and disengaged from life. Allegra had often wondered if her father had been partly to blame for her mother’s suicide by his inability to comfort and support her emotionally. She wondered if he was capable of doing it for Elena.
Draco smoothed a fingertip over her forehead. ‘You’ve got that frowning look again. What’s troubling you?’
Allegra gusted out a sigh. ‘Nothing.’
He pressed his thumb pad on her bottom lip, moving it in a slow back-and-forth stroking motion. ‘Talk to me, agape mou. It is good to communicate verbally and physically, ne?’
She couldn’t quite meet his coal-black gaze and aimed for his stubbly chin instead. ‘I guess I’m wondering how long this will last.’
He brought her chin up so her gaze meshed with his. ‘This?’
Allegra licked her lower lip, tasting the salt of his thumb pad. ‘Us. Having…sex. Don’t most married couples drift into a less passionate relationship over time? What will you do then? Find someone else?’
A frown formed a bridge between his eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear me promise to be faithful above all others earlier today? While we’re officially married I will be faithful, as I expect you to be.’
While we’re officially married… Allegra searched his gaze, wondering, hoping, praying he meant every word. But how could she be sure? Didn’t most people mean those vows at the time they spoke them? She was surprised to find she had meant them. She might not love him, but she still meant to honour the commitment as far as it was possible to do so. ‘But our situation is a little different… We’re not starting our marriage at the same place as other couples. What if you fall in love with someone? Someone you meet at work or wherever?’
His finger captured another tendril of her hair and began toying with it. ‘What if you fall in love with someone?’
Allegra had trouble holding his penetrating gaze. She pushed out of his hold, swung her legs off the bed and reached for something to cover her nakedness. His shirt was the only thing handy and she slipped it on and crossed it over her chest without doing up the buttons. How could she fall in love with someone else when Draco was all she could think about? ‘I don’t think that’s likely to happen.’
‘Then why do you think it will happen to me?’
‘Because it happens,’ she said. ‘It happens and you can’t always control it. I represent so many clients whose partner met someone’s gaze across a room and that was it. End of marriage. Most never thought it would happen to them. They thought they had a good relationship and then are suddenly left with the heartache of being rejected for someone younger and more beautiful. It’s still easier for men to stray, especially when kids come along. It’s hard work, bringing up a family, and some men can’t cope with the focus not being on them any more.
‘My father is a classic example. He got tired of my mother’s depression after Dion died and got someone else on the side. Lots of them over the years—both she and I lost count. She was barely cold in her grave before he parked a new mistress in the house.’
Draco got off the bed, pulled on his trousers and zipped them. ‘Not all men are your father, Allegra. Your parents’ situation was tragic. The loss of a child would test any solid relationship and your parents’ relationship, from all accounts, wasn’t solid. But don’t paint me with the same brush. It’s insulting, for one thing. And, for another, I’m not capable of the emotions you describe.’
Allegra frowned. ‘But you’re not incapable of feeling love. I saw the way you interacted with Iona. And I know you loved your father and grieved terribly when he was killed because you hate talking about it. Look at the way you put everything on hold yesterday to see to Yanni. You care about people, Draco. You care a lot. You might not call it love but many would.’
His tilted smile had a touch of cynicism. ‘Yes, I care, and to some degree that could be called love. But as for romantic love? I did that once and it was the most foolish mistake I’ve ever made. I’m not going to repeat it.’
‘What happened between you and your ex?’
He made a move to the door but she intercepted him and stalled him with a hand on his arm. ‘Talk to me, Draco,’ Allegra said. ‘I’ve told you so much about my own stuff but you keep your stuff to yourself. I would like to know so I can understand you better.’
‘There’s nothing to understand,’ he said, but she noted he didn’t pull away. ‘I was nineteen and full of the confident arrogance of youth. I thought she cared about me the way I cared about her. She didn’t.’
A penny dropped inside Allegra’s head. ‘You were nineteen?’
Draco gave her a rueful look. ‘Yes, right at the time you made that pass at me. I was still feeling a little raw. You got the rough end of it. Under other circumstances, your crush would have been a compliment, but instead it was a brutal reminder of the one who got away.’
Allegra bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. No wonder you were so…so angry.’
He brushed a finger over her lower lip as if to remove the sting of the bruising kiss he had pulled away from so long ago. ‘It was wrong of me to take it out on you.’ His hand drifted away. ‘That was why I was so against you getting it on with that boy a couple of years later. I saw something in him that reminded me of my ex.’
And for all these years Allegra had hated him for it. ‘But weren’t you rather young to be thinking about marriage at nineteen?’
‘For some people, yes, that would’ve been too young. But I’d been on my own since my father died,’ he said. ‘I felt ready to build a life with someone. Turned out I wasn’t as ready as I thought.’
Allegra wondered if Draco would ever be ready to settle down for life after such a disappointment. His commitment to her was conditional. A two-or three-year marriage was hardly a lifetime commitment. No mention of love, just caring. How long was that going to be enough for her? ‘I wish I’d listened to you about that boy. It would have saved me a lot of hurt and embarrassment.’
He gave her an on-off smile and turned away to shove his feet back into his shoes, before he reached for a T-shirt and hauled it over his head. ‘I’m going up on the bridge to check on things. I’ll leave you to rest or whatever. We’ll have some supper once I secure us for the night in a sheltered cove not far away from here.’
Allegra’s shoulders sagged when the door clicked shut on his exit. She was being silly. What did it matter if he didn’t love her? Refused point blank ever to fall in love with her? They could still have a satisfying relationship. Far more satisfying than any relationship she’d had before. Sure, it wasn’t the fairy-tale relationship she secretly yearned for, but how realistic were those yearnings anyway? She knew more than most about the sort of heartache that came from idealistic expectations in relationships.
This way was safer. They had a mutual desire for each other and were both intelligent and rational people with a lot more in common than most.
Besides, she wasn’t in love with him.
And she would be perfectly safe as long as she stayed that way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DRACO DROPPED ANCHOR and stood and breathed in the warm night air scented with the brine of the sea. He loved being out on the water, away from all his responsibilities, the burdens he had been carrying since he was a teenager, when life had seemed so hard and impossibly cruel. Out here he could breathe. He could reflect on the g
oals he had achieved instead of dwelling on the ones he hadn’t.
He wasn’t sure why he’d told Allegra about his ex, not in so much detail. But she had shared a lot about herself, deeply personal stuff that couldn’t have been easy to share. He enjoyed being out here with her—maybe a little too much. The desire that roared between them wasn’t something that was going to fade away any time soon. Not on his part, anyway. Draco didn’t know what it was about her that made him so fired up. She was beautiful, but then, he had slept with many beautiful women.
No, it was more than that. She was captivating. She was smart and funny and she responded to him with such fervency it couldn’t fail to delight him. Hadn’t he always known that? Wasn’t that why he’d been so hands-off with her for all these years?
But he wasn’t hands-off with her now.
And that was something his body was thrilled about. More than thrilled. Excited, exhilarated, ecstatic. He’d had great sex before, too many times to count. But with Allegra something else happened apart from the physical act of sex. Something deeper. Her trust in him gave their intimacy a quality he hadn’t experienced quite like that before. Her lack of experience was uncommon in a woman of her age and Draco couldn’t help feeling pleased about it. It reeked of a big, fat Greek double standard but he was privately pleased she hadn’t shared her body with lots of partners. It gave her relationship with him more significance, as if she had waited for him. What man didn’t want a wife who was fiercely attracted to him? It would at least keep her from straying. If Allegra wanted him, then she would think twice about leaving the relationship before he was ready for it to end. Her desire for him was something he could rely on to keep her true to the commitment they’d made that morning.
But as for loving her…
Of course he cared for her, in his way. Care, concern, tenderness, love—weren’t they much the same thing? But being in love, well, he wasn’t going down that road again if he could help it. Draco wasn’t such a cynic he couldn’t see it worked for some people. People who were less guarded about their emotions. Less…disciplined. But he wasn’t one of them.
Not now.
He had learned his lesson the hard way and had learned it well. Opening his heart to love had been foolish and immature and he had paid a high price for it. A price he refused to pay again. He could live a perfectly satisfying year or two with Allegra as his wife without the complication of emotions he didn’t need or trust.
The word love was overused these days. People tacked it on to the end of just about every conversation like some sort of verbal talisman. But how often did they mean it? Really mean it? He only had to look as far as Allegra’s father to see how little those words meant. Cosimo Kallas bandied those three little words around his new wife all the time, but how long before he found someone else to play with when Elena was too tired, or preoccupied with child-rearing?
At least Draco had the self-discipline to refrain from such peccadilloes. His father had set him a good example. Loyalty ran deep in Papandreou blood. Papandreou men stood by their promises even when it hurt. When they made a commitment, they saw it to completion, even if things got tough. He wouldn’t have offered to marry Allegra if he hadn’t thought he was capable of seeing the commitment through while they wanted each other.
It was a perfect arrangement for both of them. She was a career woman with no immediate plans to have children. He had his own work commitments that took him around the globe at a moment’s notice. This way both of them could enjoy the benefits of an exclusive relationship until it was time to move on. What wasn’t to like about her? She was beautiful and amusing and sexy and had a whip-quick intellect. He was tired of dating women who didn’t have any conversation or little if no sense of humour. Tired of being feted like he was some sort of guru or celebrity.
Draco liked that Allegra saw him as her equal. Liked that she argued with him, debated with him, stood up to him. He had a strong personality but, rather than it intimidating her, it brought out the steely, uncompromising will in hers. He enjoyed sparring with her. Their verbal spats were as exciting as foreplay. He got hard thinking about her prim little mouth firing off another vituperative round at him. Telling him what she thought of him when he could read her body felt the exact opposite. He found it invigorating to interact with her verbally and, of course, physically.
Once he got the yacht settled for the night, Draco went back below deck to find Allegra in the kitchen sipping a glass of water. She had showered and was dressed in yoga pants and a lightweight, dove-grey boyfriend sweater that had slipped off one creamy shoulder. Her hair was still damp from her shower and was in a makeshift knot at the back of her head. She had looked traffic-stopping stunning that morning at their wedding, but his body leapt at the sight of her, even in such casual clothes and with no make-up on, her unfettered breasts outlined by the drape of her top, and his breath caught like a fish hook in his throat.
She put her glass down and raised her chin in that aristocratic manner of hers, as if they hadn’t been writhing around naked and sweaty on his bed less than an hour ago. ‘I hope you weren’t expecting me to get supper ready?’
Draco smiled at the tiny spark of defiance in her gaze. After their little heart-to-heart she was pulling back from him, resetting the boundaries after their intimacy. Was she unsettled by the intensity of their love-making? If so, he knew the feeling. He could do with a little regrouping himself to re-establish the balance of power between them. Sex had a habit of tipping things in a relationship. Good sex, that was. And it didn’t get much better than what they’d experienced together. ‘Are you hungry?’
The tip of Allegra’s tongue passed over her lips, her gaze slipping to his mouth for the briefest moment before her chin came back up. ‘Depends what’s on the menu.’
He closed the distance between them, allowing her enough room to step aside if she wanted to, but she stayed where she was, her dark blue eyes showing nothing of the tug of war her body was undergoing. But Draco could sense it. He could sense her arousal, the silent thrum of it moving back and forth like a radar signal between their locked gazes. The blood surged in his veins, his need growling and prowling through his body in response to the tempting proximity of hers. He glided a fingertip down the hinge of her jaw, stopping below her up-thrust chin, feeling the delicate quiver of her flesh at his idle touch. ‘How about we start with a little appetiser?’
He brought his mouth down to the side of her mouth, the tip of his tongue circling her beauty spot, evoking a tiny whimper from her and a sway of her body towards his. He traced his tongue over her plump lower lip, following the delicate ridge of her vermillion border like an artist drawing a fine line. Allegra made another soft mewling sound, her hands going to his chest, the press of her palms inciting a rush of red-hot desire, making his legs tremble at the knees and his groin bulge and burn.
Draco moved his tongue to her top lip, sweeping it across the soft surface before taking it lightly between his teeth, a soft little ‘come play with me’ tug that made her press even closer, her hands fisting into his T-shirt. He cupped her bottom, drawing her hard against him, torturing himself with the feel of her soft curves against the pulsing hardness of his body. ‘I want you.’ Those were the only three little words he wanted to say. The only words he wanted to hear from her. The only words that mattered right now.
‘I want you too.’ Allegra linked her arms around his neck, opening her mouth against his, inviting him in with a flick of her tongue against his lower lip.
Heat roared through his body, his desire for her like a wildfire that had jumped containment lines. Every cell in his body throbbed with it. Vibrated with it. He kissed her deeply, exploring every corner of her mouth, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and body wash—the frangipani and freesia mix that so bewitched his senses. Her tongue tangled with his in a duel that made the base of his spine hum. Her hands tugged and released his
hair at the back of his head, making him even wilder for her. The intoxicating mix of part pleasure, part pain ramped up his desire until it was a dark unknowable, uncontrollable force deep in his body.
Draco lifted her to prop her on the bench behind, stepping into the space between her parted thighs. Her legs wrapped around his hips, her mouth clamped to his in a kiss that was more combative than anything else. It was as though she resented her attraction to him, wanted to punish him for it. He took the kiss to a deeper level, thrusting his tongue into the warm, moist recesses of her mouth until she was clinging to him and making purring, breathless sounds of encouragement. Her hands clasped his head, her fingers digging deep into his scalp, but he enjoyed the roughness of it, the urgency of it. The thrill of having her turned on like a wild cat.
He pulled up her boyfriend sweater, accessing her breasts with his hands, holding them, cupping them, and running his thumbs over the peaked nipples. He sent his mouth on a tour of discovery, down the soft skin of her neck, the delicate framework of her collar bone and the scented valley between her breasts. He licked each one in turn, taking his time, drawing out the pleasure until Allegra was writhing, and pushing and grinding her hips against him in an unspoken plea for more.
He hauled her top over her head and tossed it to the floor, coming back to cradle her breasts in his hands, holding their silky weight, watching the waves of sensual delight pass over her features. He released them to pull off his shirt so she could access his chest, her mouth burning him, branding him with hot, damp little kisses that made the need in him tighten, tighten and tighten… He tugged at her yoga pants and she slipped down off the bench to free them from her body, leaving her in a tiny pair of black knickers with tiny hot-pink bows.