Changing Constantinou's Game

by Jennifer Hayward

  “It’s a long story,” Alex said shortly, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he beat it toward the kitchen. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it.” His partner’s voice dripped with amusement. “Enjoy yourself, buddy.”

  He disconnected the call, arriving in the kitchen just in time to see Isabel standing on top of the counter, her hands pressed against a row of wineglasses that had toppled over and threatened to crash to the floor.

  “What are you doing?” He hoisted himself up beside her and grabbed a handful of the glasses.

  She pushed the rest back onto the shelf. “I’m sorry. I—I just thought we’d want the wineglasses. You had that bottle of wine on the counter and then I got a little dizzy and knocked one over and there was this chain reaction and—”

  Visions of an exhausted Isabel falling and cracking her head open on the hard tile let loose a string of curses from Alex. He jumped down to the floor, reached up, wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her down, setting her bottom on the counter. “Did you really think this was a good idea?”

  She pushed some stray curls out of her face, her cheeks turning a bright red. “I didn’t feel dizzy before I went up there.”

  He shook his head. “You need to eat.” And if he were a smart man he would back away right now. Back away from the eye-level temptation staring back at him.

  “Alex...?” She sank her teeth into her lower lip and gave him one of those wide-eyed looks.

  “What?” he asked roughly.

  “Am I a total idiot or do you want to kiss me?”

  He blinked. Closed his eyes. He never lied. Ever. But right about now it seemed like a good idea. “Can I pass on that one?”

  “Alex.”

  He opened his eyes.

  “My friend Jo told me I never engage.” She bit down harder into her lip. “With men, I mean. Which is why I’m asking the question. To see if I’m seriously deluded or not.”

  He bit out a curse he hadn’t uttered since his college days. “I’m not the right guy for you, Isabel.”

  She gave him a determined look. “I’m talking about a kiss. Not the rest of our lives.”

  He shook his head. “Same answer.”

  She hesitated, swallowed hard. “You said in the elevator that it’s better to face the unknown than fear it. What if you’re my modern-day Steven Thompson?”

  “This time you should walk away,” he muttered.

  “Please answer the question,” she pleaded. “Otherwise I’m going to feel like a total idiot. Good or bad, I can take it.”

  He pressed his hands to his temples. It’d taken a lot of nerve to ask that question. And it had been his mistake in ever admitting he found her attractive. “Yes,” he conceded finally, “I want to kiss you but—”

  “Alex.” The tension in her face slid away. “Get on with it, will you?”

  “This is an insanely bad idea,” he groaned. But he was already stepping into her and lowering his mouth to the lush temptation in front of him. Because really, how much would one kiss hurt? “You just about passed out up there,” he murmured against her lips.

  “I’m fine,” she said, tilting her chin up so their lips touched more firmly. Then the insanity of the day took over and he brought his mouth down on hers in a sensual tasting that explored every centimeter of her undeniably sweet lips.

  His brain told him this was a bad idea even as he reached up and cupped the back of her head to change the angle of the kiss. Deeper, harder it went until she sighed and melted into him, curling her hands into his shirt. He was not unaware of how easy it would be to slip her panties off, wrap her legs around his waist, release himself and take her right there, right now. Exactly as he’d imagined it a few minutes ago...

  Except he was a sane man. She hadn’t eaten. She was dizzy. And she most definitely did not know the score.

  He lifted his mouth from hers and gently pushed her away from him. “You need to eat,” he said roughly. “This has been quite a day.”

  Myriad emotions flickered through those dark eyes of hers. “Alex, I—”

  He put a finger to her mouth. “No more talking. Not one word until we eat.”

  “But—” The doorbell interrupted her.

  “That’s dinner.” He ran his hands through his hair and straightened his clothing. “Go outside and sit down. I’ll bring everything out.”

  She gave him one last, long look, then pressed her lips together and slid off the counter. He cursed under his breath as he watched her walk out of the room. He’d been right. He was a dead man.

  * * *

  Izzie focused on forking the small amount of food she thought she could consume into her mouth at the small candlelit table Alex had set on the terrace. The herbed pasta was delicious, but it was hard to eat when her heart was still pounding and her hands trembling so much negotiating a fork seemed like a new and highly complex activity. And why wouldn’t it when she had literally jumped into the deep end and invited the most spectacularly good-looking man she’d ever met to kiss her—and he had! Not to mention the fact that the kiss had been the most incredible of her life and all she could think about was experiencing more of the bone-meltingly delicious heat that had coursed through her veins. It was as if every nerve ending in her body had been switched on for the first time and she wasn’t sure whether to revel in it or be completely terrified of what she was feeling.

  She swallowed hard, forced down the food. The fact that she’d been right—that Alex was attracted to her—made her head feel as though it was going to explode. Maybe Jo was right. Maybe it had been her defensive attitude that had turned men off in the past and not the few extra pounds she’d been carrying. Which had always been her excuse.

  She took another sip of the rich, full cabernet that was going a long way to mellowing her out. But the wine didn’t seem to be having the same effect on Alex, who’d glowered at her throughout the entire meal—as if she’d committed a crime rather than simply kissed him.

  She risked a quick glance at him. He was still watching her with that same implacable frown on his face, that penetrating blue gaze of his impossible to read. And it occurred to her she hadn’t fully thought through her plan. She had the mind-numbing confirmation that he was attracted to her. The question now was what was she going to do about it?

  Her heart pounding in her chest, she set her fork down with an abrupt movement, and the sound of metal clattering against fine china echoed in the still night air.

  He gave her half-empty plate a narrowed glance. “That’s all you’re going to eat?”

  “It was delicious, thank you. I think that’s about all I can handle.”

  “All right.” He laid his fork down with a deliberate movement and pushed his plate away. “Let’s talk about what happened.”

  Gladly. She took another sip of her wine to fortify herself and set the glass down.

  “That kiss shouldn’t have happened.”

  She was ready for that one. “Why not?”

  “I’m much more experienced than you, Isabel. I’m not interested in relationships—in fact, mine never last longer than a few months, and the women I date are well aware of that.”

  “So?”

  He did a double take at the belligerent note in her voice. “You’re also probably still in shock from what happened today.”

  “I’m absolutely fine,” she countered. “In fact, I feel like I have more clarity right now than I’ve ever had in my life.”

  He sat back in his chair, his gaze on her face. “What kind of clarity?”

  She twisted the stem of her wineglass on the table, watching the bloodred liquid shimmer in the candlelight. “That was my worst fear today. Facing it—getting through it—” she paused, looking up at him “—it’s made me realize how much of my life I’ve lived in fear...how many times I’ve not gone after what I wanted because I was afraid I wouldn’t get it or it would explode in my face.”


  He gave a wary nod. “That’s a good realization.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not looking for a relationship, Alex.” A husky laugh escaped her. “In fact, that’s the last thing I need right now.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Then what are you looking for?”

  “I don’t want to live with any more regrets.”

  He shook his head, a wry smile curving his lips. “You’re twenty-five, Isabel. How many regrets can you have?”

  She took a deep breath, meeting his gaze head-on. “I will regret it if I walk away from tonight without exploring the attraction that’s between us.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. He sat there completely silent, staring at her. “I’m not sure you know what you’re doing.”

  She shook her head. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  A long moment passed; it might have been four, five seconds, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was holding her breath, sure at one point he was going to reject her. The warm night air pressed so heavily against her lungs she thought they would burst. And then something shifted, morphed on the air between them. And she got her answer in the darkening of his eyes.

  He stood up and held out a hand. “Let’s go enjoy the view, then.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE SULTRY NIGHT AIR, so quiet and still as they stood at the railing and took in the cityscape, seemed to envelop Izzie in a world so far removed from her normal life that she could almost believe that it was. That it was just the two of them who existed and this incredible panoramic view of London with its lights twinkling across the water had been created for them and them alone.

  That what felt like a defining moment in her life was utterly, absolutely the right thing to do.

  “You must spend so much time out here,” she said to Alex, shaking her head. “It’s breathtaking.”

  A wry smile curved his mouth. “It’s my second office when I’m in London. When the weather is good...”

  Izzie tried to focus as he pointed out the London landmarks to her, stopping to give her a bit of history on each, but the anticipation coursing through her veins made her feel weak-kneed. Light-headed.

  “What’s that?” She pointed at a series of small structures stretching across the water on either side of a bridge.

  “That’s the Thames barrier.”

  “Those white things that look like little Sydney Opera Houses?”

  He moved behind her and directed her fingers toward the circular structures she’d been looking at. “Those.”

  Her temperature spiked dramatically as the hard, warm length of him brushed against her back. “Right,” she murmured. “That’s what I thought.”

  He didn’t move away, but dropped his hands to the railing instead, resting them on either side of her. Her heartbeat sped up.

  “Flooding has become an issue for London over the years. Water levels have been continuously rising and threatening the city. In one of the big floods, many years back, hundreds of people died.”

  “Really?” She could barely breathe, so distracted was she by the pulses of electricity his big, warm body was sending through hers.

  “Are you listening?” He moved his lips closer to her ear. “There’s going to be a quiz later, you know.”

  “Later?” She gave up all pretext of paying attention when his hand brushed the weight of her hair aside and he set his lips to the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck.

  “Mmm...one kiss was not nearly enough, Isabel.”

  Her legs felt as though she’d been through one too many Spin classes. Weaker still when he pressed his mouth to the sensitive junction between her neck and shoulder. The question was, did she have the guts to go through with this? For all her bravado, she’d only ever had one lover—and not a good one at that—in her college boyfriend. What if she disappointed Alex with her lack of experience?

  “I can see the smoke coming out of your ears,” he murmured against her skin. “Stop thinking so much.”

  Which was exactly what she needed to do. She’d been thinking so much her entire life she felt as though she’d been watching it from the sidelines. And if there was anything this crazy day had taught her, it was that life was tenuous. Fragile. And it could be taken from you at any moment. So best to jump in and take your chances.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned around and met the questioning intensity of his deep blue gaze. Felt the heat—oh dear Lord—the heat of those sizzling good looks up close. The hard planes of his face that made him look formidable...until he smiled. That square jaw with its delicious indentation that made a woman want to put her lips to it. The sensuous, full mouth... It was all a bit heart-stopping.

  And incredibly difficult to find her voice. In the end, she didn’t try. Just went up on tiptoes, lifted her chin, and brought her lips a hairbreadth away from his in silent invitation.

  Something flickered in his eyes. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She nodded.

  “Are those glasses for distance?”

  She blinked. “Yes.”

  He reached up and plucked them from her face. “Then I guess you won’t be needing them.” Her breath caught, strangled in her throat as he set the glasses down on the railing beside them. “This is about to get up close and very personal.”

  Oh God. Her heart raced in her chest as he reached up and captured her jaw in his palm, his gaze following his thumb as it swept across her cheek and over the surface of her bottom lip. “You have the most amazing mouth,” he murmured, exerting a slight downward pressure so she opened for him. “It’s the kind of mouth a man couldn’t resist even if he wanted to.”

  Which was good because if he didn’t kiss her right now, she was going to die. Transfixed, she watched as he lowered his head, her lashes fluttering down as he angled his mouth over hers in a caress so light, so sensuous, it made her whole body go weak. Her hands came up to balance her against the hard wall of his chest, a sigh escaping her throat as he explored, tasted every centimeter of her lips, getting intimately acquainted in a way that made her toes curl.

  The kiss seemed to go on forever and ever, a leisurely tasting that neither of them seemed inclined to end. “This needs to go,” he muttered, reaching up to unclasp her hair so it fell in a heavy swath down her back.

  He drew back and raked his gaze over her. “You also have the most sensational hair.”

  “I almost cut it all off recently.” She’d thought it might look more professional on-camera.

  He reached out to twist one of her curls around his finger. “Don’t ever, ever do that.”

  She smiled. “What is it about men and hair?”

  He wound the curl tight, then let it go. “It’s great fodder for fantasies...I’ve been imagining what it would look like spread across the white satin sheets of that big lonely bed of mine in there.”

  Words. She knew there were words in the English language. But the thought of him fantasizing about them in bed together wiped them clean from her head.

  It didn’t matter, though, because he was lifting her up on her tiptoes again, tunneling his hands in her hair to cup the back of her head, his sinful expression as his mouth came down on hers telling her he intended to indulge every minute of that fantasy in short order.

  This time his kisses were of the hot, openmouthed variety that left her gasping. He made her give back everything he was offering her, hotter and hotter until she felt as though she were going to combust.

  By the time his tongue traced the trembling fullness of her bottom lip, dipping inside and tangling erotically with hers, she wanted all he had to offer and more. She tipped her head back and took him in, giving him full access to her mouth. The intimacy of the kiss set her blood on fire.

  He nudged her backward against the cool, hard concrete of the wall, his muscular thigh sliding between hers at the same time he dragged his lips down to explore the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. “Your pulse is racing...” he murmured against her skin.

&n
bsp; She fought to control a shiver than ran through her as he trailed his lips across her collarbone to the soft skin of her shoulder. “I’m a little—”

  “Excited?” he finished, a wicked smile curving his lips as he raised his blue gaze to hers. “But we’re only just getting started, sweetheart.”

  Izzie squeezed her eyes shut, heat flooding her cheeks. Alex’s low laughter danced across the night air as he bent to press his lips to her shoulder, his teeth nipping lightly at the tender skin as he slid his fingers under the strap of her dress and eased it off her shoulder. Izzie grabbed hold of the wall on either side of her as his lips worked their way over to her other shoulder and dispensed with the other strap.

  Her eyes flew open as he eased the material of her dress away from her skin, pushing it down over the swell of her breasts to reveal the lacy bra she wore underneath. His soft curse made her cheeks burn anew. She lifted her hands to cover herself, a bout of extreme self-consciousness overwhelming her.

  “Isabel...” He slid his fingers under her chin and brought her gaze back up to meet his. “You are so gorgeous you blow my mind.”

  She let her hands fall away then, the heat in his gaze holding her, drawing her back in. He lowered his head until his mouth brushed against hers. Took her lips in a hard kiss that wiped every last insecurity from her head. Her bones went liquid as he demonstrated how much he wanted her, demanding her response as he took her deeper. And she gave herself up to the sensations he was creating, gasping as his big hands came up to cup the weight of her breasts.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured, skating his thumbs over her nipples and bringing them to instant, hard, aching erectness under the lace of her bra. She squeezed her eyes shut at the erotic image, digging her nails harder into the concrete. He bent to take a lace-covered peak in his mouth, while his fingers continued to tease the other. The liquid heat invading her body sped to her core. Melted her from the inside out. His tongue flicked and teased her nipple, the sensation so exquisitely good she forgot where she was, everything but how good what he was doing to her felt.