by Pippa Roscoe
‘Because—’
‘I know what I want, Loukis. Do you?’ she demanded as she stepped back from him, worried that his questions, his second guesses might be the undoing of her.
His dark gaze morphed from concern to absolute conviction. ‘Yes. Célia. I know exactly what I want.’
He pinned her with a gaze full of predatory power.
‘I want to see you.’
It wasn’t a demand, or a statement. It was a wish, one she felt in her very bones. One that lent her a power over Loukis she could never have imagined.
She reached for the fastening at the side of her top and released the tight material binding a chest she wanted to bare to him, to his touch. She drew it over her shoulders and head and cast it aside, relishing the flare in his dark eyes as he took her in, his gaze sweeping over her midnight-blue lace bra, to the skirt at her narrow waist.
All of you.
He didn’t have to say it. She felt it as if he had whispered it against her skin. She reached for the zip behind her and drew it down, releasing the band and allowing the silk to drop and pool at her feet. He stood there, as if holding himself back, as if fighting some invisible leash, straining against his desire for her and some last shred of resistance.
She stepped out of the circle of her skirts and walked towards him in her underwear and heels. Never before had she felt so powerful, so attractive, so much herself. She was owning it all, just as much as she was owning her desire for him.
His hands fisted by his sides, still holding himself from her. From what they could have together. Hers went to the buttons on his shirt, slowly releasing them from his neck, down to his waist, pulling at the shirt to release it from his trousers.
He let her push the cotton from his shoulders, until he stood there, shirtless. His body was a marvel of muscle, and she gloried in it, her fingers tracing over dips and swells, causing him to inhale swiftly as he flinched.
When her hands went to the buckle on his belt, it was as if the spell that had held him back had been lifted, and he reached for her, pulling her upward, causing her to wrap her legs around his waist. They sought each other’s lips at the same time, the feeling of his tongue crashing against the sensations of skin against skin as he walked them through some darkened maze of furniture she couldn’t have navigated.
He brought her to an open part of the living room, the plush soft cream carpet visible in the light of the moon, shafting through large windows that formed the side of the estate.
He laid her down gently, gazing at her from above, and she was unable to take her eyes from him as he made swift work of his trousers. He stood before her naked and glorious, and everything she’d ever wanted.
He came to her then, a kiss full of desire and want, drenching her in a need that she could barely contain. His body against hers, skin against skin, was almost, but not, enough. His fingers snapped the clasp of her bra and he drew the straps down her shoulders and cast it aside. His mouth tracing the path his fingers had made, pressing open-mouthed kisses against her skin, drawing cries of pleasure from her.
She arched into his mouth, his touch, gasped when his fingers found the taut nipple of one breast, then another. His hand swept down her body, between her legs, the firm pressure confident, shocking and devastating to her arousal.
She wished the thin material separating them gone, but his hand swept over her again and again, as if relishing the barrier between them, the last there was to be had, teasing them both on the brink of what they both desperately wanted.
He pressed kisses beneath her breast, trailing down over her stomach, her hip, and lower, to where he pulled at the band of her thong, following the path of its removal with his mouth. At her feet, he removed the scrap of lace, and took up her ankle, delighting in the slow play of undoing the clasp of her shoe, removing one heel and then another.
She looked up at him, knowing she was now completely bare to him.
He reached for his wallet, discarded with his trousers, and sheathed himself with a condom, his eyes not once leaving hers, the promise in them not once faltering.
She expected him to lean forward, to rush towards the end of their pleasure, but he didn’t. He trailed his hands up her calves, over her knees and gently pressed at her thighs until her legs lay either side of his where he kneeled before her. His hand returned to between her legs, instinctively causing her to want to draw them together, to hold him to her or hide from him, even she couldn’t tell.
She felt his thumb press gently against her clitoris, just held there as if waiting for her to get used to his touch, as if waiting for her to unfurl beneath him. Because that was what it felt like. An unfurling. Her hips shifted, trying to create the pleasurable friction he was withholding, and he smiled, as if knowing exactly what she wanted. His free hand went to her hip, holding her in place there too, and she felt utterly under his command.
He waited until she had stopped, until she had succumbed and then, only then did his fingers start to move. His dark erotic gaze not once leaving hers, as if he wanted to see what he was doing to her, as if it fed his own desire.
His thumb moved over and over and over her clitoris, and her head fell back under the onslaught of pleasure he was wringing from her. When his fingers entered her she gasped, desperately trying to hold on, desperately clinging to the edge of the precipice she felt herself hurtling towards.
Incomprehensible words, cries, pleas escaped her lips and she was unable to prevent her hips rising, giving him more, wanting more from him. He controlled her, he orchestrated every pleasurable sound and feeling, drawing a shiver of damp heat across her body. Trembling now, she was entirely his, owned, possessed, inside and out.
‘Come for me,’ he demanded of her. And she did. The waves of ecstasy crashing over her, body and soul wiped clean and mindless to anything other than pleasure.
In all his life, Loukis had never seen anything more beautiful, more humbling. The pink slashes across Célia’s cheeks, the erratic rise and fall of her breasts, the way her legs had pulled tight against his thighs as she had reached her orgasm just made him want her more.
A need, painful in its intensity, stung the back of his throat, as he leaned forward to claim her mouth with his. He wanted it all, every gasp, sigh, cry, breath, captured by him. Positioning himself between her legs, he waited until her eyes found his once more. He wanted her with him in this, he wanted to see her as he possessed her, as surely as she had possessed him. When her tiger’s eyes met his, desire blackening her gaze, he felt it in his soul.
Slowly, inch by inch, he pressed into her, relishing the incredible feeling of her, his heart stuttering in his chest as she tightened around him, until he could go no further. Just as slowly he withdrew, teasing himself and her. After the frantic pace of their kisses and her orgasm, this slow descent into sensual madness was indescribable and utterly unique to Célia.
Before he could question why, sensations and need welled within him, his body demanding action, demanding more, demanding now. But he held himself back, slowly weaving an intoxicating spell as he entered her and withdrew again and again and again.
Her body began to move, showing only a fraction of the restlessness he felt roaring through his body. He captured her mouth with his, before her pleas and moans of pleasure could undo him, drawing out the inevitable moment when their climax would end this. Because he realised he didn’t want it to end. He delighted in her pleasure, his no less for it. In fact, his need was heightened by hers.
He felt her hands around his thighs, holding him deep within her, she arching against him as if wringing more and more pleasure from it and no longer could he hold back. He thrust into her deep and fast, her cries of need urging him on, faster, deeper, until he could no longer tell whose cry demanded more, whose pleasure was greater, whose need was more. Until he realised that it didn’t matter because, at that moment, they were one.
As if the very thought released the last vestige of his control, an orgasm more powerful, more incredible than any he had ever known roared through them both, calling for hers, demanding hers and together they fell beneath moonbeams and starlight.
CHAPTER TEN
CÉLIA WAS WOKEN by the sounds of conversation, slowly rousing her from the deepest sleep she’d had in years. When her eyes opened, the curtains, the bed beneath her, the partial view from the window jarred painfully.
She rose immediately, her mind taking a moment to catch up. She remembered Loukis picking her up at some point in the night, and bringing her to his bed, where they had once again lost themselves in each other. Her body ached, but it felt strong. She stretched, leaning into the echoes of the sensual pleasure he had drawn from her. A blush rose to her cheeks at the memories from the night before, warming her skin just as a peal of childish giggles filtered from down the hall.
Annabelle.
She cast a glance around the room, suddenly very conscious that she was naked. Wrapping the sheet around her, she left the bed and padded over to the wardrobe carefully concealed behind mirrors that had teased and taunted them last night as they had...
Célia cut the train of thought in its tracks. She pulled open a door, hoping to find something of Loukis’s that she could wear, but once she caught sight of the contents she stopped, hovering in shock. The clothes she had chosen from the stylist lined the length of the hanging rail, shoes tucked neatly at the bottom, drawers—she saw as she pulled them open—full of underwear.
‘You will share my bed.’
Last night had been her decision. And she had known that this was part of the bargain they had struck. But what did that mean for the forthcoming evening? And the evenings after?
As Célia showered, she was torn between concerns for the future and the heady memories of last night, her body certainly desirous of another night spent in his arms. Arms that had held her as she’d had the most powerful sexual experience of her life. Marc had been dutiful in bed with her, as if it were something ‘to be done’. And she could see now that even that was part of Marc’s plan. It wasn’t and never had been about her, but what she could give him.
And no matter how differently Loukis saw her, treated her, she was still exactly the same to him. She could give him the reputation and the situation he needed for Annabelle. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let her heart make another mistake and think for a second it was about anything else. Hadn’t Loukis himself said as much?
‘I am not capable of giving you what you deserve. Not now. Not ever.’
She hated that the deepest irony was that it was Loukis that deserved more. Because she wasn’t the perfect fiancée he needed. She could never risk him finding out the truth of what had happened with her father. Not only because of the damage it could do to his custody claim...but the damage she feared it could do to her.
After showering and dressing Célia made her way down the hall, towards the sounds coming from what she could only assume was a kitchen or dining room. It turned out to be both. A beautiful sprawling open kitchen and eating area backed by the most gorgeous view of the Greek island where Loukis had made his summer home.
The moment Annabelle caught sight of her, she jumped up from the table, rushed around and came to a startling halt about two feet from where Célia stood. A shy, but utterly thrilled expression on her face.
‘Hi!’
‘Bonjour, ma chérie.’
‘I told you she’d call me Cherry,’ she cried victoriously to Loukis, before rushing up the stairs in the far corner with indistinguishable words about wanting ‘to show Célia’.
Célia finally looked to her fiancé. Her fake fiancé. He was studying her over the rim of the small espresso cup he held to his lips, stopped just before he could take a sip.
She met his eyes and her heart thudded wildly in her chest. His gaze was proprietorial as if, unspoken, he had claimed her. As if he knew that she knew it too. It was full of promise, of heat, reminding her of what he had whispered to her in the night. Of the things he wanted to do to her, for her, instantly igniting an arousal, a need, that only he could meet.
‘Good morning,’ Loukis said, his tone as rough and deep as her thoughts.
She nodded and took a seat opposite him at the table, forcing her eyes to the view from the window, rather than the one in front of her.
‘Sleep well?’ he asked, a smile playing at the lips that had ravished her for hours the night before.
As if the gentle taunt called forth some of the power she had felt that night, she replied, ‘Very. And you?’
‘Not so much. I was distracted a little by a—’
‘Here! Look,’ Annabelle said, rushing back into the room and dumping something small and fluffy on Célia’s lap, cutting through the undercurrents of their exchange like a knife through butter.
‘It’s Mr Cat,’ Annabelle said proudly of the distinctly dog-like toy.
‘Mr Cat,’ Célia repeated. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, taking the strange fluffy figure’s paw between her thumb and finger, shaking it in greeting, and trying hard to stifle the shocked, choking sound coming from Loukis.
‘What happened to Jameson?’ Loukis asked.
‘He lives with Mummy. But Mr Cat can live with you,’ Annabelle stated, seemingly ignorant of the slight flinch that shook Loukis’s body. ‘We’re going to the beach today,’ Annabelle announced, clearly of a mind that Célia would be in attendance. She was torn. Part of her wanted to spend the day whiling away the hours with Loukis and Annabelle, and the other wanted to hide, to retreat into work for the day, putting as much emotional distance between them as possible. Because this happy family unit...it was both tempting and terrifying.
Loukis had sensed Célia’s hesitation at the breakfast table, but refused to feel guilty at joining Annabelle in her not so gentle persuasion. Protests about not having a costume were refuted by the simple fact he had made sure that there was swimwear included in her new wardrobe. Objections based on work had been cast aside as it was a Sunday. Unable to prevent himself, any further refusals were silenced by a quick, firm kiss on her lips, which had apparently delighted Annabelle, whose enthusiastic squeals were punctuated by fist pumps and cries of ‘yes’, and shocked Célia into agreement.
Perhaps he had underestimated his little sister’s happy expectations and he refused to think of the time when that would come to a natural conclusion after the custody hearing. Because he was beginning to see Célia as more than a means to an end. Though what that actually meant eluded him.
For so many years he had remained firmly unattached. Determinedly so. Convinced that any kind of relationship was based on nothing more than delusional romantic notions that simply aligned with financial avarice, sexual desire and, on occasion, pregnancy—unexpected or otherwise.
But as he watched Annabelle and Célia play in the surf, the rolling waves crashing against the private beach, the sun-kissed skin across Célia’s shoulders and the happy smile on his sister’s face, he was beginning to understand the appeal. Walls were shifting within him as he felt a sense of something greater than himself and his goal of custody. But that only served to make him disconcerted, his natural inclination to turn away from a lifelong-held belief that would not be shaken by one night.
Not that it would be one night, he realised. Not now that he’d had an exquisite taste of Célia.
Annabelle had finally grown tired of handstands and underwater somersaults and made her way to where he sat ready and waiting with towels, drinks and, more importantly to his sister, crisps. Behind her, Célia seemed to drag her feet, as if reluctant to return to the tactile interaction of yesterday. Of before.
He made space for them to sit on the large beach blanket they’d brought with them, noticing that Annabelle seemed distracted as she wasn’t head down in the packet of crisps.
‘Nanny? Yo
u okay?’
She sighed in a way that made her sound much older than her ten years. ‘If I...if the custurdy thing says I have to go and live with Mummy, what happens to you?’
Despite Annabelle’s mispronunciation, it was on his lips to deny that she would ever go and live with Meredith, but he caught Célia’s focused look. As if she knew what he was about to say and desperate for him to change it. He’d done and was doing everything in his power to ensure that the custody case went his way, but he wouldn’t make a promise to her that he might not be able to keep. He remembered what Célia had said that evening after the video call. He remembered her warning to be there as a support for Annabelle and had taken it to heart.
‘Annabelle, no matter what happens, who the courts decide you will live with, there will always be a safe place for you here with me.’
His answer didn’t seem to solve whatever his sister was wrestling with.
‘If you’re worried, I’ll do my best to make sure that what you want is heard.’
To his horror, tears glowed within Annabelle’s eyes.
‘But...what if...what if I don’t know what I want?’
‘What do you mean, chérie?’ Célia asked, putting her arm around Annabelle’s shoulders.
‘What if I don’t know who I want to be with?’ Annabelle whispered, looking at Célia as if she was too fearful to look at him.
Pain cut through Loukis. Pain and anger at his mother. Anger that Meredith had caused so much confusion and hurt in his sister. Because all he could see was having to pick up the pieces. Again. Of the eventual moment that his mother abandoned her. Again. And deeper than that, the ache with which he viewed his future without the little girl who had come to mean so much to him.
Célia looked up at him then, as if willing him to say the right thing. There was compassion in her gaze, too, but that seemed to hurt just as much. He forced the words to his lips. ‘Annabelle, if you would like to live with your mother—’