by Pippa Roscoe
Her chest ached and she resisted the urge to rub away the pain. But it wasn’t the same kind of pain that hurt and lashed out. It was the kind of ache that grew and grew until it overshadowed everything. It was huge and terrifying, because in that moment she realised that she loved him.
The Dimitri who had spent one wild night with her in Ireland. The Dimitri who had been wrongfully imprisoned and so much more damaged by his half-brother’s betrayal... The Dimitri who had forced her into marriage, and the one who had also opened her eyes to her own strength, her own desires and needs. The Dimitri who, she realised, had never really known comfort and understanding from the very people he should have first received it from.
This time, she allowed her body to take over. Casting all thought aside, she let her heart guide her hands and her actions. She wanted, needed, to show him as much as she could that she did love him, that she could and would give him that comfort, that support. She might not yet be able to put it into words, and even had she been able to she wasn’t sure that Dimitri was ready to hear them, but this...she could do.
She took his hands, still clenched around the balustrade, in her own, gently releasing the iron grip he had on the stone. She pressed his palms against the bare skin beneath the V of the silk folds of the dress, allowing him to feel the beat of her heart. She reached up to him, to his jaw, relishing the feel of the stubble shadowing the harsh lines of his face.
Dark eyes, full of suspicion and surprise, watched her every move.
‘Anna—’
‘I don’t want to go to bed, Dimitri.’
‘I don’t want this, Anna.’
‘Do you want me to tell you what you’re feeling? What your body is saying to me? Is it my turn, Dimitri?’
The sense of her own arousal gave a strength to her words that surprised her. She allowed it to fill her, to empower her. He shook his head again, but this time he didn’t speak. She closed the distance between them. She felt rightness settle around her, making her movements sure.
She started with his tie, the crack of the silk as she snapped it away from his neck and threw it to the ground the only sound accompanying their harsh breaths. She pushed the black silk jacket from his shoulders, revelling in the feel of the superfine white shirt covering his powerful chest, the muscles there a solid wall.
She slid buttons through holes all the way down, slipping aside the shirt and glorying in the feel of his flesh beneath her palms. Was this how he had felt on their wedding night? Powerful and conquering? How had she gone all these years without this feeling? How had she allowed herself to become so afraid of her own desires?
Her hands went to the buckle on his trousers and were immediately halted by Dimitri’s.
‘Be careful, monadiki mou. Once you start this...’
‘I have no intention of stopping,’ she whispered into his ear, pressing her chest against his. She pulled back and barely had the chance to prepare herself for the bruising kiss that crashed down on her lips.
Their tongues warred for dominance, for control, but this time Anna was determined not to back down. Not to give over control to Dimitri. She pushed him back against the stone balcony, lifting the silk skirts of her dress over one thigh as she anchored her knee around his hip, pressing her core, the heart of her, against him, relishing in the hard length of his arousal. She shifted, moving their centres until she could almost feel him, through his trousers, through the silk of her dress, just where she wanted him, needed him, to be.
Dimitri’s guttural curse escaped their kiss and his hands came around the curves of her hips, dragging her even further against him. Their groans mingled, just before he pulled away.
‘You’re killing me, Anna.’ His dark eyes gleamed in the night. ‘You’re tearing me apart.’
Before Anna could say that he was putting her together again, that he was healing over the cracks in her heart, he took the silk straps of her dress and tore the material from her body, exposing sensitive flesh to the cool night air.
Her bare breasts heaved against his chest, his hand diving to the thin scraps of lace of her panties, his expert fingers finding the heat of her, pleasuring her, torturing her as she shifted in his embrace. It was as if he was trying to wring those same emotions from her with his seduction, tearing at her very being. His other hand had come down on the top of her thigh, anchoring it beside him, refusing to let her retreat, keeping her open to him, to his expert manipulation of her body.
It was an exquisite torture, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to give him this, for her, for him, for them. She needed to.
She let go of the grip she had on his neck with one hand, trailing her fingers down his chest, catching on the dusting of dark swirls covering his torso, letting it guide her hand further down to beneath his trousers. She relished the feel of his hardened length, wrapping her hands around the base of him, glorying in the flare she saw in his eyes, the moment of indecision she read there. Her breath caught in her throat while she waited. Would he push her away? Would he allow her to pleasure him?
The back of Anna’s hand brushed against the back of his, and their eyes locked in an instant. She told herself not to look away, refusing to close her eyes against the pleasure she was giving him as she stroked up and down, the way his bronze eyes darkened, the way a deep flush rose to his cheeks. Briefly she wondered what it was that Dimitri saw, how she looked, but as his long, lean finger plunged deep into her a gasp fell from her lips and she felt his satisfaction vibrate from his very soul. He thought he’d won this game of wills, this wicked contest of seduction. But he had severely underestimated her.
Using his distraction against him, she pulled away and, bending before him, still clad in her high heels and thong, she took him into her mouth. She let a smile play at her lips as curses littered the air, some in English, some in Greek... She didn’t care. She felt empowered by his reaction. From the periphery, she could see his hands gripping the stone balcony, she could feel how his powerful, muscular thighs trembled, his hips beginning to shift beneath her.
‘Anna...’ His voice was practically a growl.
Reluctantly she let him go, but that didn’t mean she was ready to let him take the lead. She drew herself up the length of his body slowly, stepping out of the reach of his arms. She watched as he kicked his trousers away from his legs, stepping out of them, fully naked. She took him in, powerful, proud, unashamed of his nakedness beneath the stars, open to the elements. With any other man, she imagined it would make them vulnerable, but with Dimitri it made him glorious.
‘What game are you playing?’ he demanded.
‘No game. No playing. This is real and this is me, and what I want,’ she said, knowing the words to be truer than any others she’d spoken to him.
A rush of emotion hit Dimitri’s chest hard. In all the different moments that he’d seen her, he’d never seen Anna like this. The closest to it was the night that they had spent together three years before, the night they’d conceived their child. But here, Anna was incredible. The woman that would have hidden from him, would have needed him to draw her out of herself, to put words to the desire and attraction she felt, was now owning it, not asking for something she was afraid of, but demanding it for herself.
His own nakedness didn’t shame him, it never had, and now he wanted Anna’s. And if Anna thought that her lacy thong protected her in some way...she was wrong. An errant thought ran into his mind, the same way it had done on their wedding day... Who would protect her from him?
She took a step back towards him, having only moments ago retreated from his reach. She took his large hand in her smaller one, flattened the fist he had unknowingly made it into and returned it once again to the centre of her chest, the flat plane in between the two perfect mounds of her breasts.
She pressed his rough palm against her smooth, silky skin and Dimitri forced his body under control. He wouldn’t allow
the shakes that had racked his body the moment her mouth had found him to happen again. The sight of her, before him, on her knees, had almost undone him.
But he could tell, now, from her eyes, from her tone, that this was something she craved—no, needed. An undercurrent of change was shifting beneath the surface of her skin, and he was drawn to it, fascinated by it and unable to take his eyes away from her.
He brought a hand up to her cheek, unable to resist the need to trace his fingers across her skin, his hand cupped her jaw, and once again he dipped the fingers of his other hand beneath her panties and into the seductive wet heat between her legs. Christe mou, she was so ready for him.
He spun her in his arms, bringing her back against his chest, her bottom cradled between his hips. His fingers stroked her, wringing cries from her mouth and tremors from her body. The heat of her body, flush with his, stoked the flames of desire that licked every inch of his skin.
Never before had she come so alive in his arms, never before had she unleashed the control she held about her like armour. She was stripped of everything and relishing it. It fired his blood, settling deep within him. The sound of her breath, pants littering the air about them, came quicker and more urgently, her pleas flung into the night, begging and wanting, the very thing he had taunted her with before now serving only to increase his own need, his own arousal.
He pressed his finger, one first then a second, deep within her and she cried out, reaching her own completion, falling forward and catching herself on the stone balcony. He held her body as she shuddered, each time her core gently tightening around his fingers.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Now it was his turn, now it was what he needed.
He pressed his hands between the backs of her thighs, spreading her open to him, catching his curse before it could be let loose. She was incredible. He ran his hands over the curves of her backside, dipping his hands between her legs, casting his thumb out to catch the overly sensitised flesh and revelling in the way it sent a jolt through Anna’s body, as she reached out to hold on to the stone balustrade.
He plunged deeply into her until there was nowhere left to go, and failed utterly to prevent the feral growl he unleashed into the air about them. The feel of his skin inside her, the easy glide as he slowly withdrew almost completely, before thrusting back again, quick, hard, deep. It still wasn’t enough. As if sensing it too, she spread her legs wider, leaning back into him until she rested against his own thighs.
He thrust into her again, and again, never tiring of the feeling he was chasing, never tiring of the need to bring them together to an explosive completion. Once again, he drew his hand over her perfect breast, feeling the weight of it against his palm, moulding it, his fingers playing with her hardened nipple, forgoing the pleasure of taking it into his mouth, utterly overwhelmed with the intense passion her body was giving him. He dipped his fingers into the dark curls at the apex of her thighs, his thumb smoothing over her once again.
Her hot, fevered hand reached for his hip, grasping, pulling him into her more deeply, as if she was driven as much by this insanity as he. He wanted her to feel what he was feeling, that same sense of madness that was consuming them, that same sense of what they had become. It was exquisite torture as he pushed them almost to the brink, forcing himself to keep them there, hovering on the edge of the infinite nothingness of their own completion.
All about them, heavy on the air, their cries rang out into open air, the sound of his skin striking against hers the most intensely arousing thing he’d ever heard. All those nights in prison, never had he imagined the truth of their coming together, never had he been able to taste the strength of need, almost choking him now as he pushed them closer and closer to the edge.
That was his last thought, before his final thrust pushed them into oblivion.
* * *
Whether moments, seconds or hours had passed before his presence of mind came back, Dimitri couldn’t have said. Anna was cradled in his embrace, all strength in her body lost. Picking her up in his arms, he walked them through to the bedroom, passing the bed and continuing on into the bathroom. Still with her in his arms, he walked into the large, glass-fronted shower and turned the handle, waiting for the water to become hot before he put her down on unsteady legs.
The intensity of their lovemaking seemed to have robbed them both of words. He poured gel into his hands, pressing it into her skin, her muscles, soothing away the aches he imagined she might have, over her breasts, between her legs, down her thighs. When she did the same for him, Dimitri pulled her back into him, desperate to once more claim that same completion.
He turned the shower off, covered her with a towel and dried them both before leading her to the bed. The entire time her eyes had watched him, his hands, his actions with an intensity that scared him. Something between them had shifted tonight, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to look too closely at it.
Just before sleep could claim him, Anna asked a question that surprised him. She wanted a honeymoon. Not to go anywhere, but just some time with him and Amalia alone on the island. Without Flora, without work... And, just before he fell into a deep sleep, he was pretty sure that he agreed.
CHAPTER NINE
Dear Dimitri,
I never guessed. I could never have imagined it could be like this.
DIMITRI KNEW INSTINCTIVELY that he’d made a terrible mistake. Whether it was three days ago when he’d agreed to Anna’s request for a honeymoon, or three minutes ago when he’d gone to war with his demanding daughter over breakfast. He had spectacularly underestimated the calming influence Flora had on Amalia. Spectacularly. The heat from the night before had been stifling and Amalia had woken up pitching to throw a fit. He empathised.
For the first time in months, years almost, he had nothing to do, or at least nothing he was familiar with. This ‘honeymoon’ idea of Anna’s had exiled him from his business, business that had taken him two days to wrap up. His father had been almost gleeful to be rid of his brooding, obsessive need to pull their company back from the brink of the destruction Manos had caused. Encouraging him to enjoy his honeymoon, his wife and his daughter, his father had almost smiled as he had bid him farewell. Dimitri shook his head at the memory—wondering at the new tentative bonds of their relationship, amazed at the way it had begun to soothe some of the past hurts.
Had he really been that punishing at work? He cast his mind back over the months since he had come out of prison, all the days merging into one: fraught meetings with the board, impossible targets reached, devastated clients soothed and brought back into the fold—and all of which was done at an adrenaline-pounding pace. The trip to the Buenos Aires horse race last month and then one to Dublin, the only time away that Dimitri had allowed himself.
And he’d liked it like that, because it had kept him from thinking...from focusing on Manos’s betrayal. But since the night in Kavala, since the night he’d opened up to Anna, shared some of his past, and his pain, he’d felt...lighter. And that scared him. Because he was simply not used to it. Since the age of seven, he’d been solely reliant on himself. And now he was beginning to trust the bonds that had been woven between him and Anna. But what scared him the most was that Anna had been right.
The moment that she had suggested speaking with his half-brother, a sense of ease opened up in his chest—his chest that had been in a vice-like grip ever since Manos was charged with the fraud and cover-up. Perhaps it was because for the first time he didn’t feel as if he was facing his brother alone—that he had Anna and Amalia to return to, to share some of the burden with. Having Anna’s support...it was different to the kind offered by Danyl and Antonio. It was healing. And he only hoped that he could do the same for her.
He turned from the kitchen table when Amalia cried out loud, forgetting the cup of coffee he carried. The searing heat as the hot liquid spilled
from the rim of his cup drew a loud curse from his mouth.
Anna chose that exact moment to come into the kitchen and in once glance seemed to take in both his burned hand and furious mood, along with her daughter’s loud, plaintive, dry-eyed crying.
‘Can you do something about that?’ he demanded roughly, distracted by the burn and thrusting his hand under the cold-water tap. He caught her raised eyebrow and instantly realised his mistake.
‘Did you just call my daughter “that”? Really?’ she demanded.
‘Come on, Anna, I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.’ To his own ears he sounded exasperated.
‘One of you in a mood I can handle, but both you and Amalia? Too much. As you have gone to such extreme lengths to “claim” your child, as you so artfully put it, this is what it’s like, Dimitri. This was why I wanted a honeymoon. You wanted a wife and child—here we are. And now, I think, it’s your turn to find out what parenting is truly about. Not just the happy breakfast times, but the hard times, when there’s no reason other than our daughter’s own demanding personality—one that I can only imagine she inherited from you—for her to throw a tantrum.’
‘Did you even take a breath during that nice little speech?’
‘Did you even think to ask what Amalia liked for breakfast?’
That stopped him in his tracks. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Figure it out, Dimitri. I’m going for a swim.’
Dimitri felt the anger and helplessness rise within him. ‘You can’t just leave me.’
‘Yes, I can. There’s nothing stopping you from being a father—you’re perfectly capable of seeing to her food, her health and her safety. Now you need to learn how to do the hard stuff.’
Dimitri watched, horrified, as Anna stalked out of the house and down to the beach with a towel tucked under her arm and her head held high. He cast another look at Amalia, who by this point had stopped crying, as if she was as shocked as he that she would be left with him.