‘I don’t care what anyone believes.’
The bed dipped as Christo sat on the edge of the mattress. She didn’t look at him. Only at the rain that beaded and slid down the window ahead of her.
‘So you’ve made clear before. Would you like me to call a doctor?’
Thea shook her head. ‘It’s nothing. You shouldn’t have interrupted your day.’
‘Sergei called. I came.’
A cool hand rested on her forehead. She closed her eyes.
‘No temperature...’
So few people cared about her. She could count them on one hand: Alexis, Elena. Anna and Sergei, perhaps, but they were paid to care, after all. Same as the servants at her father’s home, who’d looked after her when her mother had left. And still, like the little girl she’d once been, she craved the caring with a bone-numbing ache.
‘We have the dinner party tonight.’ Christo’s voice was gentle and soothing. ‘I’ll cancel it.’
‘No, I’ll be there as promised.’
Her voice quavered and caught. She cleared her throat. Stupid. To fall for these tiny scraps of kindness, tossed to her by a man who cared as little for her as her father did. Still, a yearning twisted in her stomach.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
She turned to him. Sat up. Pretending for a little while longer. They were so close on the bed. Her dishevelled in her robe. Him in his immaculately tailored dark trousers. The fine herringbone weave of his white shirt. Close enough for her to catch the scent of his aftershave and that whispered undertone she recognised instantly. Something dark and primal. All Christo.
Heat bloomed inside her, unravelling the tight twist of fear. Smoothing it out till the only ripple left was a low, sultry pulse she tried to ignore. But harder to ignore was his mouth...so close. The sensual curve of his lower lip... The slight shadow of stubble grazing his jaw...
His eyes fixed on hers. Hazel rimmed with slate, soft with concern. She shouldn’t crave this, but for once she wanted to pretend that Christo cared too. The ache of it twisted hard, till her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed.
Still, it must have shown on her face. He cupped her cheek, his palm hot against her skin. ‘What’s wrong?’
Christo was trying to peer inside her, and she couldn’t allow him to see too much.
Perhaps she’d tell him why she felt this way. It was a truth. A real truth, as Christo had demanded. But she was so full to the brim with truths they threatened to choke her. Her mother leaving. Finding Alexis. The years of deprivation. Fighting to retain a part of herself when darkness threatened to devour her. She’d pasted so many false layers over her true self—one breach of the barrier and it would all fall apart. She couldn’t risk it. Not for this man.
She closed her eyes to shut him out as he threaded his hands into the tangle of her hair. The warmth of his breath was close, so close. She might not be able to tell him anything, but she could allow herself to let go. For a moment. She was entitled to that at least, wasn’t she?
‘Thea...’
Her name was a whisper as his lips brushed hers. She didn’t care any more about pushing him away. For once, all she cared about was succumbing to sensation. Forgetting the world was hard and real and taking pleasure for herself and damn the consequences. Losing herself and ignoring the fear of gilded cages and the trap of marriage, even one with a time frame as short as theirs.
She slid her hands to the back of his neck, into his dark hair...softer than she’d imagined for such a hard man. Pulling him closer, she pressed her lips to his. He deepened the kiss, his tongue gliding over hers as she relished the invasion.
She wanted all of him. Because now she didn’t have to think—she could feel. The rasp of his growing stubble. The prickle of her scalp as his fingers tightened in her hair. His lips teasing, testing, as he eased her backwards onto the bed. The heavy weight of him as he lay over her and pressed her down, down into the soft covers.
Her legs fell open, cradling his hips between hers. The ridge of hardness at his groin notched into her with a delicious burn. She writhed under him, shifting restlessly as she tried to alleviate the ache there, losing herself in the erotic grind of their bodies. Her skin overheated till she felt desperate to tear her clothes away.
This was a flame only Christo could quench.
He was rocking against her. The tightness low inside her twisting tighter and harder. He tore at her robe, his breath mingling with hers as they panted and moved against each other. His searching fingers drifted over her breast, teasing at her nipple till heat seared between her thighs. She moaned, but his kiss trapped the sound.
Thea tore her mouth from his and gasped for air. ‘Please... Please...’
She toyed with the buttons of his shirt. No thought other than having him naked and inside her, quelling the ache now at a fever pitch.
‘I have you,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll look after you.’
It wasn’t enough. Her whole body screamed to be filled by him. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered any more but this. His hips worked against hers. The edge of oblivion was close. So close. She wrapped her legs tight round him. Gripped his back and arched into him as he rolled her nipple between his fingers and kissed and kissed, his tongue delving into her mouth.
Then nothing.
Everything stopped.
Why? Why was he so still?
She groaned, and didn’t care how frustrated, how desperate she sounded.
‘Oh, no!’
Anna’s voice?
Christo turned his head towards it as his hands gently closed her robe, his body still covering her.
‘What do you want?’ he growled.
Christo was coiled tight, but there was the slightest tremble through his huge frame, and she wasn’t sure whether it was unsatisfied desire, or anger at being disturbed. She buried her head in the
