And somehow, without any idea how it happened, Molly found herself closer to Constantine. Had he pulled her there? Or had she simply drifted there of her own accord until she might as well have been in his arms.
Then his thigh was between hers and she found herself pressing the place she ached the most against his brutally hard, deliciously tough thigh. Then rocking herself there, lost in the rhythm of his hands on her breasts and her own movement on his thigh.
And then everything was slick heat and astonishment, and that coiling, shuddering, shimmering tension inside of her.
In the distance, or at her ear, she heard his gruff, dark voice muttering something she didn’t understand. Greek, maybe. Or another incantation. It was too hard to tell.
And then she came apart.
Molly was a thousand shards of glass and still she came apart. Still the shattering went on and on.
She was dimly aware that she was still riding his thigh, that his palms were still working a rough magic against her nipples. And the connection between those two things was so intense, such a bright and impossible shine, that she felt as if all that light and wild heat was inside her. Then shattering outwards like all of that glass.
And then, for a time, she knew nothing at all.
It was only when she felt his hands on her shoulders, turning her and then guiding her down into the chair he vacated, that what she’d let happen here impressed itself upon her.
What she’d let happen and worse, what she’d done.
It took one breath, and then the shock of that realization hit her. Hard.
And right behind it came a wallop of shame. Liberally infused with the kind of self-recrimination she had last felt quite this keenly right here in Skiathos. And back then, she had never been naked in this man’s presence, much less flung herself into his hands with so much heedless abandon.
Had she really been thinking about happy maidens scampering up mountainsides to fling themselves, breasts first, at the nearest scary thing they found?
It cost her more than she wanted to consider to lift her gaze again, then to do her best to regard him coolly. Because it was all she could do.
And he was waiting.
“You come so prettily,” Constantine told her, standing there before her with a little half smile on his perfect mouth and the glittering roar of heat in his gaze. “I hope you enjoyed a little taste of what awaits us on this little journey of ours. And the next time, Molly, you will have to beg me for your release.”
“I think I can promise you that will never happen,” she said, scraping up a truly miraculous tone of voice considering what was happening inside her, all scorn and haughty amusement.
But it was lost on him. All he did was let that half smile grow a bit deeper.
“Don’t make promises you cannot keep, hetaira,” he advised her in a low voice. “You will not like how I correct a broken promise, I assure you.”
She could see that he was aroused himself. Yet he seemed to disregard it. To not even notice it, somehow, when she had always been under the impression that Constantine Skalas, above all men, was ruled entirely by that impressive length she could see pressed against his trousers.
Yet all he did was indicate the tube of sunscreen, still with that smile.
“Don’t forget your face and neck,” he said. “You’re already quite red. Though I do not think it is sunburn. Yet.”
And then, to her astonishment—and what she would not have admitted was something far more complex than that, and a whole lot closer to disappointment—he simply turned and left her there.
She sat there, in the shade of that tree, for a long, long time.
And then longer still, as there was no getting past what had happened. What she had not only allowed, but had obviously reveled in.
Eventually, she took his advice and put sunscreen on her face and neck. Then sat there, certain that he must have been watching her, or waiting for her to...do something. It would no doubt indicate what was next on the naked blackmail menu for the day.
The shadows changed, yet Constantine did not reappear.
So even though she would have happily put it off longer if she could, Molly had no choice but to stand up, face the house behind her that she still hadn’t gone inside this time, and then actually walk in of her own volition.
The house already made her feel vulnerable, and she shivered as she stepped inside, and not because of the temperature. She could see ghosts of her younger self everywhere she looked, and having to walk through these rooms literally naked, stripped down and vulnerable, did not help. She padded through the various living areas, trying not to see her memories play out before her, but there was no sign of Constantine.
Gritting her teeth, she moved on, making her way back to that dreadful study once more. But he wasn’t there, either.
Eventually, she found him in the grand master suite that was its own wing of the house. She had not, obviously, spent much time here, as it was Demetrius’s domain. And woe betide anyone who went somewhere he did not wish them to go. She had only vague memories of the way the suite was set out, with a sitting room here, a media center there. She told herself it was pleasant, by contrast, to walk through rooms with no ghosts at all.
But there was Constantine, and he was something far worse than a ghost. He was stood out on yet another balcony, his gaze on the sea beyond, speaking in impatient Greek into his mobile.
And yet somehow, Molly knew that he was perfectly aware of the very second she stepped out behind him. If not before.
He gave no indication that he cared either way if she was there, but she knew that he did. She just knew.
Constantine
