“Please,” she said then, in a very different voice. This time she sounded husky. Greedy, at last. “Please, Constantine. I want to stop playing games. I want... I...” She faltered, and it seemed so real to him that he almost believed... But no. She was nothing if not an ace game player. She wasn’t famous by accident. “I want you inside me.”
And Constantine had played this out inside his head a thousand times. More. He had intended this begging scene to go on forever. He had wanted abject pleading. Perhaps proof of overwhelming arousal while she was at it, but certainly Molly on her hands and knees. A bit of time prostrate at his feet, even.
But in all his planning for this moment, it had never occurred to him that he might want her this badly.
He had wanted her, clearly. But he’d spent years telling himself that his attraction to her was all a part of his revenge and why it would work so beautifully. Not...a wanting in its own right.
And Constantine had made himself wait so long. He’d made himself hold back, though such a thing was not in his nature. He had waited and waited—
The waiting ended then. With a crack so loud inside him he was shocked it didn’t tear down this building they stood in, then topple Paris to the ground.
He was shocked he still stood.
But in the end, it was that simple.
One moment he was worried about his plan, the next he was done.
Constantine reached down, unable to control himself a moment longer, and hauled her to her feet. He got his hands in the thick mass of her blond hair, shaking it free of its pins, then slammed his mouth to hers.
And the taste of her burned in him as it always did, so intense and so hot he could not believe he was not scalded.
But it wasn’t enough. Not tonight.
He gathered her against him, plundering her mouth, and he wanted more. More of her taste. More of that sleek, glorious body of hers pressed against him. He could feel the points of her nipples, a sweet agony against his chest.
It was too much.
Everything about her was too much.
Because with every taste of her, every little way she melted against him, it was as if she was somehow blazing straight through all those boundaries he had always kept strong and secure. As if she was the one melting him, from the inside out.
Constantine needed to get inside her. He needed to vanquish her, once and for all, and no other way had worked yet. Surely that would.
It was the waiting, he assured himself. He had never waited for another woman, not in any sense. It had created an unreasonable hunger—but it would be assuaged soon enough.
Now, in fact.
Once again, all the plans Constantine had toyed with over the years seemed to disappear, in so much ash and smoke.
He lifted her up into his arms, then carried her over to the nearest long, deep sofa, where he laid her out like an offering. To his deepest, wildest greed.
The longings he dared not admit, not even to himself.
Molly might be a martyr, but she was his. His. And he intended to lick up every last drop of this sacrifice laid out so temptingly before him.
He tore out of his own clothes, tossing them aside in his haste to finally get as naked as she’d been in front of him all this time. And he only slowed when he saw her eyes grow wide. He watched as she flushed, a rolling splash of color that moved from her cheeks to her neck, and then all over those sweet breasts.
Sure enough, her eyes were dilated. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she found him just as overwhelmingly tempting as he found her.
Good, something in him intoned, like a vow.
And say what she might about enemies, he knew full well that she hated him. He wanted her to hate him. But that meant he knew that if she was looking at him like this, she meant it.
That gave him a little sliver of space to breathe in.
Better yet, to remember who the hell he was.
To slow it down and take control, before he exploded like an untried boy.
It almost felt like a blessing when he stretched himself out over her, there on that long couch. They both fit, if closely, and he could prop himself up on one elbow. Then look down at the work of art before him.
He took his time looking.
“Constantine...” she began, and there was a little break as she said his name.
He was already hard enough to hurt. But that catch in her voice really took him over the edge.
“Quiet, hetaira,” he ordered her, dark and low. “This is not a time for talking.”
Then he leaned down and set his mouth to her breast. He toyed with her hard nipple with his tongue while his hand busied itself with its twin.
Molly arched up against him and cried out, and so he kept going. Back and forth between each of her lovely, perfect breasts as she writhed and bucked and then, to his delight, shuddered into her first release since long, long ago in Skiathos.
She was so responsive it made his chest feel tight.
She was so responsive he ached to thrust himself deep within her, now.
But he didn’t. Not right now, anyway.
He took her mouth again and settled himself over her, aware on some level that he was rushing things. That he had wanted, badly, to lay her out like a feast and take his time with each and every course.
But he couldn’t seem to do it. He couldn’t seem to wait another moment.
He fished around for his trousers, pulling out protection and sheathing himself with one hand. Molly’s arms moved around his back to hold him, and Constantine had never been aware before of how good it felt to have a woman grip him like that. While her
