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He had left her panties on and slid his hand inside as if he knew she found this pseudo-secret touch highly erotic.
Maybe he did. Maybe part of him was trying to remember. Her insides melted at the thought. Wanting desperately for it to be the way it had been before, she responded to him with all the trust and joy she had ever given him and prayed that this time of intimacy would restore their marriage in more ways than one.
It wasn't hard to pretend she was as important to him as she needed to be, not when for the first time in their married life, he'd opted out of his business dinner to stay home and make love with her.
Even as she had the thought, his cell phone started ringing.
He reared back, saying a harsh Greek word she knew but had never used herself. "Give me thirty seconds, all right, pethi mou? Then we will be left in peace."
She bit her lip, hoping the interruption did not mean the end of their time of intimacy.
He cupped her cheek. "Trust me."
"Okay."
He smiled and then dove for the ringing phone still attached to the waistband of his trousers.
Forcing back her fear that Kassandra would get to him yet again, she sat up and watched his big, gorgeous body move. It was no hardship considering the excellent view she had of his very fine backside. He had muscles everywhere.
He flipped the phone open and turned to face her at the same time.
Noticing where her gaze had been directed, he grinned with masculine confidence and said, "Aristide here," into the phone.
"Where are you?" Kassandra was so agitated, Eden could hear her through the phone.
He looked down at himself and then at Eden with a droll expression. "Something has come up and I will have to forgo the dinner tonight."
Eden choked on her laughter at the double entendre and bit her fist to stop the sound from escaping her lips.
Aristide climbed back on the bed and leaned over Eden. She fell back into the pillows, mesmerized by the hot promises bombarding her from his blue eyes.
"I am sure you can handle it. You are my personal assistant for a reason."
He rubbed himself against Eden and she had to bite back a moan of delight as Kassandra said something else.
He went rigid. "Perhaps you have forgotten who the employer is in this relationship, but I do not require advice from you on how to order my priorities."
Eden stopped in the act of reaching up to kiss his flat male nipple and her gaze flew to his. She could just imagine how Kassandra would respond to the reprimand. The woman was a master manipulator.
Aristide shook his head as if he could read Eden's mind.
His mouth thinned in a frown and his eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure. "We will have to discuss that Monday morning, Kassandra. Until then, I am unavailable."
He switched off the phone, flipped it shut and tossed it on to the floor and then turned back to face her. "I think it is time I finished unwrapping my present."
Euphoria filled her. He'd dismissed his personal assistant for her. Not only that, he had turned off his phone. The last time he had done that she had been in labor with Theo.
Most importantly, Aristide had stayed for her.
Happy tears burned her eyes and she smiled. "I'd like that."
His brow creased and he brushed at a single tear that had escaped. "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just so right, I can barely stand it."
"Ah…so, these are tears of happiness."
She nodded, her voice too choked to speak.
"I am glad." He slid down her body, his mouth wreaking havoc with her nervous system.
"Oh, Aristide…it's so perfect with you."
"It is you who are perfect. Perfectly shaped." He kissed each of her turgid peaks, nipping them and she gasped. "Perfectly responsive." He pressed his lips to each of her ribs and then slid his mouth along her hot skin to explore her belly button with his tongue. "Perfectly lovely. Ah…my Eden."
It wasn't yineka mou, but it was close, and she felt sure his memories were only a breath away as she arched helplessly against him.
When he used his teeth to effect the final unveiling, pulling her panties down her legs with sexy mastery, she just about fainted from the pleasure of it. And he wasn't even touching her most private flesh yet…
Then he spread her legs and kissed her with an intimacy she could only ever imagine sharing with this man.
She cried out as his tongue brought her to almost immediate fulfillment, her insides clenching with cataclysmic pleasure. He didn't stop, but kept pleasuring her until the ecstasy of his touch left her wrung out and limp.
Only then did he move up her body to press himself against the throbbing entrance to her feminine core. His eyes asked a question and she grabbed his hips, pulling him to complete his possession. It was a ritual as old as the very first time they made love…he always asked in some way for permission to enter her body and waited for her acquiescence.
Sometimes she used that wait to tease him until she thought he might take her without it, but he never did. He had more self-control than anyone she had ever known.
As he eased inside of her, she felt closer to him than she had in months and couldn't help crying out, "I love you, Aristide."
His mouth slammed down on hers as if taking possession of the words, the kiss so intense that she lost herself in it. He made love to her with driving passion until they came together in a hurricane of ecstasy.
Afterward, he rolled on to his back, keeping their bodies connected like he had so many times before. She settled her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat and letting the precious intimacy soak into her every pore.
He took a deep breath and let it out. "That was amazing."
She couldn't help grinning against his chest. "Worth skipping your business dinner?"
"Definitely. And you…did it make this night special enough for you?"
"I would say that finding each other again is a very fitting way to celebrate our first meeting."
His arms tightened around her. "Was it this good before?"
She pushed up on to her forearms, tilting her head so they were eye to eye. "You don't remember?"
"No."
"But…"
"What?"
"You made love to me like you remembered. That wasn't the intimacy between strangers," she said helplessly.
He affected a small shrug under her as if it was of little importance. "Obviously, our bodies know each other."
Or he had made love to every woman before her like he did to her. She'd never considered the possibility before, having assumed that it was as special for him as it was for her. Her stomach churned with the possibility that what she took for tender intimacy was, in fact, well-developed technique.
"What is it? You are frowning."
"I thought if anything could jar your memory of me, it would be our lovemaking."
"Is that why you allowed me to touch you?" he asked, his voice no longer lazy and warm.
"No."
But something in her face must have given her away because he glared. "Tell me," he insisted.
"It was my plan when you came back from New York."
"So that was why you were upset I wanted to sleep in a separate bed. You hoped to bring back my memory with sex."
"That was part of it, yes."
If he'd gone rigid during his call with Kassandra, that was nothing compared to his reaction now. "And this…" He pressed her hips down with hard hands, deepening his entry in her body. "It was all just a test?"
"No." Horrified at his reaction, she shook her head vehemently. "We made love because we both needed to… didn't we?"
She'd told him she loved him. And like all the times she'd said the words before, he had not responded in kind. At the moment she'd said it, his lack of response had not bothered her, but now it stung like a thousand wasps attacking her heart.
He relaxed a little. "Yes, we both needed it."
But had he needed her, or only a body? She'd never stopped to consider how she would feel after making love to a man who did not know her. It wasn't good…even though they were married, even though she loved him, she felt shame because she couldn't be sure he'd been making love to her and not simply a body.
She pressed against his chest. "I need to get up now."
The last vestiges of his anger drained from his face and his eyes gleamed with sensual anticipation. "I am not finished."
"I am."
"Because I did not remember you?"
How could she answer that? "The simplistic answer is yes," she admitted, "but it's a lot more complicated than that."
"Explain it to me."
"Let me up."
Despite their near argument, he had never completely lost his arousal and now it was growing.
