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‘Your mother?’
‘She died when I was sixteen—she was diabetic and she wouldn’t follow the rules to improve her health and she had a heart attack. I don’t have any other relatives. What about you?’ Rosie prompted, marvelling that he could be sufficiently interested in her to ask such personal questions, but pleased as well.
‘My parents died in a car crash about ten years ago,’ Alexius volunteered. ‘I was an only child. Aside from a couple of very distant cousins, I’m alone in the world and I prefer it that way.’
Her brow furrowed in surprise. ‘But why?’
‘Family members can cause you a lot of grief,’ he said, his handsome mouth compressing on that clipped judgemental statement.
Rosie reflected that that was certainly true when it came to her own troubled relationship with her mother. Even so, the experience had not soured her entire outlook, but the unyielding angles of Alex’s features as he spoke suggested an engrained aversion to such close ties. ‘But being a part of a family can also bring great joy and security. It can be a source of strength and comfort. I saw that in one of the foster families I lived with. I’ve always wanted a family of my own,’ she admitted without hesitation.
‘Is that why you tried to learn Greek?’ Alexius enquired.
‘No, I don’t have any relatives in Greece either that I know of. But I had this crazy notion that my Greek blood would somehow make the language easier for me to learn.’ Rosie pulled a face and laughed at her youthful folly. ‘I soon found out my mistake.’
From his side of the table, Alexius was watching her intently. He was trying to work out what it was about her exquisite little face that constantly drew his attention back there. The expressive eyes and the sadness that was there in repose? The delicacy of her bone structure? As she laughed her whole face lit up and reluctant fascination gripped him. She was so natural, so relaxed in his company and he wasn’t used to that. She had disagreed with him on the topic of families and had had no fear of saying so and arguing her point. Women, indeed men as well, usually rushed to agree with Alexius while complimenting him on his insight and intelligence. She savoured the dessert she had chosen with tiny spoonfuls, pausing to lick her lips every so often so that not a drop could escape. He stared at that soft full mouth and lust roared through him at breathtaking speed, shocking him back to awareness. For the first time, he wondered if she was deliberately teasing him and if the friendly innocence of her manner was a fake to pull in the unwary.
In the sudden silence that had fallen, Rosie was insanely aware of Alex’s intent scrutiny. She could feel every breath she drew, the tightening pulsing sensation in her nipples and the sliding sense of warmth in a place much lower down that she wasn’t used to thinking about. An electrifying tension held her still, that treacherous warmth at the heart of her body tugging at her as she stared back at him. She knew it was desire controlling her, knew exactly what it was but could barely believe she was feeling it. The last time a man had got her that hot under the collar she had been sixteen and the object of her affections had been a poster pin-up on her bedroom wall, the lead singer of a long forgotten band. Alex Kolovos was a far more dangerous prospect than that first tender crush.
‘It’s time I said thank you and went home,’ Rosie told him curtly, keen to pull back and make her escape, for she didn’t like feelings or reactions that were not in her control. They made her feel unsafe and foolish. It had always been her secret terror that she might have inherited more of her mother’s impulsive passionate nature than she had ever appreciated. Jenny Gray had been a pushover for the wrong men, easily impressed, easily bedded, easily discarded. Rosie’s mother had lived in a chaos of traumatic relationships, always hoping for something better, never finding it, but hope had sprung eternal with every new man who came along.
Alex sprang upright, lifted her coat from her fingers and held it out for her to put on. ‘I’m not used to that kind of attention,’ she confided, her face colouring at the admission as they walked out of the restaurant and on down the street. ‘You can leave me now. I only live three doors down.’
Alexius said nothing but ignored the invitation to leave. She was unlocking the battered front door when, without even realising it, he put his hand on her arm to stay her. She turned back, colliding with those silvery-grey eyes of his, and her heartbeat hammered so fast she was afraid she might somehow choke on the tightness in her throat.
He wound his hand into her hair and bent his imperious dark head—it was a long way down to her level, he discovered as he captured her lush mouth with his. And that single sweet taste of her went straight to his head like the finest brandy and he kissed her with tortured, driving urgency, hauling her slight body up against him. He wanted her at that moment with a sexual ferocity he had never experienced in his life before.
At his first touch, Rosie had initially frozen in shock, but just as quickly she melted, entrapped by the surge of hunger that leapt inside her like a burning flame that threatened to consume her. Her arms went round his neck without her volition and she rejoiced when he crushed her to him. One little taste of him was only enough to make her crave the next with every fibre of her being. His tongue delved inside her mouth and she gasped, straining into his big powerful frame, desperate to sate the ache in her pelvis
as he unleashed a tempest of desire through her body.
As she broke free of him briefly so that she could catch her breath, she was trembling and she didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want to let him walk away. ‘Come in for coffee,’ she heard herself say.
Coffee, she thought, trying not to wince as she thrust wide the door. Everyone knew that that was a euphemism for sex, didn’t they? What was she doing making such an invitation? Panic almost claimed her. He was more than she could comfortably handle. Her brain told her that she didn’t want passion. She didn’t want the dreadful feeling of loss clawing at her now as her body longed for him to touch her again. Safety with men meant maintaining a distance, never wanting more than she might receive, ensuring that she didn’t feel too much or get hurt. He broke every rule and that was too risky.
Alexius lifted his head, shrewd grey eyes veiled, face tight with self-discipline. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he playing at here? His body rigid with suppressed arousal, he lowered her back to the ground, knowing that he could more happily have pushed her back against the door and satisfied his hunger there and then. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a very long time. There was nothing wrong with that, he decided abruptly. He didn’t need to question his libido.
Determined to see where she lived, he followed her over the threshold. The entrance needed painting and the stair carpet was badly worn. It was dingy and for the first time he thought critically of his godfather, who had clearly committed money to the cause of raising his granddaughter without ensuring that it went to her rather than her mother.
The door to the living room opened and a tiny dog rushed out to leap at Rosie’s knees with shrill yelps of joyous welcome. She scooped him up and cuddled him like a toy. Enormous bat ears flexed above big dark eyes and the dog growled the instant he saw Alex. It was a chihuahua but it looked more like a cartoon rat of the nasty variety, Alex decided.
‘This is Baskerville … I call him Bas for short—’
‘Ah, you got him. He’s been fretting for you,’ Martha, the older woman in the doorway, declared. ‘He knows when you get home and he seemed to know you were late. He’s been patrolling that door listening to every sound for the past hour and more. Oh, you’ve got company …’
‘I should’ve rung you to let you know I’d be late back,’ Rosie said apologetically. ‘Thanks for looking after Bas.’
‘I’ll keep him,’ Martha declared, smiling and scooping the tiny dog back from Rosie and into her arms. ‘He’s great company.’
Martha vanished tactfully back into the living room. Rosie hovered. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she enquired in the rushing silence, barely able to look at Alex, she was so tense, so unsure, but suddenly she knew that she was done with living her whole life in fear, always afraid that she might make her mother’s mistakes.
‘No, I want you,’ Alexius admitted almost harshly, reaching for her again, urging her slight body up against him, crushing that luscious mouth below his again with hungry pleasure.
Rosie let him kiss her because she couldn’t stamp out the longing for that kiss or the even more intoxicating one that followed. Desire, she was learning, was a slippery slope. Give way, open the door to a little and you might invite in a whole lot more of the same. His tongue tangled with hers and a ripple of such intense reaction travelled through her that she shivered, hot and cold with sensation, shock and craving, feeling all the things she had never felt before, and, in that weakened state, his every touch was unbearably seductive.
‘Where’s your room?’ Alexius husked, lifting her up in his arms with decisive cool, finally getting her where he wanted her with a fierce sense of satisfaction.
Rosie gave him a conflicted look. ‘I don’t do this kind of thing, Alex. I don’t bring guys home.’
