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‘You have a right to be jealous.’ He leaned down and rubbed his nose against hers. ‘Call me primitive, but I like it.’ He nipped playfully at her mouth, drawing a reluctant smile from her.
‘You’re a caveman.’
‘And immensely proud of it.’ He kissed her long and deep, and then left her weak and clinging to the counter as he went to the fridge, rummaged through it and dumped the four tubs of caviar he discovered straight into the trash. Then he brushed his fingers in an overdramatic gesture that made her burst out laughing.
He joined in the laughter as he scooped her up, walked out of the kitchen and back upstairs to his bed. He laid her down and stretched out beside her and, as she tunnelled her fingers through his hair, something snapped and dived inside her. She’d only ever felt something similar through her dancing. A pure strain of emotion that she was almost too scared to name.
The sensation terrified her. Enough for her to pull back sharply from it because she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was potentially life-changing.
‘What is it?’ Xandro was frowning down at her.
‘Nothing,’ she hurriedly answered, then tried to remove the doubt lingering in his eyes by rising on her elbows and kissing him. Whether she succeeded in distracting him or he chose to let it go, she wasn’t sure. And then she stopped wondering altogether as he took over, deepened the kiss and blanked her mind to everything else.
Everything except the lingering sensation that chased after her in her dreams, and roused her in the middle of the night.
Cautiously opening her eyes, she stared at Xandro.
He was just as
formidable in sleep as he was when awake. But, with his eyes shut and his lips slightly reddened from her kisses, he looked almost as though he could be tamed. The temptation to trace his face with her fingers, commit every beautiful angle and smooth surface to memory, rushed through her. But then that intense sensation of her world shifting beneath her feet raced alongside it. It disturbed her enough for her to carefully shift away from the heavy arm pinning her to the bed. She tensed when he grunted in his sleep. When his breathing levelled out again she got out of bed, threw on her robe and left the bedroom.
The last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts, but she couldn’t avoid them as she trudged downstairs and headed to her training room.
Now she understood Xandro’s reason for pursuing it, she knew that nothing but having the ruby necklace back in his possession would satisfy him. Her heart squeezed again as her thoughts turned to her brother.
While she yearned to have him back, she couldn’t avoid the alarming, wrenching knowledge that it would be at the cost of never seeing Xandro again. Why that inevitability troubled her so much kept her on the sofa, her thoughts and her heart taking turns to twist and dip until Xandro appeared in the doorway half an hour later.
Unashamedly naked, he leaned in the doorway, spearing her with incisive eyes. ‘You’re still overthinking it,’ he said after a long pause.
Then, in silent command, he held out his hand. And she, knowing she wasn’t ready to be free of his superb brand of lovemaking, rose and slid her hand into his.
Just a few more hours, she promised herself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BUT HOURS TURNED into one day. Then two more. Wickedly glorious days when he bossily informed her he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to be with her and cajoled her into doing the same. Where he indulged her in a breathtaking private helicopter trip over the Grand Canyon, and a private jet ride to a candlelit dinner for two at an exclusive vineyard in Napa Valley.
With no paparazzi in sight, the occasions felt different. Almost...special. Enough for the fear that she was getting carried away to recede when, under a canopy of stars and the dance of fireflies, he filled her in on more stories about his past, about his mother and grandparents and their love for music. The discovery that he shared that same passion, that perhaps she’d been wrong in assuming Hunter’s had just been a means to an end for him, tugged at something deep and sacred within her.
But it was when she found herself swaying with him among the vines, wishing the night would never end and hoping for more like it, that she realised how far she’d strayed from where this had all started.
He was blackmailing her, keeping her prisoner until her brother came to heel.
But even then, knowing she was just a pawn, she couldn’t find the words to take back the control she felt slipping from her.
That disturbed her sleep enough to find her awake and at the living room window come the dawn hours halfway through the next week.
Again, she was there barely half an hour before Xandro tracked her down. ‘Once again I wake to find you gone from my bed,’ he murmured, his voice sleep-rough and more than a little irritated. And, as she’d begun to notice in the last few days, there was a new watchfulness about him, as if he was probing the heart of the feelings she was desperately keeping under wraps.
Her heart performed a crazy somersault when he reached her, staring down at her for several seconds before turning her around to pull her back into his body. Then, slowly, he undid the ties of her robe.
‘Before you assume so, it wasn’t a challenge.’
‘But it’s still an unsatisfactory situation. When I go to sleep with you in my arms, I expect to wake up with you still there,’ he replied.
‘Xandro...’ Whatever she’d been about to say evaporated when he tugged off the robe and dropped it at her feet.
‘Yes, pethi mou. I want you to say my name like that as I remind you how I like to wake up.’
