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She flicked her eyes away, focusing on the crowds milling around them, dancing, talking, laughing.
She felt him sigh. “I still wish to protect you from the media’s intrusion into your life. And I am less keen than you can imagine to return you to Arthur Pennington’s claws.”
“Claws?” She responded with a laugh. “If you knew Arthur, you’d know he’s the least vicious person on earth.”
“Irrelevant.” He brought her closer to his body, moving his lips lower, teasing her by speaking against her neck. “You are mine, remember?”
She jerked back in the circle of his arms, her eyes frightened when they met his. She was terrified of how much she wanted that to be true.
“Be mine,” he amended. “Tonight.”
It was a statement of intent but there was a question in it, too. She stared up at him and mentally, she lost her footing altogether. Or did the earth crack open and swallow her into its molten core? She couldn’t have said. She knew only that nothing made sense any longer.
“I…”
“Tonight,” he groaned, lifting his mouth and pressing a brief, hot kiss against her temple. “Let me show you how it should have been.”
His eyes held hers and they were as swarmed by emotion as her heart felt.
She could hardly speak. She couldn’t think.
“I hate that I want you.” It was a grim admission. “I know this is wrong. For so many reasons, I should be walking as far away from you as I can get.” He shook his head. “But I can’t. I don’t want to.”
She bit down on her lip and knew that she wouldn’t be the one to say ‘no’. Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged her away from what they were about to do.
So she nodded. A simple, quick gesture that sealed their fates. For that night, at least.
*
It was snowing when they stepped out of the lobby. His car was third one back in the line of waiting cars, but Claudia was in no rush. Walking beside Stavros, knowing what they’d agreed to, feeling little petals of snowflake kiss her exposed flesh, filled her with a delicious sense of anticipation, knowledge that fulfillment was inevitable making her insides slick with moist heat.
He mistook her little shiver for something else altogether, and slipped out of his suit jacket. “Here.” His word was husky. Was he feeling the same pull of need that was ripping through her?
He placed it around her slender shoulders, and she looked up at him, her breath catching in her throat as their eyes met.
“This is crazy,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
He nodded. “I know.” They reached his car and the driver opened the door. Claudia slid in ahead of Stavros, then he joined her on the seat beside hers. “I shouldn’t want you like this. You are too young. You are my ward. I am entrusted with your care.” He lifted a finger to her cheek and traced it down her flesh, lower, to the gentle skin of her neck. “And none of that matters right now.”
“No,” she whispered huskily.
They drove in silence – a silence that hummed and buzzed with anticipation. The car slid through London, and the snow grew heavier as they went, so that by the time the car pulled up at The Maychester, there was a light covering on the ground.
The smile that spread across Claudia’s face was as spontaneous as it was beautiful. She lifted her hands, palm-side up, catching little tiny snowflakes on her fingertips. Stavros watched her, not the snow.
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” she said, half to him, half to herself. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Just what I am thinking.” The husky admission drew her attention. He was staring at her as though he’d never seen her before. He moved closer, allowing the driver to shut the car door. “You are an angel.”
She expelled a sigh. “No.” And she pushed a frivolous note into her voice. “I just really like snow.”
“And Christmas,” he teased, taking a cue from her.
&nb
sp; “Uh huh.”
“I bet you were spoiled as a child,” he laughed. “Dozens of gifts beneath the tree, all uniform in their matching wrapping paper?”
