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“More like a brother,” Stavros pointed out. “I was closer in age to your father than I am to you.”
A strange mood had settled between them. A mood that was flat and heavy, that throbbed with awareness of facts, rather than sensuality.
“Does that bother you?” She asked, lifting his hand to her lips and pressing a kiss to his fingertips.
“Yeah.” A husky acknowledgement.
“Why?”
“Jesus, Claudia, because you’re almost young enough to be my daughter.”
She laughed. “Not quite.”
“I shouldn’t be doing this.” A muscle jerked in his cheek.
“You’re not doing it alone,” she pointed out, squeezing his hands. “Besides, it’s too late for regrets.”
“You’re right about that.” He stood up, his eyes glowing with promises and something else. Something like acceptance. “Come, Claudia. Let’s go back to bed.”
She stood slowly, drawn upwards by magnetic force, and she smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS STILL SNOWING, early the next morning when Claudia woke. She stretched, her body strangely fulfilled, muscles aching, heart squeezing. She brushed against something warm and flipped over, smiling when she saw Stavros.
In repose, like this, he was like a gentle giant. His harsh, angular face was somehow less imposing and Claudia leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his nose, then a kiss, smiling when he made a grunting noise and went to swat her away.
She caught his fingertips and drew one deep into the moistness of her mouth. His eyes jerked open and then, he relaxed visibly, smiling as he ran his eyes over her face, conquering every dip in her features as she had just been doing to him.
“Good morning,” she murmured, lying back down beside him.
He folded her under his arm, bringing her to his chest, so that she could hear the rhythmic pounding of his heart, the good, steady beating.
“This is a nice way to wake up,” he said, the words thickened with sleep and something like emotion. “How do you feel?”
The question was so sweet, so unexpectedly gentle; how could it not breathe promises across her heart? How could it help but fill her with hopes for something beyond this? For more than what they were doing?
She pushed the hope aside.
Stavros Aresteides was too astute. Eventually he would realise that she never read anything, not a Facebook status update, not a headline. He would realise that she didn’t send texts or write shopping lists.
And then he would know how stupid she was. And he would look at her with pity and sympathy and she couldn’t bear it. The thought scraped into her chest and hollowed her out, and she found it almost impossible to breathe as the suffocating realization fell over her that she must walk away from him after Christmas.
“I’m hungry,” she said, shifting away from him a little.
“Agape? Are you okay?”
Shoot. She had to do a better job of pretending. “Yeah.” She grinned down at him. “Just starving.”
“So I have finally found the way to your appetite,” he teased, pushing up onto his elbows and kissing her lightly. “This is good news.”
Her heart squeezed. “Food.”
“Yes, food.” But he deepened the kiss and she groaned into his mouth, needing more, wanting more of him always.
When he pulled away, she ached with disappointment. She watched as he stepped out of bed and lifted the phone receiver to his ear, placing a room service request in rapid fire terms then smiling down at her.
Claudia could have stared at him all day. That was, in and of itself, the warning she needed to galvanise her limbs. She stepped out of bed and reached for a robe, wrapping it around her frame and moving into the kitchen area. She podded through two strong, black coffees, and took hers to the window. Hyde park was covered in snow. Ironically, Winter Wonderland seemed out of action for the moment, the rides held still, the gates locked. Was it just too early to open? Or had they closed it because of the snow?
