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She lifted her chin. ‘Yes, that is what I mean. And I’m perfectly fine with that,’ she said, trying desperately not to sound as breathless as she felt.
Achileas didn’t move a muscle, but something shifted. A slight movement in the air. A change to the light as if she had inadvertently touched a dimmer switch.
‘So why did you kiss me, then?’
Her pulse darted like a startled bird. She had been pretending all day that it didn’t exist. Now, though the silken, shimmering thread that was between them pulled taut with an audible snap. His eyes were fixed on her face, and she knew that he could see the faint tremor beneath her skin. The flush across her cheeks.
‘I didn’t kiss you,’ she managed at last. ‘You kissed me.’
The last rays of sun glimmered around his face like flames.
‘I kissed you first,’ he said softly.
His gaze narrowed in on hers in a way that made her breath go shallow.
‘But you still kissed me.’
She had bundled that moment into the suitcase with all her clothes, relieved not to have to think about it. Only no secret ever stayed secret for long. As the daughter of a gambler, she should know that better than anyone.
She swallowed. Every single nerve in her body was quivering on high alert. ‘I didn’t know it could feel like that. That’s why I panicked. I wasn’t expecting to feel, to want—’
His beautiful, astonishing mouth curved into a question. ‘To want what, Effie?’
At some point they had drifted closer—too close. Close enough to touch. Heart hammering, she looked past him at the dark blue sea. But that was a mistake because it was like looking straight into Achileas’s eyes, and suddenly they were there, back at the edge of the cliffs, only this time he wasn’t stopping her falling.
‘This...’ she said hoarsely. And, standing on tiptoe, she tilted her mouth and kissed him.
There was a moment when he tensed, and panic of a different kind fluttered in her throat. Perhaps her memories of that first kiss had been wrong—a feverish dream conjured up by the shock of his beauty and the scent of his skin. But then his hand wrapped around her waist, and he took her kiss as if he had been waiting for it his whole life. As if she was already his.
And it was nothing like that first kiss. That had been a sensual exploration, a deliberate provocation designed to stir her, to make her unravel. This was rawer, hungrier, as if he was as out of control as she was.
Heat rolled through her. Pinpricks of light exploded behind her eyes as his mouth moved over hers. And then his tongue parted her lips, and she tasted the dark bite of coffee and desire. Knotting her fists into his shirt, she pulled him closer, kissing him back.
Breathing unsteadily, he pulled her against him. She felt the hard muscles of his body and, harder still, the press of his erection against the soft flesh of her thighs. Hunger flooded through her veins like a levee breaking as he groaned against her mouth, and then he was kissing her neck, licking a path to the bare skin of her shoulder, and her legs were shaking so badly that she couldn’t stand.
They stumbled backwards together onto the sofa, her hands clutching at his shoulders as he pulled her hair free of its band, sliding his fingers through her hair, holding her captive. Her body was softening. The heat of his mouth, his hands, moulding her, changing her, making her want to know more, to feel more—to be his.
With a small sound she arched into him, her fingers pulling clumsily at his shirt. He shifted above her, the hard planes of his chest crushing her breasts, making them ache, making the nipples tighten painfully, and she gasped.
He jerked backwards as if stung and she reached up to him, stung herself by the abrupt withdrawal of his body.
‘Stop.’ His hands dropped to her waist, and he held her down. ‘Effie, stop.’
His breath was hot and uneven, just as hers was. She gazed up at him, her heart pounding, her body twitching with longing, need flickering over her skin like flames across an oil slick.
‘What is it?’
‘You should go.’
Her face felt as if it was burning. ‘I thought—’
‘Then you thought wrong. Your first time should be with someone who cares about you. Not someone who’s paying you.’ He stared down at her, his face hard, hostile. ‘You need to go to bed. On your own.’
He took a step backwards, as if he was fighting for control. Or expecting her to drag him with her.
‘I said go,’ he snapped as she stared up at him dazedly.
And, cheeks burning, she got to her feet and went.
