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Angel, the picture of elegance in his designer silk-and-wool-blend charcoal-grey suit worn beneath his coat, froze and gave her a startled glance. ‘Right now?’
Gaby settled sapphire-blue eyes that gleamed on him. ‘Now would be a good time. It’s the easiest way to make him relax with you.’
Angel shed his coat and dropped down into the nearest armchair with the air of a condemned man.
Gaby disregarded his absence of enthusiasm. Angel did not like to be ignorant in any field. Anything that made him vulnerable seemed to put him on edge, but she wanted to see if he could make an effort and unbend for Alexios’s benefit. She piled up bricks and Alexios sent them flying with exuberance. She settled a toy lorry into his lap, which he lifted to chew.
‘Shouldn’t you take that off him?’ Angel enquired.
‘No. Everything goes in his mouth at present. He’s teething,’ Gaby told him, trying not to stare as Angel inched forward off the chair much as though he were approaching a snapping shark and settled a plastic car on the rug in front of her son.
Angel made what she deemed to be ‘boy’ noises with the car and Alexios was delighted. From that point on she might as well have not been there for all the attention she received from her two companions and Gaby quietly left them to it, busying herself by making her son’s lunch.
‘He’s falling asleep,’ Angel complained.
‘He will...he didn’t have his usual nap,’ Gaby reminded him, amused by his tone of disappointment. Alexios was a novelty for Angel and it worked both ways, Gaby conceded wryly. Men often played in a different way with babies than women did and Alexios had enjoyed Angel’s more physical, noisy approach. She wasn’t jealous of the bond she had seen developing between father and son because she could see how beneficial it would be for her child. ‘But try to keep him awake. I still have to feed him.’
‘And then perhaps we could talk...’
‘There’s not a lot to talk about... I mean, that reference to marriage was just pure insanity,’ Gaby told him irritably as she busied herself in the little kitchen area. ‘We’d probably kill each other by the end of the first month!’
‘But what a way to go...’ Angel husked, disconcerting her with that purred sensual response.
Sidestepping that inappropriate comment, Gaby picked up Alexios and slotted him into his high chair, attaching a bib and lifting the feeding dish. ‘Let’s stick to basics here. If you want a relationship with Alexios, I’m not planning to stand in the way.’
‘It was premature to refer to marriage. I shouldn’t have opened with the subject,’ Angel cut in smoothly.
And that interruption convinced Gaby that he had never meant to mention marriage in the first place, which made much better sense to her. In the heat of the moment, he had got carried away. Her tense shoulders relaxed a little as she fed Alexios, making aeroplane noises and gestures with the spoon to keep him awake.
‘I don’t have any lunch to offer you,’ she told Angel awkwardly. ‘Clara and I usually have a snack rather than a meal.’
‘Not a problem. I have to leave soon. I have an event to attend at home first thing tomorrow morning.’
Instead of feeling relieved by the reference to his departure, Gaby felt a sense of loss and hated herself. All right, Angel had been a colourful addition to her day, but she shouldn’t have any personal reaction to him. The drama was over, a DNA test would be done, presumably fences would be mended for the sake of peace and Angel would become an occasional visitor in his son’s life, she reasoned, censuring herself for getting more than superficially involved in his arrival.
Angel watched her tuck her sleepy son back into his cot. His proximity unnerved her. The room seemed to shrink around her as she brushed past him and closed the door. The faint tang of his cologne assailed her, firing memories of that night in Alharia, and she jerked back another step, accidentally knocking her hip against the wall.
‘You’re so jumpy around me,’ Angel remarked.
Unwarily, Gaby glanced up and was immediately ensnared by dark golden eyes that burned through her defences like hot lava. ‘Do you blame me? I mean, after what happened between us in Alharia?’ she extended uncomfortably.
‘No regrets this side of the fence,glykia mou,’ Angel husked, staring down at her, the luxuriant black tangle of his lashes intensifying his stunning gaze. ‘I’m no hypocrite. It was an extraordinary night.’
‘Oh,please, like I believe that after the number of such encounters that you must have had!’ Gaby riposted helplessly, breathless and taut in spite of every effort to remain unaffected by him.
‘Extraordinary and unforgettable,’ Angel repeated in defiance of that charge as he backed her into the wall, suddenly dangerously close and as dangerously intent on her as a tiger that had been provoked.
A ripple of awareness that was so highly charged that it almosthurttravelled through her slender frame. Her breasts felt constrained by her bra, the sensitive tips pushing to prominence against the scratchy lace while a clenching sensation tugged in her pelvis. Hot colour flooded her cheeks at that wholly primitive response that had nothing to do with logic and she trembled.
Angel scored a gentle fingertip across her cheekbone, his gaze molten gold with hunger, and it was too much for her in the mood she was in, all the emotional distress his appearance had evoked fusing with a desire she could not suppress. Stretching up on tiptoe, she claimed his wide sensual mouth for herself. He tasted of mint and fresh air and sunshine and a raw need that reverberated through her like a lightning strike. His mouth crushed hers and she felt as though she was collapsing into him until he edged her back against the wall for support. His tongue delved and liquid fire stabbed through her and that fast she wanted to rip his clothes off...
Her fingers dug into his shoulders, laced into his thick black hair. The fine fabric of his trousers couldn’t conceal the bold thrust of his erection against her midriff and her hand travelled down over his chest to trace the throbbing evidence of his arousal. He groaned under his breath, pushing against her, tugging at the waistband of her jeans, pushing down the zip.
Their mutual hunger was frantic, uncontrolled. There was nothing seemly about it, she would later concede when she thought back to that moment and shuddered with embarrassment. But right then the allure of the forbidden sucked her right in and swallowed her alive. The brush of his fingers against her stomach was familiar, the less innocent slide of his hand beneath her knickers desperately desired and his carnal touch there, where she ached most of all, unbearably exciting. She pushed against him and quivered, helplessly enthralled by the demands of her own body, her heart racing and her blood thrumming with a wild insistent beat in her veins. Desire had caught her in a steely, unbreakable hold and with every plunge of his wicked tongue and every stroke of his hand her defences splintered and weakened. Her sensation-starved body surged to a feverish peak at his command alone. In climax, she jerked and gasped and then gasped again, pleasure claiming her in long, tingling waves.
‘You drive me...insane,’ Angel groaned just as her jeans began to slide down her thighs.
In that same instant a mobile phone buzzed loudly and he looked at her and she looked at him and just when she believed that he would ignore his phone, he glanced down at his watch instead and suddenly swore in ragged Greek. ‘If I don’t leave now, the jet will miss our flight slot!’ he bit out in raw frustration.
