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Hadn’t she?
Wasn’t this the best thing that had happened to her in six long years?
His mouth was on her jaw.
And then drifting downwards.
She could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. He was whispering kisses down her neck, until he reached the scalloped edge of her sundress. Holding her breath with anticipation, Mia could feel her swollen breasts pushing towards his lips, bullet-like nipples sending out a silent scream for him to bare them, or touch them, or dosomethingrather than leave her aching like this.
Did he realise how wet she was? Was that why he began to ruck up her skirt with a low laugh of triumph? That should have been enough to make her stop, but her starved senses were refusing to let her. She could feel his hand tiptoeing up over her leg and the goose-bumping of tender skin as he edged towards the juncture of her thighs. And now came the light graze of his finger—negligent, almost careless—as it skated over the engorged mound of her panties.
Mia gasped, her eyelids fluttering to a close because his finger was moving against the silk-covered bud with exquisite accuracy and the scent of her arousal was filling the air with musky perfume. She was parting her thighs, eager for him to push aside the damp fabric and caress her heated flesh. Or maybe to tug the unwanted panties down and let them flutter to her ankles like a white silk flag of surrender. Already, she was close. So close. And Mia knew if she didn’t call a halt to this, something was going to happen.
She froze. Not justsomething. Any minute now and she would be gasping out a helpless orgasm, administered by a cold-blooded man who had made no secret of his contempt for her. What wouldthatdo for her feelings of self-worth? She wasn’t a teenager any more, whose sexual response was being governed by a man who liked to control.Shewas the one in charge of her own body and she couldn’t let this happen.
She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. He must have correctly interpreted her wishes because he let his hand fall, before quickly walking away from her as if her touch had begun to contaminate him. His shoulders were hunched, his ragged breathing the only sound breaking the fraught silence. Her heart thundering, Mia surveyed the forbidding set of his body as she tried to rationalise what had happened, feeling as if some sort of explanation was required. As if she needed to say something which would rid her of the stupid certainty that she had just passed up on a piece of paradise. A few words which might help claw back what little remained of her dignity.
‘We...we shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Parakalo,’he said coolly, holding up the palm of his hand, like a city policeman stopping the traffic.
‘Please, what?’ she questioned, because this word shedidunderstand.
His black eyes were so cold as they flickered over her face that she wondered if this could really be the same man who had just been kissing her so passionately.
‘Spare me the morality lecture, Mia,’ he continued. ‘You wanted it. I wanted it. It was a mistake. So what?’
She bristled at the way he said it—as if it had been an insignificant event, best forgotten—but at least it sent out a warning that she couldn’t afford to be vulnerable around him. Clearing her throat, she attempted to replicate his own cool tone. ‘I didn’t come here to reignite our physical relationship.’
‘I believe you. Believe me, it wasn’t what I intended either.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But the fact that we still want each other throws up something of a dilemma.’
‘What sort of dilemma?’ she echoed cautiously.
‘I suppose the question is, what are we going to do about the insane chemistry which still exists between us?’
Theo’s gaze was steady as he registered her look of shock, aware that his words were brutal—but why bother playing games? Why pretend everything was civilised when, beneath the surface, it was anything but? That white-hot desire still burned beneath the surface. It was burning now, despite the coolness of his words. It was making him harder than he could ever remember. How did shedothat? Was it just the frustration of never having had her, which made him want her so much?
‘Because it’s a lasting regret of mine,’ he continued slowly. ‘That I was neverproperlyintimate with you.’
‘Intimate?’ Her shock had given way to surprise and her voice had become very brittle. ‘Surely that’s nothing but a fancy way of describing sex?’
With a nod of his head, he acknowledged a frankness she would never have used in the past and the baldness of her question should have reassured him she was no longer thinking along foolish fairy-tale lines of love, and romance. But it did no such thing. It didn’t reassure him. It made his body tighten and a flare of jealousy begin to ignite. Because underneath it all, Theo was still an old-fashioned man. Especially with her. For this was the woman onto whose finger he had once slid a golden ring, intended to bind them together for life. Where was that ring now? he wondered caustically.
‘Perhaps you would prefer me to skip the euphemisms and talk dirty to you,’ he suggested silkily. ‘Is that what you like these days, Mia? Is that whatturns you on?’
She tilted her chin—perhaps to conceal the blush he was finding intensely appealing—but all that resulted was that her chestnut ringlets cascaded around her shoulders, and Theo was momentarily transfixed by her voluptuous beauty. Her eyes flashed blue fire and for a moment he thought she was going to rise to his challenge and tell him exactly what shedidsay to the men who had shared her bed. And wouldn’t that kill his hunger for her more effectively than anything else, if he imagined her being possessed by another man?
But she said no such thing and he was relieved to have been spared that mental torture.
‘How dated your views sound, Theo,’ she chided softly. ‘What I do in or out of bed is nobody’s business but my own. Just like your private life is nothing to do with me. We’re divorced in all but name. We’ve both moved on.’
Had he? Sometimes he wondered. But his track record was irrelevant. There was only one thing which seemed relevant now. His objectives had changed, he realised. They had been changing since he’d sought her out in London. Suddenly it was no longer enough to facilitate a meeting with her grandfather, in order to pay back some of the debt he owed the old man. He had told Mia their kiss had been a mistake, but what if he had been wrong? What if he had been blinding himself to the truth all this time? What if sex with the woman who had deserted him would be less of a complication, and more of a closure?
Because wasn’t the reality that Mia had been like a subtle thorn embedded in his flesh all this time? The thorn had burrowed deep enough for him to imagine that it had been absorbed into his body. Determined not to think about her, for the most part he had succeeded—and to the outside world his life was one of supreme accomplishment, on just about every level. No party was ever complete without Theo Aeton on the guest list, with the most glamorous woman in the room hanging eagerly onto his arm. No opening night as special as when the newspapers carried an image of his carved and unsmiling features.
But Mia had always been a shadow lingering on the edges of his heart. She had always represented something unfinished—and for a man whose beginnings had been so messy, that had not sat easily with him. Now he had seen her again. He had touched her and tasted her. Against his will, the fire in his body had been reignited and this time he wanted it to burn out. He wanted more than a kiss and a few frantic stolen caresses. A pulse thudded erratically at his temple. He wanted what should have been his on their wedding night.
Mia.
