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Into the face of a wide-awake Zeph, who was staring at her with unabashed interest.
CHAPTER SIX
THEEVER-PRESENTFRICTIONthat relentlessly marked their interactions shot up by a thousand degrees the moment their eyes met. Like a flame tossed onto gasoline, Imogen felt it light a path down their connected bodies, extinguishing what little brain power and oxygen there was left in the room.
‘Kalismera, Imogen,’ Zeph rasped.
A shudder as every cell sizzled at his deep, languid voice.
Move. Speak. Do something.
Anticipating her body’s reluctance to obey, she forcibly disentangled herself and pushed at his shoulders. He resisted for a nanosecond before his arms loosened.
Rolling away from him, she dragged her gaze from his naked,delicioustorso, a jagged kind of relief slithering through her when she saw she was still in her bathrobe, although the belt had come seriously loose.
‘Wh-what am I doing here?’ she asked, cringing at the breathless quality of her voice as she tightened the belt.
Zeph’s shoulder hitched in a languid shrug. ‘The sofa is comfortable only for so long. I didn’t want you to wake up with a sore neck, so I moved you.’
‘But you could’ve woken me up.’
‘Why? You were struggling to sleep as much as I was. It was clear you needed it. No harm no foul.’ A moment ticked by. Then two. His jaw tightened. ‘Or do you think there was foul,glikia mou?’ he enquired silkily, in that way that sent different kinds of shivers down her spine.
She raised a hand to drag back her dishevelled hair, then bit back a moan when the act reminded her how very little she was wearing beneath the robe. Reminded how that very thin scrap of fabric had been the only thing between their bodies.
How that sparked new, eager flames in her.
She was scrambling to place more distance between herself and that thought when he jackknifed upright.
‘A lesser man would develop a complex from your reactions. Which is puzzling because you’re attracted to me.’ When she opened her mouth to issue a hot denial, he batted it away. ‘Your body gives you away, Imogen.’
She didn’t need to glance down to confirm his statement. The tips of her breasts were hard and aching, screaming and displaying their need to him.
‘Which makes me think the reluctance is...’ His jaw clenched tight for a moment before he shook his head. Narrow-eyed, his expression changed from lazy cynicism to fierce intent. ‘Was I cruel to you?’ The words were bitten out, as if he didn’t want to say them, but needed to know.
Her heart lurched, both at the fire in his eyes and the sensation of shifting sands beneath her feet. ‘You weren’t abusive, if that’s what you’re asking.’
His nostrils flared and he dragged a hand through his own hair. ‘You know what I’m asking, Imogen.’
She sucked in a breath. Then shook her head. ‘You weren’t cruel in the true sense of the word. But you were...indifferent. I was a means to an end for you.’
He stiffened. ‘Why? And why you?’
Please don’t make me answer that.
She breathed a short-lived sigh of relief when the plea didn’t tumble out. But she still needed to answer. ‘I asked you the same thing when you...when my father told me about the deal he was making with you.’
His gaze probed deeper. ‘Your father? He was involved in arranging our union somehow?’
She wanted to laugh. Both at the understatement and at the way Zeph oh-so-accurately referred to their marriage as a negotiation even though he had no memory of it. ‘Yes. From start to finish.’
‘And?’
‘And...you said you preferred to enter an agreement with a clear understanding that there would be zero emotional involvement between us.’
‘Why?’ he breathed.
‘I don’t know.’
