Page 24 of Contractually Wed

“You’re right. I’m a poor husband,agapi,” he said, tugging at the hem of her blouse until he could pull it off her head. A sudden blast of cold air hit her skin.

Shock and arousal flooded her system, releasing a riot of shivers through her. His big hands cupped her shoulders, palms rough and abrasive, his body heat a sliding rasp against her front and his mouth...his hot, soft mouth was at her lips. Nibbling away the last of her defenses.

Jia’s groan seemed to emerge from the depths of her being.

Apollo kissed her roughly, nipping and biting, barely letting her breathe while his hands drifted down from her shoulders to her back. Her strapless bra came loose and her nipples puckered.

Shivers overtook her, of a different kind this time, when he cupped her small breasts and the pads of his thumbs flicked at her nipples. Jia arched her spine, each little flick arrowing down straight to her core. When he pushed her with a hand on her shoulder, she bowed back as if she was made of nothing but elastic desire.

Steely eyes held hers as his tongue laved at one nipple and then the other, before he drew it into his mouth with rhythmic pulls. She jerked at the stinging pressure, slowly lapping over into shivering waves all through her. When she tried to rub her thighs, his thigh blocked the movement. She made a keening sound in her throat, her arousal winding and tugging concentric circles in her lower belly. Eager to do the same to him, she scooted forward on the desk.

She undid the buttons on his shirt roughly, until she could reach warm, taut skin. Holding his gaze, Jia stroked her palms all over him—the hard planes of his chest, the rough down of his chest hair and the ridged muscles of his stomach. With each stroke of her hands, the gray of his eyes deepened.

When her hand drifted to his crotch, he captured it, lifted her hand, and pressed his mouth to her wrist. Both hands arrested, Jia leaned forward and rubbed her bare breasts against his chest.

He groaned. The rough brush of his chest hair against her sensitive nipples was both torment and pleasure. His attention on the slide of their flesh, he released her hand. Jia snuck it down his abdomen until she could cradle his erection. With a rough grunt and a rougher curse, he rocked into her touch before he caught himself.

“You’re cheating,” he said, his hands caressing her breasts with such thoroughness that she forgot what she meant to do.

“All’s fair in lust and war,” she said, craning her body into his touch.

Grinning, he paid her back in full. As if he had all the time and energy in the world, he started all over again, trailing kisses down her jaw, between her breasts and down to her belly button and then back up.

He teased and tormented her nipples with his tongue, sucked them into his mouth, grazed them with his teeth until Jia was writhing on the desk, a mindless wanton made of nothing but nerve endings, spiraling and fragmenting. Her climax was a taunting mirage just out of reach. When his hand went to the seam of her shorts, she stilled.

He licked the shell of her ear, his voice a husky taunt. “If you’re not ready for more, it’s fine. But let me make up for ignoring you for two days.”

She looked up, honey pooling in her veins. “They’re all out there and can probably hear us. I couldn’t face them if—”

“What do you think my sisters do with their partners?”

She blushed. “I...it’s the middle of the day and—”

“All you have to say is ‘not now,’pethi mou,” he said with a tenderness that threatened to break her into pieces.

“No. I want this. I came prepared for this.”

“That sounds like an exhausted, put-upon wife bracing herself for her marital duties.”

She looked up and the humor in his eyes undid the sudden tension that seemed to have overtaken her. “No, I mean I was... I was looking forward to this. I started the pill before we left.”

“But?” he said.

Jia thought he’d meant to say something else but changed tack at the last second. “No buts and ifs. I want this, Apollo. You have to give me a little control though.”

His smile was wicked as he moved his hands in ahave at megesture. But the tension in his body was unmistakable. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like she was the only one drowning. And Jia realized that that was the root of the problem.

His gift, horrible as he called it, had shifted the current between them and she felt as if she’d been splayed open for his benefit. Knowing he was as gone for this heat between them...made her feel better. Made her feel equal and wanted, at least on this surface level.

Pressing her mouth to the warm, hard skin of his chest, she busied her hands with the zipper on his trousers. His black boxers went next. Impatience coating her skin with a tremble, she barely pushed them past his hips when his cock popped out.

A fresh set of flutters began between her thighs. Wetness soaked her thong when she fisted his length and gave it a tug. His head thrown back, his chest heaving, Apollo looked like one of those stone sculptures she’d once seen at the MOMA. But warmer and harder and so...more achingly real than any perfect marble bust could be.

Jia increased the speed of her fist, acting purely on instinct and feeding on his reactions. She traced the slit in the head with the pad of her thumb and when it came away wet, she sucked the pad into her mouth.

Apollo let out a filthy curse. “Jia...you drive me wild.”

“You taste...” Jia swallowed at the dark cavern of want opening up in his eyes “...like decadence and arrogance and all the filthy desires I never admitted to myself.”

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