Page 27 of Contractually Wed

“What?” she said, startled enough that she slid a little lower in the tub.

Apollo used the chance to pull her to him. A little stiff, she came into his arms reluctantly as if she didn’t dare trust him, even after the afternoon they’d shared. It annoyed him that she always held something of herself back. It was the very trust he wanted, was beginning to crave even in waking moments.

He would figure her out, he promised himself.

He settled her legs around his hips and she relaxed, her core pressed right over his shaft, and they groaned. He stole a soft kiss, liking her like this, all wet and soft and malleable. But he wasn’t about to let himself get distracted.

“If no one was rude to you, why the sadness?”

She shrugged and hid her face in his neck. Her armor was showing holes, he realized, with that weird pride slash satisfaction.

“Jia?”

“I just...” Tears swam in her eyes when she looked up. She wiped them with the back of her hands and scoffed, the sound full of self-deprecation.

“Tell me,parakalo.” Even that word, which he barely said to anyone, came easy with her.

A shuddering wet exhale shook her slender shoulders. “Your family is...like my dream family. They fight and argue and yell at each other, but beneath it all, there’s this thread of acceptance and love.”

She whispered the last as if the word might reach out and bite her. Then she cut her gaze away and he knew it was because she didn’t want him to see it. “I couldn’t help...wishing mine was remotely like that.”

“My family is yours, Jia.”

Her gaze was stricken when it met his, as if the very idea was impossible.

“You can let the old one go and embrace this one. Especially since they all adore you already.”

“Spoken like a ruthless billionaire,” she retorted but there was no bite to it.

When he grabbed her hips and rubbed her folds against his erection, she groaned. The hiss of pain beneath that sound poked a hole through his haze of lust.

“You’re sore,” he said, arresting her hips when she’d have repeated his actions.

“It’s been a while,” she murmured, her tongue lapping at his shoulder like a cat.

“How long a while?” he said, her mouth playing havoc with his control.

She looked up, and frowned. “Am I allowed to ask the same question?”

“About...three years. Don’t even remember her name,” he replied. “I’ve been busy—”

“With taking over my father’s company,” she said, nodding. Then she scrunched her brow. “Seven years and once, technically but not quite.”

She never said “our company,” he noted with a spark of anger on her behalf. “So I didn’t pull you away from a young, ardent boyfriend?”

She rubbed her cheek against his and moaned when his stubble scraped. “It’s a little late for that question.”

He gripped her chin in his fingers, stopping her exploration. Willing her to meet his gaze. “Not an answer.”

“Why all these questions now?”

“I’m curious.”

“I’ve only ever had one boyfriend if you could call him that. I was eighteen, and we met in secret because my father wouldn’t have approved. He was a musician.”

“Ahh...the tattoos,” Apollo said, his voice dry. That this old, far-gone lover had left such a mark on her made him intensely jealous.

Jia grinned and scraped her teeth against his chin, before peppering soft, warm kisses against his jawline as if she was mapping the contours of his face to memory. “Jax did encourage me to get that first tattoo. But the rest are all mine. A kind of rebellion, if you really want to know. My father hates them.”

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