Page 37 of The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain

He wanted to make it last for ever and yet he wanted it to be over in an instant to relieve him of this feeling which was threatening to engulf him—to swamp him with feelings surely better kept at bay—and suddenly he moved over her, knowing that he could wait no more.

‘Xandros!’ He had lulled her with his soft words and unfamiliar tenderness, but the shock of him entering her body after so long was like something else. Like finding sweet water in the middle of an unforgiving desert, and it made her cry out in joyful yet pained recognition that—like the desert’s water—this was all an illusion.

He stilled. ‘I am hurting you?’

‘No!’ Or, at least, not in the way he meant—for her body could always accommodate this proud, virile Greek, even if her heart was made of less resilient stuff. ‘No, you’re not hurting me, Xandros.’

‘Ah!’ His lips were on her breasts and in her hair. They whispered along her neck and over the scented hollows of her shoulders. Moving slowly, with each perfect thrust he increased the pleasure, notch by notch. She moved beneath him—moving with growing and impatient pleasure. Until at last she gave the beginnings of a low, soft moan which he kissed quiet—aware that the house was not empty. And only then did he spill out his seed with one long and shuddering breath of release.

Afterwards, he fell asleep easily—as he always had done after sex, the same and yet surely not the same at all. Rebecca thought that this moment should have felt like some kind of immense victory—so why did it feel so curiously empty?

She stared up at the ceiling as the slow, steady rhythm of Xandros’s breathing warmed her neck. And the questions which had been put on hold for so long now came rushing into her mind, demanding answers.

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS past dawn when Xandros awoke, narrowing his eyes against the pale light filtering in through the windows—his surroundings as unfamiliar as the sweet saturation of his senses.

He was in Rebecca’s bed!

He turned his head to look for her, but his first instinct had been the right one, he realised. He was alone—the rumpled sheets and the faint, musky scent of sex were the only signs that he had not dreamt up the mind-blowing love-making they had indulged in last night.

So where was she? He yawned. With the babies?

Automatically, his mouth curved into a smile and he raised his arms up above his head and stretched, lazily, before getting out of bed and pulling on his discarded jeans and loosely buttoning his shirt. He would go and look for her. Bring her back to bed.

He found her downstairs in the kitchen—her back to him as she stood staring out into the deserted, dawn-fresh street. She must have just fed the twins, for she was drinking thirstily from a large glass of water and she did not appear to hear him enter the room.

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bsp; ‘Rebecca?’ he said softly.

Unseen, Rebecca’s fingers tightened around the glass—as if she could extract some kind of courage from its cool, smooth surface. But she didn’t say anything. Not yet. No. She didn’t trust herself.

He took her silence for shyness. Of course she would be shy—after what had happened between them. It had been…amazing. His bare feet soundless on the tiled floor, he walked over to her and bent his face to her neck, inhaling her sweet scent as he revelled in the silken feel of her hair against his skin.

‘Come back to bed,’ he murmured, aware of the growing ache at his groin.

She stiffened. ‘I’m not tired.’

‘Perfect.’ His voice dipped. ‘Neither am I.’

But Rebecca’s shoulders remained stiff—her body as straight and unforgiving as a sentry—determined not to relax by even a fraction for Xandros was much too powerful. One touch and she would weaken and her resolve would be lost.

‘I think I’ll go and have a shower and get dressed,’ she said.

Now that most definitely did not sound as if she was extending a sensual invitation. Xandros narrowed his eyes. ‘Rebecca?’

She knew that she could not carry on standing staring out of the window, that she needed to face him, but it was the hardest thing she could remember doing in a long time—wiping all the emotion and longing from her face so that he would not be able to seize on any vulnerability. Because she was not going to do vulnerable any more. What she was about to do next was the only possible way forward.

Turning round, she gave him the kind of quick, polite smile she might have used if he were back in one of the passenger seats at Evolo airlines—and she were about to offer him a cup of coffee.

‘It’s not worth going back to bed,’ she said briskly.

He gave her one last chance. Maybe this was decorum speaking. A woman seeking approval after such an abandoned response in his arms. He could go along with that. ‘Rebecca,’ he said softly. ‘Agape mou.’

It should have been enough. There was a whole world of sensual promise in those words, the soft and faintly accented way he said her name, which was incomparable to the way that any other mortal said it. And maybe in any other circumstances it would have been enough—for it would have been easy to have slipped into his warm embrace. Much, much too easy to have given herself up to his seeking kiss. To have allowed him to lead her upstairs, not saying anything for fear of disturbing their children or their nurses—but trying to hide their secret, complicit smiles while inside their hearts were bursting with the excitement of what was about to take place.

But Xandros’s heart would not be bursting, she reminded herself. The source of his excitement was seated in a place far more elemental—and that was what she needed to remember. Not her wishes, or dreams or hopes or foolish longings that one day he might love her with the same passion which burned so brightly in her heart for him. Because he wouldn’t.

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