Page 16 of Virgin's Night with the Greek

He didn’t need to know. He didn’twantto know. There’d been too much talking for one night already. What he wanted was to shake her off and get out of the damn car, even if such a dramatic move did attract the attention of the guests trickling out of the hotel to make their own way home. But her proximity and her touch were pulverising his reason and clawing at his control so instead he heard himself saying, ‘What about?’

‘About carrying on where we left off. On the dance floor. About doing as your brother suggested and getting a room.’

There was a rushing in his head. A pounding in his chest. And all he could think wasYes, yes, yesuntil into the madness, thank God, plunged a much-needed arrow of cold, hard discipline.

Steeling himself, he removed her hand from his arm and abruptly shifted around to make her scuttle back. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’ she said, to his irritation barely moving at all. ‘You seemed pretty into it.’ Her gaze dropped to his mouth and her face filled with a dreamy sort of hunger that tightened his chest for a moment. ‘That kiss was something else.’

‘The kiss was nothing,’ he said bluntly, refusing to allow the scorching memory of it into his head and instead offering up heartfelt thanks to whoever had made the decision to tint the car’s windows.

‘It wasn’t. I felt you. Hard. Against me.’

The area in question throbbed and his pulse skipped a beat, but Leo squared his jaw even more and ignored both in favour of a lie. ‘It was merely an instinctive response to the environment.’ An anathema, in other words. Because, generally speaking, nothing he did was instinctive and he was never affected by an environment. A blip. That was what that moment on the dance floor had been. A momentary lapse after a very stressful day. ‘It was nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Don’t be so modest.’

The faint smile tugging at her lips fired his mounting irritation at her continued refusal to do as he commanded. ‘You’re finding this amusing.’

‘Not at all,’ she said with enviable aplomb. ‘I simply know what I want and am intent on getting it.’

‘Reverse our roles and this conversation would border on harassment. In fact, it does, even as things stand.’

‘Reverse our roles and we’d be naked already because I’d put up no resistance.’

Despite his best efforts, Leo had no defence against the images that cascaded into his head then. They were too many and too vivid. Bodies glued together. Mouths joined, limbs entwined, glorious multicoloured hair spread out on the pillow or swishing down the length of his body. Heat, sweat, breathy moans and soft little cries. In his mind’s eye, he could see and hear it all.

‘You’re playing with fire,’ he warned, his voice rough and thick with the desire that, to his consternation, he was struggling and failing to keep at bay.

A glowing light shimmered and danced in the depths of her emerald eyes. ‘Is that a threat or a promise?’

Either. Both. He didn’t know. ‘A threat.’

‘I’m OK with getting burned.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am very OK with it. In fact, I positivelyyearnto get burned.’

She might think that, but she had no idea that deep inside him lurked the well-buried traces of the youth he’d once been, the fierce, fearless kid who threw tantrums and took risks and crashed boats. No idea what might result if he relinquished his tightly held grip on his control entirely and those traces broke free of the bonds that shackled them to smash to pieces his veneer of civility and take over. Hell, since it had never happened before, even he had no idea of the raging wildness he could be capable of as an adult and the fallout it could incur unleashed. Burning might be the least of it.

‘Forget it.’

‘One night, Leo,’ she said softly, seductively, stealing his wits and scattering his objections to the wind. ‘That’s all I want. Truly. I can’t imagine I’m your usual type. I doubt I’m nearly chic or sophisticated enough for a worldly yet cynical billionaire like you. Relationships aren’t my thing and besides, I have my career to focus on. One night together, I’ll leave in the morning and you need never see me again. It’s nothing to get worked up about. It’s just sex. But if you truly have a problem with that, if you really want me to get out of this car and leave you alone, I will.’

She stopped, waiting breathlessly, the pulse at the base of her neck pounding, and all he could think in the thick thunderingly silent darkness was that he wanted nothing less than to be left alone. He wanted her beyond comprehension, beyond reason, and he couldn’t deny it any longer.

There’d been an inevitability to this conversation from the moment she’d invaded his space and shattered his peace. He’d had many opportunities to exit the car and leave her to it yet he’d taken none of them. So what was the point of continuing to fight a battle he’d already lost? And why would he even want to when it had been so long since he’d done something purely for himself?

He’d been overthinking things, that was the trouble. He’d been unsettled by the strength of the desire Willow aroused in him and what that might imply. But it needn’t imply anything. He wouldn’t lose his head. He never had with a woman before.

And of course he didn’t have a problem with a one-night stand, even though for him it would be a first, which was odd, come to think of it, considering he’d got through his fair share of the opposite sex in his younger days. Sure, such behaviour seemed rash and reckless by its very nature and spontaneity hadn’t been a word in his vocabulary for years, but he could see the merit in one now. Unaddressed, the relentlessly erotic dreams he’d been having in which she featured so heavily would drive him demented. Addressed, by sunrise, the desire with which he burned could be assuaged and the status quo by which he lived could be restored.

One night spent engaged in the pursuit of ecstasy with a gorgeous, sexy woman who wanted the same...

Maximum pleasure, minimal conversation, no aftermath...

And why, exactly, was he resisting?

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