Page 21 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

“You’re cold?”

He didn’t miss a thing!

Emma shook her head.

“Something else?”

She bit into her lower lip, hating herself for being so affected by him but also incredibly full of tangling, leaping feelings that she didn’t know what to do with.

The sun filtered from behind a building: that lovely, afternoon warmth bathing them both, but particularly lighting Vasilios in a streak of gold that drew her eyes to his head, his hair, and she reached up before she knew what she was doing, her fingers brushing it lightly, as though she could touch the beam of sunshine. Instead, she touched him, his hair, the shape of his head, and let her hand drop to his shoulder.

“I actually enjoyed our lunch,” she said with a small smile, but her eyes were haunted when they met his. This was never going to be easy.

Desiring another man after the death of her husband, after the way he’d died, after the trauma of it all…even their marriage should have served as a warning against this kind of fire and flame, and yet in that moment, with the heat seeming to encircle her, Emma couldn’t fight the desire that was whipping through her.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

A small smile tickled the corner of his lips; her bones seemed to melt away to nothingness. The hand on his shoulder was now essential for support.

“I knew I’d enjoy our time together,cara.”

She shook her head, dispelling that. “You were as irritated by me as I was by you.”

“Was? Does that mean you no longer find me irritating?”

Damn it, she was revealing too much. She focussed all her effort on rearranging her features to give as little away as possible. “Let’s just say the jury’s out.”

“I’m on probation?” He prompted, lifting his own hand now, brushing his fingers over her cheek so her eyes shuttered and her breath sucked in unevenly.

“Something like that,” she whispered.

“Is there anything I can do to win my case?” His thumb padded across her lower lip and she had to bite down on it to stop from moaning audibly. Her legs could barely hold her upright.

She tried, really tried, to hold onto common sense. To remember who she was, why she was here, whohewas, how he’d spoken to her that first night, but it all swirled and swarmed away from her, so all that was left wasthismagnetism and need. Madness was running through her veins and she didn’t care at all.

“I think there might be,” she said, lifting up onto the tips of her toes, eyes sparking with his, challenging him, begging him, promising him all at once. He stood perfectly still, like a statue, so it was up to Emma to close the distance and it didn’t occur to her that his stillness might indicate a lack of interest or a hesitation on his part. Instead, she simply moved, taking what she wanted for the first time in a very long time, the brushing of her lips against his empowering and proactive, so she felt a throb of her feminist credentials returning after a long time in the wilderness. Why shouldn’t she stake a claim to her sexuality? Why shouldn’t she enjoy a physical connection like most women her age were free to do?

But that was the last rational thought she was capable of, because a simple brush of their lips quickly morphed into something else, when Vasilios returned her kiss, his mouth gentle at first, and then insistent, his lips dominating as his tongue flicked hers, his body melded to Emma’s, his arms around her back holding her to him, vice like, so she was aware of every hard, toned inch of his frame. Desire was no longer a pulsing awareness so much as an explosion obliterating her body as she knew it. She could hardly breathe and wouldn’t have been able to stand up if it weren’t for his support, his strength an intrinsic part of her.

But then, he pulled back, eyes boring into hers, heat licking Emma all over, and she wanted to cry out, because the kiss had been so perfect and addictive, but so absolutely just thestartof what she wanted that his withdrawal was unbearable.

“Vasilios?” Was all she was capable of saying, of asking, her hand moving to his chest and pressing there.

“Let’s go home, Emma. Costa will be wondering where you are.”

His bike ate up the road with ease and familiarity—he’d driven it enough times to navigate it in the dark, but in deference to Emma he took it slower than usual. Which suited Vasilios fine because his mind was engaged in dissecting what the hell had just happened.

Lunch had been a revelation. Though she’d tried hard to keep her cards close to her chest, she’d revealed enough to Vasilios for him to start piecing together a picture of who Emma was. She’d fallen in with his plans perfectly, gradually opening up to him, relaxing, teasing him, and obviously wanting him, so that by the time they left the restaurant, a kiss had been inevitable.

But not that kind of kiss.

Not the kind of kiss that stripped a man of all willpower and sense. Not the kind of kiss that threatened to annihilate all awareness of thought and time.

The kiss had taken on a life of its own so all he’d wanted was to find a hotel room and drag her into it, to seduce her properly, except…

Costa.

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