Page 27 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

Her breathing was rushed, her skin hot all over, and when he brought his mouth back up over her body, kissing her again, his stubble rubbed that over-sensitive skin and she whimpered because it all felt so damned good.

“Wait here,” he ground out, eyes dark and fierce.

She blinked at him, unable to find the words to tell him she wasn’t sure she was capable of moving; her whole body was like jelly.

He disappeared into the bathroom and returned just a moment later carrying a condom. A condom? From her bathroom?

“They’ve been there a while but I presume it will still work.” His grin was tight, as though he was just keeping a lid on his own needs. “Okay?”

She nodded. Hell. She hadn’t even thought of protection. What kind of first grade fool did that make her? After what had happened with Jack and their baby, how could she have come close to running that risk again?

He tore the top off the packet and unfurled it over his impressive length; Emma’s eyes followed carefully, and Vasilios’s breath hissed from between his teeth.

“If you look at me like that, I’m not going to be able to make it last longer than three seconds,” he grunted, with obvious false modesty because she suspected Vasilios would have a stamina every bit as impressive as the rest of his traits.

Nonetheless, her eyes flew to his face and held there as he walked back to the bed and brought himself over her, his broad, masculine body heavy and with the most sensual fragrance—pool water and cologne and something else, something that was just indefinably Vasilios, so her stomach rolled and her senses quivered.

His knee nudged her thighs apart and she was lost on a sea of desire, on a sea of feeling, but the thoughts that had been swirling in the back of her mind suddenly pushed themselves to the front of it, louder and now harder to ignore. “Vasilios,” she said with urgency, as his tip pressed against her feminine core. “I lied to you earlier today,” she whispered.

He stared at her, something hardening to flint in his expression. Even then, did he still think the worst of her?

“I’m afraid of some things. I’m afraid of this.”

He frowned instantly. “Of sex?”

She bit into her lower lip.

“Of what sex can do, of what it can mean. I don’t want—I don’t want this to mean anything.”

His eyes were darkened by emotions she didn’t understand, but then he kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that pushed her fears and doubts to the back of her mind and made her moan and grab his bottom and try to pull him inside her. It was futile. Vasilios was the master of their destiny, and it was only when he was ready, when he knew she was at the point of losing her mind with need, that he pushed into her as deep as he could go and hitched himself there, allowing her to get used to the feeling of his size, of him, allowing her muscles to squeeze and rejoice in this feeling of fulness, before he began to move, each thrust building Emma to a state of fevered crescendo, until she was tilting over the edge again, so quickly, so hungrily, so loudly, her fingers once again trying to scratch holes in the duvet simply as a means of keeping a place in reality.

She was right about Vasilios, of course. His powerful, clever body was masterful, and he mastered her with ease, driving her to the edge and over it multiple times, then holding her in a state of suspended pleasure, right on the cusp, bringing her there and pulling her back, kissing her, touching her breasts, her body, his mouth exploring her all over, until she was quite delirious and then he brought her once more to the edge, but harder, higher, more urgently than ever before, holding her tight as they both flew over it together, their shared euphoria reflected in their cries that filled the bedroom of the pool house.

* * *

How could Emma not feel that what had happened mattered? That it meant something? Not between herself and Vasilios, who’d left almost offensively soon after they’d made love, but within Emma. Up until last night, she’d considered herself first and foremost a widow; Jack was her late husband. That was still the case, but it was as though something had shifted inside of her by being with someone else, and Emma didn’t know how she felt about it.

She was a tangle of emotions, none easy to discern.

Sadness, guilt, a sense of betrayal, even though she knew Jack hadn’t been faithful to her—information she’d gathered only after his death. But there was also something frighteningly like excitement and anticipation, a kick of adrenalin whenever she thought of seeing Vasilios again.

It scared her, how much she was looking forward to that, and so Emma forced herself to take a deep breath in the morning, before leaving for the main house, to promise herself that she wouldn’t reveal by a single glance that she thought of Vasilios any differently today than she had yesterday.

That their having had sex meant nothing to Emma, just as she’d said to him, in the midst of it all.

* * *

Vasilios controlled the burgeoning wave of frustration with effort. He was not a man to give into his emotions, to let feelings like impatience or jealousy control his actions, but he couldn’t help but be aware of both those sentiments as he watched Emma across the breakfast table. Emma, who refused to meet his eyes. Emma, who was making a great show of lavishing Costa with smiling, adoring affection, laughing softly at shared jokes, cutting up Costa’s pastries so they were easier to handle, pouring his coffee. Vasilios was struck by two things: the first, that their intimacy bothered him more now than it had on that first day. The second, that there was a synchronicity between Emma and Costa that spoke of a long-established routine, and Vasilios realised he’d never known anything like this easy domesticity.

His childhood had been chaotic. Even his summers here had been irregular, shaped by his workaholic grandfather’s schedule, their busy social life—as one of the preeminent families in Italy they entertained often, lavish parties and celebrations attended by Europe’s elite. Vasilios couldn’t easily remember any two days having been exactly the same.

But was this what Vasilios had wanted? Had craved?

Was this what his life was like now?

How little Vasilios knew of his grandfather ate away at his gut, made all the more painful because Emma seemed to have easily acquired those answers.

“It’s going to be hot today,” Costa said with a frown, looking towards the ocean. “Perhaps a walk isn’t a good idea.”

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