Speaking just had to spoil it.
And maybe he felt it too, because he swung her off her feet and into his arms, and strode through to the bedroom, his mouth tightly shut.
He lowered her onto the bed and came down over her, his breathing still unsteady as he stared down into her flushed, shocked face.
‘That was not for the cameras.’
She managed a weak smile. ‘I should hope not or your reputation will be shot to pieces for ever.’
He didn’t laugh, his face grimly serious as he stroked her tangled blonde hair away from her face.
‘I have never wanted a woman the way I want you. It scares me.’
She froze, stunned into silence by that uncharacteristically emotional admission.
‘I pride myself on my self-control, but with you—’ he broke off, lowering his mouth to the pulse in her throat like a man who couldn’t help himself ‘—with you I’m just so desperate I don’t know myself.’
It was the nearest he’d ever come to suggesting that what they shared was special and she held her breath, wanting him to say more. Wanting him to reveal something of his feelings.
‘Zander—’
She felt the hot, teasing lick of his tongue against her skin and the immediate response of her own body and then he lifted his head, his eyes glittering as he stared down at her. ‘For two weeks I’ve watched you, wanting to rip off every scrap of clothing and have you under me. I thought I was going mad—’
Lauranne stared at him with helpless frustration, realising that he’d managed to reduce their relationship to just sex once again. And having done that he seemed suddenly energised, the brooding introspection so fleeting that it might never have happened.
Having rationalised his feelings to his satisfaction, he sat up and ripped off his shirt, exposing his powerful chest.
Deciding that if just sex was all that was on offer then she’d make the most of it, Lauranne lifted a hand, her fingers tangling with the dark curls that covered the perfect musculature.
He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, his eyes still locked with hers as he licked her fingers suggestively before sucking them into the heat of his mouth.
Her body throbbed in response and her hips shifted on the bed, her dress riding up to her waist. With a rough groan he raised her up, dealt with her zip and stripped her naked in less time than it took to gasp out his name. Then he threw off the last of his own clothes and came down onto the bed next to her, lithe, handsome and shockingly male.
Her eyes skimmed over him and she felt the sparks of excitement shooting through her hopelessly aroused body. The sexual attraction between them was so breathtakingly powerful that she knew there was absolutely no hope for her. He was magnificent in every way, perfectly proportioned and indecently good-looking.
He kissed his way down her body with a gratifying amount of male appreciation, muttering something in Greek as his mouth found the soft swell of her breasts.
Shaping her with his strong hands, he licked at her nipple with skilled strokes of his tongue, sending powerful darts of sensation coursing through her helplessly trembling body. Then he slid down her body and what happened next was the most shockingly exciting experience of her life. She squirmed and writhed under the touch of his clever mouth, her fingers curling into the sheets as her whole body simmered with a sexual need so strong that it threatened to engulf her.
She felt so frantic that she didn’t recognise herself and she wanted him so badly that she was willing to beg. Finally, when she’d given up and decided that she was definitely going to die of pleasure, he slid back up her body and parted her thighs.
‘You are so sexy, agape mou,’ he husked, simmering dark eyes raking her flushed face with a gratifying degree of male appreciation. ‘And I love the way that you want me as much as I want you—’
Without giving her a chance to reply, he thrust smoothly inside her wildly excited body, trapping her cries of pleasure with his mouth.
She moved against him, desperate to cool the burning fire in her pelvis, aching to reach the fulfilment that only he could give her. But he slowed the pace, thrusting hard and deep, driving her higher and higher until she experienced a climax so explosive that she dug her nails in his back and sobbed his name.
She felt him shudder against her, felt his hard, powerful body deep inside hers and then he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, her damp, breathless body held firmly against his.
And then she knew—
Lying in his arms, she knew without a doubt that she loved him and she always had. That was the reason she’d married him, even though she’d always known that he didn’t love her.
And that was the reason she hadn’t divorced him.
Because she hadn’t been able to. In her heart she would always be married to Zander.
Depressed by the knowledge that she could never enjoy a casual relationship with him, she lay still, coming to terms with the painful realisation that she was heading for a major emotional disaster again.