“Shopping.”
“For?”
“All kinds of things,” she said. “Mainly this.” She put her hand on her hip, indicating the bikini, he imagined. Not that there was much of it to indicate.
“What else?”
She met his eyes. “Underwear. The kind you want someone to see.”
Heat shot through him, starting in his stomach, pooling in his groin. “Really?” His voice sounded rough. Not like his own.
“Yes. You seem interested.”
There was no lying about it. It would be too obvious. And anyway, why should he? She was his wife. She wanted him. He wouldn’t be forcing himself on her.
She did want him. And not just because she had to be here with him. She’d made her choice. She had.
“I am.” His voice was unsteady, a stranger’s voice.
“I’m glad.”
“Does that mean you’re ready? Here? Now?” He wasn’t. Not while he felt like this.
“No. It’s nice to have a little buildup, don’t you think? Nice to anticipate.”
She had no idea how damn long he’d been anticipating.
“I don’t know if nice is the word I’d use.”
She took a step toward him, her steps unsteady as her feet sank into the deep sand, her breasts bouncing with the motion.
And he felt like he was a teenage boy. Not the teenage boy he’d been with unlimited access to sex. Sex that had been, at its heart, twisted, one-sided, a commodity. Sex in his world was used for the pleasures of the rich, powerful and debauched.
There was something dark to his encounters in the past, to lust as he knew it. It wasn’t this jittery feeling in his veins, this shot of anticipation and pure excitement. This desire to give, not just to take. To caress, not just possess.
And also uncertainty. She made him feel off balance. A side effect of things not going according to his plan. Or maybe just a side effect of her beautiful figure.
She extended her hand, touched his face. “I don’t know—it’s nicer than fighting, which is the only other thing we seem to be able to do. Fight and kiss.”
And the reins holding him back snapped. He dipped his head and captured her lips, quick and hard, too desperate for a taste to wait. When he broke the kiss, her eyes were round, her mouth swollen.
“Oh,” she said.
“What?” he asked, afraid for a second he’d overstepped his bounds. But he’d been sure this was what she was here for. Flirtation. Seduction.
He knew what it looked like when women wanted him. Women had always wanted him, especially since he’d started earning money. He turned them down, but it didn’t mean he didn’t recognize what it looked like when a woman had sex on her mind.
“Sorry, you just knocked all my thoughts out of my head.”
“Is that...good?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just... I don’t think I can think of anything witty to say for at least a minute, so maybe you could just look away from my shame and leave me and my mushy brain in peace?”
“Are you going to swim?”
“I think you’re supposed to wait a half hour to swim after having your brain scrambled.”
“Is that a scientific fact?”
“No idea.”
He smiled. Not because he wanted her to see him smile, not because he was conscious of needing to project an emotion. He smiled because he couldn’t help himself. “I think...I think I should take you to dinner tonight.”
“Romance?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I want to.”
“Coming from you, Ajax, that’s romance all by itself.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT TOOK LEAH only an hour after the encounter on the beach to decide that she wasn’t letting Ajax take her to dinner. And she had reasons and her own plan. A plan she was going to ambush him with. She didn’t necessarily want romance. What she wanted was to feel as if she had some control. To feel like she wasn’t simply being led around.
If there was one thing she’d learned about Ajax since their marriage a couple of weeks ago, it was that he lived in his head. To look at him, you wouldn’t think it.
Tall, broad, muscular, he looked like a man who dealt in the physical. Like the promise of sex and sweat. But he was controlled by his mind. And he liked it that way.
And she didn’t want him calculating his way through their marriage consummation. It would give him too much control.