Shocked, she laughed. ‘No, he wasn’t really into me.’
‘No, he would have been. You didn’t let him close.’
She paused.
‘If you’d really been attracted to him you would have. You slept with me, a total stranger you met that very night.’
Um, that had been so different.
He chuckled. ‘Come on, Leah. Aren’t I just a little bit right? That other guy didn’t turn you on and there was no other chance because you never let there be one. You buried yourself away in a laboratory with a bunch of guys too shy to see past their microscopes.’
‘Don’t stereotype them.’ She mock-punched him.
‘I bet it’s true. And then you go work with a bunch of old people? You say you don’t want to be invisible but you have been hiding, Leah.’ He stepped closer. ‘Maybe you only picked me because you found out I was leaving the very next day. In that way, I was safe.’
‘You were a total stranger—how safe was that? It was an insane risk to go off with you.’
‘Is that why you said yes to me, Leah?’ He leaned closer. ‘Because you thought I couldn’t hurt you?’
She hadn’t thought anything of the sort. She hadn’t thought at all. ‘I said yes because I couldn’t say no to you. You’re irresistible, okay?’ She folded her arms across her chest.
‘So are you.’
She shook her head.
‘They killed your self-confidence.’ He reached for her. ‘That shouldn’t have happened—’
‘How was I supposed to stop them?’ she flung back, broken. ‘All my life, Theo...my grades weren’t good enough. I’m too tall. Too angular. Too different... Nobody wants to get hurt, Theo. You don’t either.’ She pushed back. ‘In fact, you work stupidly hard to protect people you feel responsible for. Not only do you not want to get hurt, you don’t want anyone around you to get hurt either.’
He lifted his chin, his gaze sharpening.
‘What developed that over-protectiveness, Theo? Who did you see get hurt?’ She waited but then continued boldly. ‘It’s not your grandfather. He’s strong. He’s a powerful man who’s only recently become vulnerable. This goes back further than that. Who couldn’t you help? Was it your mum?’
‘I’m not over-protective. The truth is I have no desire to have to protect anyone.’
‘Not even people you care about? Or is it that you don’t want to care about people because you were hurt?’ She paused. ‘Why did you go to live with Dimitri? What happened to her?’
Theo sighed and turned away from her. This evening was not going the way he’d envisaged. He’d rather hoped they’d be on to round two by now; but somehow he’d ended up bringing up things he shouldn’t have in the car on the drive back and now she wanted to know more.
‘Just tell me, Theo,’ she muttered. ‘You can tell me anything. I won’t judge.’
He never talked to anyone about this. And there was such a risk if he told her the truth. But he didn’t want to brush off her concern. He knew he had to explain even just a little of it—so she’d understand why it was he couldn’t give her everything she ought to have. He owed her that. ‘They had a blazing affair that led to a shotgun marriage.’
Shock, then consternation pinched her face. ‘Your mother got pregnant?’
‘With me. Yes.’
She swallowed. ‘And you’re an only child.’
‘Correct.’
Her colour receded. He knew she was picturing their future, drawing the parallels to his past. He didn’t blame her—he’d done the same.
‘They were miserable.’ He forced himself to continue with the sorry story and finish it as briefly as he could. He didn’t want her taking it on board or reading anything into it. He never talked about it because it didn’t matter, it didn’t mean anything. It was in the past and could stay there. She never needed to know the whole of it. ‘The sizzle fizzled pretty quickly. It became a mess of fights and infidelity.’ He didn’t go deeper into details. ‘After my father died in a car accident my mother decided she couldn’t give me the best life so she sent me to live with Dimitri.’ He breathed out. ‘I’m not going to repeat those past mistakes, Leah. We won’t be unhappy like that.’
She was silent for a long moment. ‘This is why you came up with your prison island plan?’
‘It seemed like a good idea,’ he muttered. She didn’t realise what that island meant to him but, of course, what was a heaven to him might be a hell for her. He couldn’t make assumptions on her behalf any more. ‘But we’ll work something else out if you’d prefer.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’re not going to send me away the second we’re married?’
‘No.’
Relief unfurled at his words, tempered by the sad history he’d just told her. No wonder he’d thought separation from the start was for the best. It sounded as though his parents’ marriage had been a mess. Leah’s heart ached. She desperately wanted to know more, but his expression had shuttered and she knew he’d hated having even this brief discussion about it. He was reserved—as private as he was protective—and she could respect that even though really she just wanted to reach out and touch him and tell him she was sorry for what he’d been through. Maybe she had to handle this with the same emotional restraint that he was. Because this ‘sizzle would fizzle’, wouldn’t it?
Her heart puckered at the prospect. She couldn’t imagine not wanting to be near to him. But at least she knew he wasn’t going to be unfaithful—not when he’d been this scarred. She tried to push past it, to get them both back on an easier track. She’d focus on the practicalities of their immediate future.
‘Do we have to marry at the town hall or something?’ Would there be a bunch of strangers staring at them as they waited in a crowded hall outside before their five-minute service?
He shook his head. ‘I’ve secured permission for us to marry on the compound.’
‘So there won’t be many people?’
‘Dimitri will be there. My security team...’ He paused, as if realising how impersonal it all sounded. ‘I’m sorry your family are unable to attend.’
‘I’m sorry Oliver can’t make it, but it’ll be more fun without my parents.’ Honestly, she was brightened by the news she wasn’t going to have to parade in front of people she didn’t know. ‘We could get married in our pyjamas before breakfast,’ she said, shooting him a kittenish smile to ease the tension.
‘Dimitri wouldn’t approve.’
‘Well, we mustn’t disappoint him.’ She chuckled. ‘After all, this is only about pleasing your grandfather.’
‘Oh, snarky Leah is back, your headache must be better.’ But a rueful smile had lightened his features as she’d laughed. ‘Do you have something to wear?’
‘You just said there aren’t going to be many people there,’ she said limpidly.
‘I’m going to be there,’ he gasped, mock-wounded.
‘That’s good, I guess,’ she pondered with thoughtful pretence, enjoying this turn back towards the easy banter with that bite of desire beneath. She loved it when he eased up on his solemnity and she wanted to wipe away the remnants of that old hurt in his eyes. In this very immediate future, she could touch him on this most literal of levels. ‘It’s the only time you’ll ever see me in a dress.’
‘Do you hate your legs or something?’ His smile turned sly and he stepped forward to tug at her scarlet blouse. ‘You have no idea how good they feel locked around me.’
The awkwardness melted inside her. Why did it take only this? Only a smile and a look and a touch and she was cast back towards him, happily seeking more of his caresses. ‘Theo—’
‘They’re gorgeously long and stronger than they look.’ He glanced down and then swiftly lifted his lashes to imprison her in his heated green gaze. ‘I get
so turned on when you have me in your grip.’
‘Like I’m some spider?’ She playfully ducked his reach for her, but was breathless beneath it.
He laughed. ‘Stop trying to avoid my compliments.’
‘Oh, you were complimenting me? I thought you were telling me my legs are like...tweezers or something while trying to maul me at the same time.’
‘Maul you?’ His laugh morphed into a sexy growl and he planted firm hands on her hips, keeping her right where she wanted to be. ‘You want me to show you again?’
‘Show me what?’ She couldn’t resist leaning into him, giving up on any idea of escape.
‘What we’re really good at.’
She’d wanted this again so much, for so long. She couldn’t possibly say no.
He drew her closer and that look in his eyes intensified. ‘Let me touch you.’
She loved that he asked, even when he knew her answer. And even when she knew he meant only this, only now, she lifted her chin. He met her parted mouth with his in a kiss so hot, so desperately needed she moaned helplessly. Her eyes closed as she was thrown instantly back into that delicious firestorm of delight and desire.
‘Your legs are the perfect length for me too...’ he teased between kisses. ‘If only you had some heels on, even just a couple of inches.’
‘I can’t wear heels,’ she gasped, on one last joke. ‘I’d trip over.’
He caught her laugh with a kiss. ‘You’re graceful as hell and you know it. Anyway, you wouldn’t need to walk, you could just brace against the wall. You’d be the perfect height for me. Otherwise I’d have to bend and get muscle burn.’
She huffed another breathless laugh. ‘Always thinking of the practicalities?’
‘We’d be able to sustain it for longer.’
She couldn’t sustain herself for long at all around him, and the prospect of hot sex against the wall made her knees buckle.
His laugh was an exultant sexy sound but she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he’d slid his arm beneath her and scooped her up. He climbed the stairs, effortlessly carrying her to a vast bedroom. She couldn’t look away from him as he set her in the centre of the bed. His eyes glazed as his focus dropped and he looked down her body. That rapt, fixated look made her toes curl. And then it began. Pure attraction, pure pleasure flowed as he stripped them both bare with lingering caresses. But her desire was underpinned by that other ache—that need for touch that was more than physical—and that made her feel everything so very much more. She sobbed, her emotion unstoppable in that moment when he thrust within her again. At last.