In retrospect she could recall the surprisingly sudden alteration in Cristo’s attitude towards her spending time with Tom while he was away on business. Cristo had gone from accepting that friendship without comment to suddenly questioning her every meeting with the other man, but only now was she discovering that genuine disquiet had provoked that change of heart.
Erin was struggling to understand why he had remained silent in the face of such provocation and failing. It was cruel to realise that she had gone through so much pain just because some hateful individual had decided to destroy Cristo’s trust in her, ensuring that he would reject her. He had walked away from her and almost straight away gone on to marry another woman. The wound inflicted by that decision of his had never left her. He had got over her so quickly and she believed that he must always have viewed her as not being good enough to marry. His choice of a rich Greek wife from a background similar to his own had been revealing.
‘Why didn’t you show these photos to me at the time?’ Erin demanded.
Lean, strong face shuttered, Cristo clenched his jaw. He walked away a few paces, his long, lean body as fluid and graceful as running water, his black hair gleaming like polished jet in the fading daylight above his bold bronzed profile. Sometimes he looked so incredibly handsome that she couldn’t take her eyes off him, she thought rawly, anguish for what they had lost engulfing her.
‘I had too much pride,’ Cristo grated the admission. ‘I could not make my mind up about whether you were cheating on me or whether your relationship with Tom had simply become too close and affectionate. I didn’t know what to think but it did make me doubt your loyalty—’
‘And when you walked into that hotel room and saw a strange man in the bed, you were in exactly the right frame of mind to assume that I was cheating on you,’ Erin completed with fierce resentment. ‘How could you not give me a single chance to defend myself?’
‘I will always regret it,’ Cristo confessed in a driven undertone, piling the photos together and cramming them into a single envelope. ‘We are now living with the consequences. I’ve missed more than two years of my children’s lives as a result. I would not like to be in the shoes of whomever I find is responsible for deliberately setting out to destroy us.’
‘But the hotel-room thing was just an unlucky coincidence,’ Erin reasoned heavily, shaken that anyone could have gone to such lengths to discredit her in his eyes. ‘I do understand after seeing those photos that you honestly believed you didn’t need to see me in the flesh in the same room to believe that I was cheating on you. Do you have a bunny-boiling ex-girlfriend somewhere in your past? Jealous women can be vicious. Who else would take so much time and trouble and put so much money into trying to split us up?’
‘I don’t know but I have every intention of finding out,’ he swore, a hostile expression stamped on his hard features. He cast the envelopes aside and drew her back to him with determined hands.
He lowered his head and caressed her parted lips slowly with his own in a move that completely disconcerted her. Her entire body tingled with electrified awareness. Coming alive to his sensual call, she was shamefully aware that the peaks of her breasts were straining into bullet points and her thighs pressing together to contain the ache of emptiness there. ‘I want a fresh start with you,’ he breathed in a raw undertone, his breath fanning her cheek. ‘Let’s get all the rubbish out of the way and leave it behind us.’
‘A lot of what you call rubbish messed up my life,’ Erin replied defensively, her eyes prickling with tears behind her eyelids, and she didn’t even understand why she so suddenly felt screamingly vulnerable and unsure of herself. I want a fresh start with you. She hadn’t seen that coming, didn’t know what to say.
‘We both screwed up,’ Cristo contradicted, gravity hardening his high cheekbones to make him look tougher and stronger than ever. ‘We can’t change the past but we can begin again …’
Erin looked up into his lean, tense features. ‘Can we?’ she whispered.
Long brown fingers framed her cheekbone and intent dark golden eyes flamed over her troubled face. ‘I say we can,’ he declared, curving a hand to her hip to ease her closer.
She wanted to believe it; she wanted to believe it so badly. He wanted her back. He still wanted her. A powerful tide of relief rolled through her, closely followed by a flood of happiness. Dark eyes glinting sensually below his lashes, he melded her to his big powerful length and desire flared through her like a hungry fire ready to blaze out of control. The heat of him against her, the glorious scent of his skin and the hungry thrust of his erection were a potent inducement and when he crushed her sultry mouth beneath his she was with him every step of the way.
Cristo peeled off her blouse with wildly impatient hands and then released her bra to bury his mouth urgently in the sweet sloping swell of her breasts. ‘You’re so beautiful, so perfect—’
‘Not perfect,’ she protested as he gathered her up and lowered her down on the bed with a scantily leashed impatience she could not resist.
‘You’re perfect for me, koukla mou,’ Cristo countered, determined to have the last word. ‘You always were.’
The passionate kiss that followed as he explored the confines of her mouth with devouring heat silenced her. Her nipples were hard and swollen and he dallied there with his mouth and his fingers to reduce her to gasping compliance with the hot sensuality that was so much a part of him. The remainder of her clothes were discarded and Cristo undressed in haste, returning to claim her with his lean, strong body boldly aroused. Her heart raced as she stroked the long, hard thickness of his shaft and she rejoiced when he groaned and arched his hips up to her in supplication. He flipped her back against the pillows, searching out the slick sensitive folds and the tiny knot of nerve-endings above to stroke her with teasing, tender skill. The tide of pleasure swept her out of her control, each touch of his fingers making her burn and writhe and finally sob with anticipation and need. And only then did he reach for protection and sink deep into her damp sheath, telling her huskily of his pleasure as her inner muscles tightened convulsively around him. Excitement gripped her when he withdrew and then plunged deep into her again, ripples of delight rising higher and higher inside her as the fire in her pelvis burned hotter than ever. And when she finally reached a climax and he reached the same point with her, he lay sated and uncharacteristically silent in the protective circle of her arms afterwards and she felt gloriously happy.
‘That was … wonderful, koukla mou,’ Cristo husked, folding her slight damp body, to him with possessive arms. ‘I don’t know how I contrived to keep my hands off you for so long.’
‘I should’ve said no,’ Erin lamented, studying his lean, darkly handsome features with dazed eyes. ‘You blackmailed me into bed in Italy—’
‘You wanted me.’ Cristo punctuated that claim with a soothing kiss on her reddened lips, smouldering golden eyes scanning her flushed face with unashamed satisfaction. ‘I wanted you. I found a way round the difficulties so that we could be together again. Now that I have you back in my arms where you belong I would be a liar if I pretended to have regrets.’
‘The end justifies the means?’ Erin pressed drily.
‘You know that you want me just as much,’ he argued with unashamed assurance. ‘When we burn, we burn together.’
It was true and even with that frantic need fulfilled she could not lie in contact with that compellingly masculine body of his wi
thout experiencing the first little quivers of yet another sensual awakening. As the liquid warmth at the heart of her began to melt he ran the edge of his teeth down the extended length of her neck and she shivered violently. He reached for another condom and then pulled her over to him, watching as her lashes dipped low in a cloaked expression of intense pleasure that he savoured.
‘Will you marry me?’ he murmured tautly.
Eyes flying wide, Erin stared down at him, wondering if she had imagined that question.
‘It seemed like the right moment,’ Cristo asserted, his hands clasping to her hips to rock her gently up on him and then down in a controlling rhythm that was impossibly exciting. ‘Don’t laugh—’
‘I’m not going to laugh!’ she riposted, offended by the suggestion and studying him with troubled amethyst eyes. ‘Are you serious?’