The Secrets She Carried

Cristo unclasped the hands she had tightened round her knees and pulled her back against his warm, hair-roughened torso. ‘Nor mine, but unfortunately that kind of venue is par for the course with certain men.’

Her breath scissored in her throat as he found her breasts again, gently, surely shaping and tugging at the swollen tips. He pressed her back against the pillows, long brown fingers dipping below the waistband of her knickers, moving across bare smooth skin to stroke her clitoris. As the ache between her thighs intensified, she shut her eyes tight. He kissed her with hot driving force, skimmed off that last garment and pressed his lips to the smooth slope of her belly. Her eyes flew wide because she had silvery stretchmarks there from her pregnancy and she quivered as he trailed his expert mouth over her abdomen and then lower, startling her with that move. He found her with his mouth and his fingers, delving into the honeyed heat of her until she moaned, hips squirming as the pleasure built. He tipped her back, drowning her in sweet sensation that sent her out of control. Her breath sounded in audible gasps as she shifted helplessly up to him, wanting, needing and then response took over to send her racing into an explosive climax.

‘I love watching you come … it must be the only time in your life that you let go of control,’ Cristo husked, looking down at her with an unusually reflective light in his keen gaze. ‘You’re so different from me.’

Emerging dizzily from the tremors of ecstasy still rocking her body, Erin looked up into his lean dark face and the stunning eyes engaged in tracking her every change of expression. She felt exposed, vulnerable, shaken that he had already seduced her so thoroughly that she could barely recall what day it was, never mind how they had ended up in a bed at such indecent speed. ‘I don’t want to be here doing this with you,’ she said fiercely.

‘Liar.’ He brought his mouth down on hers and her tongue slid against his again and that single kiss was so passionate she shivered.

Cristo donned a condom and came over her like a one-man invasion force, tipping her legs over his shoulders and driving into her so hard and deep that her head fell back in a curtain of shiny silver blonde hair, neck arching feverishly in reaction. It was good, hell it was amazing, she thought furiously, angry with herself, enraged that she hadn’t found it possible to lie there without responding and destroy his desire for her. She knew him well enough to know that if she had held back and failed to respond he wouldn’t have persisted. He shifted position and ground into her faster with hungry pounding strokes that made her heart race as though she were in a marathon. He groaned with unashamed pleasure as she cried out, bucking up to him, reacting helplessly to the delicious friction of his fluid rhythm. And she felt the heat

mushrooming up from her pelvis again until an explosion of light shot through her like a flash of white-hot fire, shooting wild hot tension along every limb. He pulsed inside her and groaned as she came apart at the seams in another shattering orgasm.

By the time she came free of that shattering onslaught of raw pleasure, she was trembling and, surprisingly, he still had his arms round her, one hand splayed across her stomach as he pressed his sensual mouth to her damp cheek. ‘You’re amazing. That was so worth waiting for, koukla mou.’

But she hadn’t made him wait; they had ended up in bed five minutes after his arrival. I’m easy, she decided painfully, marvelling that she was still lying in his arms and revelling in that unbelievable sense of closeness with him again. How could she possibly feel connected to Cristophe Donakis again? It felt as if almost three years had vanished in a time slip to deposit her back to when she had cherished such private and vulnerable moments with the man she loved. Only she didn’t love him any more, she told herself bitterly, and he had never loved her and, what was more, he had ruthlessly blackmailed her back into his bed. As she began to reclaim her wits and pull away Cristo pulled away from her to disappear into the bathroom.

She listened to the shower running and wondered how she would live with the victory she had given him, how she would ever look in the mirror and like herself again. It was all right to tell herself that she had done what she had to do to protect her life and her children’s, but what she had just allowed to happen went against her every principle. It was a punishment to appreciate that she had participated in and enjoyed her own downfall.

Lithe, bronzed and truly magnificent, Cristo reappeared with a towel wrapped round his lean hips just as a knock sounded on the bedroom door. ‘I told Vincenzo to bring up dinner,’ he remarked carelessly.

Erin scrambled out of bed naked and vanished into the bathroom to use the shower. She was on automatic pilot, desperate to escape his presence lest she lose what little distance she had contrived to achieve. Stepping out of the shower again, she saw the black towelling robe hanging on the back of the door and made use of it because she hadn’t packed anything that practical. She rolled up the sleeves, tied the sash tight.

Cristo had donned close-fitting jeans and a black tee. A heated trolley now stood beside the small table in the corner.

‘How did Vincenzo get all that food up here?’ she asked stiffly.

‘There’s a lift. The last owner was an elderly lady with mobility problems.’

‘When did you buy this place?’

‘About a year ago. I wanted somewhere to relax between business trips,’ Cristo said, sounding amazingly calm and distant after what they had just shared. ‘What would you like to eat?’

‘I’ll see to myself.’ Her tummy rumbled as, maintaining a scrupulous distance from his lean, powerful body, she studied the tempting array of dishes. She was surprised that she was so hungry but then nervous tension had pretty much killed her appetite over the previous forty-eight hours while she was forced to pretend to everyone around her that life was normal. She chose meat-stuffed tortelloni and Panzanella salad and lifted a slice of home baked bread.

His lean, darkly handsome face composed, Cristo poured wine for them both and sat down in a fluid movement. His assurance set her teeth on edge. He had blasted her pride and confidence out of existence because all of a sudden she didn’t know who she was any more. She was not the mature, self-contained woman she had believed she was and that acknowledgement hurt.

‘Doesn’t it bother you that you blackmailed me into bed?’ Erin shot at him abruptly.

‘It might have started out that way, but that’s not how it concluded,’ Cristo fielded smooth as glass, his gaze welded to her. Gleaming silvery fair hair tumbled loose round her slight shoulders, accentuating her flawless features. He had burned for her from the first moment he saw her standing wet and tousled beside the swimming pool where they had met. He had burned the same way when he met her again in Sam Morton’s office. He wasn’t happy that she set him on fire. He wasn’t happy that one wildly exciting taste of her had only primed him to want the next. Toxic, he reminded himself grimly.

Erin met cool, measuring, dark golden eyes that contained not an ounce of remorse and gritted her teeth, afraid to utter a word in her own defence, for what exactly could she say? They both knew that she had not played the part of an unwilling victim. ‘I don’t understand why you wanted me here,’ she admitted tightly. ‘After all, when we split up, you made it clear that you were bored with our relationship.’

Cristo became very still. ‘I never said I was bored.’

Barely forgotten frustration invaded Erin afresh. It was a throwback to the bewilderment of the past when she had tormented herself for months in the aftermath of their breakup wondering what she had done or not done to make him want his freedom back. Suddenly that old curiosity was biting into her like a knife point. ‘Then why did you ditch me?’

His lean, strong face was impassive. ‘I doubt that you want the answer to that question.’

Erin stabbed a piece of juicy tomato with her fork. ‘It’s a long time ago, Cristo,’ she said drily.

‘Precisely,’ he slotted in sardonically.

‘But I would still like to know why,’ Erin completed doggedly.

Cristo set down his wine glass, brilliant dark eyes pinned to her and she felt the chill like ice water spilling across her skin. ‘You cheated on me …’

Erin stared back at him in astonishment. ‘No. I didn’t.’