Apollo smiled and it was a smile of pure male satisfaction as he drew her head down to his and took her mouth in a searing kiss. A promise of what was to come, what he was offering, and she, like a miser, would take it.
CHAPTER TEN
A COUPLE OF days later, Sophy was lying face down in Apollo’s bed. The morning sun was streaming in, warm on her bare back. A breeze chased the warmth across her skin.
Her whole body ached pleasurably. Since the other stormy evening, the days and nights had melded into one another, punctuated by moments of carnal pleasure—like last night. Apollo had returned from the site in the early evening. He’d taken Sophy down to the beach and given her another swimming lesson in the sea. They hadn’t worn swimsuits, and they’d re-created the other day
, except this time with protection.
Then Apollo had taken her back up to the villa and after a leisurely and very thorough shower, they’d eaten and gone to bed. But not to sleep. To discover new heights of pleasure and passion.
Sophy had been so crazed last night, so desperate for Apollo to release her from the sensual torture that she could remember her voice breaking as she’d begged him.
She buried her face in the pillow now and groaned softly, so she didn’t hear when Apollo entered the room. But she felt the bed dip and tensed. A tension that quickly dissolved when a finger trailed down her spine to the top of her buttocks.
She turned her head to meet a cool green gaze. This was what kept her from tumbling into fantasy land, this reserve that Apollo showed when he wasn’t breaking her apart. The reserve that reminded her that he had rejected her after making love to her the first time. That reminded her that he’d only married Sasha out of a sense of duty and responsibility because he’d believed she was pregnant. That reminded her of his words to her that he didn’t do relationships.
So, no matter what this was...it wasn’t going anywhere. And she had to remember that.
‘Kalimera.’
‘Kalimera.’
She felt shy. Which was ridiculous. She turned and pulled the sheet up, covering her body. Apollo’s mouth quirked as if mocking her attempt to be modest. She wanted to scowl at him.
‘You mentioned before that you’d like to visit the site...would you still like to?’
That felt like an age ago now. She nodded. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Then she thought of something. ‘Will it be okay for me to be seen here with you?’
‘We won’t be bothered here. It’s entirely private. We’ll leave in half an hour.’
Later that morning, Apollo looked to where Sophy was nodding studiously as his foreman showed her around the site. She was wearing those yellow capri pants and the white shirt that tied above her midriff. Wedge shoes. A hard hat was perched on her head and a plait dissected her shoulder blades.
She could have passed for sixteen if it wasn’t for the X-rated memories of how she’d taken him into her body last night, meeting him thrust for thrust, begging, pleading...sending them both over the edge and into a crashing, burning orgasm so intense—Theos.
She might have agreed to this transitory affair but he’d seen something in her eyes the other night that had caught at him deep inside. The same place that had been triggered when he’d believed he was to become a father, and when he’d realised that he wasn’t as averse to the thought of a family as he’d believed himself to be.
In the aftermath of Sasha’s lies, that weakness had been pushed down. Not allowed room to breathe again. Until he’d heard himself telling Sophy the other night that she would have a family one day. With someone else. Not him. He’d said the words and they’d felt like ash in his mouth.
He told himself it was sheer possessiveness of a lover. Nothing more. He didn’t want more. Even with Sophy. Especially Sophy.
Apollo saw his foreman put a hand to Sophy’s back to guide her over some uneven ground. That sense of possessiveness surged. He closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides, and took Sophy’s hand. ‘I’ll take this from here, Milos, thank you.’
He was aware of Sophy looking up at him and his foreman’s bemused expression. He ignored both and led her up to an open piece of ground at the top of a hill. She was panting slightly when they reached it. He let her hand go, and gestured around them. ‘This is going to be the site for the solar panels. The resort will be entirely self-sufficient for energy.’
She was turning around, hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. She said, ‘Does it have to be just for solar panels? This would be a beautiful spot for an exclusive suite. It would have three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the island and surrounding sea. Sunrise and sunset views.’
Apollo looked around and realised she was right. He followed her gaze, which took in the sea and hazy shapes of islands in the distance. The sky was so blue it hurt. Not a cloud in sight. All around them insects and birds chirruped and called. The scent of wild herbs infused the air.
He shook his head, his mouth quirking. ‘I’ve had one of the best firms working on this for a couple of years now and no one came up with that idea.’
‘Oh.’ Sophy flushed, a dangerous warmth infusing her insides. ‘Well, it might be a silly idea. I’m sure it was thought of and discarded for some reason.’
‘We’ll look at it.’
‘Why did you decide to buy an island?’ Sophy asked then, taking him off guard a little. Apollo looked out over the sea. ‘When we were small, my brother was fascinated by the Greek myths and legends. My mother used to tell them to us at night as our bedtime stories.’
His mouth quirked. ‘I found them boring. I was more interested in how things worked. He was the dreamer—he took after our mother. I took after our father. After our parents died and we were shuttled from foster home to foster home, he used to tell me that he couldn’t wait to be old enough to leave Athens. Get on a boat and go to all the islands, see the places of the myths and legends. Athens was too harsh for him. He was too sensitive. He fell in with a gang, as much to survive as anything else. Once he started taking drugs...that was it. He was lost.’