Seasons of Sin: Misbehaving in summer and autumn... (Series of Sin) Read online

  She swallowed. Her throat was thick. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said after a minute. The words were zinging around her head like delicious, perfect bubbles. I’m a married woman! Take that, Jordan!

  “Oh?”

  “You’re trying to put me off. You’re trying to scare me. Why?”

  His laugh was gruff. “I am telling you what I want,” he said, “because if you do not want the same thing, this is the time for you to go.”

  Her eyes flared wide. “I want it,” she promised. “I want everything. I just don’t want to wait.”

  He let out a sound of frustration. “And I don’t want you to vomit everywhere.”

  She couldn’t help the shaky laugh that erupted from her. “Charming.” And where the idea came from, Saphire couldn’t have said. Certainly not experience. “You want to know how well I feel?”

  And before he knew what she was doing, she’d crouched down, her knees pressed against the hard, hot floor, her head at his crotch height. His erection was still exposed, and now, with one blink of those startling blue eyes up to his face, she opened her perfect red lips wide and took his length deep into her mouth.

  He shuddered as the sensation of her enveloping him engulfed his body. “Saphire,” he groaned, as her tongue encircled his tip and sent him instantly spiraling out of control. “God.” He braced one hand on the wall above her and the other he ran through her hair, catching its length in a fist that he held at the base of her neck. “Theos,” he groaned, thrusting forward. His whole body was on fire. He stepped away from her with superhuman effort and he saw the pain and worry in her eyes. It registered but not enough for him to actually care. Not at that point.

  “You want to do this?” He demanded, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a condom. It was a huge relief to Saphire who definitely wouldn’t have thought of such practicalities given the swarm of emotions that were running rampant through her. Deep down, she was terrified she was going to change her mind. That she was going to pull out of this plan. That she was going to remember she was a Good Little Housewife who couldn’t ever do to Jordan what he had done to her.

  But now Thad didn’t give her a chance to reconsider. He unfurled the rubber over his length and pinned her back against the wall. Using one leg to separate her thighs, he entered her in a single driving motion. She bucked towards him, her whole body jerked by the total invasion. He was huge, and he was so deep; she wrapped her arms around his neck and he was pinching up her legs, holding them around his waist while her back stayed pushed to the wall. With every thrust, he kissed her, delving his tongue into her mouth in time with his body. She dug her nails into his perfect tanned skin and she bit her teeth into his shoulder. She was shaking; her nerve endings were jangling and tingling.

  “You wanted to feel like this?” He demanded, pulling his face back just enough to meet her eyes.

  She nodded, but there were tears sparkling on her lashes as the enormity of what they were doing frayed at her mind. He paused instantly. “Am I hurting you?” He demanded, already pulling out of her.

  “No!” She cried, wrapping her legs more tightly around his waist. “Don’t. Please, don’t. It’s not you. This is … perfect. It’s just what I needed.”

  He frowned but his own body was becoming impossible to command.

  “Saphire …”

  “It’s perfect,” she promised. “Thank you.”

  He shook his head but he returned to the punishing pace. Saphire exploded. Her cry was loud, almost animalistic, as an orgasm unlike anything she’d ever experienced made her body weak and heavy.

  He held her tight, running his hands over her flesh, as she slowly came back to earth. And then, when her breathing had slowed a little, he began to move again, this time slowly, tenderly, teasing her towards the edge rather than forcing her over it.

  She murmured low and slow in her throat; the noise was addictive. He saw her face contort, and he knew that she was only seconds from another climax, so he finally gave into his own body’s needs and joined with her. Their oaths mingled together as pleasure erupted between them.

  “Saphire,” he laughed throatily as his body still shook from the force of what they’d shared. “You are quite the surprise package.”

  “Am I?” She shook her head, her smile ghost like. The tears had been smothered by passion.

  “It is unusual for a woman who offers such promise to fulfill it.”

  He was experienced. Very experienced. Whereas she had only been with one man before. She flushed. It didn’t matter. That didn’t matter to him. He’d enjoyed being with her, and God, she had almost died from the delirium he’d invoked.

  “And not a hint of vomit,” she said, trying for humor.

  He padded a thumb beneath her eyes. “Perhaps. But you must be exhausted,” he muttered, disappointed that he hadn’t been able to stay strong in the face of her charms.

  “I’m fine,” she said more tartly than she’d intended. “Stop treating me like some kind of child,” she tacked on for good measure, wondering if she should have said as much to Jordan years earlier. Maybe if she’d demanded that he treat her like a woman, her husband wouldn’t have become bored and decided to look elsewhere.

  “I am treating you with respect and courtesy,” he corrected, his words laced with frustration.

  She nodded. “I just want to do that. More of that.” How many times until she screwed away her husband’s infidelity?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I don’t believe you.” She pushed up onto her hands and stared at his perfect naked body. The crisp white sheets were tangled beneath him, giving drama and depth to his tan.

  “It’s been three nights. Why would I lie?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re lying.” Guilt cut through her gut. “I just didn’t realize …”

  “Because,” he pushed up off the bed and brought his mouth to hers, “We have either been doing this, or sleeping, and time seems to have lost all meaning. How long did you think we’ve been on the island for?”

  “A day!” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. That sounds ridiculous, I know.”

  “A little,” he agreed. He curled some of her dark black hair around his finger and brought it to his lips. “I am not complaining. I don’t think I would ever get sick of being with you.”

  The compliment found its mark, though a horrible sense of being a terrible, terrible person made it difficult to appreciate.

  “Still. I can’t hide out here forever.”

  “Why not?” He propped up on his side.

  “You want me to stay forever?” She teased, shaking her head. Though he was right, they’d done very little talking since she’d come to L’isola Ourana, she somehow just knew that he was hardly the commitment type.

  Thad chose his words carefully. Saphire had a strange effect on him. In her presence, he found it hard to remember exactly what he felt and wanted. He knew only that he couldn’t comprehend the thought of her leaving. “I want you to stay while I am here. And for as long as this is pleasing to us both.”

  She dropped her head forward. “I want that too. But … I can’t.” She thought of Jordan and Anita and a fever of anxiety swelled her veins.

  “How long?” He said curtly, his eyes scanning her face.

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Three days? You’re serious?”

  He nodded. “Very.”

  “Wow. I really should have called my … friend … by now.” Would he be worried? Undoubtedly. Jordan, on the partner track at her father’s prestigious law firm, Jordan who had political aspirations, Jordan who cared about what everyone thought of him, would be in a panic. But about her, or about the damage she could do to his career and his reputation?

  “Call your friend then,” he said, flopping back against the pillows. “Tell her that you have found a slice of paradise with a man who treats you as a sex-slave, and that you wish to stay as long as you are able.”

  S
he grinned at the description. “So I’m your sex-slave, huh?” She asked huskily, already pushing the sheet from his legs so that she could straddle his waist. “That’s funny, because all this time I’ve been thinking you’re mine.” She dropped her mouth to his. It was heaven in a kiss. His lips were life-sustaining.

  He tangled his fingers in hers and spread her arms wide, then he pushed up so that he could wrap his arms around her back, holding their torsos close together. “What reality is there beyond this?” He demanded, flicking one of her nipples punishingly.

  She groaned against his mouth. “I would have thought that you’d have work to do anyway, Mr Konstanides. Aren’t you some big-shot tycoon?”

  His smile was distracted. “I am on vacation.” It was an interesting statement and it caused her to look at him with renewed interest. She’d spent so much time thinking about what she was running from that she hadn’t given a moment’s contemplation to his normal life.

  “A vacation? From work?”

  He nodded, but his lips clung to hers.

  “Where are you based?”

  “All over,” he mumbled, reaching down and gripping her buttocks so that he could hold her firm against his growing arousal.

  “Come on. Are you in London? Athens? Rome? New York? Where? Where’s your office? I presume a guy like you has one.”

  “I have several,” he said simply. “And I work from whichever needs my attention most. Until recently I was stationed in London.”

  She swallowed. London. In another life, another time, might they have met? “Where in London?”

  It was the first attempt at conversation they’d had in days. And while he was already craving the sweet release her body offered, he forced himself to slow down. He pulled her down onto the bed beside him and lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed it gently. “My office is at Docklands.”

  “And you live …?”

  “I have a place in Hampstead.”

  “Hampstead?” A flush stole into her cheeks.

  “Yes. Do I take it from your reaction that’s significant to you in some way?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I live in Notting Hill. Not so far from you.”

  He traced an invisible circle pattern over her bare shoulder. “With this friend you need to call?”

  A slight flush spread over her cheeks. “Yes.”

  “Will she be worried that you have disappeared?”

  “No.” She swallowed, and her fragile neck knotted visibly. “I doubt it.” She pushed up on one elbow. “Okay, where’s your favorite place to spend time?”

  “Here. Now. With you.”

  She laughed. “You’re devilishly charming, you know that? I should warn you, I’ve recently become quite cynical about men and their words. So you’d do better not to waste them on me.”

  It was a very telling statement. He filed it away into the little dossier he hadn’t realized he was keeping on her.

  “I’m serious,” she playfully punched his chest. He caught her hand and held it there, against his wall of rock-hard abdominals. “Where do you really live? Where’s that one place you call home?”

  His frown was genuine. “I don’t know,” he said after several moments. He angled his head to face her. Sunlight formed a pretty, golden pattern across his cheek. “I grew up here. On this island. Until I was sixteen, this was home.”

  “Sixteen? Did your family move?”

  “I didn’t have a family as such,” he said, the timbre of his voice thick with memories he rarely gave voice to. “My parents died when I was a boy. They … weren’t close to my grandfather. In fact, when they died, he didn’t know about me at all. It was only that my father had a lawyer, who thought to contact Aristotle.”

  “Aristotle Konstanides?” She said with a small smile. “That’s a formidable and intimidating name.”

  Thad nodded. “He was an intimidating and formidable man.”

  “Was?” She tilted her head onto his chest so that she could hear the steady beating of his heart.

  “He died last week.”

  Her silence was heavy pity. “Why didn’t you say anything? I’m so sorry.”

  “He was ninety years old,” Thad said with a grimace. “But he was as strong as an ox. As bombastic as one, too. I never imagined he would go. He had too much life in his soul yet.”

  “It’s a cruelty, isn’t it, that some people’s bodies fail them when they’ve still got so much to give.”

  He nodded. It was exactly as he’d felt. “Only it was no tragedy. After all, his life was long. Very long. And he lived it well, for the most part.”

  “Oh?” She prompted curiously.

  He shook his head. “You don’t want to hear about this.”

  “I do.” And she did, desperately. That alone should have been a warning; a sign of danger. But she was too far into the rip-tide to realize the ocean had turned.

  “Aristotle disinherited my father. He was only a young man; twenty three. I don’t know the facts; my grandfather never told me. I only knew that my father did something that Aristotle considered to be such a betrayal that he sent his son away, and removed any financial support. They never spoke again.”

  “What could it have been?” She whispered, shaking her head.

  “It is irrelevant. The decision to ostracize his own son haunted him for the rest of his life. I know he came to regret it. After all, once my parents died, there was no longer any prospect of reunion. It was all lost.”

  “But there was you,” she smiled, and buried her fingertip into his chin dimple. “That must have brought him some consolation.”

  His smile was a pale imitation of the emotion. “I believe so. He was an excellent grandfather. He worked hard at being what he felt I needed. And he groomed me to take over the business, so that even at sixteen, when I left the island, I had the skills I needed. I lived and breathed business and finance. That was my life growing up. I sat in on board meetings when I was ten years old.”

  “Even without that, I think this would have been your path.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “Why did you leave the island?” She shifted her weight, bringing her naked body to press against his side. “You speak about it like it was some kind of line in the sand, as though there was a ‘before leaving’ and an ‘after leaving’. Like it fundamentally changed you.”

  “You are so damned perceptive,” he said with a laugh. “I cannot say yet if I like or hate that about you.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t mean to pry.”

  “The strange thing is that you aren’t. I do not speak often about my childhood. And yet with you … it seems to want to pour out of my mouth.”

  “Maybe you’re in some kind of post-sex coma?”

  He laughed. “Highly possible.” He stroked her hair gently. “When I turned sixteen, the same lawyer who had brought me to my grandfather sent a package. It was a letter from my parents. Of course, they’d written it without any idea that I would ever read it. Who prepares a will actually believing it will be enacted? None of us is born with such pessimism with regards to our own mortality. But write it he did, and undoubtedly when he was in a state of deep anger and resentment.”

  “What did it say?”

  He sighed. “It outlined all of the reasons he hated Aristotle. From the grave, my father turned me against my grandfather. I should have been wiser. I should have let the facts settle before I reacted. But I have always been fuelled by passion. And on that night, I read the letter and I began to blame my grandfather for everything, even my father’s death.”

  “Was it his fault?”

  “Of course not.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know exactly what transpired; my grandfather was too proud to discuss it. Too loyal, as well. But I do know that Aristotle was kind and fair. For him to have exiled my father, there must have been some great wrong committed.”

  Saphire’s sigh made her hair move; it tickled his chest.

  Thad cleared his t
hroat before speaking. “Do you want to go for dinner?”

  “Go for dinner?” She asked, her eyes sparkling as she lifted her face to look at him.

  He made a noise of agreement. “We can go back to Athens. See the town. Explore.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head. In the middle of the summer? Not if it meant she might run into anyone with the slightest connection to Jordan or her.

  “Will you think I’m some kind of sex addict if I say I’d rather stay here, naked with you?”

  His laugh caused her to smile. “No. I shall think you even more perfect than I already do.”

  And then, because the danger was still swirling at her feet, threatening to pull her under the water, she composed her features. “I know this is just sex, Mr Konstanides.”

  “Please, would you just call me Thad,” he begged with a laugh.

  She shook her head and spoke as though he’d said nothing. “It’s just sex.” She swallowed. “For both of us.”

  His eyes narrowed. That’s all he’d ever wanted from a woman. His longest relationship had lasted a month, but during that time, they’d only seen one another three times. So why did her pronouncement make his stomach lurch?

  She didn’t wait for him to speak. There was nothing he could say that would change her mind, and nothing he could ask that she’d be willing to explain. She pushed up and then, as she was about to get out of the bed, thought better of it. She crouched beside him and leaned forward, pressing a kiss against his lips. “I’m very sorry about your grandfather.”

  Again, his heart squeezed. Her kindness was diametrically opposed to her cold detachment; her determination that the only thing they had going for them was sex.

  Fine. If she wanted sex, then that’s what he’d give her. Just sex. Nothing else.