“Where have you been?” Her anguish was obvious in her voice. He ignored it.
“I told you. I was held up.”
His words were spoken with unmistakable coldness. She tried to ignore it, but a sense of uncertainty was haunting her.
“Did you … did you find a nanny?”
“A nanny?” He dragged his dark gaze over his wife. She looked better than he remembered and he loathed the way his body responded to her, with a shocking degree of awareness and need.
“For Eric and Helena?”
At the mention of her lover, something inside of Alex snapped. Sanity? Temper? He lifted his hands to the flimsy straps of her dress and slid them down her arms, without taking his eyes from her face.
“Yes.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad. The boys are such a handful. They’ll need help now that I’m here. With you.” She was babbling. Her dress had fallen to the floor. She was completely naked before him and he was looking at her as though for the first time.
“I’ve missed you.” She was begging him to say it back. To say something that would quell the pooling uncertainty that was filling her heart and mind.
“Let us see how much.”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes stayed on hers, and there was a faintly mocking quality to them.
“I mean, my dear, beautiful wife, that I want to fuck you until you scream this house down. And then I want to fuck you again.” His anger was a force riding high with his desire, and he enjoyed using the harsh language with her. “If you would be so kind as to undress me.”
“I …” Her eyes flashed briefly with the hurt that was in her heart but she told herself to ignore it. Hadn’t she been craving him with a desperate hunger? Now he was home, and the first thing he wanted was to make love to her. Sure, she wanted more than sex, but for the moment, sex would at least answer one of her needs.
Her fingers trembled as she unbuttoned his shirt. He watched with growing impatience as she fumbled with the buttons and then slid it from his body. When she knelt to attend to his pants, he groaned in anticipation. She was slow, but it only added fuel to the fire of his need. He undressed with an economy of movement, then put his hands down to pull her to standing.
Only she stayed at knee level, her big eyes looking up at him. Her cheeks were flushed; she was eye-height with his arousal and it was confronting.
“I … Alex …”
“Yes, Sophie?”
Sophie told herself she must be wrong. He wasn’t being condescending. He was … being Alex. Bossy, controlling, domineering, impatient, wonderful Alex. “I’ve never, um, done this, but …” Her blush deepened as her fingers wrapped hesitantly around his length. She moved her mouth forwards and tentatively she took his tip into her silky moistness. His body flinched in automatic response to the sweet contact. Instinctively, she ran her tongue around his tip and then took more of him in her mouth.
Alex groaned softly and his hands tangled in her hair, against her scalp, as she showed him that, whatever she claimed, she was either startlingly experienced or gifted with all forms of intercourse. He stepped backwards before he lost control altogether and masked his features with effort. “This is not the time to learn to ride a bike.”
Sophie was confused. And hurt. That much was obvious in the way her features crumpled. He hated how much pleasure he took from that fact. It was beneath him. Or it should have been.
“Was it not … I mean … I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She stood and turned away from him, her breathing ragged. The embarrassment was licking through her and Alex almost weakened. Only the memory of her treachery and dishonesty made it impossible for him to view her with anything other than contempt.
“I am not in the mood to be patient for release, Sophie. It has been three long days.”
“Tell me about it,” she snapped, spinning back to face him, her cheeks pink and her eyes shimmering with the threat of tears.
“I would rather show you,” he said darkly, stalking towards her and linking his fingers through hers. He pulled her hand and then he kissed her with a dark intensity, his tongue almost punishing in her mouth. But she groaned and her leg lifted to curve around his back. He took advantage of her posture to slide a finger inside her warmth. She was so wet and ready for him that he moaned against her.
He didn’t want to wait until they reached his bedroom. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her body to his, and pressed her back onto the lounge suite. When she was flat on her back, he stood and looked at her. She was so beautiful it hurt.
“Do you trust me?”
The question burned into her brain. Did she? In that moment, she was feeling a conflicting range of emotions. But she nodded, and licked her lower lip.
“Good.” He cast about until his eyes landed on his belt. He bent to retrieve it and then wrapped it around her wrists, looping it through the leg of the marble occasional table that sat behind her.
“Alex?”
His smile was brief. “You will enjoy it.”
“I just want to feel you.”
“And you will. Eventually.”
He stood back again to admire the view of his wife, tied and panting beneath him. Yes. He was going to pleasure her, and pleasure her again. He hovered his body over hers and ran his tongue from her lips, down her chin, to the cleft between her breasts. Her breathing was already rushed. When he began to lace his tongue lower, tracing invisible lines down past her belly button, to the hair-softened apex at the top of her thighs, she cried out and writhed.
She had almost driven him insane with the intimate kiss she’d given him. Now, it was his turn. His tongue ran between her folds, seeking her most intimate core. She bucked hard against him, her shock fierce.
He laughed against her and continued his invasion, using his fingers to give him access. Sophie was almost wild with pleasure. Arrows of heat and desire and need were barbing against her skin. She dug her heels into the sofa and cried out loudly, begging Alex. Begging him to take her. She ripped at her wrists but the leather of the belt against the weight of the marble held her perfectly imprisoned. He moved one hand up to her breasts and he squeezed a nipple until she felt stars in her eyes. The pleasure was the most magnificent thing she’d ever experienced. She needed more. She needed everything.
“Please, Alex, please. I’m begging you.”
“Have you ever felt like this, my wife?”
“No,” she shouted, not wondering why he’d ask such a question.
“Has anyone ever made you scream like this?”
“No.”
“Do you want me?”
“Yes! Shit! Please!”
He laughed and then lifted his mouth higher, to her other breast. He took it in his mouth and brought his arousal tantalisingly close to her entrance. Sophie lifted her hips, trying desperately to take him in deep, to feel him inside her, but he kept moving out of her reach.
“Please,” she whispered over and over, as her orgasm began to make her brain fog.
“Use my name,”
“Alex,” she substituted, and now she said his name, over and over again.
“Say, Alex, fuck me.”
She blinked her eyes open, confusion breaking the spell for the briefest of moments. He moved just inside her, and then pulled back out again. His desertion made her moan.
“Say it.”
“Please fuck me.”
“Alex, fuck me,” he corrected.
“Alex, fuck me,” she repeated through gritted teeth. She pulled at her wrists, a dark emotion combining with her total, rampant need for him.
“Yes,” he muttered. “Good girl.”
He drove his length into her hard, so that her breasts wobbled and her body shuddered. She cried out in relief as finally she felt his whole length in her body.
“More, please.”
“Alex, fuck me,” he reminded her.
“I don’t understand.”
&n
bsp; “This is what I want you to say to me, from now on.”
“But …”
He pulled out of her, his dark eyes glinting as he stared stubbornly at his wife. His own desire was obvious. His cheeks were dark beneath his tan and his arousal was rock hard. And yet he stayed away from her as though it were as easy for him as anything in the world.
“Alex, fuck me,” she mumbled, too torn up by her desire to refuse. A time would come to untangle the damage his words had caused. But it was not then.
He thrust into her once more, hard and Sophie cried out as she felt an orgasm bursting upon her soul. It was fierce and hot, and it made her whole body convulse. Alex waited until her breathing slowed, and then he reached forward and unhooked the belt.
With a monumental effort, he pulled away from his wife and stood. He didn’t look at her as he walked across the room and scooped up his clothes. He pulled his shorts on, but it was agony to do so. The fabric against his sensitive arousal made him want to take her back in his arms until he exploded.
But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing that he was just as crazy for her as she was for him. Hurt at her duplicity was a force that he found easier to process as rage; betrayal was better expressed as cold resentment.
Sophie sat up and rubbed her wrists. They were pink from the belt. Her insides were quivering and now, satiated by the release of such a tremendous orgasm, she sat in stone-cold shock.
What the hell had just happened?
“Alex …”
He was buttoning up his shirt, his back to her. His pants followed suit. Then, patiently, his face calm and certainly without emotion, he turned to face her. “Yes?”
Sophie hadn’t realised she was crying until a tear splashed down onto her naked thigh.
“I can’t believe that just happened.”
“Oh?” He arched a dark brow. “You did not want it?”
“I … I wanted you …”
“And you got me,” he shrugged insolently. “Is there any food?”
“Food?” She felt a bubble of rage in her chest. “What the hell? Don’t you think you owe me an apology?” She stood her voice shaking and her body trembling. But now, it was from fury, not lust.
“For what, Sophie?” He asked wearily, as though she were boring him. “For fucking you as you kept demanding me to do?”
“Don’t!” She stormed over to him, her body tense. “You made me say that. I wanted my husband to make love to me. I wanted you. I’ve missed you.” Her heart was twisting painfully in her chest. “I wanted you. I love you,” she whispered, her words haunted.
“And I love fucking you,” he said with a drawl. “Food?”
Sophie stared at him, her mind shuffling in a strange way. Everything he’d ever said. Everything he’d promised her. Why had he married her?
Her blue eyes examined him for a long time, trying to find some semblance of the man she knew. But in his place was this hard-hearted, rude megalomaniac.
“Go to hell,” she said finally and stormed away from him. Only where could she go? Not to their room, with its beautiful flower arrangements and the scent of hope and passion in the air. She went up another level, and selected a guest room at random. Two of the towelling robes that hung in each room were against the door. She wrapped one around her shaking frame and went to lie down. Only a moment later, nausea and shock combined in her gut and she had to bolt to the ensuite. She vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach and then she crawled back to bed, hot, cold, shocked and miserable.
What had happened to her husband?
And what was she going to do?
All night, he lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Flashes of memory scorched his brain, and kept him from sleeping.
He had decided, whilst in Athens, that he hated his wife. That he hated her for what she’d done to his sister, and what she obviously intended to continue doing to her. He hated her, and he had wanted to hurt her, perhaps in the same way Sophie had hurt Helena.
And yet it had made him feel ill to treat her with such contempt and disrespect. She might not deserve any better, and yet it sat like a knife in his gut that he’d behaved in such a fashion. He rolled over and stared at her empty side of the bed. It smelled like her. Sweet and soft.
He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, but that was worse. Then he saw her face. The depth of emotion she was able to convey with one look was almost too much to bear. The betrayal and bewilderment might as well have been spelled out for him.
He rolled the other way, but his eyes landed on the stunning arrangement of flowers she’d put beside the bed. He imagined her forming this collection of wildflowers into a bouquet. She would have hummed as she did it, in her slightly off-key voice. Her hands would have moved deftly, as she created this sculpture in the vase. Bright, fragrant and spiked, they were, in many ways, symbolic of his wife’s traits.
Then just … don’t do or say anything yet. Not until I work out what to do about Helena. This would be so much easier if we could meet in the kitchen for one of our late night sessions, wouldn’t it?
Alex thwomped his fist into his pillow.
I’ll try to get over and see you all soon. Perhaps when Alex is travelling next.
She hadn’t gone to him, though. Alex had checked in with Alena every day, and made enquiries of his wife. When Alena had offered to get Mrs Petrides, Alex had employed his most indulgent tone and insisted that she not be disturbed.
But, nonetheless, his wife was evidently planning to continue the affair.
That, and only that, was what he needed to hold onto.
He stood with a sound of frustration, giving up altogether on the idea of sleep. He began to walk towards the door and then thought better of it. He retraced his steps angrily and lifted the vase of flowers. One of the bougainvillea stalks grazed his forearm with a sharp needle. Blood seeped out slowly.
He ground his teeth together as he carried the flowers out of the villa and dumped them in the garden beside the front door.
It was a cathartic act, and afterwards, he made a pot of coffee and settled to his desk. Work, the act of concentrating on problems he could easily solve, always calmed him.
And so he worked, hoping that eventually, calmness would come.
6
Hunger, finally, drove her from the guest room. Still wrapped in the robe, with a face that was ashen and eyes that were red, she padded downstairs slowly and silently. Perhaps, if she was very lucky, her husband would be gone.
She did not wish to – and felt she could not – face him yet.
Her luck, though, had deserted her. Alex was in the kitchen, dressed casually, staring out of the window at the rolling ocean. Sophie froze in the doorway, and began to step backwards.
Hungry or not, she couldn’t do it.
Only he heard her and spun around, his face a dark mask of feeling before he smoothed it away. Sophie’s throat worked overtime as she tried to bring moisture back to her mouth. Her traitorous body frothed with desire. She dropped her eyes away and moved to the opposite side of the kitchen. It was large; she could avoid him, even while being in the same room.
“Sophie.” She stared at the kitchen bench as though it were suddenly the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.
“Sophie,” his word was a haunting reminder of how things had once been for them.
She swallowed but her throat was lined with razors. Nothing brought relief from the pain.
And what could he say, anyway? She bit down on her lower lip and shook her head slowly. “I just came down to get something to eat,” her words were a husk. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I can’t talk to you yet. I don’t know what to say.”
He was right behind her. She felt him before he spoke. He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and that now-familiar frisson of need began to bubble in her gut.
She couldn’t tell if she turned to face him with reluctance or anticipation, only that she did spin in his arms. His face, at least,
reflected some of her trepidation. He scanned her features with slow, deliberate curiosity and then wrapped his hands around her wrists. He lifted them and subjected them to the same steady study.
“Did I hurt you?”
Yes, she wanted to shout. Her heart had been smashed into a billion tiny pieces. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. She dropped her eyes and shook her head. The truth was, she’d never been more intensely satisfied than that night, and that terrified her.
“Sophie,” it was a plea, torn from his body.
She lifted her eyes to his face again, uncertainty making her slow to speak.
“Are you looking for me to say that it doesn’t matter? Or to somehow absolve you for what happened last night?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “No.”
“Good.” She pulled her wrists away and turned her back to him. She was starving, but the idea of staying in the kitchen was anathema to her. She pulled a banana from the fruit bowl and side-stepped away from him. “I don’t know what happened, and I have nothing I can say to you right now.”
He watched her move towards the door, and the words he’d been thinking all night were locked in his mind. I was angry because you are cheating on me. Because you and Eric are involved and Helena and I deserve better. But he couldn’t say them. Pride and resentment held him quiet.
And so, when she was almost out of the kitchen he said instead, “I am leaving again today.”
Only the fact that she stopped walking showed that Sophie had heard him. She nodded without turning back. “Okay.” He suspected tears had softened the word. He swore softly under his breath and dragged a hand through his hair. She was taking the piece of fruit and walking out of the villa, toward the terrace that overlooked the sea. Too late he thought of the flowers he’d discarded in the middle of the night.
They were there, and of course she saw them. The flowers lay in scattered disarray by the door. From the shade of the decked area, her eyes kept drifting to them. They were a perfect symbol of the strangely broken state they found themselves in. A graphic representation of her dashed hopes and ridiculous-seeming enthusiasm.