Читать книгу Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8 - Annie West - Страница 19

‘WHAT WORK WERE you doing in London?’

Hannah sipped her fruit juice, a pang of guilt scrunching her chest when she thought of her boss, Fergus, and how she planned to leave him completely in the lurch.

‘I’m a legal secretary.’

‘Have you done this for long?’

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Since I left high school. My aunt and uncle lived in a small town. There weren’t a lot of options for work. I would have loved to go away to university but it just wasn’t practical.’

‘For what reason?’

‘Money, mainly.’

‘I thought universities in Australia were subsidised?’

‘They are,’ she agreed, lifting a piece of fish from the platter. ‘But I’d have had to move to the city, found a place to rent. Even with governmental assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live out of home, to cover textbooks and rent.’

‘Your parents left you nothing when they died?’

She felt censure in his voice and her back straightened, defensiveness stirring inside her. ‘They left a little. My aunt and uncle took a stipend each year, and what’s left I can’t claim until I’m twenty-five.’

At this, Leonidas was completely still. ‘Your aunt and uncle took money from you?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said quietly. ‘They took money to cover the cost of raising me.’

His face showed pure contempt.

‘You think that was wrong?’

A muscle jerked in his jaw and she felt he was weighing his words, choosing what to say with care. She didn’t know him well and yet she felt for herself how uncharacteristic that care was.

‘I do,’ he said finally. ‘Were they struggling financially?’

Hannah shifted her shoulders and repeated the line she’d frequently been given. ‘An extra person is an extra expense.’

He studied her thoughtfully for several seconds, but he evidently decided not to pursue this line of questioning, and she was glad.

Glad because she didn’t like to talk about it, much less think about it.

As a teenager, she’d been able to ignore her niggling doubts, but as she’d grown older, and met more people, she had come to see more and more at fault with the way her aunt and uncle had treated her. A desire to defend them didn’t change reality, and the reality felt an awful lot as if they simply resented her presence in their lives.

She felt it in her heart, but to confess that to Leonidas was too difficult.

‘What would you have studied?’

She relaxed visibly. ‘That’s easy.’

He waited, his eyes not shifting from her face, so that even when their conversation was smoother to navigate, her pulse was still racing.

He had beautiful eyes, but she doubted many women told him that. There were too many other things about him that required mention. His body, his lips, his clever, clever hands. But his eyes were breathtaking. Dark, rimmed with thick black lashes, and when the full force of their focus was given to one’s face, concentration was almost impossible.

‘Am I to guess?’ he prompted, after several seconds.

Heat flooded her cheeks. ‘I wanted to be a lawyer,’ she said, curling her fingers around the stem of her orange juice–filled champagne flute, feeling its fine crystal. ‘Law degrees take years and cost a bomb. The textbooks alone would have bankrupted my aunt and uncle.’ She said it with a smile, as though it were a joke. ‘Becoming a legal secretary was the next best thing. There was a conveyancing firm in another town, just a half-hour drive away. Angus worked there.’ She cleared her throat, sipping her drink. ‘That’s how we met.’

‘I see.’ If it were possible, his expression darkened even further.

‘I loved working at the firm, and I’m good at what I do.’ Pride touched her voice. ‘So maybe everything worked out for the best.’

‘I can’t say I agree with that,’ he drawled, after several long moments. His eyes roamed her face. ‘However, you no longer have any kind of financial impediment to you undertaking a law degree. You will obviously be based here, on the island, but there are many universities that offer degrees via distance. You could enrol in one to start next semester.’

Hannah’s eyes were huge, and she was struck dumb, for many reasons.

‘This island is beautiful,’ she said thoughtfully, trying to imagine her future. ‘But very remote.’

His expression glittered. ‘Yes. By design.’

She nodded, the loss of his family naturally having made him security conscious. Nonetheless, the idea of being stuck here sat strangely in her chest. She liked a tropical paradise as much as the next person, but not without an easy escape route.

Not necessarily for ever. She shelved her thoughts, though. They’d only just arrived. There was time to find her groove as they adjusted to this new life.

‘I love the idea of studying law as much as ever,’ she said sincerely. ‘But I’m kind of going to have my hands full for the next little while…’

‘A baby is not an excuse to turn your back on your dreams,’ he said simply. ‘You will want for nothing, and help will be available whenever you need it. I will be available,’ he added. ‘This is our daughter, not your burden alone.’

Her heart turned over in her chest and his completely unexpected show of support and confidence had her opening a little of herself up to him.

‘I’m nervous, Leonidas.’ She lifted the fish to her mouth, chewing on it while she pulled her thoughts into order. ‘The idea of becoming a mum scares me half to death.’

‘Why?’

‘How can it not? I have no idea what to do, or if I’ll be any good at it. I mean, it’s a baby. I’ve never even had a pet.’

His laugh was just a dry, throaty husk of a sound. ‘A baby is not really anything like a pet, so I wouldn’t let that bother you too much.’

‘You know what I mean. I’ve never had the responsibility of keeping something alive, something totally dependent on me.’

She heard the words a second too late, before she could catch them, but as soon as they landed in the atmosphere she wished she could gobble them right back up. ‘I’m sorry.’ She leaned across the table and put a hand on his, sympathy softening her expression while his own features tightened to the point of breaking.

‘Don’t be. I know what you meant.’

She nodded, but the easy air of conversation had dissipated.

‘Being nervous is normal. You just have to trust that you will know what to do when our baby is born.’

‘And you have experience,’ she said, watching him carefully.

‘Yes.’ He nodded, curtly, placing his napkin on his side plate and sipping his wine. Then, he stood, fixing her with a level stare. ‘Marina will show you to your room when you are finished. In the morning, a stylist will arrive to take your clothes order, and then a jeweller will come to offer you some rings to choose from.’

She blinked up at him, his abrupt change of temperament giving her whiplash. He was obviously hesitant to discuss his first wife and son, but jeez!

‘Leonidas…’ Hannah frowned, not sure what she wanted to say, knowing only that she didn’t want him to walk away from her like this. ‘I can’t ignore the fact you had a family before this. I get that you don’t like talking about it, but I can’t tiptoe around it for ever. You had a son, and I’m pregnant with your daughter. Don’t you think it’s natural that we’ll talk about him, from time to time?’

‘No.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked out to sea, the expression on his face so completely heartbroken that something inside Hannah iced over, because it was clear to her, in that moment, how hung up he still was on the family he’d lost.

And why wouldn’t he be? They’d been wrenched from him by a cruel twist of fate, by the acts of a madman. Nothing about this—his situation—was by his choice.

Nor was it Hannah’s, she reminded herself. She knew more than her fair share about cruel twists of fate.

The sky was darkening with every second, but pinpricks of light danced obstinately through, sparkling like diamonds against black sand. She followed his gaze, her own appetite disappearing.

‘I don’t want to force you,’ she said gently, standing to move right in front of him. ‘It’s your grief, and your life. But I will say, as someone who’s spent a very long time bottling things up, that it’s not healthy.’ She lifted a hand, touching the side of his cheek. He flinched, his eyes jerking to hers, showing animosity and frustration.

Showing the depths of his brokenness.

It called to Hannah; she understood it.

‘You are an expert in grief, then?’ he pushed, anger in the words.

‘Sadly, yes,’ she agreed quietly.

‘Do not compare what we have experienced,’ he said. ‘To lose your parents is unbearable, I understand that, and I am sorry for you, what you went through. You were a child, robbed of the ability to be a child. But I caused my wife and son’s death. As sure as if I had murdered them myself, I am the reason they died. Do not presume to have any idea what that knowledge feels like.’

That Hannah slept fitfully was hardly surprising. Leonidas’s parting shot ran around and around her mind, the torment of his admission ripping her heart into pieces. To live with that guilt would have driven a lesser man crazy.

But it wasn’t only sadness for the man she’d hastily agreed to marry.

It was worry.

Fear.

Panic.

Stress.

And something far, far more perplexing, something that made her nipples pucker against the shirt he’d given her to sleep in, that made her arch her back in her dreams, and meant she felt warm and wet between her legs when she finally gave up on trying to sleep, before dawn, and stood, pacing to the window that overlooked the ocean.

Memories.

Memories of their one night together and fantasies of future nights were all weaving through Hannah’s being, bursting upon her soul and demanding attention.

The sun had just started to spread warmth over the beach. Darkness was reluctantly giving way to light, and the morning was fresh.

It was Hannah’s favourite time of day, when the air itself seemed to be full of magic and promise.

She had only the clothes she’d worn the day before, and the shirt she’d slept in, which was ridiculously big even when accommodating her pregnant belly. Still, it was comfortable and covered her body. Besides, it was a private island. Who was going to see her?

Pausing only to take a quick drink of water in the kitchen, Hannah unlocked the front door of the mansion and stepped out, breathing in the tangy salt air.

Excitement and a sense of anticipation rushed her out of nowhere, like when she was a small girl, around six or seven, and her parents had taken her away on their first family vacation. They’d gone to the glitzy beachside resort of Noosa, in tropical Queensland, and Hannah had woken early and looked out on the rolling waves crashing onto the beach, the moon still shimmering in the sky, and her stomach had rolled, just like this.

There’s something elemental and enlivening about the sea, and this island was surrounded by a particularly pristine shoreline and ocean.

Without having any real intention of going to the beach, she found herself moving that way quickly, her bare feet grateful when they connected with cool, fine sand, clumps of long grass spiking up between it every now and again. Dunes gave way to the flatness of the shore. She walked all the way to the water’s edge, standing flat-footed and staring out to the sea, her back to Leonidas’s mansion, her eyes on the horizon.

This was not the tropical water off the coast of Queensland. Here, there were no waves, only the gentle sighing of the sea as the tide receded. With each little pause, each undulation back towards the shore, the water danced over Hannah’s toes; the cool was delicious given the promise of the day’s heat.

She could have stood there, staring out at the mesmerising water, all day, were it not for the sudden and loud thumping from directly to her left. She turned just in time to see Leonidas, earphones in and head down, eyes trained on the shore, galumphing towards her. There was barely enough time to sidestep out of his way.

He startled as he ran past, jerking his head up at the intrusion he’d sensed, then swore, pulling his earphones out and letting them dangle loose around his neck.

She wished he hadn’t.

The simple act drew her eyes from his face to his body. There was nothing scandalous about what he was wearing. Shorts and a T-shirt—only the T-shirt was wet with perspiration and the firmness of his pecs was clearly visible.

She took a step backwards without realising it, not to put physical space between them but because she wanted to see him better. Her aunt would have told her to stop staring, but Hannah couldn’t. As much as the tide couldn’t cease its rhythmic motion, Hannah found it impossible to tear her eyes away.

She remembered everything about him and yet…seeing him again sparked a whole new range of wants and needs.

Thick, strong legs covered in dark, wiry hair looked capable of running marathons but she couldn’t look at him without imagining him straddling her, pushing her to the sand and bringing his body over hers, his hard arousal insistent between her legs. Without remembering the feeling of his weight on her body, his strength, power and skill in driving her to orgasm again and again.

Her throat was dry and the humming of the ocean was nothing to the furious pounding of her own blood in her ears.

She dragged her eyes up his body, over dark shorts that showed nothing of his manhood, even when she was suddenly desperate to see it—to see all of him again, in real life, not her very vivid dreams.

She prepared to meet his gaze, knowing he must surely be regarding her with mocking cynicism, only he wasn’t.

He wasn’t looking at her face, wasn’t looking at her eyes to see the way she’d been eating him alive. No, he was performing his own slow, sensual inspection and it was enough to make her blood burn.

His eyes were on her legs, desire burning in the depths of his gaze as he lifted his attention to the curve of her breasts and, finally, to her lips. They parted under his inspection as she silently willed him to kiss them. To pull her into his arms and remember how well that worked between them.

And when he didn’t, she took a step forward herself, knowing it didn’t matter who moved first, knowing it was imperative only that they touch once more.

It broke the spell. His gaze slammed into hers, surprise there, confusion and, yes, desire. So much desire that it almost drowned her. He made a deep, husky sound and stood completely still, his body hard like steel.

Hannah moved closer, her eyes holding a silent challenge. Stop me if you dare.

He didn’t.

One more step and their bodies connected, just like that first night in the bar, when fate had thrown them together and passion had held them there.

The air around them cracked and sizzled as though a localised electrical storm had touched down. He was so much bigger than she was. Hannah stood on the tips of her toes, which brought her body flush to his, her womanhood so close to the strength of his arousal that she echoed his own guttural moan with a soft whimper.

‘Hannah.’ Her name on his lips wasn’t a request, nor was it a surrender. He spoke her name as though he simply couldn’t resist and she lifted higher onto her toes and kissed him, hungrily.

He was still. Completely still, so her mouth moved over his, her tongue tracing the outline of his lower lip, her breath warm against him, and then, after the briefest moment, he lifted his hands to the back of her head, holding her where she was, keeping her so close to him, and he opened his mouth, kissing her back. But not in the way she had kissed him.

This was a kiss driven as much by a need to possess as his kiss had been the first night they’d met. There was madness in his kiss, his desperation for her completely overwhelming.

The water rushed around them, chasing their ankles, its fervent pursuit matched by the coursing of blood in their veins.

Hannah couldn’t have said if he pulled her to the sand or if she pulled him, but she was lying down then, her back against the cold ground, her legs bent, Leonidas’s body on hers, just as she’d fantasised about, his weight sheer bliss.

His kiss didn’t relent, even as his hands pushed her shirt up, revealing the scrap of her underwear.

He disposed of them and then his own shorts, lifting himself up to look at her, his eyes piercing her, confusion and something else moving through him.

‘I told myself we wouldn’t do this,’ he groaned, his voice tormented.

She bit down on her lower lip, her own heart tripping in her chest as his arousal nudged at her sex.

‘Why not?’

His answer was to nudge his arousal inside her, and she moaned low in her throat as she felt the power of his possession. It had been five months but her body welcomed him back as though he were her saviour. She arched her back instinctively, needing more, and he drove himself deeper, pushed up on his elbows so he could see her, watch her, as well as feel her reactions.

Her insides squeezed him tight, muscles convulsing around him as he stretched her body to accommodate his length.

‘What are you doing to me?’ he groaned, and then said something in his native tongue, the words, spiced and warm, flickering inside her blood.

‘I don’t know but you’re doing it right back,’ she whispered, digging her nails into his shoulders before running them lower, finding the edge of his shirt and lifting it, trailing her fingertips over his back, feeling his smooth, warm skin beneath her and revelling in the contact.

Higher the shirt went, until he pushed up off one arm, ripping it from his body and casting it aside, so that he was naked on top of her. She wanted to stare at him, but she was incapable of forming the words to demand that when he was moving inside her, his body calling to hers, demanding her response, invoking ancient, soul-deep rhythms and needs.

‘Christós…’ The word was dark, a curse and a plea. His expression was taut as he looked down at her, unable to fathom her, this, them. ‘Who are you?’

There was no answer she could give; the question made little sense.

He didn’t require an answer, in any event. He moved faster then, his hands cupping her breasts, his mouth possessing hers as he kissed her until she saw stars and his hard arousal thrust deep inside her and everything she was in the past and would be in the future seemed to be coalescing in that one single, fragile moment.

She dug her nails into the curve of his buttock as pleasure pounded against her, like one of those waves from her faraway childhood, incessant, demanding, ancient. She cried his name and he stilled, his body heavy on hers, but as she exploded with pleasure her muscles squeezed him tight and Leonidas dropped his arms to his side, holding himself steady above her, staring down at her, watching every last second of delirium take over her body.

He stared at her so that when she blinked her eyes open, her own disorientation at what had just happened filling her with uncertainty, he saw it and he dropped his head, kissing her again, as though he knew how much she needed it.

It was a brief reprieve, nothing more. She’d been drowned by their passion and then emerged for air, and now Leonidas was taking her back under with him, tangling her in his limbs, his hands roaming all of her body now, until he curved them behind her bottom and lifted her a little off the sand, so his arousal reached even deeper and she found insanity was once more in pursuit.

His name tripped off her tongue, pushing into his mouth. With every thrust of his arousal, his body tightened, his buttocks squeezing, his muscles firm. She felt him beneath her palms, all of him, and then he moved faster, deeper and she was lifting into the heavens again, her body weightless and powerless to resist.

He moved inside her and she called his name as she burst apart at the seams, Leonidas, over and over. She called to him—willing him to answer—and he did. He tangled his fingers through hers, lifting Hannah’s arms up above her head, his eyes on hers intense as his own explosion wracked his body, his release simultaneous with hers.

Their breath was frantic, louder than the ocean and the flapping of birds overhead, their exhalations thick and raspy, drenched in urgency. Pleasure had made her lungs expire. He lay on top of her and she ran her fingers down his back, still mesmerised by the feeling of his skin, and this: the closeness, the weight, the intimacy.

It lasted only seconds, and then Leonidas was rolling off, beside Hannah, onto his back on the sand beside her, staring at the dawn sky.

‘Christós…’ He said the word low and thick. ‘What are you?’

Again, a question that was almost impossible to answer. He turned his head to stare at her and there was confusion in his eyes, and a look of resignation.

‘What do you mean?’

He reached out as though he couldn’t help himself, his fingers catching a thick section of her hair and running through it, his eyes on the brassy tones.

‘Are you real?’

The question made no sense.

She raised an eyebrow, propping up on one elbow, a smile tugging at her lips. ‘I’m pretty sure I am.’

He didn’t smile. ‘I swore we wouldn’t do this.’

Hannah expelled a sigh. ‘You said that. I heard you. It doesn’t make sense, though.’

His frown deepened. ‘For four years I have been able to resist any woman in the world. For four years I have been single, and then you…’

Hannah was quiet as his words ran through her mind and their meaning became clear. ‘You mean you hadn’t been with anyone since Amy died?’

His expression was shuttered. He shook his head, his lips a grim line in his face. ‘No.’

Hannah’s chest hurt, as if it had been sliced in half and cut wide open. ‘Why not?’

His nostrils flared. ‘Many reasons.’ His hand lifted to her hair again, toying with the ends. ‘I enjoyed resisting temptation, choosing to be celibate, to be alone. And then I saw you and it was just like this. As though you are some kind of angel—or devil—sent to tempt me even when I know how wrong this is. I spent four years flexing my power here and you take it away from me completely.’

Hannah’s voice was thick; she didn’t know if she was flattered or insulted. She suspected a bit of both. ‘Why is it wrong?’

He pushed up to standing then, just as he had the night before when she’d touched on areas he preferred not to discuss.

But she wasn’t going to let him get away with it twice. ‘I’m serious, Leonidas. Why is this wrong?’