Читать книгу Modern Romance August 2018 Books 1-4 Collection - Мишель Смарт, Tara Pammi - Страница 20

CHAPTER TEN

THE MORNING SUN drifted in through the open windows of the bedroom but Tamsyn kept her eyes tightly shut, listening to the even sound of Xan’s breathing. She needed to get her thoughts straight before he awoke. She needed to get her mask firmly in place, knowing he would baulk if he ever realised the truth. That their marriage of convenience was about to get a whole lot more complicated.

How the hell had it happened? At what point during this crazy honeymoon, had she started to care for her husband in a way which suddenly seemed unstoppable? She risked turning her head, to see his ruffled black hair lying against the pillow. Was she such a sucker for affection, that she’d fallen for a man just because he clearly enjoyed having sex with her and they spent long hours romping in bed together?

She swallowed. No. It was more than that. Xan could be kind, she had discovered. She’d seen that in the way he was with his staff, but he was also kind to her—and interested. In fact, he’d surprised her by wanting to know her views on all kinds of things. Things which nobody had ever bothered asking her about before—like politics and space travel and global warming. And Tamsyn had discovered how flattering it was when a powerful and successful man elicited the opinion of someone who didn’t have a formal exam qualification to her name.

Nearly two weeks into her marriage and she had turned from being a reluctant bride to somebody who found joy in pretty much every moment she spent with her husband. But at least Xan didn’t have a clue how she was feeling, because concealment was something she excelled at, when she put her mind to it. She’d had a lifetime’s practice in emotional subterfuge. She might now want him, but he certainly didn’t want her. That had never been part of the deal. No man had ever wanted her, she reminded herself grimly. Not even her own father.

This marriage couldn’t last. It was never intended to last. And the deeper she fell for him, the more painful their split was going to be...

Dark lashes fluttered open and Tamsyn saw the cobalt gleam from between Xan’s shuttered eyes. He gave a lazy stretch and yawned, before pulling her against his warm nakedness and kissing the top of her ruffled curls.

‘And what would you like to do today, sizighos mou?’ His voice deepened as his hand slipped beneath the sheet and he began to massage one erect nipple. ‘Since it’s the last day of our honeymoon.’

Tamsyn bit her lip, wishing he hadn’t reminded her, especially since tomorrow was the day of their post-wedding party and one which his father had now announced he would definitely be attending. She wasn’t looking forward to all his friends giving her the once-over and finding her wanting. Her thick skin seemed to have thinned these last few days and suddenly the thought of having to play the unsuitable wife was filling her with dread.

‘We could spend the day on the beach,’ Xan was saying, stroking the flat of his hand over her belly.

‘Beach sounds good,’ she agreed.

‘Picnic or restaurant lunch?’

She tried to summon up some enthusiasm. ‘Picnic, I think.’

‘Relios.’ He gave a slow flicker of a smile and bent his mouth to her nipple. ‘My thoughts exactly.’

Reluctantly, she pulled away. ‘I’ll go and get showered—’

‘Hey,’ he protested, his hand reaching out to capture her waist. ‘What’s the hurry?’

Tamsyn’s answering smile was tight as she wriggled free, because the last thing she needed was another example of an easy compatibility which meant nothing. ‘I need to speak to Rhea about lunch,’ she insisted, jumping out of bed before he could distract her again. ‘If we’re not careful, we’ll end up spending the day in bed without actually having our picnic.’

‘And would that be such a crime?’ he grumbled. ‘Isn’t that what honeymoons are supposed to be about.’

‘Today it would,’ she said briskly. ‘I need to speak to Elena about flowers for the party and to Rhea about all sorts of boring things, including canapés.’

There was a moment of silence. ‘How quickly you have adapted,’ he observed silkily, with a note of something she didn’t recognise in his voice. ‘You are beginning to sound like a real wife, Tamsyn.’

‘And we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ she questioned brightly. ‘Don’t worry, Xan. I’ll have re-adopted my wild-child persona by tomorrow. The shortest dress, the biggest hair and the most make-up. That should do the trick, don’t you think? I can’t wait to see the reaction of your friends and colleagues.’ She forced a smile. ‘And now I really must go and shower.’

Moodily Xan leaned back against the pillows and watched his wife sashay across the bedroom towards the bathroom, the globes of her buttocks paler than the tanned perfection of her shapely legs. Frustration heated his blood and his erection throbbed uncomfortably between his legs. Why hadn’t he overridden her desire to help with the party and encouraged her to give into a far more satisfying kind of desire instead?

He was still engaged in silent contemplation when she returned, dabbing drops of moisture from her dewy body with a towel before slipping on a tiny yellow bikini, which she covered up with a green cotton dress.

His groin ached as he watched her. He had scheduled this honeymoon to give credibility to their whirlwind union, with the party tacked onto the end to indicate a return to normal life. He had planned to use this opportunity to slake himself of his seemingly inexhaustible appetite for his new wife, before she departed from his life for ever with her divorce settlement clutched tightly in her hand.

But his anticipation of all the sex he wanted had been tempered by caution, because he wasn’t used to having a woman around full-time. Even during his longer relationships, he rarely stayed with a lover longer than twenty-four hours at a stretch, because by then he’d usually reached his boredom threshold. The thought of fourteen whole days and nights with one person had filled him with panic and he’d imagined he would be climbing the walls by day three. He’d planned to make an urgent visit to his office in Athens on some hastily constructed urgent business if necessary, using the trip as a badly disguised means of escape.

Only it hadn’t turned out like that. He hadn’t gone near his computer—not once—and the feeling of being trapped simply hadn’t materialised. It turned out that Tamsyn liked her own space just as much as he did.

‘Of course,’ she had informed him carelessly when one day, frustrated at finding her curled up in the garden reading some lurid crime novel, he had enquired rather acidly whether she’d always been quite so independent. ‘It’s the way I was raised.’

Xan frowned. Was it contrary of him to find himself resenting the fact that she seemed intent on racing through the pile of novels she’d brought with her from England? Or excitedly informing him that his infinity pool gave her the ideal opportunity to perfect her breaststroke? And what about the afternoon when he’d fallen asleep beneath a pine tree and she had slipped away. He’d awoken up and gone looking for her and found her in the kitchen with Rhea, who was showing her how to make baklava which Tamsyn seemed to be alternating with colouring in a picture with Gia’s young daughter Maria. This scene of domestic bliss should have spooked him but it hadn’t, mainly because she had looked up at him with those big green eyes, and smiled and at that moment he had felt completely enslaved by her.

Xan scowled as he pushed away the rumpled sheet and got out of bed. The sooner he got back to work the better, he thought grimly. Work and distance would allow him to put this whole crazy marriage in perspective and to see it for what it really was.

Out on the sun-washed terrace, they breakfasted on fruit and honeyed yoghurt, served with strong black coffee. Afterwards Xan sailed his yacht to a sheltered cove—a favourite place whose inaccessibility always guaranteed privacy. Beneath the deep blue sky they spent the morning swimming and snorkelling in the crystal-clear waters and afterwards drank homemade iced lemonade. But although the food Rhea had stowed away in a cool box was carefully unpacked and looked delicious, he noticed Tamsyn seemed as disinterested in their picnic lunch as he was.

‘Not hungry?’ he murmured as he lay back on the soft sand.

She sat, ramrod-straight, looking out to sea. ‘Not really.’

‘Not for food?’

She cleared her throat. ‘Something like that,’ she agreed reluctantly, as if she resented his perception.

He smiled as a whispered fingertip down the entire length of her spine soon had the tension leaching from her shoulders and the touch of his lips which followed made her give an impatient little wriggle. He brushed his hand against her breasts and saw her lips open with hunger, clamping shut afterwards when he teased her by moving his fingers away from the thrusting nipple. He waited until he sensed complete readiness and then pulled her down next to him.

‘Is there anything you want which I can give you?’ he drawled lazily.

‘Xan,’ she said shakily.

‘Neh?’ he replied, as he stripped the tiny yellow bikini from her body and the sight of her naked in the sunshine made his blood roar. Tearing off his trunks with impatient hands, he parted her thighs and pushed deep inside her and she gasped as her hips lifted up to meet the hard slam of his. Never had she felt so hot or wet or deep and Xan could do nothing to stop the thoughts which flooded into his head as he drove into her. In a couple of days time he would be in his office in Athens, with back-to-back meetings and conference calls. He wouldn’t see Tamsyn until he got home in the evening—probably not before eight at the earliest—because he always worked late. Was it that which made this seem so poignant? The sense of something ending which somehow increased the intensity, making his climax explode at exactly the same time as hers, which had never happened to them before.

They lay there afterwards, resting in the shade of rocky outcrop and for a moment he thought she was asleep. But no. He heard her sigh as, her eyes concealed by her shades, she stared up at the sky above.

‘Was that good?’ he questioned, with sleepy satisfaction.

‘It’s always good.’

‘I don’t know how you do it.’ He gave another yawn. ‘But every time I have you, I just want you all over again.’

‘It’s because you know it’s only temporary,’ she said lightly.

‘Maybe.’

Tamsyn heard the sound of his breathing deepening and a quick glance at his supine form told her he’d fallen asleep. Reluctantly she dragged her gaze away from all the unleashed power of his magnificent body and stared out to sea. Out on the horizon was nothing but a deep slash of dark sapphire water and in front of it, the sugar-white grains of sand. The air was still and warm and fragrant and her body felt utterly satiated by Xan’s sublime lovemaking. She wished she could capture that moment and keep it in a bottle.

But she couldn’t.

She couldn’t hold onto any of this. It was slipping through her fingers just like the fine sand on which she lay. She’d agreed to a three-month marriage but now she could see that her decision to put a time limit on their union might have been too hasty. Even reckless. How could she possibly endure another ten weeks of pretending that her feelings for Xan hadn’t changed—when she was putty in his hands after a mere fortnight together?

Behind her dark glasses, Tamsyn blinked away the incipient threat of tears. She’d been told by men in the past that she was cold and frigid. That behind her vibrant exterior was nothing but ice—and she had believed it, because nobody before Xan had ever made her melt. But Xan had. How could she not grow closer to a man when he was inside her and they were staring deep into each other’s eyes? When she became unsure where he began and she ended—as if they were both parts of the same body. That was when wishful thinking found an opportunity to creep into her mind and take root there. Started making her long for things which were never going to happen.

Because none of this was real, she reminded herself. They were just playing make-believe. Her Greek husband had embraced the physical, but his emotional barriers remained firmly in place. And so did hers, if she was being honest. Because otherwise, why hadn’t she just come out and told him about her dad?

She swallowed. She’d never discussed her father, not even with Hannah. Especially not with Hannah—not after what had happened. Perhaps if she’d fallen in love with someone kind and approachable, she might have opened up her heart to him. But Xan wasn’t that man. His lovemaking might be completely fulfilling—but that didn’t detract from his hard and critical side.

He’d married her to get himself out of a tight corner.

An unsuitable wild-child bride he just happened to be sexually compatible with.

And the longer she stayed with him, the more vulnerable she made her already damaged heart.