by Maisey Yates
Probably still did, in truth. Even though Apollo had taken a chunk out of David St. James’s empire, he probably privately celebrated his stepson’s ruthlessness.
Apollo might have betrayed them. But Apollo never acted like he wished she were someone else. Apollo never made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. He gloried in her body, in the attraction between them. It was more than she had ever had from...anyone.
The thought filled her with a sudden, intense swell of emotion. Whatever they had, whatever this was, it fed her soul in a way nothing else did. Because it was about her. It wasn’t about the business. It wasn’t about performing to his satisfaction. He cared about performing to hers. They were in this together. They wanted each other.
For once she wasn’t striving for approval. Wasn’t trying to live up to an expectation she simply never could.
Her father had seen Apollo as his hope. The son he never had. The heir she could never be.
Then he had trusted Apollo to bail him out, never speaking to her about anything. Never consulting her. He had always trusted Apollo above her.
And Apollo had betrayed him.
But that didn’t stand in the way of her and Apollo. He didn’t look at her and see the unfulfilled promises of someone else. He wanted her. In spite of everything.
It was balm for her soul.
He swept her into his arms, lifting her as though his arms were created to cradle her close. As though she was the perfect weight and size for him. As though this moment had been fated from the beginning.
He carried her up from the pool, striding right into the house, clearly just as unconcerned as she was about being seen. She had a feeling his staff was paid to look the other way when he was conducting affairs in his home. She shoved that thought to the side. She wasn’t going to think about other times, other women.
Right now, she was the only one. That would have to be enough.
He started up the stairs, and she put her hand on his cheek, tracing the fine lines on his face. Additions to his features, new and fascinating. She remembered his face so clearly as a teenage boy. Smooth, pretty. Full perfect lips, amusement in his dark eyes, a kind of irreverent quirk to his brow.
He was no longer smooth. Dark stubble covered his jaw, his chin. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth, marred his forehead. The face that had once been pretty was now more rugged, more distinguished. The laughter in his eyes was gone, replaced with a kind of intensity that burned her from the inside out.
The irreverence was still there, though. It was one of her favorite parts of him. That dry, sardonic humor that would make her laugh in the strangest moments. That would take her from anger to entertainment in only a few moments. That would see her kissing him instead of screaming at him thanks to one well-timed comment.
He was one of the few men who had ever stood up to her. Who had gone toe to toe with her and made her feel like she just might lose.
Not for the first time she wondered at the ground they had covered since then. Wondered about what had happened.
But she didn’t have time to turn it over anymore, because they had reached the top of the stairs, and only a second later, her bedroom.
He set her down, water dripping down her body, pooling down around her feet. “I’m going to get the carpet wet.”
“I can’t say I am very concerned about that.”
“Well, it’s your carpet.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, one side of his mouth curving upward.
He regarded her for a moment before taking a step toward her, tracing the line down the edge of her bikini top, the tip of his finger only barely delving beneath. “This is the stuff of my darkest fantasies.”
“A fluorescent bikini?”
He chuckled. “You. In this bikini. So much of that beautiful, pale skin on display. Your hair... It should look ridiculous with this color. Instead, you’re simply everything bright. I wanted you then. I consider this my reward for good behavior.” His smile turned wicked. “You know, I only wish I had known you were a virgin.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Had I known you were a virgin I would have relished my prize all the more. I was obsessed with having you first. With teaching you about pleasure.”
“You did,” she said. She had held the words back from him two weeks ago. Because she had not been ready to share that with him. Had not been ready to confess just how much he had meant to her. What it had meant that he was her first lover.
Or why he was.
But there was no use in protecting herself now. She didn’t want to.
“It was always you that I wanted,” she said. “That was why even though I said I hated you, even though I was so angry at you the first time I kissed you, it went as far as it did. Because it was always you for me, Apollo. No matter how many years have passed, no matter what ugly words were spoken between us, it was always you.”
* * *
Apollo knew he did not deserve the words that Elle had just spoken. He was using her. For these past two weeks he had been using her. To satisfy his need for her. Biding his time until he could get his revenge, filling the hours with the pleasures of her body knowing that in the end he would betray her.
There was nothing else to do. This thing between them could not last. And he could not deviate from his course of revenge against his stepfamily. Not now.
He had made up his mind. There would be wreckage.
Collateral damage.
But he wouldn’t think of it now. Instead, he would take that unearned compliment. Savor it. Hold it close. He would consider this the satisfaction of a desire born years ago. The revenge would be a satisfaction of a different desire, but it was a separate issue. In his mind, she wasn’t a St. James. Not now. Now, she was his lover. As he had long fantasized.
When he was finished he would end his association with her and continue on, viewing her again as the daughter of his enemy, rather than his mistress.
He could barely tear his gaze away from her, away from her pale, delectable curves, so effortlessly displayed by the flimsy material of the bikini.
That she had done this for him... It was strange. It created a shifting sensation at the center of his chest, made him feel as though the earth had tilted slightly. This shared memory that they had of this time when they had wanted the same things... It was strange to have it here in the present.
Just take it. It is a gift.
He would. Whether he deserved it or not. Because, as he had already told her, he was the villain here. Nothing would change that.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he untied the top of the bikini, peeling it away from her luscious breasts, baring them to his gaze. She was pale everywhere except for here. Here, she was pink. Pink and perfect and everything he desired. He leaned in, tracing the edge of her puckered nipple with his tongue before sucking her deep into his mouth.
“So sweet,” he said, his voice rough and unrecognizable to his own ears. “Better than honey.”
She shivered beneath him and he recognized his pleasure coursing through her body. He was learning to read her. Learning to understand what made her moan, what brought her close to the edge. Had learned how to tease her. How to hold her on the brink of climax without giving it to her completely.
He had never kept a lover for this length of time before. Always, he was finished with them after a couple of nights. A couple of weeks was unheard of. There was something...intoxicating about it. Something singular. To know one particular woman’s body in such an intimate fashion. Of course, he was well-versed with the female body, but that was different. This was...
Well, this was Elle.
He imagined it would never be the same with another woman, no matter how long he was with her. Elle was a fiery, living fantasy come to life, everything he had ever imagined she might be and
more.
It was a damn shame. He wished she was a disappointment. Wished that she was something he could despise. Wished that she could have done something, anything to confirm that he was right to carry out this revenge plot, and use her as he’d planned.
He wished he had left her as the brittle, buttoned-up woman she had seemed in his mind only a couple of weeks ago.
But now he knew her. Knew her body. Knew her soul.
That’s ridiculous. You cannot know someone’s soul. You haven’t one of your own.
He pulled her close, taking hold of the tie on her swimsuit bottoms and tugging the thread roughly, then the other side, letting it fall to the ground. Trying to break the spell that she had cast over him with this bright, insubstantial piece of fabric. It was insane. And yet it was so...
He had advanced no further with her than where he had been nine years ago. He was still a slave to his desires. And now he was old enough to know that going out and getting any redhead at any bar would not suffice.
Now that he had had Elle, he knew that there was no substitute. Ever. There had never been another woman like her, and there never would be again.
He dropped to his knees in front of her, suddenly overwhelmed with his desire. He buried his face between her thighs, tasting her, deep and long, relishing the flavor of her desire as it spread over his tongue. He was insatiable for her. Desperate for her. He pushed one finger deep inside her slick channel, then another, loving the way that she bucked against his hand, the needy cries for pleasure that escaped her lips.
She was desperate. Like he was. She was in this with him. He needed it proven. Needed to know for sure. He felt like he was losing his mind. He did not know himself now. Never in all his life had a woman made him shake. Never in all his life had a woman owned him in such a way. Never had a woman successfully erased visions of any other.
But she had.
He gripped her hips, holding her tightly against his mouth as he continued to pleasure her, until she shook just as violently as he did. Until she was on the verge. Until she was whimpering, crying out for release. Begging for it.
He loosened his hold on her, sliding the flat of his tongue over her as he rose upward, tracing a line to her belly button, up farther, until he was standing. Until he could capture her mouth with his. He pulled her up against him, let her feel the hard, insistent thrust of his arousal against her stomach. Kissed until he was dizzy. Until she was pleading with him to take her.
He rocked his hips against her, relishing the raw sounds she made, the feeling of her fingernails digging into his skin. It was always like this with her. Desire tinged with violence.
And he loved it.
He backed her up against the bed, and they fell onto it. He positioned himself between her thighs, pressing the head of himself to her slick entrance. He pushed into her easily, her arousal easing the way. She was so hot, so tight. She was made just for him.
As he seated himself fully inside her he had the strongest sensation that he was home. That he was complete for the first time in years.
A deep, strong emotion tugged at his chest, a sense of déjà vu that he didn’t want to place. This was new and familiar all at the same time. And he rejected it. Didn’t want it. But as his arousal built, as she flexed her hips beneath him, meeting his every thrust, he found he could not hold on to his control and keep the emotions at bay.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, and as she gave herself up to her own release, as his own climax crashed over him like a wave, those feelings crashed through him, as well.
And as he was tossed violently in the surf, he could think of one thing. Elle. That she was the port in the storm. That she was the constant. The North Star by which he had been guided for years. A star he had turned away from.
The realization left him feeling like his chest was full of broken glass. As though he had been wounded, invaded by sharp, shattered splinters he could never hope to remove.
He looked down at Elle, at her lips, flushed with desire, swollen from his kisses, her eyes, slumberous, satisfied. Looking at him as though he held answers.
He had no answers. At this moment, he had nothing but questions.
“Stay with me. Tonight,” she said, “could you stay with me?”
And as terror tore at him like a rabid dog, he could do nothing but nod and pull her into his arms. But it did nothing to stop the hemorrhaging in his chest. Did nothing to stem the flow of pure, unmitigated fear pounding through him.
But Elle had asked him to stay. And so he did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN APOLLO WOKE, it was starting to turn gray outside. And Elle was curled up around him like a cat. He had no doubt, even for a moment, who he was lying in bed with. Who he had fallen asleep with.
He had never been close enough with a woman to even contemplate letting his guard down enough to fall asleep with her. In the past, the moment he finished making love with a woman, he left. There was no reason to linger. Sex, in his experience, could be perfectly impersonal. Sleeping with someone had seemed an intimacy he did not wish to contend with.
But he had fallen asleep with Elle, after she had asked him to stay. He had not imagined he would sleep. But it seemed natural. To hold her in his arms while they both drifted off. Bathing in the afterglow of the pleasure they had shared.
Suddenly, panic overtook him. He had a plan. A plan to make the St. James family pay for the sins they had committed against his family. To avenge the death of his father. The loss of his family fortune. The strange relationship Apollo’s mother had been forced into by David St. James.
And every indignity he had suffered. Every moment he had been made to feel like he had not earned his position at the prestigious boarding school he went to. Every time he had to defend his placement in the boardroom because he had come from such humble beginnings.
She was weakening that plan. She was weakening his determination. And he could not let that stand.
He extricated himself from her hold, rolling out of bed. He forked his fingers through his hair, looking around, before remembering he had no clothes in her room. He wrenched open the door, walking down the hall completely naked. All of the staff would have gone home. Anyway, they knew better than to stare too long if they saw something shocking in his home.
Instead of going to his bedroom, he went into his office, taking a bottle of whiskey from the shelf to the left of his desk. He poured a healthy amount, and took a fortifying drink. Elle drove him to drink. This was the second time he’d turned to alcohol to deal with the effects she had on him.
Most women didn’t affect him at all.
He had been determined to keep her with him until the attraction between them burned out, but he could see that something else was heating up between them, something he had no hope of burning out half so quickly.
Rage took him over. He didn’t want to send her away. He could imagine it, telling her to leave. Never touching her again. Never spending another night with her. Anger overtook him, completely, dictating his next action. He took the half-full glass of whiskey and hurled it at the wall, watching the glass shatter, feeling no remorse at all.
The fact that the very thought of her leaving made him feel so helpless, so enraged was only more evidence that he had to send her away.
If he was going to take his revenge, he would have to take it now.
* * *
They had forgotten to tint the windows. That was Elle’s first thought when she woke up the next morning. Her second thought was that she was alone. True to his word, Apollo had not spent the night with her. She shouldn’t be surprised, but after she had confessed to him that he was her only lover, she supposed she had expected...something.
She supposed that she was foolish.
For wishing that things could be different. For wishing th
at something had changed between them. She didn’t know what.
She sat up, clutching the blankets to her chest. And suddenly, Apollo came bursting through the door. “Good morning,” he said, his mouth set into a grim line.
“Good morning,” she said.
During all of the time she’d spent here, he had never come into her room unannounced. He had never come in unless it was to make love. He did not look like he had...that on his mind. Not in the least. He looked... He looked like he had come in with demons on his heels.
“I trust you slept well,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, a strange, uneasy feeling settling in the center of her chest. She didn’t know why. She only knew that something wasn’t right.
“I think it is time you left,” he said, his words cold.
“But we... I don’t understand,” she said. “Yesterday we...”
“That was yesterday. And this is today.”
She thought back to last night, to what had transpired between them. Had she done something wrong? Had he not liked her wearing the bikini and reminding him of that day? No. Yesterday he had enjoyed it. She knew he had.
“I’m not ready to leave,” she said. “We agreed we needed to burn this out and I don’t think it’s burned out.”
“A difference of opinion,” he said, his tone hard. “For me, it is over.”
“Apollo...”
“Also, effective immediately you have been terminated from your position as CEO of Matte.”
“I... What?” She couldn’t make sense of his words. She was naked, in bed, after having just spent the night making love with him, and he was firing her.
Two weeks. Two weeks she had spent with this man. In his arms. Kissing him, sharing her body with him...sharing everything.
“You heard me,” he continued. His tone was flat. His eyes were flat. He was like a stranger. Only yesterday she had felt that she’d known him more intimately, more deeply than any other person on earth. And now she doubted it. She truly did. “I grow tired of the charade, Elle. Truth be told, I was planning on drawing this out longer. I was anticipating feeling a great sense of pleasure when I let you know that I was simply using you to hurt your father. I planned to set you up as the face of the company, to bring you into greater prominence so that when I made it very clear that I had taken all of your father’s assets and left him ruined, the world would know exactly who he was, exactly what that meant. But frankly, I find it’s just too tiring. So, I will have to be content in my revenge all on my own.”
