“Where else did you see me?” she asked him, and she could hear the roughness in her voice. Sex and longing, the long ache of lost years, the bittersweet need still so ripe after so many betrayals. It only spurred her on. “Which part of me drew you in the most?”
“You shouldn’t have left me, Holly.”
He didn’t mean to say that. She could see that truth as plainly as if he’d confessed it, could see the torment in his dark gaze and the way his hands dug into the sofa, and later, perhaps, she would tell herself that that was why she sank down on her knees then, placing herself squarely between his outstretched legs.
Much as she had years before.
His dark gaze ignited, then went molten.
Holly found she was biting her lip.
She didn’t think. She didn’t worry any longer. She let go of the great hoard of pain and hurt feelings and betrayal and horror at what had happened between them. What she’d done. What he’d done. She ignored all of that and reached out instead, sliding her palms onto his knees.
He went taut beneath her. She could see the tightness of the smooth muscles of his hard chest before her as well as she could feel them beneath her hands, and she reveled in the sensation. In the pure, sweet glory that was touching him again.
Theo. His name was like a light inside of her, so bright it hurt.
She could feel the heat of his skin through his trousers, and she wanted nothing more than to tip forward and taste that tempting shallow between his pectoral muscles, where she knew he tasted of salt and musk, all man, and in a moment like this, all hers.
Holly knelt forward, running her palms up over his knees and onto the shelf of his thighs, feeling something bloom within her at his checked breath, at the jagged way he expelled it. Higher she moved. Then higher still.
“What are you doing?”
She smiled slightly. “You can’t guess? It really has been a long time.”
“Tell me what this is, Holly. Now.” An order, almost barked out—but the hard lines of his face spoke only of need, of want. Of barely restrained passion, and Holly smiled wider. “Tell me what you want.”
“There can only be a few options, I think,” she murmured, gauging his response as she traced the heavy muscles of his strong thighs, testing their mouthwatering strength and density, letting the spark of it, the sheer tactile excitement, run all over her. Through her. Touching him was almost as good as letting him touch her. In some ways it was better. “Why don’t you pick one?”
“Holly...” But her name trailed off into a muttered Greek curse when she reached the tops of his thighs and, without pausing, covered the straining heat of him with one hand.
God, but she wanted him. She had always wanted him—perhaps she always would. From the moment she’d glanced up from her table in that long-ago café, she’d been struck with this same electrical charge of pure need. No matter what had happened since. No matter what might happen next. He burned so hot, even through the trousers he wore, that it took her a moment to realize that she was breathing as heavily as he was as she reached beneath his waistband and pulled him out.
He was so proud, so male. He was perfect.
And it took a very long time to register the fact that he’d said her name again, and then, when she did, to drag her gaze back up to his.
His was a dark storm, elemental and demanding, and she felt gooseflesh rise all over her, sweeping from the back of her neck down her arms, rippling over her to make her nipples into hard, needy pebbles while between her legs there was nothing but wet heat and yearning.
Nothing mattered but this. Nothing mattered but him.
She wrapped her fingers around his length, marveling in the softness of his skin with all that steel beneath, and he cursed again. Harsher this time.
“I told you last night.” But his voice was made of sand and greed, gritty and needy at once, and all she could see in those dark eyes of his was this. Sex. Yes. Now. “I don’t trust you.”
“Then by all means, Theo,” Holly murmured, trusting the hardest part of him in her hand, trusting the faintest of shudders she could feel in his powerful body beneath her, trusting that this was the right thing with every part of her that shivered and ached and demanded, “don’t sully yourself. Don’t kiss me if you don’t want to. I don’t care.”
And then she bent her head and took him deep into her mouth.
* * *
He almost lost it, like the untrained boy he hadn’t been in more years than he could count.
Her mouth was wicked and hot, moving over him as if she wanted to learn him all over again. With her sweet tongue, the faint scrape of her teeth.
She took him deep, wrapping her hand around the base of him and humming her approval, and Theo tipped his head back and let himself pretend.
That this was a simple exercise, need and heat. That she wanted him without any ulterior motives. Without any agenda.
With her between his legs, her mouth like a sacrament and a filthy little curse at once, he could almost believe it.
Or in any case, he didn’t care. He wanted this to go on forever.
As if she agreed, she set a lazy little rhythm, alternating between the deep embrace of her clever mouth and the teasing of her lips, her tongue, against the tip of his need. And Theo stopped caring about the rest of it. Her lies, her abandonment. The whole of their tortured whirlwind of a marriage.
He dug his fingers deep into the fragrant softness of her hair and he let her take him as she liked, however she liked.
But when he neared the edge, he pulled her back, opening his eyes to look down at her. He knew that expression. It made his chest tight, made that fire in him roar. Her flushed cheeks, her glassy blue eyes. The way she shivered and swayed, moving restlessly, as if her own need was on the verge of sweeping her away, though she was the one giving pleasure rather than receiving it.
“I missed you,” he gritted, and thought he’d regret that later, but he couldn’t seem to care about that the way he knew he should. He rubbed his hand over the heated silk of her cheek. “I missed this. But no. Not like this. Not...”
“Please, Theo.” Her voice was husky. Needy. If she was playing a game, he thought, she’d gotten as caught up in it as he was. “I want to. I want you.”
How could he refuse when she sucked him deep again, making soft, greedy noises that shot straight into him like lightning? How could he refuse her anything at all?
And this time, when he hit that edge, he let himself fall right over it, shouting out her name.
When Theo could think again, she was sitting back on her heels with those sexy shoes still on her feet, looking up at him, a deeply satisfied expression on her face. He studied her for a moment while his heart did its best to claw its way out of his chest. She looked glossy and replete, and he couldn’t remember ever wanting her more.
And the time for thinking, clearly, was over.
So he reached down and hauled her to him, smiling to himself at the desperate little sound she made as she came. It didn’t take much to put her where he wanted her, beneath him on that long white sofa, where he could stretch out above her, then reach down between them to tug the smooth column of her dress to her hips, exposing her femininity to his gaze, his hands, his wishes.
He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next mouthful of air. He wanted the crush of her lips, her perfect taste against his tongue, her mouth beneath his. But he refused to indulge himself no matter the temptation. No matter that she tilted her head back, as if she was daring him.
“You have to earn that,” he told her.
He expected her to say something then, to tease him or try to lighten the moment, or perhaps to push him off her altogether as he half expected she’d do, but she only watched him, her breath slightly stuttered and her blue eyes so bright they gleamed
.
Heat. Need. And what temper there was only making the fire of it burn higher.
Theo shifted down, pressing a kiss to the slope of her belly above the lacy edge of her panties. He shouldered his way into position, drawing one long, perfectly formed leg up and over the back of the sofa and letting the other fall to the floor. He held her soft, shapely thighs apart and then he moved in closer, inhaling her scent, warm and female and aroused.
He glanced up to find her watching him, the color high in her cheeks and her lips slightly parted, her hair wild around her like some kind of sensual halo, and he thought he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
Then he simply bent his head, pressed his mouth over the damp center of her need, panties and all, and sucked her in. Hard.
* * *
Holly went rigid around him and then broke apart, that easily.
She heard herself cry out as she flew over the side of the earth, but then she was lost in the shaking, the glorious shuddering, the sweet magic that was Theo.
Only and ever Theo.
And when she came back to that couch with a jolt, Theo had shifted to peel her panties down her legs, then toss them aside with her shoes before settling himself back between her thighs.
“Theo,” she said, but laughed, because her voice was a stranger’s, and he ignored her, anyway, holding her in place with one hard, strong hand against her belly and the other wrapped around her hip.
His gaze met hers like lightning. Like whole storms. His hard mouth curved in obvious male satisfaction, and that alone sent a wild charge spinning through her, making that fire leap inside of her anew.
And then he bent down and licked his way into her with no barrier at all this time, and Holly forgot about anything else.
He tasted her as if she was precious, as if he was ravenous. He took her with his talented mouth, making her arch and writhe and fall apart beneath him. He drove her up into all of that gleaming wildness again, using his teeth and his tongue, the pressure of his mouth and the sweet reach of his fingers, again and again, until she was bucking and sobbing.
His name. As if it was a prayer.
Until she would have promised him anything and given him more, and might have, for all she knew.
Only then did he throw her over that edge again, holding her as she shook, and then sucking the center of her need deep into his mouth just as she started to come down, which cast her off all over again.
She was wild when she was herself again, all of that fire and bright passion slamming through her veins, pooling inside of her, making her reach out for him—but he was already there.
He was speaking in Greek, murmuring dark words like incantations all around them as he sat back, pulling her with him. She climbed over him, straddling him when he urged her into position, feeling desperate as he settled them both back against the couch and then held her hips where he wanted them. Where she wanted them, too.
Holly could feel him, hard and hot and right there, teasing the heart of her with the hard edge of his need, making her shudder and yearn.
“Theo,” she whispered. “Please.”
And he thrust into her, deep and sure, bringing them both home that easily.
They both gasped at the sleek fit, the sweet heat that was as perfect as it had always been, and their eyes caught. Held. And then Theo gripped her hips in his talented hands as he started to move her against him.
Up and then down. Slow. So slow. Teasing them both.
Killing them both.
Killing her.
“Hurry,” she ordered him, almost crossly, and he only laughed up at her.
And then he took his own sweet time.
He built that fire inside her high, much higher than before, so high Holly thought it might kill them both before he was done. Because surely no one could survive this. Surely she couldn’t survive this. Theo’s hands dug into her bottom as he controlled the pace, the depth, the rhythm, and she didn’t bother to fight him. Instead, Holly surrendered.
To his masterful touch, to the fire he made dance inside her as he pleased, to that look of sheer wonder in his dark gaze. To him, the way she always had, and her reward was the glorious thing he wove around them with each deep, delicious thrust.
And this time, she came apart as she rode him, writhing there above him. Her head fell back and he held her even tighter as she arched into him, pounding out his own release into her as if they had always been joined like this. As if they’d never been apart.
As if this was the only thing that mattered.
As if nothing else ever could.
And she stayed there, wrapped in his arms, for what felt like a very long time. So long that she almost let herself believe that she could stay there forever...
But as much as Holly tried to hold on to all of that magic, reality intruded. Theo shifted beneath her and she climbed off him, her dress still crumpled up around her hips. She stood on shaky legs as she smoothed it back into place, and did her best to look at anything but him when he stood there next to her and tucked himself back into his trousers. He nudged her cast-off shoes toward her with one foot and it seemed like the hardest thing in all the world to step into them again.
“Theo...” she began, and she had no idea what she was going to say. She had no idea how to fix what she’d broken or even how to explain it in any way he’d understand when she could hardly understand it herself. She had no idea what she’d do if he shifted what had happened here into something cruel, no matter how much she might have deserved it.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, and there was something gruff in his voice, something she couldn’t read in the too-dark gaze he trained on her then, as if he was as loath to let go of this moment as she was. She found she wanted to believe that far more than was wise. Much less safe. But she couldn’t seem to help herself around this man. Hadn’t that always been the case? “I find I am ravenous.”
“I...I don’t...”
Holly didn’t know what she wanted to say. What she could say, for that matter. There were storms inside of her, threatening her foundations and rattling her walls, but she didn’t know how she could possibly explain any of that to him. How she could look at him, even now, and love him so much despite the fact he still terrified her on some deep, fundamental level. How could she explain it to him when she could hardly explain it to herself?
And Theo only watched her, his dark gaze locked to hers, as if he could do it forever. As if he already knew all those things that scrapped and tumbled inside of her. As if he could read every single thing that moved in the depths of her, when she knew he couldn’t—when even she couldn’t.
“Yes,” she whispered, surrender and something else twisting around and around inside of her, making her feel very nearly giddy, “I’m very hungry, in fact.”
And when he smiled at her then, it felt like the sun rising after a very long, very dark, very dangerous night. Like a victory far greater and far more critical than a simple meal.
Like hope.
* * *
It was a perfect day.
Later, Holly would remember it as if each part had been spread out before her in a series of postcards, capturing each moment as it happened. A leisurely meal to start, filled with all manner of local delicacies. Then the lazy stroll along Las Ramblas, winding their way through the city, side by side. Wandering in and out of the narrow streets and sudden squares that made up the Gothic Quarter. And talking all the while, as if they liked each other the way they once had. About the world. About Theo’s job and his aspirations and what it was like to fill his father’s mighty shoes. About Holly’s charity work, and the parts of it she enjoyed.
As if they had no past. As if they were on a date and could curate the stories of their lives to best suit the moment, to best amuse the other. As if there
was nothing between them but a cloudless blue day in a beautiful city, and the whole of a great, bright future ahead.
As night fell, they stood together on a rooftop terrace with the sparkle of the Port of Barcelona spread out before them, with views that swept over the Barceloneta Quarter and beyond—but Holly was only dimly aware of the scope of it beyond its shine. It was as if she was no longer capable of seeing anything but Theo. As if he blocked out the whole of the world.
He always has, a little voice inside her reminded her. Warned her. Don’t you remember? You spent six months in his shadow. Six months and you forgot who you were...
“Are you cold?” Theo’s voice was warm and close, and Holly shoved that little voice aside, focusing on him instead. His mouth curved as his gaze traced its way over her face. “You shivered.”
This was what she wanted, she told herself staunchly, flipping through the postcard-perfect day in her mind as she tipped her head back to meet that dark gaze of his. She’d suffered for four years without him and she’d still come back. This was where she ought to be, right here within Theo’s reach.
This is where you belong.
Holly told herself that had to be true, because nothing else made sense.
Because despite all appearances to the contrary and her own behavior four years ago, she wasn’t her mother. She hadn’t taken off with another man, no matter what she might have let her husband believe at the time. And she’d come back, hadn’t she? She wasn’t anything like her mother.
She couldn’t be like her mother. She refused.
“If you keep frowning at me,” Theo pointed out in that deceptively mild way of his that made every hair on her body prickle into awareness, “I’ll be forced to conclude that our little bubble of peace has imploded. And I don’t know about you, Holly, but I am not quite ready to face the things that need facing on the other side of this.”
“That sounds ominous.” She had to force the words out, force them to sound light. Airy. A part of the night around them, the music and the laughter that soared up from the rooftop where they stood toward the stars that were only then starting to show themselves high above.
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