Page 37 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

“Maybe,” she whispered, “I can touch you, too?”

And the noise he made then was indescribable. Deep and low and guttural, and then his mouth was on hers again, and somehow it was even better. Even wilder.

The car came to a stop and she hardly noticed until he tore himself away from her, muttering darkly beneath his breath. So that all she caught were little scraps of Greek words she didn’t know.

Shewouldknow Greek, she told herself then. Her daughter was going to learn it and she would learn it right along with Natalia, so one day she would know everything he said, not just half.

But she couldn’t allow herself to think too much about language classes, because he was leading her out of the car and then into a strange building through what appeared to be some kind of private entrance. Then she was in a gleaming lobby, and wondered if they were in a nose-bleedingly fancy hotel. He herded her into an elevator, pressed the single button available, and then held her with a certain ferocity—and at a deliberate distance—as the elevator rose.

It felt the way she already did inside.

And then the sleek doors slid open, delivering them directly into the living room of an apartment that, at first, she thought was entirely made of glass. She could see Athens from all sides. She could see the Acropolis in the distance, gleaming atop its ancient rock in the night. Everywhere she turned there were more lights, and shadows that made her want to fly low over this age-old city to explore it. To relearn those old myths she’d pored over as a child, but from the inside out this time.

When she’d turned around in a full circle, she found Anax shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it to the side. Toward what she belatedly realized was some sort of piece of relentlessly modern furniture.

And then he was coming toward her once more.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“It is my flat, of course. What else would it be?”

“Some dramatic hotel. Open only to people like you, with secret entrances and private elevators and all thisglass.”

“Koritsi,”he murmured as he stopped before her. “There is no one like me. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Then he swept her up into his arms. And he kissed her again, deep and stern, and for a moment she couldn’t tell if she was simply dizzy from the glory of it all—but then she understood that he was carrying her through this apartment made of glass, turning away from the windows at the last moment to lead her down a hallway, gleaming white and spare, until she found herself set down in a sprawling, rambling bedroom that was glass, still more glass, and chrome. With accents of the deepest onyx.

And there was something about all of that, anesthetized and pristine, that caught at her.

But she couldn’t follow the thought because Anax was before her. And there was a look on his face that made her heart lurch. Because it was clear that for all these moments of recognition that she had ignored, for all the times she had felt she knew him better than she should, there was this part of him that she didn’t know at all.

It thrilled her.

“All this time,” she managed to say. “This whole long year, and I never realized...”

He stilled, even while that look on his face became starker, more intense.More sensual,something in her whispered, when that should not have been possible.

“I look forward to your visits,” she confessed in a rush. “I even started missing you when you weren’t there. Even now, when I should hate you for taking me away from everything I’ve ever known, I spend my days listening for that helicopter to land so I know you’re coming. So I can pretend that I’m looking forward to showing you how little I care.”

And he was so close, standing there in front of her in a darkened room with the lights of the city gleaming in. So she reached over, a daring act that felt like swinging on a trapeze or running full tilt along a high wire, and slid her hands onto his chest.

She felt something like a shock at the point of contact and pulled her palms back, swallowing the gasp that was surprised from between her lips. When she looked up, he was still gazing down at her in that same way, dark and hot and...encouraging.

That part felt like a balm...or perhaps more heat.

Either way, Constance put her hands back onto that hard, hot wall that was his chest. She cleared her throat.

And then she tipped her head back up to look at him again. “I wanted you the moment I saw you,” she told him, like another confession. Or perhaps like a vow. “You walked in and I thought,There he is. And I’ve spent a long time pretending I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe I didn’t. Until tonight.” And she wasn’t sure she could say the last part. But the words were on her tongue and he did not look away, and her mouth tasted of him anyway. So she dared. “But now, Anax, I very much want to know everything.”

“Then your wish will be my command, my darling wife,” he gritted out, and the roughness of his voice made her skin seem to prickle with awareness.

She felt everything between them burst to life, alight and wild with flame. The next breath she took seemed to shake all the way in and then more on the way out. And some part of her wanted to careen off into that feeling. She wanted him to lift her up, toss her on the bed, and throw himself down beside her—

But what he did was far more devastating.

He reached over and ran his thumb over her lips, as if memorizing the shape. Then he slid his fingers back, deep into her hair. He kept on until the whole mess of it fell down around her and she could smell the fragrance that was caught in the heavy strands, flowers and musk.

His gaze dropped to her dress and his face took on a look of a kind of sensual concentration that didn’t help her shivery responses any. But the fact they got worse felt even better, somehow.

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