Page 40 of Slightly Married
He stopped me with gentle pressure. “Stay just like this,” he said, his tone tender. “Maximizing our chances requires you to remain on your back with your hips tilted upwards.”
The reminder of why we were together in the first place—to make a baby—should have doused the afterglow. Instead, I found myself smiling up at him, tracing the strong line of his jaw.
Creating a life with him didn’t feel like a business transaction at all. And that realization was more dangerous than anything else that had happened tonight.
I closed my eyes, trying to regain my equilibrium. I needed to remember why we were here and what this arrangement was really about. Physical pleasure was one thing; emotional entanglement was something else entirely.
When I finally looked out the window, my jaw dropped. We were parked at what appeared to be a private airstrip.
“Wait, we were moving the whole time?”
“You were otherwise engaged,” Konstantin replied with a hint of smugness in his expression. “Though I’m rather pleased you were too distracted to notice.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to regain some semblance of dignity despite being half-naked in the back of a car. “Can we go back to the villa, please? I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
The passion-induced haze was clearing, and embarrassment crept in to replace it. I’d behaved like a woman possessed—moaning, screaming his name, begging. I needed space before I started believing this connection meant more than creating a baby and physical release.
“That won’t be necessary,” he stated, though his eyes softened briefly as they swept over me. “We have matters to discuss privately.”
“What matters?” I challenged, scanning the car floor for my underwear. The torn dress was a lost cause, but I at least needed some basics.
He handed me my thong, plucked from somewhere beside him. I made a face at the thought of putting the damp fabric back on.
“Your association with Yiorgos,” he said, his voice level but with an undercurrent of anger. “I find it unacceptable.”
“No thanks,” I replied, matching his bluntness with my own. This interrogation was exactly what I didn’t need right now.
He shrugged out of his button-down shirt and handed it to me. “Take this,” he offered.
I caught sight of a jagged scar running from just below his collarbone toward his ribs on the left side. The puckered tissue stood out against his otherwise smooth skin.
My breath caught at the sight. This powerful man, who carried me off like I weighed nothing, had nearly been taken from this world before I’d even met him.
I quickly looked away, not wanting him to catch me staring at what must be a painful reminder.
“Thank you,” I said, slipping into his shirt, grateful for the coverage despite drowning in the fabric.
His scent surrounded me, which wasn’t helping my attempt to regain emotional distance. “Though I’d appreciate it if the next time you wanted to undress me, you asked first instead of destroying my clothes.”
“Next time?” He raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“Figure of speech,” I replied quickly. “I’m just saying designer dresses aren’t disposable.”
“I’ll replace it,” he said dismissively.
“That’s not the point,” I countered. “You can’t just manhandle me whenever you feel like it and destroy my things when the mood strikes.”
“You didn’t seem to mind the manhandling a few minutes ago,” he observed, his voice dropping to that rumble that somehow vibrated through my entire body.
“That is...” I searched for words that wouldn’t inflate his already substantial ego. “Entirely beside the point.”
“Is it?” His eyes held mine. “I think it was precisely the point.”
I eyed his tie, still loosely knotted around his neck. “I’ll need that,” I told him, extending my hand.
He looked at me with mild curiosity before efficiently removing it and placing it in my palm.
“Resourceful,” he commented as I looped it around my waist, cinching the oversized shirt into something resembling a very short dress.
