Contractually Wed

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

J IA THOUGHT HE ’ D push her away and the very prospect sent dismay curling through her. He’d called Rina, made the effort to find out what would please her, and then he’d had it commissioned, blasting through all the fake, false armor she’d draped herself in. It was more than anyone had ever done for her.

Maybe she was giving him too much credit for a little gift—she was that deprived of basic affection—but she couldn’t help it.

After what felt like an eternity of her clinging to him, his fingers came into her hair. He roughly yanked the clip she’d used to put it up and his fingers circled her nape and then crawled up to tilt her face up to him. “I will have all of your secrets, Jia. Willingly, from you.”

It was a promise and something more, but she didn’t have the will to challenge him anymore. “You won’t take what I more than willingly, wantonly offer,” she whispered, and then on a dare, she went on her toes and dug her teeth into his chin. It was a possessive gesture but she didn’t care. This was the most freedom and selfishness she’d allowed herself in her life and she wanted to drown in it. In him.

A gasp escaped her when he lifted her and deposited her on the desk.

“You’re right. I’m a poor husband, agapi ,” he said, tugging at the hem of her blouse until he could pull it off her head. A sudden blast of cold air hit her skin.

Shock and arousal flooded her system, releasing a riot of shivers through her. His big hands cupped her shoulders, palms rough and abrasive, his body heat a sliding rasp against her front and his mouth...his hot, soft mouth was at her lips. Nibbling away the last of her defenses.

Jia’s groan seemed to emerge from the depths of her being.

Apollo kissed her roughly, nipping and biting, barely letting her breathe while his hands drifted down from her shoulders to her back. Her strapless bra came loose and her nipples puckered.

Shivers overtook her, of a different kind this time, when he cupped her small breasts and the pads of his thumbs flicked at her nipples. Jia arched her spine, each little flick arrowing down straight to her core. When he pushed her with a hand on her shoulder, she bowed back as if she was made of nothing but elastic desire.

Steely eyes held hers as his tongue laved at one nipple and then the other, before he drew it into his mouth with rhythmic pulls. She jerked at the stinging pressure, slowly lapping over into shivering waves all through her. When she tried to rub her thighs, his thigh blocked the movement. She made a keening sound in her throat, her arousal winding and tugging concentric circles in her lower belly. Eager to do the same to him, she scooted forward on the desk.

She undid the buttons on his shirt roughly, until she could reach warm, taut skin. Holding his gaze, Jia stroked her palms all over him—the hard planes of his chest, the rough down of his chest hair and the ridged muscles of his stomach. With each stroke of her hands, the gray of his eyes deepened.

When her hand drifted to his crotch, he captured it, lifted her hand, and pressed his mouth to her wrist. Both hands arrested, Jia leaned forward and rubbed her bare breasts against his chest.

He groaned. The rough brush of his chest hair against her sensitive nipples was both torment and pleasure. His attention on the slide of their flesh, he released her hand. Jia snuck it down his abdomen until she could cradle his erection. With a rough grunt and a rougher curse, he rocked into her touch before he caught himself.

“You’re cheating,” he said, his hands caressing her breasts with such thoroughness that she forgot what she meant to do.

“All’s fair in lust and war,” she said, craning her body into his touch.

Grinning, he paid her back in full. As if he had all the time and energy in the world, he started all over again, trailing kisses down her jaw, between her breasts and down to her belly button and then back up.

He teased and tormented her nipples with his tongue, sucked them into his mouth, grazed them with his teeth until Jia was writhing on the desk, a mindless wanton made of nothing but nerve endings, spiraling and fragmenting. Her climax was a taunting mirage just out of reach. When his hand went to the seam of her shorts, she stilled.

He licked the shell of her ear, his voice a husky taunt. “If you’re not ready for more, it’s fine. But let me make up for ignoring you for two days.”

She looked up, honey pooling in her veins. “They’re all out there and can probably hear us. I couldn’t face them if—”

“What do you think my sisters do with their partners?”

She blushed. “I...it’s the middle of the day and—”

“All you have to say is ‘not now,’ pethi mou ,” he said with a tenderness that threatened to break her into pieces.

“No. I want this. I came prepared for this.”

“That sounds like an exhausted, put-upon wife bracing herself for her marital duties.”

She looked up and the humor in his eyes undid the sudden tension that seemed to have overtaken her. “No, I mean I was... I was looking forward to this. I started the pill before we left.”

“But?” he said.

Jia thought he’d meant to say something else but changed tack at the last second. “No buts and ifs. I want this, Apollo. You have to give me a little control though.”

His smile was wicked as he moved his hands in a have at me gesture. But the tension in his body was unmistakable. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like she was the only one drowning. And Jia realized that that was the root of the problem.

His gift, horrible as he called it, had shifted the current between them and she felt as if she’d been splayed open for his benefit. Knowing he was as gone for this heat between them...made her feel better. Made her feel equal and wanted, at least on this surface level.

Pressing her mouth to the warm, hard skin of his chest, she busied her hands with the zipper on his trousers. His black boxers went next. Impatience coating her skin with a tremble, she barely pushed them past his hips when his cock popped out.

A fresh set of flutters began between her thighs. Wetness soaked her thong when she fisted his length and gave it a tug. His head thrown back, his chest heaving, Apollo looked like one of those stone sculptures she’d once seen at the MOMA. But warmer and harder and so...more achingly real than any perfect marble bust could be.

Jia increased the speed of her fist, acting purely on instinct and feeding on his reactions. She traced the slit in the head with the pad of her thumb and when it came away wet, she sucked the pad into her mouth.

Apollo let out a filthy curse. “Jia...you drive me wild.”

“You taste...” Jia swallowed at the dark cavern of want opening up in his eyes “...like decadence and arrogance and all the filthy desires I never admitted to myself.”

Fingers circling her nape, Apollo pulled her in for a near-brutal kiss.

Whatever little freedom he gave her, it seemed, was over after her outrageous little comment. A sudden puff of cold air against her folds told her he’d ripped her thong off. And then his fingers were there, coasting and stroking over her inner lips, draping her wetness all over. As she watched, her breath a shallow whistle in her throat, he brought his fingers, coated with her arousal, up and then painted it over her nipple. It was filthy and freeing and set Jia on a spiral she didn’t want to stop climbing.

And then his mouth was on her nipple, sucking and licking, tasting her arousal and groaning, even as his fingers went back to her folds to resume their torture.

Assaulted from all directions by sensations, Jia felt like she was riding a crashing boat on rough waves in the middle of a storm. He was everywhere, his lips and fingers driving her out of her skin, setting a mad pace she couldn’t follow, until he speared her with a broad finger and hit a particular spot deep inside her.

Jia jerked against him, her thighs a vise around his hand as her orgasm crashed through her, thrashing her this way and that. A sob escaped her throat, along with her panting breaths.

Apollo didn’t relent.

His lips tugged at her painfully sensitive nipple and he kept the base of his palm against her clit as wave after wave settled into tiny jerks and languorous aftershocks. Fingers in his hair, Jia clung to him, clung to the clove and pine scent of his warm skin.

Her flesh cooled, but she wanted more. She wanted all of it. This was all she was allowed of any relationship in a long while and, God, this was all she was allowed to ask and want and own of him and she wasn’t going to settle for anything less than claiming all he would give.

Even as her spine trembled and her thighs felt like she’d run a marathon, she straightened and caught his mouth in a kiss. While she hadn’t allowed anyone to come close after her first and only disastrous relationship, she’d allowed herself kissing. And now she used every inch of her experience to tangle her tongue with his, to sweep it through this mouth, to bite and nip at his lower lip until she could feel his tension mounting. His touches became harder, deeper, his caresses wilder and rougher, leaving little divots in her willing flesh.

She ran her mouth down his jaw to his chest, peppering kisses and bites all over his taut skin. It was warm and salty and suddenly, she wanted to taste him somewhere else. She wanted his cock in her mouth, and him a little out of control. No, a lot.

She wanted him to lose it all.

His grip in her hair tightened when she wrapped her fingers around his cock and gave it rough, hard strokes. “Let me down,” she whispered, skating her mouth down to his tight abdomen.

“Not today,” he answered roughly, and then he was shoving her hand away, pulling her closer and rubbing the head of his erection all over her folds. The sight of him against her was erotic and intimate.

Jia braced herself on his hard muscles, her entire pulse centered there where he played with her.

“You’re ready for me, agapi ?”

“God, yes, Apollo,” she repeated and before she could catch her breath, he entered her with one smooth thrust.

Jia jerked and stilled, like a fish caught on a bait. It pinched a bit. No, a lot, bordering on hurt. It had been so long and even then, it hadn’t been all the way like this.

Slowly, the delicious soreness faded, breath by breath. Nothing in the world could equal being tethered to Apollo like this. She had a feeling of being utterly full and tight, and when she wiggled her ass on the desk, he shifted inside her and the pinch faded and a spark of pleasure sputtered through her.

Then it went out.

Chasing it, she thrust her hips and tested the fit again, and heard Apollo’s rough grunt. And then she didn’t have to do anything, because he pulled out almost all the way and stroked back in. Not as deep as the first stroke but teasing and taunting her with it. Trying what would drive them both to the edge.

And slowly, in tune with his thrusts, her own climb began all over again and they found a rhythm. Jia raked her fingernails down his chest, nipped at his flesh, clung to him like a rag doll as his thrusts gained momentum.

The desk banged against the wall and she, apparently, was quite vocal when it came to pleasure and Apollo’s grunts were not quiet. When another short but powerful orgasm began to rip her into so many pleasure-filled fragments, she told him how good it felt, how much she liked it when he pinned her with his hips, and then, sweat dripping down his forehead and holding her gaze, Apollo mouthed a filthy word and shuddered when his own climax followed.

It was very late that night when, finally, Apollo was free to do as he pleased.

As Jia had predicted, they had been interrupted that afternoon, minutes after they had finished with loud bangs on the door to their suite. They hadn’t even separated yet.

In his urgency to get Jia alone, he hadn’t let his mother or his sisters tell him that they had invited around hundred guests to celebrate his and Jia’s sudden union. A wedding reception, Mama had said with a glint in her eye, so that their extended family, long-standing friends and his grandparents could meet her wonderful, new daughter-in-law and bless this very real marriage.

He had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even noticed the staff putting up marquees and tables outside. The reason why they had all been so busy cooking, even with outside catering ordered.

While Apollo had fixed his clothes and responded to Chiara banging on their door with a catlike grin, Jia had disappeared into the bathroom and locked herself in. He hadn’t seen her again until the evening when she descended the stairs behind a beaming Chiara.

Apparently, his wife had made a deal with Mama—in exchange for donning a dress and deserting her usual lacy tops and short shorts tonight, Mama would teach Jia how to cook.

To say he was stunned, by her negotiations with his mother and her look, would be an understatement. It was becoming clear that not only had she won them over in just a few days but his mother and sisters had already gained her trust. As if she was blossoming in a different way under their honest and yet tender care.

Still, as only Jia could, she retained her own style, and that little fact pleased him way out of proportion. For all the rigid requirements he’d held on to in his head for a wife for years, he wanted to change only one thing about the one he had now.

In a shimmery copper satin dress with flimsy straps and simple bodice that rippled like dark water when she came down the steps, Jia had looked soft and pretty as if she’d been tamed for one evening. And he liked that. Liked knowing that her true wildness was all his.

Only his.

Against the shimmery satin of her gown, her skin glowed and her tattoos stood out. The one at her collarbone, a bird in midflight, looked like it was fluttering its wings with how fast her pulse beat at her neck. Her hair pulled back and put up, called attention to the fine bones of her face, drawing out the fragility she hid beneath her tough attitude. Was that what her sisters and mother had already seen?

And had he, the arrogant fool, once thought her anything less than stunningly beautiful?

When she was almost to the bottom of the stairs, he noted the necklace nestled at her throat. The leaves and the pendant shone brilliantly against her skin, almost blending into the tattoo on the other side.

Catching his gaze on her neck, she smiled. A tremulous, hopeful one that he’d never before seen on her lips. He had never felt such feral satisfaction as he did at that moment, at seeing her sweet joy, knowing that his gift pleased her. Not his first million, not when he’d won multiple awards, not even when his goal of nearly two decades had finally been within reach.

The boisterous arrival of his extended family had saved him from examining the feeling too closely.

And now, as he walked up the stairs to his suite, he wondered at how that feeling still persisted, at how smoothly and irrevocably Jia seemed to fit into every aspect of his life.

He found her in the large claw-foot bathtub, in relative darkness except for a few beams of moonlight and a couple of flickering candles. The ceiling was all glass, which meant one could sit in the bathtub and view the stars. It was one of his favorite features in the house.

Candlelight and moonlight seemed to battle to bathe her silky skin in an ethereal glow.

As he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, her eyes opened. Shadows danced there and he wondered if the evening had exhausted her. His family could be a lot.

No, withdrawn , he amended, on second thought.

Why, he thought with a fierce protectiveness he had never known before. If someone had said unkind words to her because of who she was, they would face his wrath.

He had always wanted to provide for and protect his family, especially after Papa’s death, but this was different. This feeling had its claws deep in his bones. Was it simply his new determination that he would own everything about her?

“Hey,” she said, clutching her trembling lower lip between her teeth.

Pushing off from the door, he started unbuttoning his shirt. “Can I join you? Or would you like to play the tired-tonight-honey wife card?” he added, desperate to make her laugh.

She smiled and it just touched her eyes, pushing back the earlier shadows. “I thought that was when you wanted to avoid sex.”

A lick of fire came awake in his veins as her hazy gaze swept over his bare chest and lingered over his fingers at the band of his trousers. He unzipped and kicked off those and his boxers. Her mouth fell into an O, on the wave of a soft, helpless gasp.

As if tuned into that husky pitch of her, his cock grew to stiff attention.

“So you’re not averse to it,” he said, grinning. Pleasure was a river dragging him along in its undercurrent and he didn’t want to let up, not even for a breath.

“Not when you give it so good.”

He laughed, desire and a strange kind of joy fizzing through his veins.

“Plus, I have been given loads of advice, from your grandmother to your aunts as to how to manage you.”

“That sounds ominous,” he said, sliding into the tub.

It took a moment for her legs to settle between his, her feet ending up on his thighs. He grabbed one and kneaded the high arch.

She let out a hiss of pleasure, head thrown back. Water droplets clung to her long neck, inviting his mouth to lick up. “Christ, Apollo, is there anything you aren’t good at?”

She sounded so put-upon that he grinned. “Was anyone unkind to you? My aunts and cousins can be blunt and voluble.”

“No, if anything, they were all extra kind and open. Like I said, giving me all kinds of tidbits as to how to manage you.” She punctuated that by drawing on his chest with her foot. “Apparently, I have saved you from a horrible, loveless existence.”

When he tracked his fingers up her ankle, she pulled back with a giggle.

“Then why the shadows in those beautiful eyes, matia mou ?”

“What?” she said, startled enough that she slid a little lower in the tub.

Apollo used the chance to pull her to him. A little stiff, she came into his arms reluctantly as if she didn’t dare trust him, even after the afternoon they’d shared. It annoyed him that she always held something of herself back. It was the very trust he wanted, was beginning to crave even in waking moments.

He would figure her out, he promised himself.

He settled her legs around his hips and she relaxed, her core pressed right over his shaft, and they groaned. He stole a soft kiss, liking her like this, all wet and soft and malleable. But he wasn’t about to let himself get distracted.

“If no one was rude to you, why the sadness?”

She shrugged and hid her face in his neck. Her armor was showing holes, he realized, with that weird pride slash satisfaction.

“Jia?”

“I just...” Tears swam in her eyes when she looked up. She wiped them with the back of her hands and scoffed, the sound full of self-deprecation.

“Tell me, parakalo .” Even that word, which he barely said to anyone, came easy with her.

A shuddering wet exhale shook her slender shoulders. “Your family is...like my dream family. They fight and argue and yell at each other, but beneath it all, there’s this thread of acceptance and love.”

She whispered the last as if the word might reach out and bite her. Then she cut her gaze away and he knew it was because she didn’t want him to see it. “I couldn’t help...wishing mine was remotely like that.”

“My family is yours, Jia.”

Her gaze was stricken when it met his, as if the very idea was impossible.

“You can let the old one go and embrace this one. Especially since they all adore you already.”

“Spoken like a ruthless billionaire,” she retorted but there was no bite to it.

When he grabbed her hips and rubbed her folds against his erection, she groaned. The hiss of pain beneath that sound poked a hole through his haze of lust.

“You’re sore,” he said, arresting her hips when she’d have repeated his actions.

“It’s been a while,” she murmured, her tongue lapping at his shoulder like a cat.

“How long a while?” he said, her mouth playing havoc with his control.

She looked up, and frowned. “Am I allowed to ask the same question?”

“About...three years. Don’t even remember her name,” he replied. “I’ve been busy—”

“With taking over my father’s company,” she said, nodding. Then she scrunched her brow. “Seven years and once, technically but not quite.”

She never said “our company,” he noted with a spark of anger on her behalf. “So I didn’t pull you away from a young, ardent boyfriend?”

She rubbed her cheek against his and moaned when his stubble scraped. “It’s a little late for that question.”

He gripped her chin in his fingers, stopping her exploration. Willing her to meet his gaze. “Not an answer.”

“Why all these questions now?”

“I’m curious.”

“I’ve only ever had one boyfriend if you could call him that. I was eighteen, and we met in secret because my father wouldn’t have approved. He was a musician.”

“Ahh...the tattoos,” Apollo said, his voice dry. That this old, far-gone lover had left such a mark on her made him intensely jealous.

Jia grinned and scraped her teeth against his chin, before peppering soft, warm kisses against his jawline as if she was mapping the contours of his face to memory. “Jax did encourage me to get that first tattoo. But the rest are all mine. A kind of rebellion, if you really want to know. My father hates them.”

And yet, she sought his approval in other ways. Didn’t she see that? “So what happened?”

“It never took off to last.” Then she pulled back and searched his eyes. “You really want to know?”

“Yes,” he said, grabbing her by the tight indent of her waist. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner I will give you what you want.”

“That’s sexual blackmail,” she said, grinning. Then she sobered. “Jax...was a decade older than me. He wanted to travel the world. Travel and music were his passions and he wanted me to leave with him.”

“That’s quite an ultimatum to issue to an eighteen-year-old,” Apollo said, immensely glad she hadn’t left with him. But it also meant that her martyr-like need to save her family had not only been present then too, but it had alienated a man who might have cared for her.

Apollo didn’t understand it; she was so smart, worldly and tough in every aspect of life. But with her leeching family, it was like she willingly put on blinders.

“He...changed his plans for me. Even got a job to show me that he could do boring nine-to-five. He waited for me to be ready for a lot of things. But when we actually started seeing each other regularly, all we did was fight. He thought I should move out, stop coddling Rina, stop...” A sigh rattled through her. “He thought my family was a shackle and that he was nothing but entertainment on the side for me. That last time it blew up, we were in the middle of it, literally. He stopped, dressed and left. Never looked back.”

“Do you regret it?” Apollo asked. “Not leaving with him?”

This time, Jia hid her face in his throat again. “It’s pointless to look back. And he should have known better than to ask me to choose him over them.”

“Is that a warning, Jia?”

“You’re a clever man, Apollo Galanis. You figure it out.”

It provoked him to no end. Before, Apollo didn’t want them to have her loyalty, because he wanted to be the victor in this little game. Because he wanted everything she had to give for himself.

But now he wanted her to see for herself how blind and undeserving her devotion was. How she had limited herself all these years, for them. That it was that very trait that had brought her to him...threw him into confusion.

He lifted her gently and slid his fingers to her center. Dios mio , she was wet and ready for him. “Should I remind you that you have thrown your lot in with me?” he said, finding her clit and flicking at the bundle.

She jerked and arched against him, the plump points of her nipples sliding deliciously against his chest.

“Do you need a reminder that your stock in the company in three years, your talent, your work, you are all mine?” he said, pumping one and then two fingers inside her.

Mouth lax, eyelashes fluttering, she threw her head back and let out a moan. His cock became painfully hard as her muscles squeezed tight around his fingers deep inside her.

“Or maybe you want to argue a little more about this and I should stop?”

She stilled and then in a violet fury of movement that splashed the water around them, cupped his cheek and took his mouth in a filthy, possessive kiss that said everything he had without using words. “All I want,” she said, nibbling at his lips, “for myself is this—” something fierce and feral glowed in her eyes “—and if you deny me this, Apollo, if you take this away from me...”

“I won’t,” he vowed, cherishing how freely and easily she gave of herself here. How from the first moment, she had honestly and bravely faced this attraction. It was the most arousing thing about her—that fierce attitude and that honest, scorching desire for him. For now, it was enough. That she wanted this with that fiery need was enough. The rest he would have soon.

“Come for me, Tornado,” he said, pinching her clit between his fingers.

She wrapped her fingers around his cock and squeezed, licking the shell of his ear.

“For tonight,” she said, nipping at his earlobe, “can we come like this? Together? Tomorrow, I’ll be less sore—”

“This is all I’ve been thinking of all day, agapi . You falling apart for me. You not hiding anything from me.”

And then they were kissing again, and their hands were everywhere, their bodies weaving together and retreating in the water, and Apollo thought he’d never been more eager and desperate, never tasted such bliss before.

Already familiar with his body and his want, she stroked him harder and faster. He gritted his teeth, fighting the oncoming wave. He wanted, needed, to push her over first.

She was writhing and twisting around his fingers, but her eyes, so wide and clear and penetrating, never left his. As if that was the thing that would send her to the edge she was seeking.

“This is going to get messy,” she said, arching into his touch, and the stubborn thing that she was, she never let her own strokes falter.

Apollo grinned and laved at her lower lip. “I had a feeling about that when I found you snoring in my armchair.”

She laughed then, and that’s how they came together and came apart and Apollo wondered at how addictive this woman could become.

If she hadn’t already.