Husband for the Holidays

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

E LOISE WANTED TO respect Konstantin’s privacy around his childhood. He had said he didn’t talk about how he had come to live with his grandfather and, given the small glimpses he’d offered of his past, she suspected there was a great deal of pain and sadness along with poverty and a certain amount of neglect.

It made her heart hurt to think of it, but it helped her understand why he was so remote and unused to small gestures of kindness. She couldn’t stop thinking about that remark he’d made the other day about not thinking he was worth caring about. Did he really feel that way? It made her wonder if he even believed in love or would ever offer her his heart.

What did that mean for their marriage if he was so closed off?

She was lost in introspection when they arrived back at the villa. They paused to hang their coats and put on the slippers Filomena had left for them, then moved into the great room with their purchases. Filomena had gone home and Nemo was staying in the pool house so the villa was empty. Eloise looked for the tree that—

“Oh, my God!” she cried as the Steinway piano hit her eyeballs. A giant red bow sat atop the closed lid. “You didn’t? Oh, my God, Konstantin. Oh, my God .” She wanted to hug it.

She spun to hug him instead, but craned her neck to stare at the piano through eyes that blurred with tears.

“You’re shaking,” he said with amusement as he rubbed her back. “It’s okay. It’s real.”

“I’m just so—” She turned her face into his shirt, trying to dry her face since tears disturbed him, but they were overflowing anyway. She’d missed playing so much .

“You’re not crying. Eloise, no .” He sounded agonized as he cupped the side of her face and used his thumb to wipe her cheek. “This was supposed to make you happy.”

“I’m ecstatic.” She could hardly speak she was so overwhelmed. She ran her trembling fingers under her eyes. “I know I should say it’s too much and you shouldn’t have. I won’t even call it mine. I’m just happy to see it and play it. I’m never going to leave here. I hope you know that. I’m going to sit right there for the rest of my life.” She pointed at the bench.

“Then who will play the ones I’ve ordered for Athens and New York?”

“No!” she squealed, slipping into gales of laughter because there was no other way to let the joy burst out of her. She clutched her fists into his cable-knit pullover and leaned into him, so overcome she couldn’t process it.

“You’re being silly,” he scolded as he kept her from collapsing weakly to the floor.

“ I’m being silly?” That was even funnier. That grand piano was worth six figures and he was buying them by the dozen, like eggs. Her shoulder’s hurt, she was laughing so hard.

“Are you going to play with your new toy, or not?” He was trying to sound stern, but there was a big smile on his face and that nearly broke her.

She’d never seen him smile, not like that. Not with his whole face so he looked carefree and star-power handsome, with a glint in his dark eyes and creases beside his mouth.

She reached up to urge him to dip his head so she could kiss him.

His arms tightened across her back, holding her as he arched over her, making her tingle to her toes as he immediately took over the kiss, consuming her for several wild heartbeats before he straightened and set her on her feet.

“Go,” he said huskily. “The tuner was here when they set it up. I want to know if he needs to come back.”

She had a feeling he was trying to tamp down on his own emotions, but she was torn between the dual desires to touch the piano and touch him. She was dizzy as she moved toward the instrument, still buzzing with sensuality and now growing anticipation and absolute delight. She flexed her fingers as she sat, then lifted the fallboard. Her hands found her warm-up scales and it sounded perfect.

“Don’t judge my mistakes. I’m out of practice.” Especially for a masterpiece that she hadn’t played since relearning it for her audition to the therapy program earlier this year. It suited this occasion, though.

She began picking out the first notes of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

As she did, Konstantin came to stand behind her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, sending a force down her arms that felt electric. She flubbed a couple of notes and kept going, feeling more alive than she ever had in her life.

Konstantin carefully drew her hair tie from her ponytail while she cheated her way through the most complex chords, then sifted his fingers through the length as she poured her elation into the keys.

As the emotion built, then softened, then built again, his light touch caressed her nape and into her throat, making her breasts tighten.

Her shoulder brushed his fly and she realized he was hard, but she continued to race her fingers across the keys, chasing the flights of notes.

It was like they were having sex, folding feeling onto tension, building one on the other in thicker and thicker layers. She wanted that. She wanted sex. She wanted Konstantin. She wanted to feel this wild intensity inside her while he was inside her, driving her up and up and up to the heights and then...

The finale. She held that chord soaked with carnal yearning, allowing it to resonate through the room, from her body into his.

His hand slid lower to fondle her braless breast. She arched into his cupping touch, tilting her head back. He swooped to kiss her, drawing her off the bench and kneeing it aside as he pressed her against the piano. Her backside hit the keys in a discordant hum as he kissed the hell out of her.

She had wanted this for years, this hunger that was pouring out of him as though he were starved for her. It was so much more than she had imagined. Wilder. More dominating, more all-encompassing. It probably should have alarmed her, but this craving of his was everything she wanted. The love she’d always had for him was maturing as they spent these days together. It expanded further as he kissed her with unfettered passion. She didn’t know how else to express her feelings except to kiss him back with the same ferocious energy.

As she looped her arms around his neck, he scooped her up and lifted her onto the piano so she was more eye to eye with him. His gleaming gaze was atavistic, his features tense and flushed with lust.

Had she done this to him? It was thrilling. She cupped the sides of his head and spoke against his mouth. “I want to make love.”

“Lie back.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant. We’ll get there. But I’ve been thinking about this since I saw you play ‘I’m Coming for Christmas.’”

“That’s not what it’s called.”

“I know. Lie back.” There was a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

“Hilarious.” But she actually did think it was funny. “Careful,” she added as he pulled her hips closer to the edge. “My jeans might scratch the finish.”

“Then we should remove them.”

A nervous quivering invaded her abdomen as she settled on her back and opened her fly. When he grabbed the waistband in his fists, she lifted her hips and let him drag them away, only realizing as the cool air hit her damp folds that he’d taken her underwear with them.

As her bare backside settled on the cool maple, his hands ran up her naked legs, claiming her thighs firmly and pushing them open.

“I—” She shyly tried to find leverage to close them, stepping on a few keys that plinked.

“Let me,” he said, hot breath stirring the fine hairs on her mound, increasing the unsteadiness deep in her belly.

His fingers tickled and trailed around her outer folds, stimulating her. Teasing until heat gathered there with dampness and throbs of need. Then his touch grew more intimate, exploring and exposing her. When anticipation was coiled in her abdomen and she was biting her lip with yearning, the first lick of his tongue landed with such sensitive precision she jerked and tried to sit up.

There was no escaping what he did to her, though. He hugged her thigh and buried his mouth against her tender flesh, swirling and sweeping her into such a state of intense pleasure that she could hardly bear it.

Before she knew it, she was hooking her heel into his back, lifting to increase the pressure, seeking the culmination that was building inexorably inside her. She was filling the room with more song than the piano, moaning with pleasure and tight sobs of need.

When he eased one finger, then two inside her, it was the tipping point. Her moans turned to cries as climax shuddered through her, arching her back and twisting powerful contractions through her that sent flushes of heat chasing through her whole body.

He slowed his clever ministrations, soothing now as the rocketing pulses slowed and faded, leaving her limp and splayed before him.

“That was exquisite,” he said in a rasp that abraded all her sensitized nerves in the best possible way.

She was still weak with gratification, all inhibition gone, feeling so dreamy she couldn’t move except to roll her head and watch him nuzzle the crease of her thigh.

“This is the happiest day of my life.”

“Ha!” He picked up his head and gave her position of abandonment a thorough, possessive study. “Mine, too.” He gathered her up and turned to the stairs.

The upper floor was a his-and-hers suite with a shared sitting room and a terrace that could be accessed from all three rooms. Each bedroom had its own walk-in closet and luxurious bathroom.

Eloise had already seen her room with its pastel greens and subtle blue-and-ivory accents. Konstantin’s was a stronger palette of navy and forest and silver, all of it muted by the single lamp that was burning against the shadows of night.

The bed met her back before she realized she was tipping. His weight arrived between her thighs in the same motion. He held himself on his elbows and continued to kiss her, hands bracketing her head while his tongue searched out hers, brushing and claiming and wickedly suggesting the lovemaking that was to come.

Her senses were accosted by his weight and heat and the fact her legs were scraping denim as she rubbed her thigh against his. It was erotic to be half clothed this way, making her feel vulnerable against the roughness. She was overwhelmed by his power and size, but when his hand swept under her top and claimed her breast, swooping excitement dove into her belly and heat poured through her loins.

She ran her trembling hands over him, seeking skin beneath his pullover only to come up against his tucked shirt. She bunched the fine fabric in her fist, trying to pull it free of his jeans.

He rose onto his knees and yanked up his pullover, throwing it away before tearing open the buttons of his shirt with impatience.

She sat up to help, crooking her open legs on either side of his as she clumsily slipped the button on his jeans free, then drew his fly down. It took delicate wrangling to wriggle her fingers into denim and briefs, but she managed to reveal the shape pressing so insistently for release.

When she was holding his hot, turgid flesh, she sent one glance upward and found him watching her intently. Her stomach swooped again.

Nervously, she closed her fist around the root of his shaft and bent forward. It was curiosity and desire and a need to thank him and please him and love him.

But she was uncertain. She licked lightly, hearing his breath hiss in, which was encouraging. His fingers combed into her hair and massaged her scalp, encouraging her to continue. She explored his shape more thoroughly, painting him with her tongue until she found the courage to close her lips around his tip to delicately suck.

His groan was tortured. His hands flexed in her hair, pulling slightly, while his flesh twitched in her hand and mouth. She saw his abdomen tighten and his whole body seemed to shake.

She would have smiled, but she wanted to keep pleasuring him. She anointed and used her tongue to search out the spots that made him curse and gasp, then bobbed her head a little, experimenting.

With a tortured noise, he used his grip on her hair to pull himself free of the suction of her lips and unsteadily petted down the back of her head, then under her jaw, forcing her to look up at him.

“Another time I’ll let you finish me like that,” he said in a voice that was graveled and carnal. “I’ll look forward to it.” His thumb scraped across her bottom lip. “But I want inside you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

A tiny sob of helpless arousal throbbed in her throat. She felt too weak to finish undressing, but that was okay because he was already peeling her top off before he kicked his jeans to the floor.

Seconds later, he loomed over her, pressing her onto her back again. He braced himself on an elbow, but his other hand was free and roamed her torso in a possessive claiming, sweeping to her waist and across her stomach, then up to cup her throat. He scraped his teeth against her chin.

“I want you in ways that aren’t civilized. Stop me if you get scared.”

“I won’t.” She trusted him. She always had.

His mouth twisted with a hint of cynicism, as though he knew more than she did, but he pressed his lips to her collarbone while his scorching touch went down her front again, pausing to squeeze her hip before searing the top of her thigh.

“Do you want me to wear a condom?” He caught her earlobe between his lips and gently sucked.

Did she want his baby? Her mother’s cautions rang briefly through her mind. She ought to heed them, she knew. They weren’t married yet, and there was that small anxious part of her that worried something would happen and he would decide he didn’t want her, after all.

But when she checked in with her heart, and the part of her that yearned to be a mother, she not only wanted children, she wanted him to be their father.

“Oh...only if you want to,” she said tentatively.

He lifted his head long enough to look into her eyes, doing that thing where his near-black eyes swallowed her soul, leaving her trembling.

She closed her eyes and tried to bring his mouth to hers, wanting the mindlessness again. She rolled toward him, seeking the delicious brush of his naked skin with her own, but he wanted her on her back. He pressed her flat and she let him settle between her legs. Eloise set light hands on his shoulders, wanting this, but suffering last-minute apprehension as the reality closed in on her. He was an imposing presence, tense and strong and so casual with his propriety touch. So strong .

He was so attuned to her, however, that he lifted his mouth from nuzzling the corner of hers and asked gruffly, “Second thoughts?”

“Nervous,” she admitted, and skated her hands across the bulk of his shoulders.

“You didn’t seem nervous a few minutes ago. You seemed to know exactly what you were doing.”

She smiled with bashful pleasure and sifted her fingers into his hair, encouraging him to linger so they could kiss more deeply.

As they did, all the small sparks of nerves inside her began to pulse with renewed longing. She grew melty and soft and moved her legs against his, reveling in the textures and flex of his muscles.

“You’re very beautiful.” He only spoke Greek to her now and it felt even more intimate and sincere to hear him say these things in his native tongue. “You know that, don’t you?”

She didn’t. She wasn’t voluptuous or stately or glamorous, but she felt very sensuous as his mouth sought under her chin. She arched her neck, luxuriating in the damp kisses he left on her throat.

“And here,” he murmured, cupping her modest breast and sliding down to roll her nipple with his tongue.

“You’re not disappointed that—? Oh .” Sharp sensations lanced into her belly and lower, flooding her loins with renewed heat. With urgency.

“That you prefer to go braless? How could I be disappointed in that?”

“I didn’t think you noticed.”

He paused in moving from one nipple to the other. “I always notice, asteri mou . It turns me on.” He closed his mouth over the tip of her other breast, curling her toes.

She writhed, fingers in his hair, body feeling not her own.

When his open-mouthed kisses trailed down her abdomen, she shifted her legs, conflicted. She wanted that. Loved it. But...

“I thought you wanted...”

To be inside me .

“What I want, ómorfi mou , is for you to want me as badly as I want you. Open your legs and let me remind you how good I can make you feel. Yes...” His breath hissed in pleasure while his wide shoulders nudged her thighs.

He did make her feel incredible. She didn’t bother with false modesty or biting back the moans he elicited from her. She let herself sink into the hot pool of wanton sensuality, giving herself over to him completely.

But just when she was nearing the peak, when she was growing blind with need, he moved his mouth to her inner thigh.

“What—?” She picked up her head, almost frantic. Did she do something wrong?

“Now you know.” His teeth scraped her thigh before he closed his lips against her leg and applied light suction, as though drawing the juice from a peach. “This is how I’ve felt for years.” He continued to trace his thumb against her aching flesh, keeping her on the precipice while avoiding the swollen knot of nerves that begged for the brush of his touch.

She panted, ready to cry she was so aroused. His soft kisses against the crease of her thigh and her belly were sweet pinpricks of torture. Then his mouth was at her breast again, sucking so strongly she curled her nails into his shoulders with urgency.

His kiss on her mouth stole everything from her. She had no defenses left. All of her was his for the taking. Forever and always.

Which he knew because the wide dome of his sex slid against the slippery, ready flesh between her thighs.

“Tell me to stop if it hurts.” He was prodding for entry.

She tossed her head, not caring if it did. There was no tension in her now. Only need.

As the pressure increased and the stretch threatened pain, she reveled in the sensation because it was him. Because this was what she wanted more than her next breath. Because he was filling her and joining with her. His hips pulsed once, twice, then slid deep enough that his pelvis was flush against hers.

She shook under the magnitude of this moment, feeling both overwhelmed and jubilant. Taken and possessed, but accepted. She was offering herself to him and he was claiming her, but she was the one holding him deep inside herself.

He was shaking with tension, she realized, and ran her hands over him because she could. His body was iron and heat and couched power, hips pinned to hers while his sex pulsed intimately inside her.

His hand cradled the side of her face. “Mine,” he claimed gruffly.

She was. She turned her face enough to open her mouth over the tip of his thumb.

His body flexed in reaction. His movement sent a small quake through her abdomen.

They both groaned and, in the next second, he shifted so he could move more freely. His flesh dragged from hers only to return with more intention. More ferocity and depth. He dropped his fist to the blanket beside her ear and she brought her knees up to bracket his ribs.

“Tell me—” He swore, teeth gritted. “Tell me if I’m too rough.”

“Don’t stop,” she cried because the friction had shot her straight back to the pinnacle and, impossibly, she was soaring past it. Higher.

Her whole body was one raw, erotic nerve. Her senses were overloaded by their combined scent and the damp brush of skin on skin. They were both breathing raggedly, releasing tight agonized noises. The bed was shaking as he moved with more speed and power. She couldn’t see. Her eyes were closed or she’d gone blind. She didn’t care. Her loins burned in the most exquisite way while his movements pushed her to the absolute edge of her endurance.

Then, for one eternal second, she felt nothing. She left this earthly existence and saw the wide expanse of heaven open before her, then she slammed back into a body that was pummeled by such waves of intense sexual pleasure she clung to him and screamed.

His hips crashed into hers again and again before he held himself deep inside her, arms straight as he released his own shout of exalted defeat.

Konstantin managed to roll off her and drag her close so she wouldn’t smother or chill, but that was all he had in him. His muscles were twitching as though he’d finished a marathon. He was still catching his breath and waiting for his heart rate to slow.

He couldn’t even open his eyes so his brain should have flatlined into unconsciousness, but his mind was racing like he’d hit a mental iceberg.

This was what he’d been afraid of. This depth of want. This need to make an irrevocable claim.

Until this moment, he had avoided articulating to himself why Eloise seemed so dangerous to him, but now he knew. The gratification of having her in his life, in his arms, in his bed put him in that horrible state of treasuring something that could be taken from him.

Why couldn’t it have just been a desire for sex? His libido was something that could be satisfied by his own fist, if necessary. Or any woman. He met willing partners all the time. He preferred to want things he could find in quantity or provide for himself. That’s why he stockpiled money and houses and estates that grew food. So he would never be without those things.

He didn’t allow himself to want abstract things that were impossible to truly own, like one specific woman. He didn’t want to have this pulse beat inside him that said, This one. Only this one will do .

Nevertheless, as she shifted and a tendril of her hair slid in a tickling ribbon against his knuckle, he turned his wrist so he could play with the fine strands, smug in his right to do so.

The alarm bells continued clanging inside him. He was sexually satisfied, yes, but there was a greedier beast in him that wasn’t yet calm. He had told himself he was marrying her to ease his sense of obligation to Ilias and expose Antoine, but he was marrying Eloise because he wanted to keep her in his life and protect her. He wanted to tend her like a fire, to keep her glowing bright.

He wanted to get her pregnant, apparently, because they’d had sex without protection. He should damned well have thought that through more carefully, but in his most primal of lizard brains, he wanted to have sex again and again until he knew they were bound inextricably by a child. Children.

He couldn’t even fathom what that would look like. But he wanted it. Which made it yet another thing he was deeply wary of reaching for.

With a sensuous little sound, she rolled herself half atop him and set her chin on her hand. Her breasts flattened against his ribs and her heavy eyelids blinked as though she were waking from a spell. Her lips were soft and still pouted from their kisses. Her sigh was one of supreme contentment.

“If I run a bath, will you join me?”

Retreat , he told himself.

He ought to offer to run it in her room and encourage her to sleep in her own bed, but his finger swept her hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.

“I’ll bring the wine.”