Page 64 of A Diamond Deal
She stared at him. This man who had done everything to be better than the past that could have broken him.Shouldhave snapped him in two. And to the world it hadn’t. But she could see it now.
Inside, he was as broken as she was.
Her chest pitched tightly.
He wasn’t ready to talk about Isaak, was he?
Would he ever be ready?
It had taken her time, too. Time to say his name without bursting into tears. Time to face her grief…
He sat so close to her. If she leaned in, shifted her bottom a few inches to the left, they would touch. Their knees. But the distance was a wall. A wall she’d put between them. They both had. She wanted to knock them down. Crawl into his lap and—
Poppy reached for him.
Konstantinos caught her wrist before her fingers touched him. Before she broke the divide between them. Cancelled out the distance. A space full of too many ghosts of the pasthe’dresurrected.
He knew his story was too dark.Too ugly. He never should have told her anything, he realised, but he didn’t know how to take the words back.
He didn’t want her pity.
He did not want her to touch him.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, but it was too late. He’d breached the gap.Hehad touched her, and instead of putting her hand from him, he was holding it. Suspended in the air between them.
‘This.’ She pushed against the imprisonment of his fingers, and his wrist was weak. His hand fell.
She moved her hand to his shoulder. She clutched at the rigid arc. Her legs rose, and she used him to propel herself onto the sofa. Until she was on her knees—leaning in.
His nostrils flared. He breathed her in.Too deep.He could taste it.Taste her.The gentle husk of her sweet breath on his lips.
He closed his eyes.
Their mouths met.
His blood roared.
He didn’t know how to tell himself not to do this. He didn’t know how to tell his hands not to span her waist, to lift her until she was on his lap. And so he did not tell himself anything.
He couldn’t think.
He didn’t want to think any more.
His mouth pressed harder against hers. His tongue sought entry into her mouth. Poppy opened for him. Let him inside. She didn’t resist. She straddled him. Her bare thighs pressed to his. Her chest pushed against his, her pebbled nipples teasing him. Reminding him of the barrier of his shirt when all he wanted was to be in nothing but his skin.
‘Konstantinos!’ she gasped into his mouth. Her fingers spearing into his hair, cupping the back of his nape. She pulled him harder against her.
His hand splayed between her shoulder blades. He possessed her mouth. Owned it. He stroked—he teased—until he felt her hips press down. Until he felt her rock against his erection, pulsing against the confines of his too tight trousers.
He’d become so hard. So fast. And he ached to tear her T-shirt over her head, to feast on her pink nipples, drag her shorts down her hips. Free himself. Thrust up inside her. End this confessional in the only place he let himself lose control.Inside her.
‘Stop,’ he groaned, but still she kissed him. Still she rocked.
‘I want you,’ she breathed into his mouth, each word expelled on a pant. A hiss of air. A moan of desire.
It pummelled his brain.This victory.This was what he wanted. He wanted her to want him. He wanted her to need him. But he didn’t feel powerful. He didn’t feel in control. He felt raw. Exposed by the words he’d given her.Told her.Words he’d said to no one.
She shouldn’t be on his lap.
