Page 23 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
He pulled back from the kiss, reaching down to grip the hard, hot length that sat heavy and aching. Biting his lip, he touched his thumb against her molten core, feeling the heat of her coating his skin. Pandora was looking at his erection and, again, the expression of wonder and sheer lust on her face damn near undid him.
‘Don’t look at me like that. I want this to last.’
‘Wait,’ she said softly. ‘Do you have protection?’
The air seemed to leave his lungs on a single, punishing exhalation and Xander felt his entire world shudder to a grounding stop at that simple question. His mind came crashing back online with stunning focus, taking stock of what they had just been about to do. What Xander had been about to do.
‘Xander?’
He heard her voice but he was unable to speak, to look up, for fear of his own reaction. He felt her gentle hands on his chest in a silent question and it was too much, it was all too much right then. He stood up, feeling the cool air hit the raging inferno of his body, and it took all his strength not to just lie back down and continue. With every step he took away from her, his body roared with outrage, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
The bathroom light felt like a white-hot laser, piercing the haze of lust. He slammed the door behind him, not trusting himself if she decided to follow him.
He felt wild and depraved, holding onto his sanity by the barest thread, and that realisation made his heart race even more. This never happened to him, never. He never lost sight of this part of him, this deep-rooted need he had to be in control all the time. Furious, he slammed his hand down on the marble countertop, feeling pain shoot upwards into his wrist. Ignoring the pain, he slammed it down once more, as though daring his own body to defy him any more than it just had.
He had been ready to plunge himself into her without protection, without any care for the consequences. This arrangement, this marriage...it had got so far under his skin he felt as if someone had reached into his soul and stirred wildly so that every deep, dark part of him had risen to the surface.
It wasn’t her fault. And yet, inexplicably, he resented her for it, for being the catalyst that made him feel this way. For a split second he felt the urge to demand that she leave, that he remove the problem at its source, the temptation that was Pandora Quinn. But as he looked at himself in the mirror, imagining the look on her face as he sent her away, he felt himself resist and he knew with absolute certainty that the problem would not disappear just because his wife was no longer within arm’s reach.
He wanted to roar his frustration at all of it, every damn thing that bound him and tightened the constraints of being Zeus Mytikas’s son. But instead he ran cold water over his sore fist for a few minutes, and then walked back out into the living area.
Pandora sat on the sofa, her body mostly shielded by a red silk throw blanket, but still he ached for her. He pushed the feeling away, pushed everything down until all he felt was cool, hard focus as he reached for his trousers and pulled them on. Pain lanced through his knuckles but he ignored it, his only care focused upon the silent woman studiously avoiding his gaze.
‘That can’t happen again, Pandora.’ He spoke with a remoteness that stunned even him. He saw her flinch ever so slightly and hated himself for it. But instead of responding she simply stood up and grappled silently with the throw, trying not to show any more naked skin than she had to. She walked past him without another look, her chin held high, not stopping until she reached the door of her bedroom. He saw the rise and fall of her shoulders in the moonlight as she inhaled a deep breath, blonde hair shimmering as she shook her head ever so slowly.
‘I was wrong.’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘You are the furthest thing from safe for me. And there is nothing simple about this attraction between us. I’ll try harder to remember that.’
He took a step towards her, needing to explain to her why this was the only option for him. Why this attraction between them could only spell disaster for them both...but Pandora raised her hand to stop him, warning him without words to stay away.
So he did.
Xander didn’t come to their bed that night, and she told herself she was relieved.
Pandora sat for a long time, staring out at the bright lights of the cityscape until dawn broke, her thoughts an unbearable vortex of confusion. Confusion over how they had allowed things to go so far so quickly. How she had been so close to making love with a man she had vowed to remain professional with. How she had adored every single minute of it and felt a kind of comfort and connection she had never thought she’d ever feel. And pleasure...so much pleasure.
She felt the uncomfortable clench of chaos whirling within her. There was no work to occupy her mind now. For all the euphoria they’d felt yesterday in winning the contract, she hadn’t really processed the fact that, in doing so, she had now completed her temporary freelance contract with Xander. They would travel to Kyoto this evening for the reopening ceremony that the Tanaka family had invited them to, and then tomorrow their ‘business trip slash honeymoon’ would be over and they would return to New York... Return to whatever came next in this charade of a marriage.
She decided that she would forgo her usual morning run on the treadmill in the building’s world-class gym if it meant she could avoid seeing her husband and having to face the fallout of the disaster that was the night before. She needed to get out of this apartment right now. If he woke up and wanted to talk...she knew she would just crumble. Anger fuelled her once more, stiffening her movements as she pulled on her favourite skinny jeans and T-shirt, her feet stumbling slightly in her haste as she stepped into her boots.
He made absolutely no sense. One minute he was hot and heavy, ready to plunge into her, and the next he had practically run from the room. Yes, they had almost forgotten to use protection, but she had remembered in time. There was no risk, no danger. And yet he’d behaved so harshly, returning to the room as though nothing had happened between them, and calmly informed her that there would be no repeat performance.
She closed her eyes, wondering how on earth she was supposed to survive twelve more months of playing Xander’s dutiful wife when this first week already had her at the limits of her control.
CHAPTER NINE
IFXANDERHADbeen slightly worried at Pandora’s ability to perform in light of last night’s events, all his concerns had been eased within the first five minutes of their entry into the beautiful gardens where the reopening ceremony was being held.
He looked down at the woman by his side, her delicate porcelain features serene and polite as she conversed easily in Japanese with one of the senior board members of the Tanaka Corporation. His own Japanese was basic and reduced simply to greetings and culturally appropriate words of congratulations or commiserations as he needed in the boardroom. Switching between his native Greek and English was usually enough to stretch his tolerance.
Pandora looked up at him, a slight frown marring her brow when she leaned in ever so slightly, increasing the pressure of her fingers where they rested on his forearm. The movement sent a jolt of electricity through him.
She really needed to stop touching him.
All these small gestures, guiding him, whispering the names of various contacts just before they stood in front of them, offering to get him a drink. She was no more acting like his wife than he was acting like her husband.
The need to confirm to this entire gathering that Pandora was his, in the most primitive sense of the word, consumed him. But he was not the same out-of-control brute he had been the night before so he resisted it. Their marriage was not a tool that he could use to his advantage in the current situation. So why then did he feel such an urge to claim her here, to wipe away the polite façade that she had presented in her perfectly pressed black dress and her tight sensible chignon? Why did anything about her professional conduct all day bother him so badly?
Wasn’t it exactly what he had asked for?
