An Heir to Bind Them (16 page)

“You’re killing me,” he said in a loaded voice. “Tell me. An hour? How much longer?”

She couldn’t speak, could only lift her face so he could see how helpless she was to the feelings he incited in her. A muted ringing filled her ears and she realized it was her, trembling amid all this fine gold.

His tormented expression hardened into fierce excitement.
“Now.”

If he had swung her into his arms, she wouldn’t have felt more swept away. He turned them toward the room and she wished they could disappear without speaking to anyone. This passion between them was nothing she felt shame over, but it was too personal and concentrated to endure a gauntlet of teasing over it.

Before they could move, Demitri lurched in front of them, unkempt, wearing a smear of lipstick on his cheek. “Hey, I’m ready to claim my dance with the bride.”

“Too late,” Theo said with only a hint of smugness. He waved away whatever Demitri tried to say. “Redeem yourself by making our excuses. We’re leaving.”

She thought Demitri might have tried to say something, but Theo stole her out a side exit. From there they broke into a run like schoolchildren and were both laughing and breathless when they tumbled into the elevator.

“We should at least say goodbye to Zephyr,” she protested as Theo crowded her into a corner, his grin so boyish and lighthearted she grew dizzy.

“If there’s any male getting more attention from women than my brother this week, it’s our son. He won’t miss us.”

Curling his fists against the walls of the elevator, caging her in, he inhaled deeply without actually touching her, then growled in frustration when the elevator stopped, jarring them both into a small stagger.

“I know I’ll appreciate the privacy once we get to Rosedale, but right now it’s too damned far away.” He pushed back and held the doors for her.

The wind had come up and whipped around them as they crossed to the helicopter. A uniformed pilot touched his cap as he helped Jaya up the stairs.

“You’re not driving?” she asked Theo.

He gave her a look as he settled beside her in the passenger cabin. “We call it piloting,” he drawled, accepting a glass of champagne from the flight attendant that he passed to Jaya, but declined for himself. He picked up her free hand and set a playful bite on the knuckle of her ring finger. “I knew I’d only be thinking of you at this point. Not the right headspace for getting us anywhere alive. This is Nic’s crew. They make the trip all the time. Plus, all the pre-flights are done.”

She saw the advantage to that as they lifted off the second her seat belt clicked into place. The attendant moved to the copilot’s seat and lowered the lights. Minutes later they were high enough and far enough away that the city and sky blended into a blanket of pinprick lights. The moon sat fat and smiling a bluish glow.

Theo touched her chin, bringing her around from staring into the silver-laced waves and captured her mouth with the velvet heat of his. She opened to his pressure, tongue seeking the dampness of his, their union growing deep and wet between one startled breath and the next. Her hand sought the back of his head, urging him to kiss her harder as waves of delicious heat rolled down to the center of her, flooding sensations between her thighs, making her ache.

They were in another world, a bubble of white noise and shadow, straining against their belts as they twisted to be closer. She brushed at the lapel of his jacket, burrowing to his vest and seeking a way past it only to be thwarted by the silk of his shirt.

He groaned and skimmed his hand from her knee up her thigh, over her waist and cupped her breast, thumb circling over silk to tease her nipple. She wriggled in her seat, the erotic sensations building in her loins so intense she gasped and pulled away.

“Please stop.”

“Damn, I’m sorry.” He sat back, his face stark with self-recrimination as he closed his hands into fists on his armrests. “I misread you.”

“No, you didn’t.” She threw her arm across him, face tilted against his shoulder so her whispered words could reach his ear over the din of the helicopter blades. “I’m afraid I’m going to...I can’t. Not here, like this, with people right there who might know.”

Theo’s hands opened to clench into the ends of his armrests. She could feel the strain and flex in his biceps and across his chest as he nearly rent the crash-proof seats apart. His head tilted back and the sound he made was animalistic, somewhere between fury and helplessness.

When she started to pull back in alarm, he trapped her hand against his chest where his heart slammed. They sat like that until the bird landed on the lawn of a dark estate. An English mansion waited with stately patience, seeming out of place on this Greek island, but who cared? It was Nic and Rowan’s home, a gift of privacy for their wedding night, but Jaya barely saw any of it as Theo whisked her up the steps, past a housekeeper who said something about calling if they needed anything and practically booted her out the door.

“Are you cross? You seem angry,” Jaya said, backing away from him in the dimly lit lounge.

“Because I almost lost it up there along with you? Hell, no, I’m going insane.” He dragged at his clothes, shedding sword and bowtie and shoes as he stalked her. “Are you afraid of me right now?”

“What? No, not really, but—oh!” She came up against the bottom stair, surprised he’d steered her this way. “You seem really, um... What if the housekeeper comes back and finds your clothes all over the house like this?”

“She won’t come back uninvited.” His vest hit the floor. “Keep going.” He jerked his chin at the upper floor, urging her to back up the stairs.

“You’re kind of being, um...” She didn’t know what the word was, but he was making her nervous. Not genuinely afraid, but she knew what a small animal felt like when stalked by a cat.

“Aggressive?” he prompted. “Impatient? I’m trusting you, my lovely bride. Keep going. One of these bedrooms is made up for us.”

“Trusting me? To what?” She hurried down the hall ahead of him, sending anxious glances over her shoulder as he followed at an implacable pace. “What do you mean? Oh! It’s so nice of them to do this...”

She entered an expansive bedroom where the scent of the sea wafted in through open balcony doors with the sensual push of each wave reaching for shore. Tea lights floated in glass globes of colored water, bringing a magical glow to the white sheets and sheer curtains around the canopied bed. An array of treats awaited on a side table beneath silver covers, but she didn’t lift the lids, too aware of the half-naked man, his hands lowering his fly as he stepped through the door and left it half-open.

The low light burnished his muscled chest and flat stomach, accentuating his abs. She found herself shaking too much with excitement to be able to remove so much as her grandmother’s heavy ring from her forefinger.

Theo moved toward her like he was a missile finding its target. His chest filled her vision and his aggressive masculine scent filled her nostrils, making her dizzy. Without thinking, she impulsively smoothed the narrow line of hair that arrowed down the center of his torso to his navel and lower to the exposed skin behind his loosened fly.

“I, um, don’t know what you mean about trusting me,” she said.

He sucked in a breath that pulled all his stomach muscles taut. He cupped the side of her face and made her look at him.

“I’m trusting you to tell me if I’m coming on too strong. Have you reached your limit? You’re shaking.”

“No! I want to touch you and be naked and feel you all over me but look at me! I can’t get out of any of this on my own and—”

He kissed her, hard and fierce, the thrust of his tongue forceful, but so welcome, so good. She sucked on him, wanting to eat him alive. They’d been kissing and fondling and teasing for weeks. Her dreams had been full of how he felt thrusting inside her. She couldn’t wait any longer. Modesty didn’t enter into it. Instinct took over.

With a grunt of hunger he backed toward the bed and sat, pulling her to straddle his legs, gathering her sari and underskirt as he pulled her into his lap. She knelt with her knees parted to hug his hips. The position put her eye to eye with him, mouth to mouth. They never stopped kissing and she couldn’t stop soaking in the feel of his skin with her splayed hands. Tiny noises escaped her, like an abandoned kitten then more of a purr when his hot hands slid up to cup the globes of her buttocks. She wriggled in his hold, loving the intimacy of it, wanting him to know how much pleasure his touch gave her.

Her whole body was filling with heat and excitement, blossoming like a flower coated in dew and sunlight.

With a ragged moan, he snapped her underpants, surprising her into gasping and lifting in surprise. He tugged them away and threw them to the floor then freed himself. She reached for the thrusting flesh he revealed, circling him with tentative fingers, reacquainting with the warm satin over hot steel.

The world contracted to this small circle of light where one man and one woman consummated their marriage, harsh breaths mingling as she helped him roll on a condom.

Wordlessly he guided her to lift and be open for him. She let her eyes drift closed as he guided his straining head to rub and tease. Soft gasps of anticipation escaped her and she dug her nails into his shoulders.

When she started to take him in, he gathered her swollen, aching breasts in two hard hands and bit through her sari at her nipples, making her cry out and arch, desperate for penetration. As she let her weight sink down, as her wet, ready sheath swallowed him, he dropped his head back and snarled at the ceiling.

Smiling, she scraped her nails across his chest and worked herself to find the tightest fit against him, heart expanding with joy at each pulse of his hard muscle inside her. He dug his hands through silk to snug her tighter and tighter still, causing delicate explosions as the right place was touched again and again.

They kissed, deep, sumptuous kisses, rocking themselves into ownership of each other’s body. Soon their movements exaggerated, pulling away and coming together with more force. She had never ridden a horse, but she rode her husband, using her thigh muscles to rise and fall on exquisite impalement, feeling the strain in him as he balanced on the edge of the mattress, sweaty and strong beneath her, holding himself steady to let her set their pace. His breaths rang with strain and his chest and shoulder muscles bunched with tension. When her stamina began to fail, his hands grasped her hips and kept her rhythm steady so they approached the crisis together.

“Theo! I’m—” Her world was coming apart at the seams.

“Me, too. Now, Jaya. Let me feel you—ah, yes. Like that. Ah, yes, yes!”

She imploded then expanded like a supernova, his pulsing completion within her shooting her into a realm where they were one experience, one person. One.

* * *

Draped naked on her stomach across the bed, she lay acquiescent as her husband kissed and stroked his way around the henna on her feet and lower legs. Every few minutes he ran a playful fingertip down the sole of her foot or nuzzled too softly at her ankle—he almost got a reflexive kick in the eye for that one—but he was enjoying himself so she tried to withstand the tickling.

“Here,”
he finally said, kissing hotly inside her calf.

“Are you sure?” She sat up, scooping the edge of the sheet for a shred of modesty, then studied the scrolled
T.M.
“Should I have it tattooed there permanently?”

“Would you?” he asked. He was so sexy with his rakish stubble and relaxed grin, propped on an elbow and completely at ease in his nudity. He took her breath.

“If you’d like. Unless you have a different favorite spot?” The flirting came naturally after hours of physical contact that bordered on debauchery. They couldn’t seem to get enough of each other, whether they were in the bed, against the shower wall, or on the sideboard. Morning was firmly coming alive outside. Birds sang and the air had gone from crisp to soft. The helicopter would be returning them to Athens by late afternoon, but they were very much still on their one-night honeymoon.

Lazy brown eyes perused her from hairline to toenails. “It’s all my favorite.”

“I never thought I’d be like this,” she admitted. “Naked and comfortable with a man. I thought I’d have hang-ups forever. Thank you for making this so good for me.” She tilted forward to touch her mouth to his.

“I’m not being too demanding? You would tell me if you’re tender, wouldn’t you? I look back on our night in Bali and it was incredible, but damn, I was stiff the next day. You should have told me to back off.”

“Why didn’t you put on the brakes?”

“Because I didn’t want that night to end.”

She smiled, feeling secretive and womanly and desired. “Neither did I.”

“I’ve never had second chances before.” He smoothed her hair behind her ear. The somber gratitude reflected in his eyes warmed her heart. “Don’t let me screw this up. Tell me what I need to do to make this work, okay?”

Love me,
she thought, feeling a pinch in her heart, but it wasn’t something either of them could control. It would happen or not. Still, when he took his time caressing and kissing her, when their bodies writhed together in sensual perfection, she felt loved.

Seeking that, she eased onto her back, pulling him with her. “I’m the inexperienced one,” she reminded. “You’re supposed to be the one who knows how to make this work.”

He flashed a grin, brief and endearingly playful. “If this is all I have to do, our marriage will be a cake walk.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

F
OR
A
MAN
who had never wanted a wife and children, Theo was surprised how quickly he settled into marital bliss. Not that any of it was easy, but it wasn’t hard in the way he knew life could be hard. It was little blips of leasing his New York apartment—it was too good an investment to sell outright—being away from Jaya and Zephyr because of a crisis in Sydney and managing child-care until the
au pair
arrived since Jaya was already getting her feet wet in her new job.

The flip side of these minor wrinkles was a smart, warm, stunning woman on his arm and in his life.

He wasn’t a man who’d ever needed to bring the prettiest woman to the dance. Nevertheless, he’d had a roster of style conscious women who hadn’t minded an evening out on short notice. He’d given them a shopping spree and they’d relieved him of the burden of conversation for a few hours.

Jaya elevated what he used to think of as endurance events to a new, very bearable level, bringing personality without getting too personal. Her people management skills made her the perfect hostess when they were forced to entertain. As a result, he found himself in the remarkable position of enjoying this evening’s dinner.

Now that they were settled, she’d taken a job with the family business, choosing an upgrade project that would allow her to work closely with him. While some considered that a recipe for disaster, he had more faith. They tended to work like two halves of a whole and today had been no different, despite being a grueling one over all. However, they’d put their team in place and were kicking off the project with a dinner for spouses. It was also a soft opening for the revamped dining room in their centerpiece New York hotel.

“There will be times when we’re asking your husband or wife to work late, so we wanted to let you know up front that we appreciate the sacrifice,” Jaya was saying, her graceful fingers resting lightly on the edge of the white tablecloth. If she was nervous speaking to the long table of nearly thirty people, her boss included, she didn’t betray it.

“We won’t always be eating like this. I’m sure there will be sandwiches at midnight more often than not, but today was a very productive meeting and if we can keep up that momentum, we’ll be enjoying another celebration like this at the end of a very successful project.” With a teasing smile that impacted like a heart punch, she added to Theo, “Provided we’re on budget, of course.”

“You will be.” Maybe he was biased, even a bit dazzled. He certainly wouldn’t let her fail, but he had every confidence she’d pull this off beautifully.

“They’re so in love,” the wife of their IT specialist said, then pressed fingertips to her lips as everyone turned to look at her. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say that so loud.”

She was mortified and everyone else seemed amused, but Theo felt as though he’d been stripped naked in front of all of them. Was that what this was? Love?

His sense of vulnerability, of having his deepest desire revealed, was so threatening he couldn’t look at Jaya. It would only reinforce how much she meant to him, allowing others to wield his feelings for her as a weapon. He cut an instinctive glance to the place he’d always been able to count on for cover when he was at his least guarded.

Adara was already watching him and smoothly drew everyone’s attention to her end of the table. “We’re very excited about this pairing. Even if they weren’t married, I would have wanted Jaya to head this project, but having them so closely connected should help you all get the answers you need so you can keep moving forward.”

Gideon made some remark about the newlyweds curtailing their honeymooning to review software code, but Theo didn’t absorb it. The luminescent curtain that surrounded them in this private dining area was supposed to give a waterfall effect, but he was drowning under the rapids at the moment. The pressure in his chest suffocated him while he tried to discern which way was up. Pressure in his ears made the room’s music sound muted while the clink of crystal tableware was like shattering glass.

He was falling apart internally while he had to maintain an unaffected front, exactly as he always had.

Jaya was pretty sure she’d never be able to eat here again. She couldn’t eat now, when an amuse-bouche arrived in the form of a tiny fried noodle nest with a grape tomato egg and a herb leaf feather floating in a spoonful of consume. She wanted to run away and hide from the terrible lie that she was allowing to prevail.

Her husband
didn’t
love her. She wished he did. Every morning she woke next to him hoping today would be the day he’d find the words. In six weeks of marriage, no matter how happy they seemed on the surface, he had yet to speak of his feelings.

But she had to sit here and smile at a table of mostly strangers, reminding herself that her life was actually very fulfilling. Theo did care for her in his way. He had overturned his life for her and their child, provided for them in a way that was ridiculously extravagant and always made time for them.

Then there was the sex. As a couple, they might not be given to public displays of affection, but behind closed doors they were the clichéd newlyweds who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They started most of their days locked in orgasm and fell asleep sweaty and tangled together.

So what did it matter if people assumed they were in love and it was only true on one side? She was still happy, wasn’t she?

Don’t be impatient, Jaya. Don’t ruin it.

That was a bitter imperative to swallow when she’d spent the beginning of her life telling herself,
Go after what you want. Don’t settle.

The evening turned into the longest of her life and only became more intolerable when they said good-night to their guests at the coat room. Theo held her wool wrap and asked near her ear, “You okay?”

This from the man who had become Robot Theo for the last two hours, tense and barely able to string two civil words together, leaving all the talking to her. If she’d found the love remark disconcerting, he’d found it insufferable.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled as she clutched the edges of the wrap across her aching breastbone.

Across the room, Gideon lifted Adara’s hair out from beneath the collar of her jacket. His gaze on her was tender as he cupped her face to give her a light kiss. Her smile when he drew back was radiant.

Jaya wanted to cry. She’d settled and could never back out now, even if she hadn’t loved her husband so much she thought she’d die of it.

“Don’t lie to me, Jaya,” he said beside her with quiet ferocity. “Even if you think it might be easier for both of us.”

She met his gaze, but it was painful to hold. He’d see how much regret filled her. Funny how she’d thought the worst thing in the world had been being a financial burden on her uncle. No, it was far worse to be an emotional burden. She didn’t want Theo to know she loved him when he couldn’t love her back. It would be more weight on his conscience than he deserved to carry. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t love.

“Adara,” he called, startling Jaya with his sharp tone.

His sister turned back from exiting with her husband.

“Is something wrong?” she asked as she approached, looking between the two of them. The weird thing was, it was like she already knew. Jaya had a feeling Adara was as aware of how tonight’s gaffe had affected Theo as Jaya was.

A gut-wrenching sense of rejection filled her as she saw Theo’s not loving her blink larger than the sign in Times Square. Everyone knew.

“Will you swing by our place on your way home and take Zephyr overnight? The sitter can’t stay,” Theo said. “I’ll text her to let her know.”

“What? No!” Jaya protested in shock. “Why—?”

“Of course,” Gideon cut in smoothly. “Our pleasure.”

“But we’re going straight home,” Jaya insisted. “Aren’t we?”

“We’ll use the family suite here tonight.”

“Theo—” Jaya began.

“Please let us do this.” Adara set a light touch on her arm. “Theo never asks me for anything.” Leaning in to buss Jaya’s cheek with her own, she whispered, “Please don’t give up on him.” With a tight smile of concern, she and Gideon hurried away.

Speechless, Jaya watched them depart. “This is crazy. Why did you do that?”

“Crazy? We both know we need to talk.”

She hugged herself into her wrap, cold despite their staying inside. As he nudged her toward the elevators, she stumbled.

“I don’t want to talk,” she mumbled. This was her problem, not theirs. She had known what she was marrying. Maybe he would come to love her eventually, but not if she forced it.

“There’s a switch.” He eyed her as he brought out his card and got them into the private elevator.

“What is?”

“You being the one who doesn’t want to talk. Especially after you taught me it’s the only way to fix things. Why are you trying to take that away from me now?”

“I’m not,” she protested as they entered the family suite. “I just don’t see any use this time.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to hear
again
that you don’t love me and never will!” The outburst surprised even her. She pulled her wrap tighter around her throat, turning away to hide her hurt.

He drew a long, harsh breath then heavy silence descended.

She waited.

Nothing.

A choking little cry of protest escaped her. “And there you go again, withdrawing—”

“It’s not easy for me, Jaya! I don’t even know how to love, not properly. I still feel awkward kissing my son, like the more I want and need him in my life, the more likely he’ll be snatched away.”

“Not by me! I’m not trying to take away your heart either. Love isn’t something to
dread.
”

“I know that,” he cut in. “But people knowing how I feel... When that woman said we were in love tonight, I lost a bit of sanity. I couldn’t bear for them to know how much you mean to me. It makes me too vulnerable.”

It wasn’t the statement she was looking for, but it was close enough to make her turn and look at him. “Do you mean that?”

“The last thing I feel toward you is dread, Jaya. When I walk through the door, I’m relieved, like some kind of unidentified pain has stopped. I’m so damned happy to see you, it’s embarrassing. Is that love? You tell me. I’ve never felt like this toward anyone. It sure as hell isn’t anything like what I feel toward my sister,” he growled.

She pressed a hand to her diaphragm, reminding herself to keep breathing because she felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Somehow she found her voice. “Each time I see you, I’m filled with intense
joy,
like I’m finally home and safe again, no matter where we are.”

Reaction seemed to spasm across his features. “When you say things like that, I almost don’t want to believe it. It means too much and I trained myself not to care, not to want, but I crave those things you say, Jaya. They make me start to hope.”

“For what?” A fragile bubble of optimism was building in her, but she was afraid to grasp it in case it burst.

He visibly struggled, feet shifting, glance cutting to the door before he hardened his stance and lifted his chin, no defenses anywhere on him as he revealed both somber vulnerability and an achingly tender warmth toward her.

“That you might come to love me one day.”

Her own controls fell away, leaving her floating in a void, jaw slack, mind wiped clean by shock. A hot pressure flared in the back of her throat, urging her to speak, but all she could say was, “I’m such an idiot.”

Before she could cover her face and absorb how appallingly stupid she’d been, she glimpsed how her words affected him. The tightening and closing, the dimming of his eyes.

“I thought if I told you how much I love you, it would scare you,” she blurted, lurching forward a step. “I’d make you feel too much pressure. Like you were failing me because we’re not equal, but I shouldn’t have held back. I should have told you.”

“That you love me,” he clarified in a voice that rocked between disbelief and shaken anticipation. He came forward to grasp her arms. “That’s what this is? This feeling like if we have a disagreement, I’ll die of loneliness? That if I’m hurting I don’t want anyone around except you, and if you’re there I can bear anything, that’s it? That’s love?”

She nodded, blinking matted lashes. A tickle of wetness ran onto her cheek. “That’s how it is for me. I want to tell you things I’d never admit to another soul.”

He cupped her face in gentle fingers, his eyes blazing with heat and admiration and adoration. “Then Jaya, I have loved you for a very long time.”

She couldn’t breathe. Her heart had grown too big for her chest. Her mouth wouldn’t form words because her lips were quivering.

He soothed them with the pressure of his own. The tender kiss deepened by degrees past sweet wonder into heat and passion and a deep need to express their love completely. They knew each other’s signals and they were even more evocative now. He cupped her breast and held her heart. She pressed her lips to the pulse in his throat and only a very fine, translucent wall separated her from his lifeblood.

“Oh, Theo, I’m sorry—”

“Shh, I shouldn’t have made you wait, either. I just didn’t know...”

“I know. I love you.” She kissed him again, unable to control the outpouring of emotion, passion, her need to connect.

He slowly drew back, but only to offer a smug smile. “I scored us a free night of babysitting.”

“How could I not love you for that?” She was bursting with joy at how carefree he looked. Like he’d fully broken free of his shell and all of him was available to her.

He swooped to whisk her off her feet and into the cradle of his arms, making her gasp in surprise. As he started for the bedroom, she toed off her shoes so they clunked to the floor.

“Are we going to sleep at all tonight?” she teased.

“You say when, you know that.” He set her onto the bed and followed her in one motion, his strength and power entwining with hers in the familiar way she’d come to love. “But I’ll make it worth staying up if you do,” he cajoled.