“I’m telling you, Rocco, she’s a dream.”

His friend laughed down the phone line. “Now I see why you didn’t wish me to join you.”

Thad grinned. “You would definitely have cramped my style, man.”

“You met her the day of the funeral?”

“Yeah.” Thad stared at his emails and grimaced. There were hundreds that should have been dealt with, and not one caught his attention.

“How?”

“Long story,” he said, unwilling to share the details of their relationship, even with a man he thought of almost as a brother. “It was random. A thousand things could have gone wrong and we wouldn’t have met.”

Rocco was incapable of speaking for several long moments. “You’ve known her how long? A few days? And you speak as if this is some kind of fateful love-match.”

Thaddeus ran his finger over the keyboard slowly, thoughtfully. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not a fool. She’s not looking for anything serious and God knows, nor am I.” The denial felt heavy in his mouth, the words unnatural.

Rocco nodded, but an instinct in his gut was unsettled. “What does she do?”

“Do? You mean for work?” His smile was indulgent. “I have no clue.”

The suspicions grew. “And how old is she?”

“Mid-twenties?”

“Christ, Thad, do you even know her name?”

Thaddeus smiled triumphantly. “Saphire Arana, and she lives in Notting Hill.”

“Great, so you know her name and roughly her address,” Rocco murmured, scrawling both down in his notebook. “What else?”

“We have not spent time interviewing one another,” Thad hedged defensively.

“I bet I can guess how you’ve spent your time.” Rocco clicked the lid back on his pen. “Let me guess; she’s a classic Thaddeus super babe? Blonde? Big tits? Legs that go on forever? Skin the color of burnt sugar?”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,” he shook his head. Actually, except about her breasts, which were perfection personified. “She’s petite, with hair as dark as night, skin that’s the color of clotted cream and lips … God, her lips.” He sighed. “And her eyes … they are bluer than the sky on a crisp summer’s day. She is exquisite, Rocco. Exquisite.”

He pushed the lid of his MacBook down. How could he even think of work when Saphire was there? It was a waste of his time and energy. “And she makes me laugh,” he added as he stood.

Rocco, in all their years as mates, had never heard Thad describe a woman in such a way. And because their friendship scored deep in both men, and because Rocco felt a concern over Thad’s state of mind given the recent bereavement he had suffered, he knew that he had to do something to protect his friend.

Gorgeous, available women didn’t just fall into men’s laps in their hour of need. Something was wrong with this little situation, and Rocco knew, even as he hung up the call, that he would not rest until he’d found out what it was.

 

* * *

 

It was set a little further down the shoreline than the jetty his speedboat was moored to. A second boat was anchored just off-shore; bigger and far more prestigious. Saphire wasn’t much of a fan of boats, but her father and husband had both enjoyed their fair share of time on luxurious yachts. She knew from information she’d gleaned from their conversations that the boat in front of her was a top-of-the-line craft.

“What is this?” She murmured.

“You didn’t want to go to Athens,” he said simply, holding her hand as she stepped into the small motor-boat.

Her eyes flew to his.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Relax,” he smiled at her as he crouched beside the engine and pulled it to life. It hummed with power; it took only a minute for it to cut through the shallow waters and pull them alongside the bigger boat.

“You want me to climb up there?” She said uncertainly. Her tummy was in knots; it had nothing to do with this man, for once, and everything to do with the mess that was waiting for her back home.

“You’re not going to claim to be afraid of heights, are you?” He teased.

She sent him a droll look. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“That’s my girl.”

More pain. She wasn’t his girl. She never would be. “I’m not dressed for anything other than this boat,” she warned him, as she hooked a bare foot onto the lowest rung of the ladder and begun to climb up. Though she’d taken one of his work shirts and wore it like an over-sized dress, cinched at the waist with one of his belts. It was almost a passably fashionable ensemble.

“You are dressed perfectly, from where I sit,” he teased, enjoying the view of her rear as she got to the top of the ladder.

“Perve,” she called over her shoulder. She winced when she saw a man in uniform standing with his hand extended, to help her onto the deck. “Thank you.” Her cheeks glowed fire-engine red. She ran her hands down the front of her dress and kept her eyes trained on the ocean. The sun was setting, casting the sky in shades of purple and silver.

Thad climbed up with an easy athleticism and then stepped aside, so that the man in the suit could climb down and take the small boat back to shore.

“Oh, he’s not staying?” She asked with a lifted brow.

“No.”

Pleasure purred inside of her despite the distressing phone call she’d made that morning.

“I think I’m glad,” she said, reaching down and weaving her fingers through his.

“I am a selfish man, and I am definitely not willing to share you, agape mou,” he promised darkly. And his words spawned a realization in her soul. Would he feel betrayed by the choices she’d made? Would he resent her for using him to take revenge on her no-good husband?

She looked at him properly and it was then that the candles caught her eye. Dozens of little lights twinkled from the bow of the boat, each encased in a glass jar. An ice bucket and a picnic rug in the middle, with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

“You said we were going for a walk along the beach,” she laughed unsteadily, her heart tripping over itself.

“We did,” he grinned.

“And you said this would just be sex,” she added, but her pulse was firing and the fever in her blood had nothing to do with the proximity of his gorgeous body and everything to do with the thoughtfulness of his gesture.

“I’m sure we can find time for that too,” he promised, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her towards him. He held her tight to his chest and kissed her on the top of her head, then slackened his grip so that he could guide her towards the rug.

“The view from here is incomparable.”

She sat down on the picnic rug, her slender legs kicked out in front of her, crossed at the ankles. He poured a flute of champagne and handed it to her, then sat down beside her.

The outlook was, indeed, exquisite. The boat was facing away from Thad’s island, towards the mainland. But dozens of little islands dotted the way, like beacons in the night. She sighed as a surprising sense of contentment settled around her shoulders.

“So this whole island is really yours?” She asked after they’d sat in contemplative silence for a little while.

He dipped his head forward in agreement.

“What else is on it?”

“Nothing. Wilderness. It’s quite perfectly untouched.”

She lifted a brow. “Your grandfather never thought of developing it?”

“What for?” He asked quietly. “He was as rich as Croesus and did not need the money. This place is special for us. Him and me. And his father before him. It is a place to come to and be centered.”

“A bolt-hole,” she said with a tense smile. That’s exactly what it had been for her.

“Of sorts,” he agreed.

“It’s strange to hear you speaking like that. I mean, you’re this incredible businessman but you have a place to go and be centered. That’s kind of cool.”

“Cool?” He laughed. His conversation with Rocco came flooding back to him. “How old are you?”

“Twenty six.”

He concealed his smile with effort. “Mid-twenties?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Twenty six. Why?”

“I just realized I did not know.”

She frowned. “I guess we never got around to those facts.”

She sipped her champagne, and found it deliciously cold and refreshing, then cradled the flute in her hands. “How old are you?”

“Thirty one.”

The same age as Jordan. She pulled a face, and it made him laugh.

“Too old?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Perfect.”

“Then why this face?” He mimicked it back to her and she burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

He sipped his own champagne, his eyes hooked hers over the rim. “Now that we are here, and you are my virtual prisoner, I realize I can ask you all my questions, and you will have to answer them.”

“Wasn’t I your prisoner on the island?”

He grinned. “Good point. Still. I could always threaten to throw you overboard if you do not answer my questions, like a pirate’s quarry.”

“I’d take you with me.”

He mulled over the sentence and then nodded, his eyes locked challengingly to hers. “And I’d go willingly.”

Her heart turned over in her chest. She knew she desperately needed to lighten the mood. “Anyway, these questions of yours must be pretty scary if you had to go to these lengths to get them answered.”

“You have things you wish to keep private,” he murmured softly.

“Oh.” Her skin paled, and she sat up straighter, crossing her legs together. The statement cut through her very heart. “You’re being serious?”

“Why not?” He lifted his shoulders. His expression was so beautifully calm that her heart squeezed and remorse crested through her. Is this what infidelity felt like? Why then did she feel a sense of guilt towards this man, rather than her husband?

“What do you want to know?” She said hesitantly, and Thad shook his head.

“You act as if I’m asking to pull your teeth out one by one. Why?”

She bit down on her lip. Her eyes drifted out to the ocean. “You know why.” She swallowed. “I came to Athens to get away from … stuff. I didn’t plan to meet someone like you. I’m not really in the right place to start swapping life stories.”

Her cold detachment hurt; all the more so because he suspected it was just an act – but an act she desperately didn’t want him to see beyond.

“You did meet me, though, whether you planned to or not. And having enjoyed your body for three glorious nights, I want to know more now. I want to know what’s going on in here.” He tapped the side of her head and she squirmed away on the pretense of sipping her champagne.

“Fine.” She smiled at him tersely. “I studied philosophy at university, which means I love to read and over-analyze everything but unfortunately doesn’t make me tremendously employable in any field,” she said matter-of-factly, but still he laughed at her appraisal. “So I’m doing volunteer work until I figure out what I want to do next. I’m not qualified for anything. Literally nothing. I’m one of the few people in my generation who loathes technology and uses it a bare minimum. I can’t type. I have no head for maths. I bore easily. I don’t even know if I have an interest in anything.” She felt a sob in her throat and she swallowed it determinedly. “And I hate to whine about it to you because there are children dying in this world from lack of food and I’m incredibly spoiled and indulged and still can’t get my act together.” She angled a sardonic expression in his direction. “Are you regretting your interest now?”

“Of course not,” he murmured, tilting to face her. “Is this why you came to Athens? To, as you put it, get your act together?”

“Yes,” she said, and it was the truth. Never mind that she was omitting a vital detail regarding her husband’s cheating.

“What volunteer work do you do?”

“Does it matter? It’s just an excuse to leave the house every day.” She blinked back tears.

“I do not believe that,” he said, moving to sit behind her and pulling her gently back onto his chest. She smelled so good. His whole body tensed in pleasurable anticipation.

“You wouldn’t know what it’s like,” she muttered darkly. “To have no clue what you want from life, and no impetus with which to achieve it.”

He frowned. “What are your parents like?”

“My parents?”

“Yes. Most people seem to attribute their decisions, in part, to the way they were raised. I certainly credit my grandfather with many of my traits.”

“Like what?”

“Uh uh,” he said softly. “Nice try. We are talking about you, agape mou.”

She sighed. “Mum and dad are great. They have always taught me I could be anything. Maybe that’s part of the problem. I spent so much of my childhood learning what I could do and no time thinking about what was necessary to achieve it.” She cringed, shaking her head so that her hair tickled his chin. “I hate that I speak like that. I have had the luckiest childhood. I really am a spoiled brat. I’m pathetic.”

Her proclamation angered him. “Hey,” he wrapped an arm around her waist.

In the future, he would know it was that moment that made him feel a need to protect her. That moment in time, more than any other, made him want to shake her and show her how wrong she was about herself. “Why the hell do you let yourself speak like that? Let alone think it? You’re a kid, in the scheme of things. There is still plenty of time to find what it is you want from life.”

She shook her head. “Growing up, my mum was this incredibly perfect housewife. The ideal wife. Stunning - she was a real-life Bond girl, you know - and very kind, and intelligent. When I was born, she gave up everything else to be a full time mum and wife.” He felt her slender shoulders shrug. “I guess I always wanted to be like her.” She pulled a wry grimace. “Pity I missed out on her looks and patience.”

“You are depressing and infuriating me,” he said simply. “How can you not see what everyone else does?” He ran his hands down her arms. “Who has been telling you this crap? When you boarded my flight, I was almost winded. I have never known a woman like you.” He captured her fingers in his and lifted them higher in the sky before placing a delicate kiss on her thumb. “And even if you were as plain looking as a board, you are funny and kind and intelligent and … you are wonderful, agape mou.”

And for Saphire, that was her moment. The moment she knew she’d gone too far. That simple revenge sex had turned into something far, far more dangerous.

“I have to tell you something,” she said slowly. Her eyes fluttered shut. “It’s about my … friend.”

“The one you had to call this morning?”

“Sort of.” She swallowed, panic swelling in her throat. Be brave. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve run around with a girl called Anita. We grew up in the same area, went to school together. I think we actually hated each other at first,” she said with a small shake of her head. “But anyway, we’ve been inseparable for years. We went to university together - though she wisely chose to study economics and now works at the LSE.” She swallowed. “Anyway, I have loved her like a sister. Until just before I came here I discovered … I found out …” the words were dying inside of her. Weakly, she finished. “She’s been having an affair with … with a married guy.”

Thad frowned. “I can see why that would be disappointing. What does she say?”

He didn’t get it. She hadn’t explained properly. “I didn’t give her a chance to explain.”

“I can see why,” he agreed. “Marriage is a sacrosanct relationship. It must be hard for you to imagine remaining friends with her when she’s shown herself to have such different values to you.”

Her heart was pounding. “Kind of,” she said simply. The words he’d said only moments earlier were warming her heart and softening her soul. How could she ruin it? How could she confess the truth and risk that he’d never look at her in quite the same way? How could she risk that he’d ask her to leave immediately?

“Do you know the man?”

“The man?” She prompted, but her stomach was rolling with anxiety.

“That she’s sleeping with.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “He’s the husband of … a friend of ours.”

“That makes it even worse. It is a huge betrayal. Do you think the couple will make it?”

“The couple? As in the guy and his wife?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think they both want to. He wants to get into politics. I think he’d fear a divorce would look bad.”

“Not half as bad as a disgruntled wife one day spilling her stories to the tabloids. Or worse, a disgruntled ex-lover,” Thad said with a truth Saphire hadn’t appreciated.

“Anita would never do that,” she said after a moment too long.

“You probably did not believe her capable of sleeping with the husband of a friend, either.”

“Good point.”

“You also have no idea if Anita is his first mistress. In my experience, men who cheat do it often and without much compunction for the poor wife.” He stroked her hair. “It makes no sense to me.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Why marry at all if you’ve no interest in monogamy?”

Guilt was now controlling her heartbeat. “You don’t think that … sometimes stuff just happens?”

“No.” He dropped his lips to her shoulder and kissed the smooth flesh tenderly. “I do not. It is one of the reasons I have never sought a relationship that went beyond easy, relaxed sex.”

Her heart pricked. “Why?”

“Because. I am not a man to be tied into marriage. I like to know that I can leave when I become bored of a woman. I don’t crave the emotional stability of a long-term relationship.”

Saphire could have pulled her hair from her head. Frustration gnawed at her belly. “Why does that bother me?” She mused aloud, turning around a little in his arms so that she could see his expression.

His dark eyes ran over her face, trying to comprehend her question. Finally, he shrugged. “It shouldn’t. You are the one who’s insisted on those exact same restrictions for us.”

And if I hadn’t? She didn’t ask the question because the answer scared the hell out of her.

“This is too serious,” she murmured. His lips were parted, and so close to hers. Just an inch away. She covered the distance easily and tasted his mouth. As always, the spell began to wrap around them, enslaving her to its wonderment.

“This is better,” she grinned, her fingers pushing at his button and zipper. She pulled him from his pants with relief and straddled him. She didn’t bother to remove her underwear, she simply slid them aside so that she could welcome him inside. She groaned as she felt his length expand inside of her. He was so damned hard and strong. She dropped her cheek to his shoulder, staring out at the glistening moonlit ocean as he rocked in time with the boat, slowly building her to an inevitable climax.

“This is the best,” he said finally, as she began to tremble arms. “I have no idea why you fight it.”

The words were barbs in her sensual fog, for how truly accurate they were. Of course he had no idea why she was fighting the truth of what they were becoming. Because she knew. She was falling in love and she had no right to.

She kept her eyes averted, waiting for her breath to steady and her insides to calm. But she was alive in a feverish way. She tilted her pelvis back, wanting to give him the same pleasure she’d felt. She reached behind her and lifted one of the champagne flutes then held it suspended over his lips.

It trickled in, filling his mouth, and then she kissed him, tasting it and chasing any droplets that escaped down his chin, to his torso. Only a stupid shirt was concealing his chest and she ached to touch and taste him. She pulled at it fiercely with an animalism that made him laugh. The buttons popped and still she moved her hips, stirring his desire and evoking a type of insanity in his gut.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, dropping her mouth to lash one of his hair-roughened nipples with her tongue. He growled and fisted her hair at its nape, his body on the brink of a rapturous explosion if she didn’t slow down. But Saphire knew exactly what Thad liked by then.

She lifted her mouth and flicked the pulse point at the base of his neck and then moved her mouth higher, to his earlobe. While she sucked it between her teeth she let one hand tease his nipple and all the while she rocked back and forth, stroking him and feeling him massage her most sensitive nerve-endings.

Another orgasm was building for Saphire. But she wanted him to ride with her; she wanted them to tip over the edge together. “I want you to … I want us to… I want to feel you …”

He nodded, understanding completely. He bucked forward, tipping her onto her side without breaking their connection, and then he moved inside of her. Desperation was rampant. He ripped at her shirt, just as she had done, until the buttons popped. He groaned when the belt stayed put, as he had to unfasten it before he could do what he wanted to do. Finally though, she lay naked beneath him and a blanket of stars on the deck of his boat.

“That’s two of your shirts we’ve just ruined,” she said breathlessly.

He scooped the champagne from where she’d placed the flute and dribbled it over her chest. “I have more,” he promised, as she bucked hard towards him. The sensation of ice-cold liquid over her boiling hot body was too much to bear.

“Champagne or shirts?” She groaned, writhing against the picnic blanket as she almost felt that she might pass out.

“Both.” He dropped his mouth to her chest and sucked some of the liquid from her. She shuddered as he drove into her fast, reminding her (as if she needed it) that his body was her master. “Close your eyes,” he said throatily. She did as he said without hesitation.

“Bloody hell!” She swore, when she felt something boiling hot trickling between her breasts. But the pain almost immediately gave way to pleasure, and she felt the muscles of her core squeeze him more tightly. “What was that?”

His black eyes were hooded as they studied her. “Wax,” he ran a finger down her middle, spreading the still-soft material further. “If I could I would cast your whole body so that I could remember every tiny piece of you.”

It was too erotic. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and squeezed her eyes.

“Do you like it?” He murmured, dropping his mouth to her stomach and tasting more champagne from her soft skin.

She nodded. “A lot.”

He rewarded her by bucking further forward, deep and hard. She cried out and lifted her legs to allow him greater access. God, he would never tire of this. He would certainly never feel that he was finished with her.

He captured one of her feet and brought it to his mouth. He sucked her toe; it tasted like the ocean. It made him smile.

“Saphire, you are a dream,” he said seriously. “Have I gone mad? Are you my fantasy? Have I made you from my dreams?”

She laughed and shook her head at the same time. “Stop,” she begged. “Stop being so wonderful.” She didn’t deserve it. “But don’t stop this.” She reached between her legs and caught what she could of his arousal. “Please don’t ever stop this.”

“A week,” he reminded her as though the words weren’t a kind of death sentence. He pushed deeper so that, no longer able to find purchase on his body, she had to drop her hands to her side. He reached for the candle and this time, he dropped the smallest amount over her nipple. She moaned as the sensation seemed to deepen everything else he was doing to her body.

“It’s almost too much.” The words were torn from her soul; she was tormented.

“Tell me if it is,” he murmured.

“No,” she assured him. “I want more.” And she pushed herself up, thrusting her other nipple closer towards him.

He laughed softly. “You’re greedy.”

She nodded. “Please.”

He dropped more wax over her breasts, this time, running a line from her nipple across the valley to the next pink peak. She was hyperventilating, her cheeks glowing, her eyes shimmering, and her whole body covered in goosebumps.

As the wax set, he transferred his focus to the nipple with the hardest wax and flicked it with his forefinger. She startled, then laughed a little shakily. “It’s too good.”

“No such thing,” he promised, trickling champagne over the wax, so that the temperature contrast set her nerves on edge. And so quietly that later she would doubt he’d even whispered the perfect words, he said, Stay and I’ll show you.

Then, he moved into her, fast, slow, gently and hard. He pushed her until her cries filled the empty ocean and together, they reached for a dramatic crescendo. And, as if their minds had joined together, they shared the same thought at the same time.

How can I walk away from this?