She looked away, knowing her expression would tell him the truth even if her mouth didn’t.
Then a very disturbing thought occurred to her. Was he using sex to disturb her equilibrium further in this business game only he seemed to know the rules to?
A gentle hand brushed her cheek. “Hey, stay with me, Chloe. We are far from finished.”
“No more questions about my private life.”
“Only one.”
She glared at him, sealing her lips.
“Are you in a relationship?”
“Surely whatever spies you have watching your business interests told you the answer to that.”
“I do not have investigators watching you.” By his tone, he considered he’d shown restraint and expected her to appreciate that fact.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t think of a reason he would have wanted to in the first place.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because he said, “There is very little related to any of my business interests that I do not know.”
Okay, but again, why? She wasn’t one of his business interests any longer. Even though he still held a big chunk of shares in Dioletis Industries, she had nothing to do with the company and even less to do with him.
Their currently somewhat intimate circumstances aside.
“Arrogant much?” she asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
She used to find his arrogance charming. Maybe part of her still did, but really—what had she been thinking?
He merely smiled.
Well, Mr. Arrogance hadn’t known she was on birth control during their short-lived marriage. And technically, it had been just another business arrangement. So, he didn’t know everything now, did he?
Despite falling head over heels for the gorgeous jerk, the one thing she’d been adamant about was that she wasn’t trapping him or herself into marriage through a child. Not unless they both wanted to be there permanently, and obviously he hadn’t.
“Do you honestly think I’d be on this couch if I had someone waiting for me back in Oregon?” she asked, to get her mind back where it needed to be.
She wanted this, and even she wasn’t going to ruin it for herself.
“No, but I would appreciate hearing the words.” He almost sounded humble.
Which was enough of a shock for her to acquiesce that much. “I’m not in a relationship.”
“Good.”
“I assume you aren’t in one either?” Not that she thought for a minute they defined the word the same way.
They certainly hadn’t agreed on what it meant to be married.
“No.”
“Then we can continue without guilt.”
“Ne. We will continue.” That single slip into Greek to say yes indicated more than his body coiled tightly with sexual tension, or even his hard-on, that Ariston was not in absolute control.
And then the tension snapped and the whirlwind that was her tycoon lover for the afternoon swept over her with touches and kisses and bodies rocking together until she spread her legs, silently begging him to enter her.
He grabbed a condom from the pocket of his slacks and she tried very hard not to think why he might carry those around. “Help me put it on.”
She nodded, and with trembling hands, did exactly that. He groaned as her fingers rolled the condom down his generous length.
Stilling above her, he implored, “Don’t move. Not your hand, not your body. Nothing. Please.”
It was as out of control as she’d ever seen him and she did as he asked. His eyes shut, his head thrown back in repose, he took several deep breaths, letting each one out more slowly than the last.
When he looked down at her again, his azure eyes were dark with desire. “Now.”
“Yes.”
He pressed inside her and her body convulsed around him. Not in climax, but in absolute pleasure and relief at finally being connected to him in this way again. For her, it was a moment so profound, she could not speak.
He did not look as if he needed words, but seemed lost in his own passion, and for that she was grateful.
Even more so when that passion took them on another journey to fulfillment, this time her orgasm gripping her entire body in contractions so intense that though she opened her mouth to scream again, no sound came out.
He muffled his own shout of completion in the juncture of her neck and shoulder, kissing her over and over again between words like Yes, and So good, and Fantastic.
Afterward, they cleaned up in his office’s en suite, neither speaking, but the silence between them not really awkward at all.
It should have been.
She should be having all sorts of regrets, but she wasn’t.