She shook her head.
‘No interest?’ He looked aghast.
She laughed. ‘I’d love to go there one day.’
‘Sail around the islands, right?’ He smiled as if it was what everybody wanted.
‘I’m sure that would be amazing, but I’d really like to go to Delphi.’
‘You studied Classics? The Antiquities?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it’s silly, but one of my favourite books was set in Delphi.’
‘What book?’
‘You probably haven’t read it…’
‘I’m actually quite well read—what’s the title?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s an old paperback, you won’t know it…’ She’d found it in the reception of the doctor’s one time and smuggled it home and hidden it from her parents. A romantic suspense wasn’t on the prescribed list her parents had drawn up for her.
He smiled, guessing that she didn’t want to tell him. ‘You’ll have to travel there then, to see if it lives up to its literary imagining.’
‘I’ve only just moved to London.’ She shrugged. ‘Greece might have to wait a while.’
‘So you’re new to town and I’m just passing through…yet fate has made it so we meet twice in the one night.’
‘And you want me to…’
‘Yes.’ Something smouldered in his eyes. ‘You know what I want you to do,’ he said. ‘I want you to come with me. And yes, I mean exactly what you’re thinking.’
Yes, he’d changed. In the theatre, he’d held back for some reason. Now, he’d decided and he wasn’t holding back at all.
‘You’re…not shy.’ She bit her lip.
‘But you are. Don’t be afraid to go for what you want.’
She hovered—not indecisive, but insecure. ‘I’m not good at this,’ she confessed.
He didn’t laugh at her. His expression was both encouraging and strained. He lifted a hand and cupped her jaw, the soft touch silencing her.
‘I’m not going to give you a report card, Leah,’ he breathed, closer still. ‘Anyway, there’s no “good”, only amazing. And for the record—so as not to omit any important details—I have no intention of either of us being hurt.’
There was a tension within him—a cause of worry or concern. For her?
‘Want me to give you an example?’ he asked in a husky whisper.
Her pulse thundered. She should pull back and say no. But she didn’t want to and her body decided for her. She rose a half-inch on her toes and met his descending mouth.
Who knew a kiss could be so careful? It began as little more than a soft slide of his lips over hers. His fingers weaved into her hair at the nape of her neck as he held her loose but close. But then his other hand lifted to her waist, pulling her against his body, and the pressure of his mouth on hers increased, the intimacy intensified as he teased her with his tongue. With slow, devastating skill he inexorably pulled a deep response. Not just acquiescence and acceptance but action in return. He unsealed a vast yearning within her and something in her soul leapt—reaching for connection, commanding her to slide her hands up his firm chest to his broad shoulders…to hold him to her every bit as much as he was holding her.
But he stirred more than the heated blood and the sudden slick restlessness of her hips.
A burst of emotion burned careful right the way down to ruthless. Raw hunger was unleashed within—forced into revealing itself by the increasingly demanding counterpart within him. This wasn’t just want, this was craving. She arched, opening for him—seeking more with her own touch, her own tongue and hands and press of her body. And he more than let her. His feet spread as he braced to take more of her in his hold and kissed her thoroughly—his strokes designed to soothe and torment at the same time. She knew it was crazy—that it didn’t make sense—but there was something more than this delicious, uncontrollable lust between them. And it was this something more that made this undeniable.
She shook, violently trembling from head to foot, as sensation rampaged through her like a river released from a decades-locked dam.
At her shudder he ripped his mouth from hers. ‘What do you think?’ His breathing was so roughened his speech sounded slightly slurred.
Thought had very little to do with it. She gazed up, relieved he’d not released his hold on her because she felt dizzy. She drank in the light flush on his skin and the glittering depths of his eyes—basking in the possessive focus he bestowed on her. Still pressed tightly against him, she felt not only his physical desire, but his restraint. She knew he’d walk away from her if she wished.
But that other ache welded her to him, that hidden, true, tender need. His reasons were no doubt different from hers, but she felt his loneliness ran as deep. For the first time she was compelled to both give and take of something unequivocally intimate.
Her answer was so simple, so easy. She couldn’t let this rare moment go. She couldn’t let him go.
‘I think I’m coming with you.’
HIS SMILE WAS a blazing mix of triumph and sensual determination and barely hidden relief. She realised he was as delighted and as dazed as she was and somehow that multiplied the myriad want and need and hot mess of yes within her.
‘I can’t leave without saying goodbye to Zoe,’ she muttered.
‘Of course.’ He escorted her through the crowd, stepping back when they came up to her friend.
‘Sorry, Zoe.’ Leah caught her attention. ‘I’m going to call it a night—’
‘Since when do you know Theo Savas?’ Zoe interrupted her, managing to screech and whisper at the same time. ‘Since when does Theo Savas kiss anyone in public like that?’
‘You saw…just then?’ Leah’s body smoked with embarrassment.
‘OMG, yes, go.’ Zoe laughed and pulled her into a quick, tight hug. ‘You must, just, go. Do everything I would and more,’ her friend whispered in her ear. ‘For heaven’s sake, have some fun for once!’
Leah’s pulse hammered as Theo firmly grasped her hand and led her through the crowded function room and into the sudden silence of the hotel corridor. She was floating, not walking, right? In the elevator he glanced down at her and smiled but she saw the question in his eyes and tension in his body.
She felt the question too—since when did she wander off with a complete stranger? Before tonight she’d never considered it, would never have thought she would… Yet he didn’t feel like a stranger, more of a kindred spirit—as complicated and careful, those layers of responsibility and obligation hiding other needs and wants. She’d do all she could for someone she cared about; that he did too struck a chord—as if they were vibrating in harmony even though there could be nothing more than this one night between them. And then there was that sheer physical response that she just couldn’t release herself from.
She’d never done anything adventurous, nothing reckless or fun either. She’d spent so long trying to please her parents and fit in with their impossible standards and it was past time to have one night just for her. She wanted to share it only with him.
He unlocked the door of his hotel suite and she stepped inside. The drapes didn’t cover the tinted windows and the London skyline was like fairy lights. She turned and took