The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters

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СКАЧАТЬ though she was with the only man who’d ever melted her frigid libido and still managed to kindle heat in her when he seemed completely oblivious to her presence.

      He ordered starters and painful silence ensued.

      “Bina got to the room all right?” Of course she had or he wouldn’t have left Zephyr. Try harder, Jaya.

      “She looks like you,” he said with a lift of his brows. “It was startling. Made me think that’s what our—your daughter could look like, if you had one. People must make that mistake often?”

      “All the time.” She swallowed, trying not to latch onto what she thought he’d meant to say. Our.

      More silence. This dress, coming out, it was a huge mistake. He wasn’t comfortable so she couldn’t relax.

      Theo eyed Jaya’s tense posture. His own prickling tension was at maximum. She couldn’t relax, probably because she felt threatened by his mood.

      A pile of ferocious curses piled up in the back of his throat. He was so angry, he could barely think straight. Damn it, why did this exquisite woman keep winding up beyond his reach?

      He wished he could take back his confession of his desire. He’d come on strong, had taken a lot of heart from her saying she was still attracted to him, but the rest... Hell, no, nothing between them was simple anymore. What had seemed like an obvious solution, marriage, was now a minefield.

      And yet...

      Bloody hell, he had to let it go. Maybe if he hadn’t told her before she explained about her past that he was still hot for her. Maybe if he wasn’t currently simmering with insane want, but wow, that dress.

      Ah, hell, it wasn’t the dress. He’d seen a thousand scraps of silk and sequins on a thousand beautiful women and this wasn’t the most elaborate or provocative. It was exactly Jaya’s style: pretty and feminine, accented with fine metallic strands, but rather sweet overall.

      It wasn’t the dress that smelled so good he felt drugged. He didn’t want to run his hands over sheer fabric and frilly ruffles. He didn’t want to taste stitching.

      Her skin called out to him. Her lips.

      He forced himself to look away and sip his ice water. Cool his head. Somehow he had to kill off this attraction so he wasn’t scaring or intimidating her.

      “I shouldn’t have told you,” she said so softly he wasn’t sure he heard her. When he glanced at her, her delectable mouth was pouted in misery. “It changes how you see me, doesn’t it?”

      “Yes,” he allowed with brutal honesty, distantly aware that wasn’t the right thing to say, but he struggled with emotions at the best of times and these were some of the worst he’d ever encountered.

      Her deep brown eyes widened in a flinch of stark pain, gaze not lifting from the tabletop. Then she struggled to regain her composure, brow working not to wrinkle, mouth trembling until she caught her bottom lip with her teeth.

      “For God’s sake, Jaya. I don’t think less of you. I hate myself. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you the way I did. You deserved better.” His voice came out low and jagged, as if he’d smoked ten packs of cigarettes and was hardly breathing through the thickness clogging his lungs.

      “Better than the first real pleasure I’ve known with a man? Better than Zephyr?” she challenged shakily.

      He was rarely shocked speechless. When he pinned his lips, it was because he was prudent, not because he couldn’t think of what to say, but her words blanked his mind. Bali had been a mistake, he kept telling himself, but she seemed to be lifting his actions out of reprehensible into something that was almost exalted. He didn’t know how to process that.

      “It’s like your back, Theo. I’ll always have scars, but they fade a little more each year. If you make enough good memories, they push the bad ones away.”

      He sat back, startled by her insight. He snorted. “I guess that’s my problem,” he admitted as realization dawned. “I’ve never made any good memories. Well, maybe one.” He couldn’t help the significance in the cut of his glance toward her. She was so beguiling. Their night together eclipsed every other memory he had.

      Even in the low candlelight, he could tell that her brown skin darkened. Her flustered hands moved into her lap and she ducked her head.

      “You know I wouldn’t—” he began, catching himself from reaching for her. She was such a panacea for him. He wanted to eat her up. Drown in her. She was everything good that could ever be for him, but he couldn’t be greedy about it. He had to hang on to his control.

      Her reserve was more than natural modesty, he reminded himself. Her sexual inhibitions were well founded and he’d take a thousand beltings before he’d frighten her with his desire. If she had used him that one night, because she was having a brave moment, well, lucky him.

      “I’m glad if our night is a good memory for you, but I don’t expect it to happen again. If that’s why you’re reluctant to marry me, we can keep it platonic.” He couldn’t believe those words had left his mouth, but having even a small part of her in his life seemed like better than nothing.

      Again her eyes widened like she was enduring a wave of agony. “Because now you know I’m soiled goods and don’t want—”

      “What? No!” His hand went onto her arm involuntarily. He had to hiss in a breath as he strove for control and lifted his touch away, but only managed to transfer it to the back of her chair. Leaning in close, he said, “If you think I’m not aching to make more first-class memories with you, then you are even more naïve than I’ve always feared. The appeal you have for me... It scares me, Jaya. You’d be terrified if you knew how intense my desire is.”

      He forced himself to retreat into his own space. A deep gulp of ice water did nothing to clear his head. The glossy window reflected his iron hard expression back to him as he braced himself for her to bolt. He should have kept all that to himself.

      She sat in quiet contemplation, then confessed softly, “I don’t know why you’re the only man who makes me feel...well, anything, but you are. That scares me. I feel like I could be at your mercy, not because of your will. It would be lack of my own.”

      Excitement pierced him, the arrow so thickly coated in desire he had to close his eyes and concentrate on his breathing. Swearing under his breath, he opened his eyes and let her see the hunger in him, just for a second.

      “You’re killing me. You know that,” he accused, voice buried in a chest.

      Her lashes flickered and she quivered like one of those plucked strings that were trying to set a calm mood while he was a werewolf fighting to stay inside his human skin.

      “I don’t mean to,” she whispered. “I just want to be honest.”

      A bleak laugh escaped him. “It would be a helluva better foundation for a marriage than my parents had.”

      She cocked her head. “They lied to each other?”

      “My mother did, yeah,” he said, distaste curling his lip. “She said Nic was my father’s. When the truth came out, things turned ugly. The only way any of us coped was to pretend. We acted СКАЧАТЬ