Page 8 of The Tycoon’s Affair: Tempted By Desire

CHAPTER THREE

A LEXIO WAS LOOKING at his smartphone but not seeing anything.

He was incandescent with rage...and lust. Angry with himself that he’d not taken the opportunity to kiss Sidonie when he’d wanted to.

But something had held him back—something that had whispered to him that she wasn’t like the women he knew.

That the strength of what he was feeling was off the charts.

He prided himself on being a civilised man. With very select tastes. Not a man given to random outbursts or to passionately kissing a woman an hour after meeting her. And yet he’d come within seconds of doing just that.

Yet still...had he let her go? No. He’d all but hauled her off the plane. Sidonie was a tense figure beside him now, her bag on her lap, her hands clasping it.

Unable to help himself, Alexio reached out and touched a finger to her jaw, trailing it over the delicate line.

Even that made his body scream with hunger.

She tensed even more, but she turned to look at him.

Alexio marvelled to himself. One wayward curling strand of hair had come loose and coiled over her shoulder like a burst of silken sunrise.

Her cheeks were flushed. No make-up, and those ridiculous black-framed glasses.

Her shapeless sweatshirt and those worn jeans. He shouldn’t want her. But he did.

He couldn’t explain it, but in that moment she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. And suddenly that need was back, even more urgent than before. The realisation hit him: he might never see her again.

Rationality dissolved to be replaced by raw hunger and need. Sidonie obviously saw something on his face, in his eyes, and her own eyes widened, her cheeks getting pinker. Alexio couldn’t have stopped himself now if a thousand men had tried to hold him back.

He pulled her into him and slanted his mouth over hers.

That first sweet taste of her soft lips crushed under his made his brain go white with heat. She fell against him, hands pressed to his chest, and Alexio hauled her even closer, his mouth moving over hers, coaxing her to open up to him...

One of his hands moved up her arm to her neck, his thumb angling her chin, cupping her head...and then, after an infinitesimal moment, she opened her mouth on a sigh. He deepened the kiss and all that hunger he’d been holding in exploded in a dizzying rush of desire.

Sidonie was still in shock. Alexio’s mouth was on hers, his tongue seeking, thrusting, tasting.

.. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

And didn’t want to. All she knew was that as soon as he’d looked at her so hungrily and then reached for her she’d been ready to throw herself into his arms. The evidence that he did want her was like balm to her ravaged spirit.

There was nothing gentle about his kiss, and she wanted it with every fibre of her being.

It was passionate, hotter than anything she’d experienced before.

He was tasting and plundering, both hands on her head now, his fingers in her hair, making it loose.

Sidonie felt as if she was breaking apart into a million tiny pieces, but it was so delicious.

..so drugging...that she never wanted it to stop.

A ravenous beast she’d never known before woke inside her and she felt herself matching the passion of Alexio’s kiss.

Matching it and seeking for more. Now she was the one who wanted to taste, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth, feeling the hard resilience of that sensual contour.

..her tongue automatically soothing where she’d nipped.

She heard a faint sound coming from a long way away. And then Alexio was stopping, pulling back. Sidonie went with him, loath to release him even for a second.

Some sliver of sanity intruded and Sidonie realised that she was clinging to Alexio. And that he’d just been kissing her to distraction in the back of his car . She found the strength to pull herself out of the whirlpool and broke free, breathing harshly. Dazed. Eyes unfocused for a second.

She realised two things at once: the car had come to a halt outside the terminal and it must have been the driver who had made the noise to get their attention.

Alexio’s hands were still on her arms, as if she needed support, and his face was still close, those eyes looking heavy-lidded and glittering with all sorts of decadent promises. All she wanted to do was pull him back to her and kiss him again and never stop.

Almost violently she pulled free completely. Her cheeks burned. Her hair was loose and coming down. Quickly she scrabbled with trembling hands to put it back up.

She couldn’t look at him. What the hell had just happened? Mutual combustion? And she’d leapt into the fire without a second’s hesitation. As much as she’d been a willing participant in what had just happened, it scared Sidonie how quickly she’d lost control.

‘We’re here,’ Alexio said, somewhat redundantly. He was trying to control the clamour of his blood. He felt altered after that kiss. Disorientated.

Sidonie was avoiding his eye, breathing fast. He saw her throat work.

She opened her mouth and already he wanted to cover it with his, taste that sweetness again.

There was something so unexpected about her—something that pierced him right through to where he’d never been touched, smashing aside his cynical jaded shell.

If he could think for a moment he might even feel suspicious, but right now he was too hot for her to feel anything but carnal hunger.

She glanced at him and all he could see were the swirling blue and green depths of those luminous eyes.

She was still wearing those glasses. Then he saw her hand reaching for the door handle, and everything in him rejected the notion that she was going to leave.

But before he could stop her she’d looked away, opened the door and was stepping out.

Alexio moved so fast that she was only just straightening up when he reached her side of the car. Her eyes were huge and wary. Someone rushed up with her bag on a trolley and Alexio took it, only just restraining himself from snarling at the completely innocent staff member to leave them alone.

Alexio looked at Sidonie for a long moment, feeling as if he was tipping over a precipice he’d never let himself near before.

‘Are you sure I can’t change your mind?’

For a second he thought she was about to capitulate, and the blood thundered in his head, but then she bit her lip and shook her head. ‘I can’t. I need to get back.’

Alexio didn’t want to move. ‘You have a job?’

She avoided his eye. ‘I did... But the restaurant closed down.’

Alexio’s body grew tight. ‘So there’s nothing to rush home for...?’ Something very unpalatable occurred to him and he bit out, ‘Unless you have a boyfriend?’

Sidonie shook her head quickly and at the same time shot him an insulted look. ‘No... I would never do...what we just did...if I had...’

She stopped for a moment, then focused on him again and looked tortured, but it was little comfort to Alexio.

‘I just...can’t do this. With you.’ Her chin lifted. ‘I’m not easy, Alexio. I won’t just fall into bed with you because you click your fingers and expect me to.’

Alexio wanted to smash aside the trolley, rip off those glasses and grab her, kiss her into submission. Kiss her again . Instead he bit out, lying admirably, ‘I asked you for dinner, Sidonie, not for sex.’

She blanched and avoided his gaze again, slinging her bag across her body. It did little to douse his desire—the strap coming between her breasts made them stand out, defining their pert shape. Theos , what was wrong with him? Had he lost all reason in the past hour?

Sidonie took the trolley and said, ‘Look...thanks, okay? If I lived in London maybe I’d go out with you, but I don’t, and I have to go home.’

She was pulling away, taking the trolley with her case on it, and something like panic gripped Alexio’s chest, constricting his breathing. He thrust a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card, handed it to her.

She took it reluctantly and he wanted to push it into her hand, wrap her fingers around it. ‘Those are my private numbers. If anything changes...call me.’

After a few torturous seconds she just nodded and said, ‘It was nice to meet you...’

And then she pulled the trolley round, disappeared into the departures hall and was swallowed up by a thousand faceless, nameless people.

Alexio did not like this feeling of being out of control.

At all . It was something he’d fought against his whole life—every time his father had tried to mould him into the son and heir he’d wanted.

Every time his father had suffocated him with the weight of his expectations.

And most all every time he’d seen his father lose it because he couldn’t control his emotions around his cold wife.

And yet this wisp of a woman had managed to slide control out from under his feet without him even noticing.

He cursed volubly.

Twenty minutes later Sidonie was about to scream with frustration.

Her body was still sensitive, tingling with an overload of sexual awareness.

All she could see in her mind’s eye was Alexio Christakos’s hard-boned gorgeous face and that mouth-wateringly perfect body, but all she could hear was the airline official saying again, ‘Look, miss, I’m sorry.

This is the weekend of the England versus Ireland rugby final.

There is no way you are going to get a ticket to Dublin today or tomorrow.

So unless you want to try swimming the Irish Sea. ..’