‘Well, not now,’ she snapped with an impressively withering tone, given the situation, and digging her heels into his back and shifting a little, moving on his length so he had to reach for her hips to hold her still, because the pleasure was too good, and he needed to damn well think.
‘You’re telling me you were a virgin until a minute ago?’
‘So what?’
‘So what?’ He stared at her, disbelief a whip, slashing through him. ‘How the hell—’
‘Can we possibly talk about this later?’ she asked, her cheeks flushed, lips parted, as she moved again, and this time, he let her. Hell, he couldn’t take it back, even if he wanted to.
‘Damn it, Annie, we are going to talk about it,’ he muttered, but he began to move, this time, more gently, slowly, careful to give her time to adjust to the fullness, to the feeling of being with a man for the first time.
He was still reeling from that, when she dug her nails into his shoulder and snapped, ‘No, Theo, not like this. Don’t treat me like you might break me. I want you to take me. I want you to treat me like you would if I was any of the woman you usually sleep with.’
He ground his teeth together, knowing instinctively he could never do that, because even now, Annie was different.
Not just because she was his wife, but because she was Annie; it would always be more complicated between them.
‘Please,’ she whispered, and he grimaced at the sound of surrender in her voice, at the knowledge that he’d taken something that should have been born of mutual passion—begging one person to pleasure them, and be pleasured in return—and turned it into a power play that she resented.
He felt the world spinning, out of his control, the decisions and instincts he always listened to now suddenly seeming questionable.
‘Theo,’ she said, sharply, so he gave up on thinking, questioning, analysing and wondering and just lost himself in her, and this, until she tipped over the edge and he held her shaking, trembling body against his own, murmuringreassurances in Greek, until her breathing returned to normal and he could trust himself to speak again.
Then, he pulled out of her, still rock hard and aching for his own release, and eased her down, so she could stand on the ocean’s floor. The water was much deeper for her than him, so he kept his hands on her hips, in case a wave came that she needed to be lifted over.
But Annie could hardly meet his eyes. He ignored the pang of something rolling through him, hardening himself to anything like pity or doubt.
Nonetheless, he heard himself ask, albeit grimly, ‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘I told you, I don’t want you to treat me like—’
‘It was your first time,’ he said, swallowing back another curse as the reality of that landed like a thud against his chest. He didn’t want to wonder why. He didn’t want to question any of the suppositions he’d made about her lifestyle and choices in the years since they’d dated. Instead, he focused on his anger with her, at having been caught out like this. ‘It should not have happened here, like this. It should not have happened with me.’
She closed her eyes, so her lashes were two dark crescents against her cheek. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it is a beach… It is—’
‘Why not with you?’
He dragged a hand over his jaw. ‘Because you hate me, for one,’ he reminded her crisply.
‘Yes, but you’re also my husband.’
‘Do you think I would have married you if I’d known?’
‘Yes,’ she said, grimacing. ‘But I don’t think you would have slept with me.’
A blinding light of clarity exploded before his eyes. ‘You did this on purpose.’
Her eyes lifted to his and clung there a moment.
‘You chose not to tell me.’
‘Would you have slept with me, if you’d known?’
‘Of course not. I have no interest in virgins.’
She frowned. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t sleep with me, back then?’