Claimed by the Sicilian Tycoon (8 page)

 
He nodded at her words. She’d fallen into an
exhausted slumber sometime around four in the morning, her body pressed against
his. A few hours later when he left her she’d been curled up in a little ball,
her red hair fanned out across the crisp white pillow. Andros had almost paused
to pick a strand up and examine it, but had shaken the thought off as soon as
it had formed. He needed a little distance, and downstairs was the only place
to get it, because in the cold light of day, more so now that she was so close
to him, making him hard, Andros was beginning to wonder what the fuck had
happened last night.

“Espresso?”
he asked.

Lyra
shook her head. “Is there normal coffee? Like instant?”

“You’re
in the house of a Sicilian,” he replied with a sigh. “No such home would have
instant coffee.”

“Oh,
well I’ll try some of that then.”

He
poured her a shot of the dark brew and watched as she lifted it to her lips,
those plump, suckable, fuckable little lips…

What
the hell was he doing? The thought hit and he scowled, before draining his own
cup. He’d broken so many rules last night. He didn’t bring women back to his
town house, he didn’t sleep the night with them, and he certainly did not allow
them to walk around his home, dressed in his shirt, at his dining table first
thing. But Lyra? She was making him crazy. It seemed the rules flew out of the
window when she was near, and Andros knew, admitted to himself, that it was
because of the lust.

He
desired her intensely.

Furiously.

He
was thinking purely with his dick. His hard, throbbing fucking dick. And if
he’d thought that one night was going to be enough for him he’d been sadly
mistaken.

He
needed more.
 

Needed
it now.

“I
wish to see you again,” he said, blurting the words out before giving himself a
chance to think about them.

Lyra
smiled, lowering her cup, licking the coffee from her lips as she did so. Her
action did nothing to help his current situation, and Andros found himself
wondering what she would say if he simply bent her over the dining table.

 
Her smile widened. “You do?”

That
smile…it was enchanting. He couldn’t help but reach across and stroke a finger
along her dimple. “Yes.”

“I would
like that,” she said. “A lot.”

Satisfaction
coursed through him. Andros filled his cup back up, planning already how he
might rearrange his day to ensure he could spend the maximum amount of time
with her. Of course, he could simply take her number and let her know when he
was next free, but his dick had other ideas, and the thought of spending the
entire day and night with it throbbing was unacceptable.

“You
will have dinner with me tonight,” he said. “You will give me your address and
I will pick you up at seven. You will plan to spend the night.”

“Here?”

He
nodded. No point in arranging to go to a hotel now, not when the rule was
already broken.

“Okay,”
she agreed. “But there’s no need to take me out. Not when we both know what we
want to do.

Once
again, she managed to surprise him, and Andros raised a brow at her. “Then you
don’t want the little rituals? The dinners and the drinks and all of that.”

She
shrugged. “I’d rather have the orgasms.”

He
thickened faster than he ever had, his dick practically launching itself at
her, eager to provide said orgasms immediately. It took a tremendous effort, a
huge amount of will power to stay on his seat and answer calmly. “It will be my
pleasure to give them to you.”

She
swirled her espresso around her little cup, shooting him a look from under her
lashes.

“So
how does seeing me again fit into our discussion last night?”

“Discussion?”

“In
the restaurant.”

“Ah.”
He paused as he recalled exactly what it was she had been asking for, and how
she had been asking for it. Andros hadn’t thought it through last night. The
desire had been too intense, the need to sate himself impossible to ignore, but
he thought about it now, and slowly shook his head. “It does not, at least not
in the way you mean.”

“I
don’t understand.”

“You
want me to make you my mistress,” he said, making sure that he was not
mistaken, that her intention was quite clear.

She
nodded, leaving him in no doubt. “Yes.”

“I’ve
never taken a mistress before,” he said. “Not in the sense you mean. People
assume a billionaire foreigner is bound to have many, no? It never appealed to
me though. I have neither the time nor the patience to devote to one woman.”

And
that was simple truth. Though Andros had many women, one after the other over
the years, he never kept them for long; there was no need. His looks, his
riches, everything brought him an endless queue of them, and he was not
arrogant about it—it was simply a fact. He knew that they plotted and schemed
to not only get into his bed, but into his life as well. All of them in the end
wanted marriage, and he was sure, no matter what she said, that Lyra was
thinking along the same lines. She probably imagined that a mistress position
was just one-step away from being a wife. Only Andros had no intention of marrying
yet, and when he did it would be a woman from his own country. A sweet,
charming Sicilian, who understood his background and his culture. That woman
would give him lots of dark haired Sicilian babies and he would spoil and
pleasure her.

Lyra
was not that woman.

She
never would be.

But
how he wanted her.
  

“What
you ask for is…” He shrugged. “Unexpected. Different.”

“I
see.”

“Only
you are different, are you not? This between us.” He waved a hand between them.
“Is just as unexpected.”

“Do
you mean out of the blue?” she asked. “Because you know, we both know, that it
wasn’t.”

He
nodded at her honesty, pleased to hear those words. Pretending that this was a
chance occurrence would have angered him. Lyra, it seemed, recognized that. He
found himself appreciating her bluntness.
 

“I
am not talking about how we met,” he said. “Though that is something I will
need more details on fairly soon. I don’t know what it is,” he added,
frustration at that, as well as his lust filled state, prodding him. “I wish I
did, but there is something about you, Lyra, that makes me want to devote an
awful lot of time to you right now. Preferably with you naked and panting.”

She
laughed softly. “Then you will do as I asked? Give me what I want?”

He
shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“But
you want me, so why not?”

“Because
I do not take mistresses, difference or no. It is not something that appeals to
me.”

“I
see.” She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table. Andros wished he knew
what was going on in her mind, what she was plotting. But then she spoke, and
he realized that whatever he might have guessed at was far from what he heard.
“Then I guess it is time for me to leave.”

“Excuse
me?”

She
shrugged. “If you want me, Andros, it has to be the way I said.”

She’d
managed to shock him again. Andros did not like it. “Why?” he demanded.

“Because
right now, in my life, that is what I need.”

“Need?”

“Yes,”
she said. “I can’t just spend the next few weeks sleeping with a guy—even one
as hot as you—as and when he demands, with no security attached. I need some
sort of security in my life right now.”

“And
you think this is the way to get it?”

“It
is one of the ways. It’s the one I prefer over the others at any rate.”

Others?
Andros felt
anger fill him as he imagined what those other ways might be. He hoped to God
she was not talking about other men because that was not going to happen. The
thought of another man burying himself exactly where Andros wanted to be was
unacceptable. He clenched his fists as his competitive instincts kicked in.
Since he was young getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, had been
what drove him. It was that drive that had allowed him to amass an eye watering
fortune, to put himself in the absolute elite. And the fact was, he wanted
Lyra. Why, he didn’t know, but there was something about her. Something that
made him lose a little bit of judgment. She was just so fucking hot. Everything
about her screamed sex and pleasure. He wanted to fuck her until he was sated.
Until he tired of her. It wouldn’t take long, a few weeks at most…

 
“What are the other ways?” he demanded, his
mind already planning ways to remove those obstacles.

She
took a sip of her espresso, grimacing slightly as she did so. “You don’t want
to know, Andros. Didn’t we talk about me keeping a little mystery?”

“Last
night I fucked you until you screamed.”

“And?”

“Mystery
between us is nonsense now. Answer my question.”

“I
won’t and I disagree. The mystery is probably more important than ever. We
don’t want you getting bored, now do we?”

“I
doubt any man could get bored with you.”

She
sighed. “No, you’re probably right, and a lot of them would jump at this
offer.”

“Perhaps,”
he agreed. “But I do not take mistresses.”

“Then
I’ll be your first. I like that idea.”

“I’m
sure you do.”

“We
can learn together as we do this.”

He
scowled at her words, not liking the way she was trying to maneuver him, but
then he realized exactly what she was insinuating, and his heart seemed to skip
a beat. “Then…I would be your first protector? You have not done this before?”

She
smiled, that dimple peeking out all over again. “Indeed you would. I like that
too. It feels right.”

“It
feels like madness,” Andros said, compelled into being completely honest.
“Madness in many ways.”

“This
sort of thing so often is,” she agreed. “What else was that last night if not
its own little bit if insanity?”

“I
want you, Lyra,” he grated. “I will not deny it. But on my terms. To see you
when I want to see you.”

“You’re
missing the point, Andros. That’s exactly what a mistress is,” she said.
“Someone tucked away just for you.”

Just for you.
He scowled
some more because the idea of Lyra being completely his for as long as he
wanted…already it was growing on him, was a pervasive thought.

“I
need to think about this,” he said. “To consider it.”

 
“Fine,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.
I feel sticky. Maybe while I’m gone you can have a think about what you’d like
me to do? How crazy this is going to become.”

She
got up and stalked towards the door, his shirttails swishing around her thighs.
Her tanned, trim thighs.

Tanned?

A
red head?

The
two did not match. Nothing fucking matched, he thought. She was contradiction
on top of contradiction.

But
how he wanted her.

“Oh
by the way,” she said, halting at the door. “I used your tooth brush.”

He
sighed. Time to make some calls.

Chapter Nine

The
water was amazingly hot on her sticky skin. Lyra braced her hands against the
wall of the shower as it pounded down on her back, sighing a little as she did
so. She’d set the showerhead on massage mode, and damn, it felt good.

She
tilted her head back, letting the water clean her face, as well as clear her
head. She hadn’t lied to Andros, she
had
felt sticky, but the shower was more of an escape method than anything else. A
chance to think. Because it seemed now, the morning after the night before,
that everything was happening so fast. Of course, she’d expected that, planned
for it—really, it was all going as she wanted, but her feelings? Well, she
hadn’t factored them into the equation that was the trouble.

She
scrunched her eyes tightly shut as she remembered the nonstop sex. He was
amazing. Like no one she’d ever had. Not that there had been a lineup of
men—Lyra was no virgin, still…

She
shivered as she recalled his long, thick cock pumping inside of her, his tongue
licking along her clit. He’d exhausted her to the point where she’d simply
passed out. And this morning her muscles were stiff, her head spinning
slightly. She wanted more.

More. More. More.

And
that was the weird thing, because Lyra had known she’d want him. Had known from
the moment she set eyes on his picture. She just didn’t expect to want him
this
much. He was her mark. In the end,
he was there because she needed money from him. Money to help others, to make a
vital difference. He was a third of a puzzle that once complete would change
many lives. That was the upshot. She needed him to do as she asked. Only as his
mistress would she get the opportunity to ask him for the money she needed.