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The change of subject took him off guard and for a minute he couldn’t think. Did he have good memories of Dorian? He’d avoided thinking of his brother for so long, he wasn’t sure. ‘I...’ He stopped.
‘No, go on,’ Elena said. ‘Tell me about him.’
He didn’t want to revisit that particular agony, yet she’d told him about her family and her own painful doubts, and it seemed wrong not to give her something in return.
‘He...was a rule follower,’ Atticus began haltingly. ‘But he could be persuaded to break the rules sometimes. He taught me how to sail in the sea around Kalifos and he taught me how to swim. When I stole cookies from the pantry and the housekeeper found out, he took the blame.’ It was painful to think of him, exquisitely so, and yet...there was a sweetness to the memories that eased the pain. ‘He told me ghost stories that terrified me so much I couldn’t sleep, and he let me play with his toys when I was sick. He taught me how to fish...’
Elena’s mouth had softened and it was curving in one of her beautiful smiles. ‘He sounds like a good brother.’
‘He was.’ Atticus’s voice was hoarse and he knew he should give her more, but all of a sudden he’d reached the end of what he could deal with right now. The combination of her loss and his own was too much, and he didn’t want to talk any more. But she knew and she must have been feeling the same way, because abruptly she went up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
Desire leapt high and he was powerless to resist it. He didn’t want to resist it. It was a fire that cauterised all wounds and he wanted to throw himself into the conflagration and let himself burn.
Clearly Elena was in agreement, because she got rid of her robe with a shrug of her shoulders, letting it slip to the ground. Then she was bare as she should always be with him, and his hands were on her hips, propelling her to the bed then taking her down onto it.
He pinned her beneath him, desperate for her, and she didn’t deny him. She closed her legs around his waist, put her arms around his neck, kissing him hungrily. Then her hands stroked down his back, her hips lifting against his, encouraging him and so he sheathed himself in her welcoming heat.
He looked down at her as he began to move, locked in the moment, all thoughts of the past fading, the ground glass in his heart loosening, the pleasure she gave him blunting the edges.
Her dark eyes were full of heat and yet beneath that heat lay something else, an emotion that burned hotter and fiercer, and he couldn’t look away.
She had given him so many things he’d never had from anyone else. Understanding and sympathy. Kindness and comfort.
She’s not just hope to you. She’s something more.
But he didn’t want to think about what more she was, not now, not with the ghosts of his brother and her family still in the room, so he pushed the thought away and lost himself in the darkness of her eyes and the heat of her body, until there was only her and the fire they created between them, and the rest of the world ceased to exist.
CHAPTER TEN
ELENA WOKE THE next morning to find herself wrapped around Atticus’s hard, hot body. The sun was already shining through the big windows, the sea gleaming a deep blue through the glass.
He’d kept her up all night, taking her again and again as if he couldn’t get enough of her, as if he were escaping his terrible past and all the pain that came with it by gorging himself on pleasure. She couldn’t blame him. She’d felt the same way after she’d told him about her family and her doubts about how she’d left them. She’d thought she’d regret telling him and yet...
‘You’re as far from a coward as it’s possible to get.’
There had been so much conviction in his eyes and in his voice that she couldn’t help but think that maybe she’d been too hard on herself. Maybe she didn’t have to listen to those doubts after all.
‘You saved me.’
She shut her eyes, going back over the memory of his confession about his brother. She’d known all about that tragedy, but she hadn’t known how deeply it still ate away at him. And it really wasn’t any wonder. Atticus was a good man, a man with a deep need to care for people, and the accident that had taken his brother’s life had scarred him deeply.
She’d known as she’d stood in front of him the night before and seen his gaze look through her, full of a horror that only he saw as he relived the moment of that terrible hunting accident. She hadn’t meant for the conversation to take that turn, but he was the one who’d brought Dorian up, and then had told her all about what had happened that day.
No wonder he still felt the pain. He’d had the responsibility of his brother’s death on his shoulders, the unbearable weight of it only made more unbearable by his father’s blame too.
She could forgive Aristeidis many things, but she almost couldn’t forgive him that. Except, Aristeidis’s own regrets had eaten away at him, and he’d wanted to apologise to his son, so the intention had been there at least.
But she could see now why Atticus hadn’t wanted anything to do with him.
Her heart still aching, she opened her eyes and shifted in his arms, turning to face him, expecting him to be asleep only to find his black eyes on hers.
‘Good morning, Elenitsa,’ he said in a sleep-roughened voice. ‘I’m sorry, I kept you up far too late last night.’
‘It’s okay.’ She searched his face, hoping she wouldn’t see the pain that had been there last night, but his expression was clear. ‘I’m sorry for last night too,’ she went on impulsively. ‘I shouldn’t have got out of the bath so abruptly and left without talking to you. And I’m sorry you felt you had to explain what happened—’
‘It’s all right,’ he said quietly. ‘I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know.’
Her heart twisted at the look in his eyes. ‘Thank you for sharing the memories of Dorian with me.’
