Then he flipped me over and took complete control, effectively emptying my brain of everything but the naked desire snaking through my body, setting me alight with a need so acute all I could do was let it wholly consume me.

Nevertheless, his warning ricocheted in my head long after our bodies had cooled. Long after his deep, steady breathing indicated sleep.

Because telling myself I didn’t care what my actions had caused Axios after I took up the fight for my health, that I wasn’t important enough to cause a ripple in his existence, didn’t quite ring true in my head. I cared. Even if marrying him and taking his name had been a transaction dictated by my father for financial gain, our coming together had produced a son. And that mattered. Whether I liked it or not, Axios mattered to me. More than perhaps was wise.

The intensifying ache inside that reminded me I might have less time than I imagined added to the turmoil churning inside me, keeping me awake as dawn approached. Eventually mental exhaustion won out, and I fell into a sleep fuelled with pleasure and pain, blissful happiness and acute sadness.

Thankfully I was in a state of happiness when I resurfaced from sleep to the sound of a cooing baby.

‘Kalimera, my angel,’ I murmured, my drowsy awakening made all the better by my sweet baby’s enthusiastic babble and the innocent smell of his freshly bathed body.

Eyes still closed, I felt my heart bursting with a joy that widened my smile.

‘He’s been very patient as he waited for his mama to wake, but I fear that state is about to be over,’ drawled the deep, masculine voice of my baby’s father.

My eyes flew open, the reminder of where I was and what had transpired last night fracturing my smile as I encountered the arresting image of a rudely vibrant Axios, one hand propping up his head and the other resting lightly on his son’s stomach.

Andreos, his curious gaze switching between his father’s face, mine, and just about every bright object it could touch upon, wriggled with impatience and babbled some more before letting out a cry that signalled he was well and truly done with waiting to be fed.

My lungs flattened with surprise and an unexpectedly sharp yearning as Ax shifted onto his back, lifted his son and held him aloft, a drop-dead gorgeous smile breaking out on his face as father and son stared at each other.

‘You’ve made it this far, o moro mou. Give it another half-minute and you will be rewarded, hmm?’ he teased.

I sat up, unable to help my blush and self-consciousness at the reminder that I was naked under the sheets.

After anointing his son’s forehead with a gentle kiss, Axios turned to watch me sit up and arrange the pillows around me in preparation to feed an increasingly impatient Andreos.

When I was settled, Axios handed him over. And, just like last night, he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. In fact, he settled back on his pillow, his gaze unashamedly fixed on me as I settled our son at my breast.