The Greek Tycoon's Wife (14 page)

He finally shed his black silky robe, revealing to her mesmerised gaze a fully aroused male in all his glory. ‘Oh, my!' she gasped shakily as he rejoined her on the bed.

‘Touch me!' he invited, kissing her lips. ‘Don't you want to?'

‘Oh, yes!' She touched his collar-bone; it was very nice, but there were other areas that interested her more.

Nikos seemed to share her view because, smiling into her eyes, he took her hand and fed it onto a more enticing area of his body. She felt the fine muscles under the smooth skin of the surface of his belly contract violently—she was hooked!

Katie released a long, shuddering breath and, no longer tentative, trailed her fingers over his warm brown flesh, making return journeys to areas that seemed particularly sensitive. The texture of his flesh was incredible; she wanted to taste it.

What's stopping you?

With growing confidence in her ability to excite him, she let her lips and tongue follow the pathway her fingers had previously traced down his tense, quivering body.

Nikos lay, his eyes half closed, accepting her ministrations until her exploration got bolder.

Lying on her back, her arms pinned either side of her head, she was about to protest but he got in first.

‘My turn, I think,' he said, slipping down her body.

He seemed to know exactly where, how and for how long to touch her in order to send her out of control and keep her there. Katie didn't want to think how he'd got so good at what he was doing to her, she just wanted to enjoy it, and she did.

‘I can't take any more of this,' she gasped weakly, when he eventually returned to her mouth.

‘Just a little more…' he promised, settling between her thighs. His face a mask of rigid restraint, he slid into her with one smooth thrust.

A fractured gasp hissed through her clenched teeth at the sharp pain, but then it was gone and he was still there filling her, stretching her in a wonderful way that she could not have imagined. Experimentally she moved; this was when she realised that Nikos was not moving. He was dead still.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her with an expression of white-faced incredulity; his body was quivering with the effort of not moving.

‘There's more?'

Katie felt the sound of hoarse amusement that was wrenched from his throat. ‘Let me show you,
yineka mou
.'

Her throaty,
Please,
was lost inside his mouth but her awed, ‘That is incredible,' to inadequately describe the sensation of him moving inside her was clearly audible. Pretty soon after that she lost all ability to say anything coherent, though when she felt his hot release pulse into her body a couple of seconds after she'd been blown away by a shattering climax she did manage to speak, but only the one word.

‘Nikos!'

It was amazing how much feeling and variation a person
could put into two syllables, especially if you said them over and over and over again!

Once she could speak it seemed better to anticipate any awkward cross-examination.

‘Before you ask, yes, I was. But,' she added with a languid smile, ‘if I'd known it could be like that I wouldn't have been.' This out of the way, she curled up like a kitten in his arms and went to sleep.

K
ATIE
woke to the smell of coffee. Eyes closed, she stirred, drowsily conscious that something was subtly different. She tried to focus her thoughts but the extra ingredient remained tantalisingly out of reach. It was several sleepy minutes later when it hit her with the dramatic impact of a force ten hurricane; she gasped and stilled.

Oh, no, it's me, I'm different. Beautifully different. I slept with Nikos Lakis.

A wondering smile drew the corners of her mouth upwards. Rolling onto her side, she reached out. Her smile faded when she discovered only a sheet, its crumpled condition standing a silent accusing testament to the vigour of their lovemaking through the night.

She closed her eyes as a jumbled kaleidoscope of the events of the night slid across her inner vision. What she saw shocked and excited her; it also provided an explanation for the unaccustomed tenderness in several parts of her body.

The only cloud on her horizon was Tom—she had to tell him. She felt ashamed that she had treated him so badly, but she'd always known in her heart that they weren't right for each other. She knew that Tom did too. Not that she had any excuse.

‘You are awake?'

Katie's head whipped around, her face bright with expectation and excitement she could not hide.

Nikos was standing at the bedside, a towel wrapped around his narrow hips. The wet hair plastered to his skull and the drops of water still clinging to his shoulders indicated he had just stepped from the shower.

‘You shouldn't have let me sleep,' she told him shyly.

‘You needed the sleep,' he replied without meeting her eyes.

‘I slept as much as you did.' The memory of what they had done instead of sleeping brought a rush of warmth to her cheeks.

‘I don't need much sleep,' he replied flatly.

Katie was finding it increasingly difficult to conceal her growing consternation.
Well, what did you expect—that he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off you?
She released a rueful sigh; well, actually yes, she had, but what did she know about the way people behaved the morning after?

Maybe Nikos wasn't a morning person, but in her eyes he more than compensated by being a night-time person.

Her eyes flickered hungrily along his lean, streamlined body; the moisture on his brown skin emphasised the rippling muscles of his spare torso and delineated each individual muscle in his washboard-flat belly.

At the sight of him her doubts dissolved before they had fully formed. What was to regret? Last night had been the most incredible experience of her life. Nikos was the perfect lover and just looking at him made her ache. Her eyes darkened as she recalled waking in the night to find him looking at her. Neither of them had spoken, they hadn't needed words; he had come to her and she'd been ready for him. Just thinking about the urgent primal coupling made her breasts swell and tingle.

Her breath came quickly as she half closed her eyes and imagined touching him, running her hands over the hard contours of shoulders and chest, tangling her fingers in the soft whorls of dark hair that lay against the brown skin there. The heat inside her grew as she gloatingly anticipated running her fingertips over the damp hairs on his muscular flanks and feeling his stomach muscles quiver beneath her flattened palms as she laid them against his flat belly.

She'd save the best until last.

The sexual heat coiled in her belly spilled through her entire body in response to the tactile imagery of holding his silky hard length in her hand…she released a hoarse sigh and lifted her shaken gaze to his.

Their eyes touched and Katie could almost taste the passion flare between them; she felt the electrical current of mutual attraction crackle and spark.

Then as if a switch had been flicked it was gone. Nikos's expression was—actually it wasn't so much what was there that made her feel uneasy, it was what wasn't there.

This couldn't be right.

She smiled questioningly up at him, and got nothing back in response, not even a hint as to what was going on behind those shuttered eyes. Despite this Katie felt an incredible swell of love in her chest as she looked at him. The out-pouring of emotion was so intense that she could hardly breathe.

She was seized with an irrational desire to share with him how much the previous night had meant to her. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself blurting out something stupid.

‘That coffee smells good.'

‘I'll get you some.' A muscle flexed along his strong, angular jaw.

Katie viewed this development with considerable dismay.
Maybe he's regretting last night.

‘Did the phone wake you?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't think so.' She took a resolute breath and steeled herself to hear something she didn't want to. ‘Nikos, what's wrong? Have I done something?'

His eyes swept over her face. ‘You were perfect!' he declared fiercely.

Katie didn't want to be perfect, she wanted to be loved, or failing that at least
wanted
. Being wanted by Nikos would be better than being loved by any other man.

‘Then why—?' she began.

Before she could finish there was a knock on the door.

Housekeeping bringing a fresh change of towels, no doubt. Katie would have let them go away, but Nikos called out for them to come in.

With a grunt of frustration Katie pulled the quilt up to her chin. Her mood lightened considerably when, after dropping his towel, Nikos slid into the bed beside her.

With a sigh she insinuated her soft curves up against him, revelling in the strength of his lean body. His body felt cool against her warm skin. Without saying anything he pulled her almost savagely into his arms. Holding her eyes, he brushed his mouth against hers in a tentative, questioning way. She trembled.

‘This is wrong!'

‘It feels pretty right to me.' She tried to keep the rising panic from her voice.

‘Katerina?' he began urgently.

Katie pressed a finger to his lips. ‘I know what you're going to say.'

‘You do?'

Katie nodded. ‘And I feel badly about Tom too, but it wasn't something we planned.'

‘Katerina…'

‘Don't talk, not now,' she begged huskily.

With a groan he crushed her to him. His kiss was bruising and had an element of desperation about it. Katie felt something equally primitive inside her stir and respond to the demands of his lips and tongue.

Breathing hard, she rested her forehead against his chin, shivering as his hands closed tight across her back, pressing her sensitised breasts up against his chest.

‘Nikos, would you really hate it if I fell in love with you?'

Nikos went white and flinched as though she'd struck him. Katie knew immediately that something had gone
badly wrong; it wasn't until ten seconds later that she knew just how badly!

‘Oh, my God!'

Katie turned and saw a white-faced Tom standing there in the bedroom, staring at them as though his world had just come to an end.

‘Tom?'
Icy shock, bitter regret, guilt that she was responsible for putting that look of disillusionment on his face hit Katie simultaneously. ‘Oh, Tom, I'm so sorry,' she whispered. ‘So very sorry.'

Tom didn't reply, he just turned on his heel and walked unsteadily away.

Katie lay there, her hand pressed to her lips, her eyes tight shut, but even with her eyes tight shut she could see Tom's face, see the bleak disillusionment she had put there. Suddenly she sat up and, running a shaking hand through her disordered hair, swung her legs over the side of the bed.

‘I have to go to him!' she gritted in some agitation.

‘I doubt very much if he wants to see you,' Nikos rasped drily.

Turning to him in protest, Katie was shocked to see the grey, unhealthy tinge to his skin and the grim and bleak light in his heavy-lidded eyes. Of course Nikos must feel every bit as wretched as she did; Tom was his friend. Katie felt a fresh spasm of guilt, this time because she'd been too busy thinking abut how she felt to consider how bad this was for Nikos.

She brought her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them.

‘Perhaps later?'

Nikos laughed; it wasn't a pleasant sound. ‘Think again,' he advised. ‘The man just found you in bed with his friend,' he reminded her brutally.

Katie flinched and buried her face in her hands. ‘I wouldn't have had him find out like this for the world!'
Telling him was always going to be a messy, unpleasant business, but this had been awful.

‘Perhaps it is for the best this way.'

She rubbed her temples where the pressure had reached critical level. ‘I don't see how. What I don't understand is how he knew I was here?'

‘He heard about the fire on the local radio station and he rang me to ask if I had any idea where you'd stayed last night.'

Katie shook her head to clear the fog that was making her thought processes slow and stupid. ‘He rang you?' she parroted.

‘From the lobby,' Nikos confirmed. ‘I told him to come on up.'

‘You told him, I don't understand…' Suddenly Katie felt cold inside, icy cold and empty. ‘But why?' she faltered, seeking an explanation for the inexplicable cruelty in his actions. ‘Why would you do that?'

‘Tom deserves to know that you don't love him.'

‘Of course he does, but not like this…it's not as if I was going to stay with him…I couldn't. I mean, you can't think that I'd have gone through with the marriage after last night? Oh, no,' she gasped. ‘You did, didn't you?' Still he didn't reply.

His silence was a reply.

‘You set me up!' She said it, but part of her still couldn't quite believe it. How could anyone make love the way he had when all the time they were planning to…? A choked sound of distress emerged from between her clenched teeth.

Nikos started forward and then stopped, his nostrils flaring as she shrank back from him, her expression one of loathing. ‘You should lie down.'

She rained contemptuous eyes to his face. ‘Oh, you're so considerate,' she snarled.

‘I didn't plan this,' he told her heavily. ‘You have to believe that I only—'

‘I have to believe absolutely
nothing
you say,' she corrected him coldly. ‘I suppose you
accidentally
directed Tom in here and you just didn't stage that kiss for his benefit either?' She wiped a shaking hand roughly across her mouth.

Nikos's jaw tightened. ‘I couldn't be sure you wouldn't go back to him. I could not permit that.'

What a cheek, he didn't even try and deny it any more. ‘I suppose you're proud of what you've done? I suppose this constitutes true friendship for someone as emotionally stunted as you,' she observed bleakly. ‘You sleep with a woman you despise to save your friend from her evil clutches and you think that's what a true friend does?'

Hand pressed to her mouth, she ran to the bathroom where she was violently sick.

Grabbing hold of the washbasin, she heaved herself upright. Her legs shook and her skin felt clammy.

She looked at the wet flannel Nikos held out to her and laughed.
‘You have to be joking…?'

Face white as chalk, her expression one of proud disdain, she walked past him, chin held high.

‘If you don't mind I'd like a bath—to wash you off my skin.' From the corner of her eyes she caught her reflection in a mirror and registered her naked state for the first time. ‘And I need clothes…' she added vaguely.

She turned on a tap and turned back, her cold mask cracking to reveal the aching anguish beneath. ‘Did you plan this all along…you planned all along to seduce me?' She could no longer say made love. ‘Silly question, of course you did…you planned it down to the last detail.'

‘Including the fire?'

‘I wouldn't put anything past you!' she declared, glaring at him in simmering distaste. ‘But I suppose the fire just made things easier.'
And I was very easy,
she thought bitterly.

‘If you had truly loved Tom you would not have been
in my bed last night. If you had had any sort of relationship you would not have come to my bed a virgin.'

‘Tom respects me!' she declared furiously. ‘Not that you'd know anything about that.'

‘You're right there, I wouldn't. Perhaps if Tom hadn't respected you so much,' he sneered, ‘you wouldn't have fallen into my bed so readily last night.'

The sound of her hand connecting with his lean cheek resounded shockingly around the room.

‘Face it, Katerina, your whole relationship with Tom was a lie. What were you expecting to happen when the ring was on your finger? That passion would suddenly ignite, or were you prepared to sacrifice love for security and money?' he wondered contemptuously.

‘You can try and deflect the guilt as much as you like, Nikos, but we both know that you behaved like a rat.'

‘I didn't force you to do anything you didn't want to do last night,' he told her quietly. ‘And I didn't suggest anything you haven't been thinking of from the first moment we met again.' His burning eyes travelled over the heaving contours of her breasts before dropping to her belly…beads of sweat appeared across his upper lip when he reached the soft dark fuzz between her thighs. ‘And we both know that even now if I touched you you'd be begging me to take you,' he declared arrogantly.

‘I hate you,' she whispered.

‘For telling the truth? If you care so much for the luxuries money can buy, I am far richer than Tom.'

Katie felt a flash of blind rage. ‘You think you can buy me?' she quivered.

‘Do not be dramatic, that is not what I am saying.' Nikos strove to retain his calm in the face of her determination to misread everything he said. ‘I am simply pointing out that lack of funds is not an issue, I am able to provide for you and unlike Tom I have no problem with you working.'