The Greek's Pregnant Lover (5 page)

“Even when we went weeks between getting together?”

“I don’t break my own rules, Piper.” He was no oversexed adolescent who could not go a few nights, or weeks, without.
It wasn’t always easy, especially when they spoke on the phone and his body reacted with the predictability of Pavlov’s dog, but a real man knew how to keep his zipper in the up position. Zephyr was nothing like his father.

Not one damn thing.

“Right.” She snorted a laugh.

Pleasure from the massage tried to melt Zephyr’s brain along with his muscular tension. “Yes,
right
,” he affirmed with emphasis.

But he doubted she believed him, which was why he’d never made promises of fidelity during their temporary sexual relationship. Arthur Bellingham deserved so much more than the small comeuppance Zephyr had engineered for him.

“W
HAT
about you?” he asked, deciding he wanted confirmation of what his instincts told him to be true. “Do you seek sexual release elsewhere when we cannot connect?”

“No.” That was decisive enough.

“You made no promises, either,” he reminded her.

“No, I didn’t, but you’re something special. No other man could live up.”

“Nice to know.” Call him arrogant, but
he
had no trouble believing
her
.

Her hands moved down to his buttocks, digging with her knuckles into his rock-hard glutes.

“Damn.” He sighed. “That feels so good.”

“I’m enjoying it as much as you are.”

“I doubt that.” Though he liked hearing it.

“Touching you is always a pleasure.” The husky tenor was back in her voice.

Delicious. “Is this touching going to turn sexual?” he could not help hinting.

She scooted down his legs and her fingertips slid between them to caress the back of his balls. “Maybe.”

The minx.

He was already hard, but the pressure grew more urgent as her soft touches on his scrotum continued. “You’re on dangerous ground there,
pethi mou
.”

“Am I?” She was no longer sitting on him, but her knees were still on either side of his.

He took that as an invitation and flipped onto his back, his breath expelling in a hard gust at the sight of her naked body above him. “You are so damn beautiful.”

“You’re prejudiced.”

“You think so,
glyka mou
? I think you could have made millions as a model.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Did you just call me sweet?”

“My sweet. You’re learning Greek.”

“Just that one.”

Good. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to know he often called her
his woman
. It might sound like he meant something more than he did, but even if their sex wasn’t based in some foolish romantic commitment, he was a possessive guy. It was just the way he was made and sometimes, the words
yineka mou
slipped out. She was his, for now. Maybe he should be more circumspect. Now that she was learning what his Greek endearments meant.

His aching hard-on felt ready to explode, distracting him. He gave her his best cajoling look. “Ride me?”

Her stunning blue gaze went dark with passion as he’d known it would. “Do we have time?”

“Always.” They were not on a tight schedule, even if she wanted to visit more museums in one day than he usually saw in a year.

She didn’t require any more convincing, but moved into position above his bobbing erection. “You look ready to burst.”

“I feel it,” he choked out gutturally from between clenched teeth as her slick feminine flesh brushed against him.

She went to reach for a condom and he stayed her with a hand between her perfectly shaped breasts. “Neither of us has been with anyone else in almost two years. I’ve had two clean bills of health over that time.”

He knew she’d tested every six months for a couple of years
after finding out Art was such a damn tomcat and wasn’t surprised when she said, “Me, too.”

“Then, let’s go bare.” She used the patch for birth control, so they didn’t need to worry about making a baby neither of them were ready for.

“Yes,”
she breathed out, lowering her body so his hard length slid inside her moist channel.

He said that word that she always chided him for and had to fight the urge to surge upward with every ounce of selfcontrol he had earned in his thirty-five years of life. She rewarded his restraint by dropping down and engulfing his entire length in her humid heat. Damn, massaging him
had
excited her.

She was slick with arousal and her inner muscles clenched at him in undeniable need. They moved together like animals mating and yet, not. Their supreme awareness of each other could be no less than human. Their gazes locked and never broke once during the wild ride.

The sensation of their bare skin moving together threw him into a convulsive climax, but he didn’t have to worry. She was right there with him, her head thrown back, her pleasure falling from her lips in a keening cry that tingled at the base of his spine.

This moment in time was perfection.

Zephyr surprised himself by enjoying their gluttonous day of museum-viewing. While he liked museums, he wouldn’t normally have planned an entire day around visiting as many as he could get to. However, Piper’s enthusiasm and fascination was catching. That was the only excuse he could make for how interested he was, even in exhibits that he had seen before as a child on group trips with the other children from the home.

He’d refused to use the term
orphan
because he hadn’t been one. He’d had both a mother and a father, even if neither had been willing to make him an important part of their life.

“This just goes to show that we repeat ourselves creatively. This would be considered ‘modern art’ by current art critics. If it hadn’t been dated as being more than four thousand years old.”

They were standing in front of an early Cycladic statue that did indeed look like something he might see in a gallery dedicated to modern artists. “It seems odd the statues would be so lacking in intricate detail when the pottery has such complicated patterns on it.”

“I’m sure someone hundreds of years from now will find it strange that our houses are built like cookie-cutter images of one another, but we are so particular about what goes inside them.”

He turned to her, laying a hand on her waist and not questioning the urge to do so. “You think so?”

“That, or they’ll postulate we only ate on plastic because plastic dishes are the only ones that survive that long.” Her azure eyes glittered with humor.

“We had stoneware in the home and you’re right. It didn’t last long.”

“My mom bought those unbreakable dishes, but nothing could prevent us kids losing them. The small square bowls made too good a shovel in a pinch.”

“I can just imagine you as a small child.”

“I was a terror.”

“But shy with strangers,” he guessed.

“Yep. Teachers never believed my mom about me until I’d organized my first boycott of the cafeteria’s no-name catsup. That stuff was nasty. Or had a petition going to reinstate outdoor school when budget cuts threatened that right of passage. It didn’t usually happen until my second year in school anyway.” She sounded altogether proud of herself.

“I see, you lulled the authority figures around you into complacency and then you sprang.”

“That’s about it.”

He laughed. “I have no problem seeing that.”

“Neither did my mother. School administrators were not so insightful.” Her eyes twinkled mischeviously. “Until after the fact.”

“I shudder to think what your children will be like.” Her daughters would be stubborn, her sons protective and both would be intelligent.

She gave him a strange look followed by a negligent shrug that wasn’t. Negligent. At least it didn’t seem so to him, but he didn’t ask her about it because she was already headed to the next display.

She stopped in front of a male kouros statue. “Nice to see Greek men haven’t changed in all these millennia.”

“I think I’m flattered.” The statue had seriously developed abs and thighs that could crack an opponent’s back in a wrestling match, ancient or modern. However, the genitals were nothing to write home about. “I hope you are not comparing certain aspects of my anatomy to his understated representation.”

She gave him a mocking little smile that made him want to do something that would turn that smile into a grin. “I read somewhere that the aspect of a statue’s form was deliberately underrepresented so the focus could be on the aesthetic rather than the sexual.”

“That, or the only men willing to be used as artists’ models had teeny weenies.”

Piper burst out laughing as he’d expected her to, drawing the attention of those around them. While most of it was indulgent, one serious-looking elderly man glared. And a young woman sent daggers Piper’s way, but he didn’t know if that was for her laughter or the fact she was so clearly with him.

The woman had given him an encouraging once-over when he and Piper had first arrived at the National Museum, but he had ignored her.

Once again, he turned his back on her and smiled down at
his beautiful companion. “That is not something you have to worry about in my bed, no?”

“You, Zephyr Nikos, are a braggart. And a bad, bad man.” The laughter still laced her voice and he wanted to kiss its flavor from her lips, but he refrained.

Stealing a kiss at the Acropolis, he could get away with. But he’d get more than one glare at such a public display of affection in the National Museum. Greece was not America, or even England for that matter, when it came to love affairs being conducted in public. It was generally a far more conservative country.

That had never bothered him before, but he wanted to kiss his
yineka
. However, he refused to embarrass her.

He would make up for it and then some when they returned to their room later.

The next morning, Piper tried to gather her thoughts as hot water pelted down over her during her solitary shower. The day before, they’d both admitted to fidelity and agreed to stop using condoms. She’d wanted the illusion of deeper intimacy for what she was coming to accept would have to be their last tryst and had readily agreed.

Only later had she begun to wonder if those were the actions of a man who would never love her? At first, she’d discounted his assertion he hadn’t been with another woman since the second time they’d made love, but as the day wore on she’d asked herself why. And she hadn’t liked the answer. She would not let Art have that much control of her present, regardless of how his betrayal had hurt.

But even believing in Zephyr’s faithfulness, what did that mean? Was he capable of loving her? So many things pointed to a yes answer, even as his self-admissions denied the possibility.

Their time at the museums had been almost magical, full of laughter and subtle marks of affection between them. The
little touches had added up and by the time they returned to their hotel to get ready for dinner, Zephyr had overcome her with a storm of desire. They’d missed their reservations and had a local café deliver dinner to their room.

Zephyr had been right when asked. For enough money, any restaurant
would
deliver food to a hungry couple. Even a couple who had refused to leave their hotel room while sating a different hunger than that of the stomach.

How could she end their sexual liaison without ending their friendship? Did she have enough strength of will to be his friend without falling back into his bed? And even if she did, would maintaining their friendship be the best thing for her emotional well-being? How was she going to get over him if she continued to see him?

But how could she stop seeing him without totally shattering what was left of her heart?

This morning had only added to her already roiling thoughts and emotions. They’d once again made love and it had been so profound, she’d been a breath away from blurting out her love for him.

She’d needed some time to get her emotions back under control and insisted Zephyr take one of his military-length showers. Alone. He often bragged about the quick grooming habits he’d learned on the ship he’d worked when leaving Greece and she wasn’t above playing to that pride. She’d used the excuse that they needed to get going if they were going to make it to the seaside village that was home to Trident’s temple ruins in time to actually see them.

Clearly indulging her, he’d agreed. And she’d gotten a few precious and necessary minutes to herself, both while he showered and now while she did.

The only problem was, her emotions were just as raw now as they had been while she and Zephyr made love. She ached with the need to tell him of her feelings, but was afraid that they would be an unwelcome burden. And she couldn’t squash
the hope that maybe if he just realized it was safe to love her, that she wouldn’t betray him as others had in the past, he might let his heart out of its self-imposed prison.

Carefully, she swiped soapy hands over her birth control patch. Or rather where the patch was supposed to be.

No. No, no, no, no
.

It was there. It had to be. She craned her neck over her shoulder to look down at her right hip, but saw nothing except smooth skin. She looked over the other side, praying she’d forgotten that she’d used a different hip this time. But no fleshcolored square resided there, either.

Where was it? She wasn’t due to replace the weekly dose of birth control until the day after tomorrow and she wasn’t scheduled to be without until a full week after that.

Oh, God
. The prayer left her lips in desperation as she tried to remember the last time she’d checked the patch.

Having it there had become such second nature that she barely even noticed it anymore. She was always careful in the shower, never soaping the area directly. She’d lost one the first month she was using them, but she’d soon learned how to avoid corrupting the adhesive that held the hormone dispenser in place.

She forced her mind to bring up and scour images from the preceding days, but the last clear impression she had of her patch was during her shower in a Midwest hotel room the morning before catching her flight to Greece. No, she couldn’t have lost it her first day in Athens.

It wouldn’t have just fallen off. But the way she and Zephyr had touched that first time making love after their weeks-long separation had been rough, urgent and not at all careful of clothing, much less an adhesive square attached to her body. But if she’d lost it
then
, they had made love a number of times since without
any
form of protection.

Her breath choked in her throat at the very real possibility of what that could mean. No. She refused to believe God would be that cruel.

She felt like hyperventilating as she asked herself what to do now. How was she supposed to walk away from Zephyr if she was pregnant with his child? Would he believe that she had not done it on purpose? Losing the condoms had been his idea, but would he remember that when faced with the unexpected results?