The Good Greek Wife? (7 page)

‘Penny…' Zarek said slowly and his voice was ragged at the edges so that she knew the need that had her in its grip had taken hold of him too.

So what had happened to that cold command of ‘Don't'? There was no rejection, no distance in the look he turned on her. It was pure fire and lightning, searing where it landed. And it landed on her hair, then on her eyes, then burned across her mouth so that she opened her lips in a gasp of much-needed air.

And then forgot to breathe at all as Zarek reached out his hand and touched her cheek. Still holding her eyes locked with his, he let his fingers trail down to the side of her jaw, following the line of the bone until his touch reached her still-open
mouth. His thumb rested on the lower lip, pulling it down very slightly, very softly. And she couldn't resist the temptation to slide out her tongue to taste it, taking the essence of his skin into her mouth as she did so.

Which immediately made her want more. Her breasts felt tight against the lace of her bra, her skin seemed to ache for the touch of his hands and she knew that her eyes were heavy-lidded and sensual, her pupils dark, telegraphing her feelings without the need for words.

But of course Zarek had no use for words. Even after two years apart, his senses were totally attuned to the signals she was unable to control. She saw his body still, the tension in the long muscles communicating a need that was like a visible force, reaching out to enclose her. His fierce, unblinking eyes were black as night, his touch on her face a brand that marked her out as his, and the hiss of his breath in between his lips was a sound that seemed to shiver all the way down her spine as she heard it.

‘I missed things too,' he murmured, low and rough. ‘
Mou elipses
—I missed you—but most of all I missed this…'

And his head bent to take her mouth with his.

S
HE
had forgotten the sensation of drowning, Penny thought hazily as Zarek's mouth closed over hers, the heat and hardness of his kiss making her senses swim. She had forgotten how it felt as if a dark wave of sensuality was breaking over her head, taking her down into the depths of passion where she lost her last grip on control, gave herself up to the sensation that possessed her.

One touch of Zarek's mouth on hers and she was once more the naïve young virgin he had first taken to bed, at the mercy of her hunger for him. A hunger that no other man had ever been able to awaken in her. And waking up was what it felt like. Waking from a deep dark sleep in which there had been no sensation, no light, no warmth, no joy.

Now she was flooded with heat and hunger, a sensation of coming back to life and seeing the glory of delight that was possible.

Her head fell back under Zarek's kiss, her hands going up to clutch at his arms, hold him near to her. Her lips opened under the pressure of his and she felt the heated, sensual slide of his tongue as he invaded the moist interior of her mouth. No amount of wine could have more of a head-spinning effect
than the taste of him, no tantalising appetiser could stir her appetites as swiftly and as powerfully as it did.

‘I have missed this,' Zarek muttered again, his voice thick and raw, his accent deep on every word. ‘Missed it and thought about it so often at night. Longed for it. Hungered for it.'

He had gathered her up into his arms, crushing her tight against the heat and hardness of his body. Her head was pressed to his chest, feeling the wall of his ribcage under the soft cotton of his shirt. The race of his heart was like thunder in her ears and at the base of his strong neck she could see the heavy pulse that gave away how fiercely he was aroused. The force of his response sparked off an answering reaction in her own body. Moist heat pooled between her legs, in intimate evidence of the hunger he made her feel so easily.

‘Zarek…'

His name felt strange on her tongue even though she'd used it before in the time since his sudden shocking arrival back in her life. But then it had been just a sound of shock. Now she was using it as a term of endearment, a recognition of something special, the name of her husband.

The man who had had the right to touch her as he was doing now. To stroke his hands over the shape of her body, sliding down her back, fingers tracing the line of her spine, until they splayed out over her hips, curved over the swell of her buttocks to press her even closer to him. His hips cradled her pelvis, the heat and swell of his erection hard against the softness of her feminine mound. Acting purely instinctively, she moved seductively against him, brushing against his arousal and hearing him groan low in his throat.

‘
Gineka mou, gineka mou…Ise panemorfi.
You are so beautiful,' Zarek translated his muttered Greek, obviously needing her to understand.

Penny snatched in a shaken breath on a sound that even she was not quite sure whether it was a tremulous laugh, a gasp, or even an uncontrollable sob of response.

‘I know. I know.' She whispered the words against his lips. ‘You told me, remember?'

They had been some of the first words in his language that he had ever taught her.

Gineka mou
…my wife.
Ise panemorfi
. You are so very beautiful.

And he had spoken them to her on their wedding day. Murmured them to her as they lay in bed. Whispered them in her ear as he took possession of her body for the very first time, took her virginity and made her his completely. And finally he had cried them aloud, in the heat of his passion and the throes of his climax as the thundering orgasm took them both right over the edge of the world, it had seemed, and out to spin in the wilds of uncharted space beyond.

At the time she had had no idea of what sexual fulfilment could possibly mean. She had dreamed and fantasised of course, yearned for Zarek's kiss, his touch. But she had had no concept of just how powerful a force of need could overwhelm her, the ecstasies that were within her reach when she abandoned herself to the skilled and knowing touch of her forcefully passionate lover. She only knew that she had given herself to him happily and willingly because she loved and had believed herself to be loved. She had thought that that was what made the difference.

Ten months of marriage had taught her all she needed to know. Ten months of marriage had given her time to learn, to discover her own latent sexuality and find herself as a sensual woman. A woman whose needs and desires were as hot and responsive as the man who made love to her each night.

And those needs, those hungers now rushed to the surface in a surge of demanding, stinging need in response to the caresses, the kisses of the man who had taught her everything she knew. Her one, her only lover.

She'd missed these sensations, missed him, and she couldn't hold back the ardent response that shuddered through her as she gave herself up to them for the first time in so long—far too long.

Zarek's hands were at her breasts, cupping their soft weight through the fine material of her clothing, making her moan aloud in a sound of hunger that she could just not hold back. It was not enough. She needed more. She needed the full sensation of his caress against her skin and she almost felt that she would have torn open the front of her dress to give him access if he didn't give her what she wanted.

But at the same time she wanted to use her hands to unfasten his clothing too. To wrench the buttons of his shirt from their fastenings, strip the fine cotton from his powerful torso, expose the muscled lines of his chest and shoulders to her hungry touch, her seeking mouth.

And Zarek was there ahead of her anyway. He needed no urging, no impatient encouragement as he used his mouth to ease the delicate straps of her green dress aside, fastening his teeth on one and tugging it down and over her shoulders. At the same time his hands were busy with the front of the garment, sliding it down over her straining, aching breasts to expose the creamy curves, the pink, tightly budded nipples that curled and hardened even more under the arousing caress of his knowing hands.

‘Oh, Zarek…'

This time his name was a long, sighing cadence of delight as his thumbs swept over the swollen tips. The rough caress
sent burning arrows of pure pleasure along every nerve pathway to centre in the most feminine core of her being, where they piled further hunger, built even more need on the yearning that was already driving her to total distraction. She couldn't take much more of this, couldn't take any more…the thought was like a beating refrain inside her head, making her feel as if her mind would blow apart if she was subjected to this onslaught of sensation for very much longer. She couldn't take much more and stay in one piece and yet she knew that if Zarek so much as considered stopping then she would disintegrate, would fall into pieces in a totally different way.

‘I want you…'

She wasn't sure which one of them said the words first. The truth was that the declaration was torn from both of them in almost the same moment so that the rough-voiced assertion sounded as if there hadn't been two single people speaking it but one of them as a whole, both male and female proclaiming the overwhelming primal need that had them in its grip.

‘I want you…' Penny managed again, her low, shaken voice sounding like an echo that had fallen from the very first pronouncement and was now fading away into a broken whisper, almost drowned out by the crash of the waves against the cliffs beyond the open door. ‘I want you.'

‘And you shall have me,' was Zarek's ardent response as he lifted her from the floor, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her swiftly from the room.

The hallway and stairs were still in almost total darkness but Zarek seemed to have eyes like a cat so that he didn't hesitate for a moment but strode swiftly up the stairs, even taking them two at a time at one point, in his haste to reach their bedroom. Kicking open the door, he hurried her across
to the bed where he tumbled her down on the covers, coming down beside her in an instant.

‘Ise panemorfi…Ise panemorfi.'

He was muttering the phrase over and over again, punctuating each word with a kiss on a different part of her exposed body. Her face, her shoulders, her arms, down the slopes of her breasts. And then, at last, at long, long last, his mouth closed, hot and hungry, over one tight nipple. Sharp teeth scraped it so gently for a moment, before he suckled hard to relieve the tiny pain, making her arch against him with a low, wordless cry of pleasure.

‘Z-Zarek…'

His name was all she could manage as any thought and the ability to find coherent words were obliterated by the sheer force of the sensual storm that took her. Acting blind, she had managed to pull open his shirt, tug it part way off his shoulders, so that at least her hands could explore the warm, tight contours of his chest, tangle in the rough haze of black body hair that tickled her palms, curled around her fingertips.

Zarek's hands were dealing with her dress, taking it down further at the front, tugging it up at the skirt to expose her legs, the plain white knickers that were now her only covering apart from the band of bunched material at her waist. And they didn't last for long under the determined assault of those powerful hands that tore them apart as if they had been made of nothing more substantial than tissue paper.

She had barely time to gasp in shocked excitement when those wicked fingers, gentler now, were stroking through the dark curls he had exposed, finding the moist cleft between her legs, the tiny bud that pulsed with hungry need.

She was so aroused that the first intimate touch of his hand on her had her crying out and throwing her head back against
the pillows, her eyes closed so that she could focus on the shock waves of pleasure that rocked her world.

‘I missed this…' Zarek's rough mutter close to her ear echoed her own private thoughts and all the time that knowing hand teased and tormented her, building the desire to the point where it almost broke her, then easing back to take her away from the edge just for a moment. ‘And I know you did too. Missed what we had together…'

Penny had no idea where the sudden change of mood came from. The abrupt and totally unexpected switch from blind and greedy passion to a new and very different frame of mind, one that shocked her out of the heated sense of oblivion into which she had fallen. It was as if someone had suddenly opened a window, letting in an icy rush of cold night air that feathered over her exposed skin, cooling her blood and making her shiver in shocked response. As if a cold, cruel voice had spoken out of the blue, and the words she heard inside her head had the force of a slap in the face, jolting her back to bitter reality with a rush.

Missed what we had…

Missed what we had…

And what had they had? Blazing passion, true—a burning physical desire that had blinded her to everything else. But nothing more. There had been nothing between them but sex. At least on Zarek's part.

And was she going to let him just walk back into her life—and into her bed again—without so much as an argument? When Zarek had left for the
Troy
she had known that she had never meant her wild and hurting threats that she would not wait for him. She'd told herself that if she stayed, then when he returned she had to stand up to him. That there had to be more to make this marriage work, her love alone wasn't enough to sustain it, and something was going to have to change.

Two years was a much, much longer wait than the few days she had been expecting, but her resolve needed to still be so much the same. More so if she was to be able to survive as Zarek's wife ever again.

Nothing
would change if she gave in at the first kiss, the first caress.

‘Zarek…' She tried to speak but it seemed that all strength had drained from her voice and nothing audible came out.

‘Gineka mou…'

Zarek had no such trouble and as he pressed his mouth against her breast again his words were perfectly audible. As was the darkly possessive note in them.

Gineka mou
…My wife.

He was staking his claim on her once more, using sex to do so. That was how he'd won her, how he'd held her blind and deceived for the first six months of their marriage. But then she'd learned the truth…

‘No!'

This time she had no trouble in making herself heard. The cry of rejection was loud and clear, echoing round the empty house. In the same moment she tried to push at Zarek, push him away from her. Free herself from his possessive and dangerously enticing hold. His hands still caressed, his mouth pursed to press another kiss against her breast and she could feel the hot, moist touch of his tongue against her skin. Another moment and she would be lost again. Already she could feel the tidal waves of dark desire sweeping over her, threatening to drown out the frantic voice of sanity and self-preservation.

‘I said
no
!'

With urgent, desperate hands, she pushed at him but he was too big, his powerful body too heavy for her attempts to move
him. So throwing caution to the wind she resorted to desperate measures. Reaching out, she grabbed a handful of his black hair—two—twisted her fingers in it, refusing to let herself think about the silky slide of it in her grip, and tugged. Hard.

‘Gamoto!'

She didn't have to know much Greek to understand that Zarek's violent explosion of sound was definitely a swear word. She only had to see the way his head came up, his eyes flaring sharply.

‘What the…?'

‘I said no!'

Surprise gave her an advantage she hadn't expected and with a frantic wriggle, another push, she was free of his confining weight, out of the bed and thudding onto the floor. Panic carried her halfway across the room, almost falling as she struggled to keep her balance and get as far away from him as possible so that he couldn't reach out and grab her, use his superior strength to hold her, keep her prisoner.