The Greek Tycoon's Wife (13 page)

Nikos spun back to her, his eyes blazing. ‘Yes, you did!' he contradicted rawly. ‘And
I can't forget
!' The explosive pronouncement seemed to be ripped from his throat.

Katie swallowed, mesmerised by the lambent glow in his silvered eyes. ‘Why not…?'

‘Because,' he said in the manner of someone making an uncomfortable discovery, ‘I don't want to.'

Katie gasped as a pleasure-pain knifed through her body.

Sexual longing of a type she hadn't known existed made her bold; it also made her reckless and single-minded. Her
tunnel vision saw no consequences, only need—a need that consumed her. Every fibre of her being was mindlessly intent on assuaging the hunger, which no part of her was free of.

‘What
do
you want?' she whispered, wondering how much more of this torment she could take.

Her desire for him went bone-deep; she wanted the taste of him, the feel of him, she wanted all of him… She'd never experienced anything like this before and had no defences against it.

‘The same thing I've wanted to do since the first moment I met you…' Arms braced either side of her shoulders, he lowered himself with a beautifully fluid movement down until she could feel his warm breath shiver against her skin. He adjusted the angle of his head so his lips were positioned directly over hers and their warm breaths mingled.

Anticipation of his kiss made her dizzy, but despite the tension that every taut line of his body screamed Nikos was in no hurry.

‘Your mouth is truly edible,' he rasped smokily as, holding her eyes with his, he took tiny soft bites almost too light for her to feel from the quivering outline.

The sexy rumble of his voice made her tremble. Through the fluttering shield of her lowered lashes she studied his rampantly male features, dizzy with anticipation.

‘No!' He shook his head very slightly as her heavy eyelids closed. ‘I want you to look at me.'

Katie responded to his instruction without thinking, though her eyelids felt as though they were weighed down. ‘I was looking at you, I can't seem to help myself,' she said, not trying to evade his searching eyes. ‘What else do you want me to do?'

‘I want you to open your mouth for me.'

‘I want that too,' she revealed, gazing up at him with unconcealed desire.
‘I want you,'
she added simply in a
voice that literally
ached
with longing, silently adding that this was what she'd wanted for seven long years.

A hot flood of hoarse words spilled from Nikos as his darkened eyes sealed to hers; he seemed completely unaware that he had spoken in Greek. Katie barely registered it herself. The only thing she needed to understand was in his smoky eyes and they said the same thing in any language—he wanted her! And she wanted him—oh, how she wanted him!

Why didn't I know that surrender felt this sweet, this empowering?
Katie thought dreamily. The satisfaction didn't come solely from surrendering to him, it was from surrendering to her own passion.

He rolled onto his side and, with one big hand supporting the back of her head, took her with him, all the while pressing hot, frantic kisses to her face and neck as throaty words of Greek and English spilled from his lips.

The fine tremors afflicting her entire body became deep shudders as he finally fitted his mouth to hers.

Katie whimpered at the expert pressure of his lips, the whimper became a fierce groan as his clever tongue stabbed smoothly deep into the sweet warmth of her mouth and then again and again…parodying a more intimate invasion.

Through the thickness of the duvet Katie curved her pliant body into his muscular frame and even though several inches of duck down separated them she could feel the urgency of his arousal. She took hold of his head between her hands and, meshing her fingers deep in his rich, luxuriant hair, she met his tongue tentatively with her own—then again, more boldly.

If this was depravity she wanted more of it—she never wanted to break the contact; she wanted it to go on for ever and ever.

Nikos continued to kiss her with the same blind, driving urgency as he smoothly rolled her underneath him. He performed the move with the same fluid grace he did every
thing, but at that moment she was willing to forgive him for being perfect. Very few things Katie had experienced had ever felt as incredibly marvellous as the weight of his warm, hard body pinning her to the bed. The intimate pressure of his erection grinding into her soft belly made her whimper softly into his mouth.

Panting, they finally broke apart like divers breaking to the surface in search of oxygen. Nikos rolled away to one side, his chest heaving; he lifted his arm across his face, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow. It remained there, concealing his expression from her.

Eyes glazed and glittering, face flushed, Katie reached for him; actually she couldn't bear
not
to touch him. His body was incredible; every detail of it held a fascination for her. She had enough oxygen stored up to last at least another two kisses and she shook with the need to get out of her depth again—and fast!

‘You've wanted to do that all night?' she asked wonderingly as she stroked his arm. His flesh had a deliciously silky texture and the toned muscles were hard and compact and beautifully formed beneath her fingertips. She'd had her suspicions, but it came as some relief to have it confirmed that her lustful fantasies had not been one-sided.

‘I've wanted to do that since seven years ago,' he corrected huskily.

Katie's eyes widened. ‘I had no idea I made such an impact.'

‘Impact!'
he echoed, releasing a strange, strangled laugh. ‘I think you could safely say you did that, Katerina. When I walked into that cheap, nasty little room I expected…' Katie saw the muscles of his strong brown throat work as he swallowed.

‘A cheap and nasty bride?' she suggested sadly. Only her loyalty to the memory of her brother stopped her explaining there and then why she had taken the drastic decision to buy a bridegroom.

‘Well, let's just say I wasn't expecting a girl who looked like a sexy kitten. All enormous, trusting blue eyes, a sexy mouth and a cloud of the most incredible silky hair. It put me in a vile temper to realise I was as weak as any other man; I had considered I was immune to such things.'

He had known of course that she couldn't have been the wide-eyed innocent she'd appeared, which in his considered opinion had made her all the more dangerous. But he had begun to wonder if he shouldn't have followed his gut instincts in this instance and to hell with consequences. He had a strong suspicion that his gut instincts might have been closer to the truth than the judgment he'd made based on more practical considerations.

‘Add to that you looked about sixteen.'

‘I was eighteen,' she corrected him huskily.

‘And you had—correction,
have
—a body that could make a grown man weep.'

A sound halfway between a groan and a laugh was wrenched from his chest as his arm lifted from his face revealing a rigid mask of constraint. As he scanned her face some of his control slipped, offering her a glimpse of a raw hunger that made her stomach muscles clench violently.

‘I know that marriages nowadays are not noted for their durability, but how many men who meet the most beautiful and desirable woman they have ever seen marry her then walk away swearing not to remain faithful, but never to see or contact her again?'

He lifted a section of her silky hair and let it slip through his fingers. ‘You know,
yineka mou
, I think we have some unfinished business.'

Katie nodded. ‘I nearly asked Harvey about you,' she admitted shyly. ‘But I couldn't, not after making such a fuss about wanting there to be no contact.'

‘Do you still not desire contact?' His low, seductive drawl sent a stab of white-hot sexual desire through her body.

She shook her head and urgently moaned his name. In
her naivety she'd expected his kisses to ease her hunger, but instead they had acted as a release valve for all the pent-up sensuality that had been dammed up inside her for years. Her passionate nature had found a focus—Nikos.

‘So sweet, so wild.'

His husky appreciation jolted her.
He thinks I'm going to be good at this. He's expecting a sex goddess—heavens, does he have it all wrong!
Telling him she was a virgin would be just too mortifying; there had to be some other way to explain her lack of competence…?

‘No!'
she denied, twisting to evade his lips. ‘I'm not wild—in fact I'm not a sexy sort of person,' she blurted out.

Her revelation did not have any immediate effect; Nikos carried on kissing her neck with just as much dedication as before. Katie's concentration drifted as she felt the resistance slip from her body. ‘Did you hear what I said, Nikos?' She hoped so because she couldn't say it again.

Nikos gave her neck a nibble before raising his head. ‘You have my full attention. So you are not sexy?' Laughter formed in his liquid dark eyes and his lips twitched. Even with his hair tousled he looked incredibly gorgeous.

Katie observed with dismay that he didn't seem to be taking her very seriously. ‘Ask Tom if you don't believe me.' As wrong things to say went, this was right up there in the top three.

She wasn't exactly surprised when Nikos's expression froze over. ‘I don't require references from your lovers.'

Lovers! Gracious, he was really missing the point—it being she hadn't had any of the above and he'd had dozens…hundreds probably! Therein lay the problem.

‘And I forbid you to
think
about Tom.' His powerful body curved over hers. ‘Do you hear me?'

‘I hear you, Nikos!' she said, awed and even—quite shockingly—a little turned on by his masterful behaviour.

Nikos scanned her face; whatever he saw there must have satisfied him because then he nodded before he kissed her again, long, deep, drugged kisses that left her craving more.

Katie gave a soft moan as he left her mouth to lick and bite his way down her throat until he reached the wildly throbbing pulse spot at the base of her neck. His breath, which came in uneven gasps, was hot against her bare skin.

‘I want to see you,' he informed her in a thickened voice that was not entirely steady.

At his words a white-hot flame of desire pulsed through her throbbing body like a blade. Along with it came a thread of doubt…which she firmly squashed.

Katie had never craved a man's approval before. Taking her courage by the scruff of the neck, she pushed away the mesh of hair that had fallen across her face. Looking directly into his eyes, she peeled back the quilt in one quick motion.

Nikos inhaled sharply. Katie's self-doubt began to flow steadily away from her as he examined her body in an almost reverent silence. A primitive mask of need tautened his lean features as his liquid dark eyes consumed her with the single-minded concentration of a starving man confronted with a feast.

‘So pale, so perfect. You are beautiful,
yineka mou
,' he asserted shakily. ‘Just looking at you makes me burn.'

Katie ran a finger across his cheek feeling drunk with her newly discovered feminine power. That she could excite such feelings in a man like this…why, nothing seemed impossible now.

‘You make me feel very strange,' she confided innocently.

The not-so-innocent sultry smile that accompanied her words provoked an immediate response from Nikos. He laughed huskily and framed her flushed face with his hands. Her pulse gave a lustful surge as she stared in awed wonder
at the thrillingly primitive expression etched on his strong-boned, beautiful face.

‘You make me feel very hot,' he revealed with a wolfish grin that made her quiver inside and out.

She watched, not daring to breathe, her heart thumping like a wild thing as he curled his hand around the swell of her breast. A voluptuous sigh of pleasure escaped from between her clenched teeth; his touch on her bare skin was electric.

The expression on his face as he traced the tip-tilted profile of first one breast and then the other with his expert fingers was rapt. When his eyes lifted to hers there was a raw, needy look on his face that made her insides dissolve.

His exploration homed in on her nipple; she stopped breathing as he took the prominent bud between his thumb and forefinger, and the resulting friction made her body arch.

‘Good?'

Katie opened her eyes. ‘Very good. Do it again!' she demanded.

He did.

Lips parted, eyes shut tight, she squirmed restlessly as his thumb moved back and forth across the rosily engorged nipple at the centre. He ran his tongue over the sensitised flesh and sensual overload sent Katie's head backwards into the pillow.

She had barely assimilated the sensual delights of this sensation when his exploration moved lower. His skilful fingers left a burning trail as they skimmed lightly over her belly. As his exploration boldly widened to include the soft fuzz of hair at the apex of her legs Katie found she could hardly breathe for the intense excitement that held her in its vicelike grip.

With sultry abandon she looked up at him through half-closed eyes. The mindless hunger she felt was reflected in the stark mask of need that contorted his dark features. She
caught her tongue between her teeth and gasped as, with his eyes melded to hers, he allowed his fingers to slide between her legs into the slick heat of her aching core.

Katie moaned and felt the heat spread across her lower abdomen. Eyes locked to his, she parted her long legs in wanton invitation. With a muttered imprecation Nikos loosened the belt of his robe in a frenzied manner.

‘My God, but you have a beautiful body!'

Shooting her a quick, predatory grin, he continued.

Simply looking at his sleek, streamlined, rampantly male body brought an emotional ache to her throat that had nothing to do with simple lust—she wasn't actually surprised, she supposed that deep down she'd always known the feelings he aroused were more complex…more dangerous.