The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife (11 page)

In desperation Lizzie took what she hoped would be a cooling gulp of her champagne. She certainly needed something to dampen down the sensual heat that had taken hold of her. Ilios was still looking at her—looking at her as though he knew every word she was thinking and every thing she was feeling. No, she did not like that look and
all it suggested at all. Lizzie drew in a shaky breath of air as her conscience prodded her. Well, all right, she did like it—but she didn’t like the fact that she liked it.

The truth was, Lizzie realised ten minutes later, as Ilios held opened the car door for her, that much as she ached for the experience of having sex with Ilios, and eager as she was to explore and appreciate every bit of him, she was still female enough to want
him
to make the first move and show her that he wanted her as much as if not more than she wanted him. She needed to know his desire for her. She needed to feel that he wanted her so much that he could not deny that wanting. Only then would she truly be able to indulge her own desire for him. And of course that was not going to happen—was it?

But what if it did? Ilios could be right, and the best way for her to get over the longing that was tormenting her
was
for her to go to bed with him. Hot excitement kicked through her body. She was a woman, she reminded herself—she was twenty-seven years old, after all—not a teenager. She knew perfectly well what the situation was and she couldn’t claim any different. Did she really want to go back home without experiencing what Ilios offered her just because she had panicked and wanted to be wooed? Wouldn’t she, years from now, look back in regret, or even worse in yearning, for what she had not had? It was perfectly safe, after all, and so was she. It wasn’t as though she was in love with Ilios and thought that somehow having sex with him—making love with him—was going to change him and cause him to fall head over heels in love with her.

No, this was purely about sexual desire. It was about answering, exploring, satisfying the need that had been
aching, growing inside her from their first meeting. No one but the two of them need ever know that she had briefly stepped out of the role she had cast for herself after the death of her parents—a role that meant that she must always be the responsible eldest sister, monitoring her own behaviour in order that she could set their family standards and guide her younger siblings. Here, with Ilios, it was safe for her to experience being what in her real life she could never be—sensually eager, responsive to her own desires and those of her partner, without having to think about anything or anyone else.

What possible harm could there be in it? If it happened it would be a one-off, that was all—an exciting, tantalising sensual adventure. If Ilios should repeat his offer, was she going to be brave enough to do what she knew she wanted to do? Or was she going to be a coward who would spend the rest of her life regretting her hesitation?

T
HEY’D
travelled back to the Manos Corporation building in silence, and in that same silence they had got out of the car and travelled in the lift to where they were now—outside the door to the apartment, with Ilios unlocking it.

‘What’s this?’ Lizzie asked curiously, almost forgetting the reason for her earlier inability to speak as she bent down to pick up the small blue bead lying on the floor just inside the door.

‘Maria’s obviously been in, and equally obviously she must know the wedding was today,’ Ilios answered, taking the bead from her and putting it back down on the floor. ‘It’s meant to ward off the evil eye—a Greek tradition that involves those who have something to protect doing so by means of the gift of one of these. Maria obviously approves of our marriage, and by leaving this is protecting it and us from bad luck.’

Lizzie nodded her head. She’d have liked to have changed out of her white wool dress and coat into something less high-maintenance, but she was concerned that any move towards the bedroom on her part might be wrongly interpreted by Ilios.

‘Who designed the garden?’ she asked him instead. ‘I haven’t been out in it yet, but—’

‘I designed it. Or at least I copied certain elements of the gardens at Villa Manos and adapted them for here.’

Whilst they were talking they’d walked into the living room.

‘Will I be safe if I offer you a walk round the garden?’ Ilios asked.

Did he really think she would pounce on him? Was he expecting her to make all the running? She couldn’t, Lizzie knew. Not without knowing that he wanted her too.

Lizzie wondered what he was really thinking—and feeling. Had he meant what he’d said in the restaurant, or had he simply been amusing himself at her expense? Even worse, had he actually been thinking about taking her to bed and then decided upon reflection not to bother? Maybe she had misunderstood what he’d said, or taken it too seriously, and now he was stepping back from that conversation because he hadn’t meant it. Lizzie’s face burned at the thought.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, if you would like to see the garden you may want to think about getting changed first, into something less…’

The sound of Ilios’s voice focussed her attention on what he was saying, and valiantly Lizzie tried to put her mixed-up feelings to one side and focus instead of reality.

‘Something less white?’ she offered brightly. She refused to use the word
bridal
, with all that it implied.

Ilios nodded his head.

‘Look, I’ve got a couple of e-mails I need to send, so why don’t you go and get changed? Take as long as you wish. There’s no rush.’

If Ilios had actually known how uncomfortable she’d been feeling, both in her outfit and about saying she wanted to change out of it, and had wanted to put her at her ease, he couldn’t have done so more effectively, Lizzie acknowledged several minutes later, as she stood beneath the shower in the bathroom off the master bedroom. Not that she imagined he
could
have known how she was feeling. In fact he had probably simply wanted her out of the way. The more she thought about it, the more she thought she had been a complete fool for thinking he had been suggesting that he wanted her.

She showered quickly, using her own favourite shower gel from Jo Malone, and noting as she did so that the container was almost empty. Jo Malone treats were something she wasn’t going to be able to indulge in any more. No doubt the whole family would end up using something safe and suitable for the twins. Smiling to herself, Lizzie stepped out of the shower, drying herself speedily and then wrapping a towel sarong-wise round her body. Removing the cap she had put on her head to keep her hair dry, she opened the door to the dressing room and came to an abrupt halt almost in mid-step, her eyes widening as she saw Ilios opening his wardrobe. Like her, he had quite obviously taken a shower—only his towel sat low on his hips and finished midway down his thigh.

Her ‘Oh!’ was a soft, half-choked sound as betraying as the manner in which she clutched her towel protectively to her body. ‘I thought you said you were going to be busy sending e-mails,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘I changed my mind and decided to have a shower instead.’ He wasn’t going to tell her that the ache she had induced within his body had made it impossible for him to do anything other than give in to the need to take a cold shower.

He must have used the guest room—which, of course, was why he was here right now, looking for his clothes.

‘I’ll…I’ll wait in the bathroom until…until you’ve finished.’

Was that squeaky, nervous voice really her own?

‘So that you aren’t overwhelmed by your desire for me?’

Why had she ever said that to him about being concerned that she might be the one overcome with lust? Both the joke and her sense of humour were becoming stretched to breaking point.

‘I’ll tell you what…’ Ilios’s voice was muffled by the wardrobe door that he had opened between them, and Lizzie had to strain to hear what he was saying. Automatically she took a couple of steps towards him, so that she could hear properly.

What would he tell her?

‘Instead of talking about your desire for me, why don’t you come here and show me?’

The door swung closed. Ilios was standing far too close to her—or rather she was standing far too close to him. But even as she decided to step back his right hand curled into her towel and tugged—firmly.

What was she going to do? If she stayed where she was she would be in danger of losing her towel, and if she moved it would have to be forward, towards him, and that would mean…

‘Nothing to say?’

She was up close against him, and his hand wasn’t gripping her towel. Instead it was smoothing its way up her bare arm and over her shoulder, stroking her neck, cupping her face. One hand, and then both.

‘Very well, then, why don’t I do this instead?’

He finished his sentence in a whisper, practically forming the words against her lips with his lips—lips that were smooth and warm and expertly knowing as they moved slowly over hers, pausing, lifting to allow her to gasp in a shaken breath. His fingers smoothed the skin of her face, and then he was kissing her again, slowly and lingeringly, each second of his touch its own intimate world of pleasure, given and then removed. A tantalising, tormenting unbelievably erotic pleasure, nothing more than light skimming kisses but at the same time so deeply sensual that they transported her to a whole new world.

Each time he kissed her and then withdrew Lizzie moved closer, hungering for more. Her own hand lifted to his face.

‘I’ve wanted to do this from the first moment I saw you,’ she admitted breathlessly, touching his skin with her fingertips, absorbing its texture, learning the shape of the muscles that lay beneath the warm flesh, her eyes dark and hot with what she was feeling.

‘Only this? Nothing more?’

Ilios’s voice was as soft and warm, as erotic to her senses as the dark cross of fine silky hair that painted his body. His words, with their tempting invitation, made her tremble beneath the intensity of her own desire.

‘Not this, perhaps?’ he suggested, sliding his hand round the curve of her throat and kissing her bare shoulder, each movement of his lips setting off a firestorm of quivering delight.

‘Or this?’ His tongue stroked the sensitive flesh just behind her earlobe, making her shudder visibly and cling to him as though her flesh was so boneless and pliable that she could melt into him. She wanted him so much—which made it all the harder to bear when he stopped kissing her and released her.

That was it? He was going to leave her like this? Aching so badly for him that—

‘Come on,’ he told her. ‘I’ll show you the garden.’

The garden? Now? She didn’t want the garden. She wanted him. But Ilios was reaching for her hand and drawing her with him as he headed for the door.

They had been late coming back from lunch, and now it was almost dark. Cleverly placed lights illuminated the garden, transforming it into a space filled with magical images. The ruined temple was highlighted against the evening sky, the colonnade woven with a net of tiny starry lights.

‘It looks very pretty,’ Lizzie admitted absently, still dazed by his kisses, and still wearing nothing more than the towel wrapped around her. It was true about the garden, but they were now in a bedroom that possessed a very large bed, and right now all she wanted was to be lying on that bed with Ilios, with nothing to come between them, or to come between her and her increasingly urgent need to explore every bit of him.

Ilios obviously didn’t feel the same way, because he was leading her down a smooth path, the tiles cool beneath her bare feet. The raised walls protecting the garden made it pleasantly warm, and above them the evening sky was studded with stars like diamonds in velvet, their gleam reflected in the swimming pool.

It would have been on nights such as these that the gods came down from Olympus to mingle with mortal men—and women, Lizzie thought, remembering how some of the Greek myths involved human women being impregnated by handsome gods. She paused to touch the leaves of a small olive tree set into a tub.

‘Olives and vines. Food and drink,’ Ilios murmured.

‘Ambrosia and nectar,’ Lizzie whispered back.

They had reached the side of the swimming pool, and as she looked back at the ruin Ilios spoke teasingly.

‘I think we can dispense with these, don’t you?’

Lizzie sucked in her breath as he plucked away her towel, but the self-consciousness she had expected to feel was banished—melting away, she suspected, in the heat that filled her as his gaze stroked over every bit of her, just as though he was actually caressing her.

What was happening to her? She was with a man who made her feel as no man had ever made her feel before, and it was the most extraordinary, the most deliciously sensual and exciting feeling she had ever had. Her awareness of her own nakedness actually gave her an additional frisson of pleasure, made her want to stretch erotically beneath the warmth of Ilios’s gaze. She watched as he removed his own towel, her heart thudding into a climax of fierce female anticipation as she waited for him to take her in his arms.

Instead he dived into the water, slicing it cleanly and surfacing a few feet out into the pool before turning to hold out his arms to her.

‘Jump in. The water’s warm.’

They were going for a
swim
?

Lizzie took a deep breath and jumped.

Ilios’s arms closed round her. They were standing body to body, the water just covering her breasts. It lapped against them, a warm touch against her sensitised nipples and between her legs, as sensual as a lover’s touch gently caressing her. Ilios’s hands stroked over her skin, his movements vibrating in the water so that it felt as though he and the water were one. He had complete mastery over her
desire, arousing it, compelling it, filling her with pleasure and then drawing it from her. Her body was a willing vessel, to be filled with the pleasure he was giving her. The sensation of his breath against her skin made her cry out softly, arching her throat to its touch just as she was arching her body to his possession. She was his to do with as he pleased—to give her all the sensual delight he was giving her.

Lizzie closed her eyes beneath the onslaught of the sweet agony of growing need, opening them quickly when Ilios moved to float onto his back, taking her with him so that she was lying on top of him, supported by him, her body pressing into his, every inch of her skin aware of every inch of his, where they touched and where they didn’t.

He kicked out strongly through the water, his hands sliding down her back and then up again slowly, stroking her skin with his fingertips, moving lower with each caress.

Lizzie held her breath against the fever of her own longing. Only when he finally stroked past her hips to cup her buttocks was she able to exhale in shaky relief. Now, at last, against her own sex she could feel his, solid with muscle and arousal, pressing up against her as Ilios pressed her down against himself.

Within her the heat of her own desire seemed to be melting her flesh, so that it softened and expanded. Her body moved under his hands and their grip on her tightened. It couldn’t be happening like this, without any need for anything other than the satisfaction of the compulsive drive that was now pounding through her, but it was. All she could think of—all she wanted—was the satisfaction of having the full deep thrust of him within her.

Ilios was like a mythical god, Lizzie thought dizzily. His
touch made reality and reason disappear and replaced them with the most ancient and relentless of human drives. The need he aroused in her possessed her and drove her, so that all she wanted was to wrap herself around him.

They had reached the far end of the pool, where water fell from the top of a cliff past the opening to a grotto with soft lighting that turned the water a rich blue-green.

When Ilios eased her away from his body and stood up Lizzie could see that the water here was shallower. Water from the pool ran down his body, and Lizzie’s gaze followed each drop hungrily.

‘What?’ Ilios asked watching her gaze with his own. ‘What is it you want to do? This?’

He leaned forward and held her waist, kissing his way down past her collarbone and between her breasts—light, lingering kisses accompanied by the curling movement of his tongue against her damp flesh, making her burn with longing to do the same to him. His hand dropped to her thighs. Lizzie gave a small moan that became a gasp of tortured pleasure when Ilios started to kiss the slope of her breast, and then to circle the tight ache of her nipple with his tongue-tip.

The heavy pulse of the ache low down in her body picked up tempo. She leaned into Ilios’s hold, her thighs parting. In response he tongued her nipple, and then drew it between his lips. Wanting more, Lizzie pushed towards him, welcoming the heat of his hand between her legs, whimpering with pleasure when his fingers found her wetness, her body clamouring for urgent and immediate release.