Proof Of Their Forbidden Night (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Chantelle Shaw

  She had prided herself on being cautious and sensible while the other girls she’d shared digs with at university had thrown themselves into love affairs that too often ended badly. Isla had allowed men to think she was unapproachable as a defence mechanism. The legacy of her father’s rejection had made her a coward, she realised with sudden insight. She was twenty-five but she’d never been naked with a man, let alone had a physical relationship.

  Telling Andreas about the accident that had claimed her mum’s life, and seeing Stelios’s health decline, were painful reminders that life was short and she had spent too long mired in hurts of the past. Andreas tempted her to lower her defensive barriers, especially when the fierce gleam in his eyes told her that he found her desirable.

  ‘Storms are fairly common on the coast at this time of year but they tend to blow through quickly.’ His voice pulled Isla from her thoughts and she watched him light a second paraffin lamp. He passed the lamp to her. ‘Feel free to take a look around. There is a gas hob in the kitchen and I can make coffee if you would like some.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Caffeine at this time of the night—it was actually morning, Isla amended—would not help her to fall asleep when she returned to the villa.

  Holding the lamp aloft, she inspected the pretty blue-and-white-tiled kitchen and the shower room next door. A narrow hallway led to the only bedroom, and here the walls were unpainted, leaving the sand-coloured bricks exposed. The one big window had wooden shutters which were closed. In the centre of the room was a four-poster bed with white voile drapes. She stopped just inside the doorway, her gaze drawn to the bed. The sound of the rain drumming on the roof of the single-storey cottage made the bedroom, lit by the warm glow from the lamp, feel like a safe haven from the elements.

  Footsteps on the stone floor behind her caused the tiny hairs of her body to stand on end. ‘In daylight you must have a wonderful view from the bed,’ she murmured.

  ‘The view from where I’m standing right now is pretty good.’ Andreas’s deep voice rolled through her, and her heart missed a beat when she slowly turned around and found him close to her. She caught her breath when he dropped his gaze and stared at her vest top clinging damply to her breasts. Her nipples stood to attention and the husky groan he made caused Isla’s stomach muscles to clench.

  He took the lamp from her nerveless fingers and hung it on the wall. The sound of the storm raging outside became distant and she was aware of the unevenness of her breathing, his.

  ‘I should go.’ Common sense dictated that she should leave but her feet refused to move. She should have run back to the villa the moment she’d spotted Andreas on the beach, Isla thought ruefully. Instead she had walked towards him, forgetting her loyalty to Stelios, compelled by a force, a need that was beyond her control.

  She had been surprised when Andreas revealed that his relationship with both his parents had been difficult. Isla sensed that his public image as a charismatic playboy hid a far more complex man—a man she wanted to know better. The truth was she was fascinated by him and she swallowed audibly when he lifted his hand and smoothed a few damp strands of her hair off her face.

  ‘Stay until the storm has passed.’ His voice was a low growl.

  Isla wasn’t sure if he meant the storm outside or the one that had simmered between them since they had been on the island. When he slowly lowered his head towards her she couldn’t move, could hardly breathe. She wanted him to kiss her. There was no point pretending otherwise. She’d dreamed of his mouth on hers since he’d kissed her in London a month ago, and tonight, when her emotions were all over the place, he was something solid and safe to cling to in the storm—although the idea that this man represented safety would be laughable if she were able to think straight.

  She felt the whisper of Andreas’s warm breath on her cheek. He curled his hands over her shoulders, drawing her closer to his big, hard body. And then he brought his mouth down on hers and there was nothing but the intoxicating pleasure of his kiss. It was no gentle seduction but a ravishment of her senses as he increased the pressure of his lips and forced hers apart, allowing his tongue access to the moist heat of her mouth.

  Isla sensed that Andreas had been fighting his attraction as much as she had, but tonight the barriers had come crashing down and their desire for each other was an unstoppable force. She succumbed utterly to his mastery, tipping her head back so that he could plunder her lips with a bone-shaking sensuality while she wrapped her arms around his neck and anchored herself to his strength.

  He threaded one hand into her hair and ran his other hand down her body, cupping a breast and stroking his thumb over the nipple jutting beneath her damp top. The sensation was exquisite and a shudder ran through her as desire obliterated every sane thought and left only a greedy, aching need. She pressed herself closer to him when he shoved his hand under her top and spread his fingers possessively over her breast.

  ‘Lift your arms up,’ he said in a voice roughened by desire. The realisation that he was as powerless to resist the chemistry between them as she was dismissed the last of Isla’s doubts. She lifted her arms and her heart thudded when he pulled the strap top over her head and then rocked back on his heels, his eyes glittering like blue flames as he stared at her bare breasts. ‘You’re so beautiful.’ Dull colour winged along his high cheekbones. ‘I sound like a bloody schoolboy.’ He swore softly. ‘Se thelo.’

  Isla knew the Greek words meant I want you. Desire hardened his features so that he looked feral with a hunger in his gaze that should have terrified her. But when he swept her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed she trembled, not with fear but a stark longing to feel his mouth on hers once again. To feel his mouth everywhere.

  In a moment she would stop him, she assured herself. And she did not doubt that he would stop if she asked him to. Instinctively, she knew that Andreas would respect her wishes. But, like a drug addict desperate for her next fix, she was impatient for him to kiss her again. He laid her on the bed and she curled her arms around his neck, urging his mouth down onto hers.

  Just one more kiss and then she would leave. Just one more. Her breath snagged in her throat when he trailed his lips down her neck and across the slope of one breast. He closed his mouth around her taut nipple and the effect of him sucking her felt like an explosion ripping through her, sensation building on sensation and sending a flood of heat right there between her legs where she ached so badly. Her body was unprepared for such an intensity of pleasure and when he captured her other nipple between his lean fingers and teased the turgid peak Isla lost all sense of who she was, of where she was.

  Andreas had loosened the cord that held back the voile drapes and the filmy material surrounded the bed, separating them from the world outside, it seemed. Cocooning Isla from reality. Because this could not be real. She had fallen into a wonderful dream and she didn’t want it to end. Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily beneath the weight of his hand trailing over her abdomen and lower, to slip beneath the elastic waistband of her shorts.

  The husky laugh he gave when he discovered that her knickers were drenched with her arousal reverberated through her, and the drumbeat of desire in her blood beat insistently. She lifted her hips towards his seeking fingers, her whole being focused on her need for him to touch her intimately. And when he did, when he parted her and eased his finger a few centimetres into her slick heat, she gave a low cry.

  ‘Theos, you are incredible,’ he said thickly. ‘I knew that beneath your cool refinement there was fire and passion.’ In a deft movement he tugged her shorts and panties down her legs. Her shyness disappeared beneath the fierce glitter in Andreas’s eyes as he stared at the cluster of neatly trimmed golden curls at the junction of her thighs.

  She almost stopped breathing when he put his hand between her legs and skimmed his fingertips over her sensitive inner thigh, heightening her sense of anticipation as he moved i
nexorably higher. Finally he rubbed his thumb over her moist opening before pushing a finger into her, deeper than he’d done moments earlier. Her internal muscles immediately clenched and he gave a low laugh as he withdrew his finger a little way and then slid deep once more, in and out, again and again. All the time he kept his eyes locked on her face.

  Nothing had prepared her for the swift, shattering orgasm that tensed her muscles as he held her there at the edge for frantic seconds, before he rubbed his thumb over her clitoris and she shuddered and pressed herself harder against his hand.

  It had to be a dream, Isla thought when she opened her eyes and saw the filmy white drapes around the bed and the golden lamplight shining through them. It had to be a dream, because in her dreams Andreas had looked at her as he was doing now, with a hunger in his gaze that made her heart leap into her throat.

  ‘You’ll stay?’ he asked thickly.

  Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth as she understood the real question he was asking. Her heart was thudding so hard she was surprised he couldn’t hear it. She knew she was ready for her first sexual experience but it was a step too far to articulate her need. She nodded, and Andreas leaned over her and claimed her mouth in a slow, drugging kiss that made Isla tremble as anticipation coiled in her belly.

  She watched him strip off his clothes, and the sight of his powerful erection sent a flicker of doubt through her. She was stunned by Andreas’s rampant masculinity and it belatedly occurred to her that she should tell him how inexperienced she was. But if she did, he might stop. Even worse, he might be amused to learn that she was still a virgin at her age. Perhaps he would demand to know why she’d chosen him to be her first lover, and Isla had no answer to that, at least not a logical one. Her sense that she and Andreas were destined to be together would likely horrify him as much as it confused her.

  He opened the bedside drawer, took a condom out of the packet and rolled it down his thick length.

  ‘I...’ Her words died away when he moved over her and claimed her lips in a blatantly erotic kiss that scattered her thoughts. Maybe he sensed her doubts and he lifted his mouth from hers and rested his forehead against her brow.

  ‘If you want to change your mind you have thirty seconds to say so,’ he growled.

  Her brain urged caution but her body clamoured for his possession. The pleasure he’d induced with his fingers had left her wanting more. After years of suppressing her sensuality she had opened Pandora’s Box and released her hungry desire that demanded appeasement. She could feel the swollen tip of Andreas’s manhood press against her opening and her instincts took over and she spread her legs wide. ‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ she whispered. ‘But I need...’

  ‘I know, moro mou. I need this too,’ Andreas muttered. And then it was too late for her to explain what she needed to tell him. He lowered himself onto her and his erection was big and hard, stretching her as he pushed forwards and thrust his way into her.

  Isla had been prepared for pain, but the pinching sensation between her legs was sharper than she’d expected and she drew an audible breath. Almost instantly the pain faded and there was simply a wonderful sense of him filling her—filling her until she could not say where she ended and he began. A complete union—their two bodies joined as one, she thought dazedly as she opened her eyes and met Andreas’s furious gaze.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me?’ Andreas’s jaw tensed as he stared at Isla’s flushed face. She blinked and the dreamy expression in her eyes was replaced with a wariness that added to his sense of guilt. But damn it, she was a beautiful, sensual woman and he would never have guessed that she was a virgin.

  He’d accepted her explanation that she and Stelios were not lovers. Isla had been grieving for her mother and had sought comfort with Stelios, who she had remembered from when he’d briefly been a father figure to her during her childhood. Nevertheless, Andreas hadn’t intended for things to go as far as having sex with Isla tonight. He grimaced. Who was he kidding? he asked himself derisively. He’d wanted her since the day they’d met.

  That kiss in London had blown his mind and he’d been unable to forget her. Even more unsettling was the realisation that his reaction to her was not only on a physical level. He had no idea why he’d told her personal stuff about his difficult relationship with his parents, which he’d never spoken about to anyone before. It was inexplicable that he felt a deeper connection to Isla. The startling discovery that he was her first lover should have appalled him and he did not understand why he felt a possessiveness that was alien to him.

  After his conversation with her in the library he had left the party and headed down to the cottage so that he wouldn’t be tempted to go to her bedroom at the villa. When he’d seen her walking towards him on the beach he’d decided that fate was helping him out.

  ‘I thought you might stop if I admitted it was my first time.’ She shifted beneath him as if she was seeking a more comfortable position. Andreas began to withdraw but hesitated when she stared at him with emotion-filled eyes that set alarm bells ringing in his mind. ‘Are you going to stop?’

  The rippling effect of her internal muscles around his shaft tested his self-control. ‘Do you want me to?’ he growled. Theos, she was so tight and hot. Sweat beaded his brow as he tried to think about anything other than the fact that he was buried deep inside Isla. But he could smell the erotic scent of her arousal, and when she moved again, arching her hips experimentally, he felt as though he would explode.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ For a moment he thought she didn’t want him to continue and he forced himself to start to pull back, but she wrapped her legs around his hips.

  ‘Don’t stop.’ The faintly pleading note in her voice made him forget that having sex with her was a bad idea. There were rules he would expect her to abide by, and having no expectations of him was at the top of the list.

  ‘Fine, but you need to understand...’ He wondered why he’d ever thought her grey eyes were cool. They gleamed like silver rings surrounding the mysterious black pools of her dilated pupils. He was distracted by her lush mouth and his urgency to crush her lips beneath his.

  Andreas tried to marshal his thoughts. Isla needed to understand that sex was all he was offering. If he’d known she was a virgin he would have sent her back to the villa, but now it was too late for regrets or recriminations. They would come later. But his biggest regret was that he’d hurt her and the least he could do now was show her just how pleasurable sex could be and make her first experience one that she would never forget.

  Isla released her breath when Andreas sank between her thighs so that his erection pushed deeper inside her. She had steeled herself for his rejection when he’d discovered she was a virgin. Her conscience pricked that she should have been honest with him. He had been shocked and angry, but his body was still joined with hers and now he began to move carefully, pulling back a little way and pushing forwards in a rocking motion that made her gasp as the ache inside her grew more intense.

  He bent his head to her breast and drew her nipple into his mouth, sending starbursts of sensation shooting through her as he sucked the stiff peak. By the time he transferred his attention to her other nipple she was breathless and trembling. Molten heat swept through her and burned fiercest at her feminine core as Andreas maintained a steady pace, every thrust of his powerful body claiming her at a primitive level, reinforcing the message that she was his and his alone.

  ‘Touch me,’ he muttered. ‘I want to feel your hands on me.’ The rasp of his voice set her nerve endings alight and his intent expression, as if he was only just hanging onto his control, made her wonder what it would be like if that iron control of his cracked.

  She explored his body with her hands, delighting in the feel of his satiny skin beneath her fingertips. She traced a path down his long back to the cleft at the base of his spine while
he moved rhythmically up and down, each thrust of his shaft inside her taking her higher. When she dug her nails into his buttocks he swore softly. ‘Keep doing that, omorfia mou, and this will be over embarrassingly quickly.’

  Could she really do that to him? She felt a thrill of feminine power as she pressed her face into his neck and nipped him with her teeth. His skin tasted of salt and sweat. He said something in Greek and bent his head to kiss her hard on her mouth.

  ‘Witch.’ He slid his hands beneath her bottom and angled her so that when he drove into her it felt deeper and more intense. At the same time he increased his pace, each stroke faster and harder than the one before. Isla stared at his face, at his clenched jaw and the fierce glitter beneath his heavy lids. There was something savage and untamed about him, no tenderness in the way he gripped her hips and plunged into her with devastating authority.

  She felt a frisson of unease as the reality of what she was doing hit her. Andreas was all but a stranger, yet she was lying beneath him and allowing him to take astonishing liberties with her body. Not allowing but relishing, Isla amended with stark honesty. She loved what he was doing to her. The friction he was creating with every bold thrust was building to a crescendo, and now there was a new urgency in his relentless strokes that made her cling to his sweat-damp shoulders while he drove her towards some unknown place that hovered frustratingly out of reach.

  And then, with shocking suddenness, she reached the peak, her body quivering as he held her there for timeless seconds before he drove into her a final time. ‘Now,’ he said harshly. His body was tense and his jaw clenched as if he was fighting an unstoppable force that overwhelmed him. The primitive groan he made as he climaxed increased Isla’s excitement.