The World's Most Notorious Greek (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jackie Ashenden

  Willow looked up at him, still dazed, meeting his eyes gone gas-flame blue. And she opened her mouth to tell him how amazing he was and how wonderful he’d made her feel, when he pushed himself off her abruptly and stepped out through the double doors that led to the terrace before she could say a word.

  Willow blinked, a cold feeling shifting in her gut.

  Had he not liked it? Had it been disappointing? Had she been too demanding? Too difficult? She’d forgotten herself since getting on the plane, hadn’t she? She was supposed to be much more distant and self-contained, but she’d asked too many questions, had talked too much. And then she’d been demanding when she’d got here too. Had kissed him with too much hunger, been too needy.

  You ruined it. Like you always do.

  She’d tried that day, years ago. She’d worked hard for the marks she’d managed to get that summer, but school had always been tough for her, because she didn’t like to sit still. She’d showed her father that she’d managed to get a B plus in Biology, and she’d thought he’d be pleased. That finally she’d done something right. But he’d told her it wasn’t good enough, that he expected better and why hadn’t she’d tried harder?

  And that was the problem. She’d tried so hard and it still hadn’t been good enough for him. Nothing she ever did had been good enough for him. So she’d lost her temper. She’d grabbed the photo of her mother that was on his desk, the only one he had of her and which he treasured. She’d ripped it out of its frame and torn it into pieces, because she’d wanted to hurt him as he’d hurt her. His cold veneer had cracked apart then as he’d rushed to the fireplace, futilely trying to grab at the pieces of the photograph. ‘No...no...’ he’d whispered hoarsely. ‘Not that one... It’s all I have left...’

  She had hurt him. She’d hurt him badly.

  Then he’d raised a hand to his head and collapsed.

  It had been her temper that had caused the stroke, she had no doubt. If she hadn’t ripped up the photograph, he wouldn’t have been in such emotional pain and so perhaps wouldn’t have collapsed.

  Maybe it was the same here. Something had made Achilles leave suddenly, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her, and it was bound to be something she’d done wrong, because she always did something wrong.

  Willow slowly got off the couch. Just before she’d felt as if someone had opened up a bottle of champagne inside her, the bubbles fizzing and filling her with effervescence and light. Now she felt raw and bruised and cold.

  Perhaps she needed to go and have a shower or something, rather than to follow Achilles.

  That’s it, run into the forest the way you always do.

  When her father had locked her out of the house, she’d always run into the woods around Thornhaven and disappeared into them, going where the trees didn’t mind if she was loud or asked too many questions. The silence of the forest calmed her, though it had never made her feel less lonely. She’d used to make up all kinds of friends in the forest, a boy who would play chase with her and fight dragons with her. A boy who became a prince when she got older. She would sometimes be his knight or his friend. Sometimes she would be his princess and sometimes he saved her. Sometimes she saved him.

  But he never told her to ‘go away’. And he never told her to ‘leave me alone’.

  Except there were no forests here and running away wouldn’t solve anything. She’d learned that the hard way.

  The salty evening breeze came through the open double doors, carrying with it the heat of the day, and it wasn’t cold. But still Willow shivered. She looked around for something to wrap around herself, since she was still naked, but her gown lay outside on the terrace where Achilles had stripped it from her.

  Her veil though was on the tiled floor next to the couch, so she picked it up, shaking out the flowers that had fallen from her hair and wrapping the beautiful gilt lace around her. It wasn’t much of a covering, but it was better than nothing.

  Then she stepped out onto the terrace.

  The sea lapped against the sheer cliffs below, the dark outline of Achilles’ tall, broad figure set starkly against the blue sky. He had his back to her, his hands thrust in the pockets of his suit trousers.

  He looked so unapproachable, so complete and self-contained that for a second she couldn’t bear to disturb him. Her father had hated her doing that, after all. And besides, what did it matter what she’d done to make him walk away?

  ‘If you think that constitutes a wedding night,’ he said without turning around, his beautiful voice roughened, ‘then you can think again.’

  She hadn’t made a sound, so she had no idea how he’d known she was there, and for a second she didn’t understand what he’d said. Because he wanted more? Was that what he was saying?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, her own voice not much better than his. ‘I don’t know what I did wrong, but I—’

  ‘Why are you sorry?’ He turned abruptly, his gaze meeting hers, rooting her to the spot. ‘And you didn’t do anything wrong.’

  Willow tried to find her usual cool, but for some reason it had vanished. There was a hot, burning expression in his eyes, the lines of his perfect face taut. He was so still and yet there was a tension in that stillness; the panther ready either to pounce or to vanish back into the jungle.

  She had done something wrong, though, hadn’t she? He wouldn’t have shoved himself off the couch so quickly otherwise, surely?

  ‘But you left.’ She clutched the lace of her veil more tightly around her. ‘Why? Was it because I was too...d-demanding? I know I’m not—’

  He cursed, something low and filthy in Greek, stopping the words in her throat.

  Then he moved, crossing the space between them in a lithe, fluid movement that had her heart suddenly racing, making her very acutely aware that the only thing protecting her modesty was a length of hugely expensive lace.

  He stopped in front of her, his gaze holding hers. ‘It wasn’t you, Willow.’

  ‘Then...what?’ She searched his face, looking for clues.

  ‘I had plans when it came to you. And those plans did not include tearing your dress from you and taking you on the couch like a damn animal.’ He lifted a hand and thrust it through his hair in an unfamiliar, agitated movement. ‘That was not how your first time was supposed to go.’ He cursed again, his gaze narrowing. Then he stepped forward, reaching out to her and drawing her close, searching her face. ‘Are you all right? Did I hurt you?’

  He was so warm, his hands gentle on her hips. But she remembered his intensity, remembered the hunger of his kiss, the raw demand of it. The way he’d thrust inside her without hesitation, possessive and rough.

  It shook her with longing right down to her soul.

  ‘No,’ she said thickly. ‘No, you didn’t hurt me.’

  He lifted both hands and cupped her face, frowning at her as if he couldn’t quite believe her. ‘Are you sure?’ His thumbs stroked her cheekbones, a gentle, almost tender touch that made Willow shiver. ‘You make me so hungry, Diana. And I thought I had better control over myself than that. But apparently not where you are concerned.’

  So. He’d lost control and she, the woman who’d never been what anyone, not even her own father, had wanted, had made him lose it.

  The cold inside her melted away.

  She stared up at him, leaning into his palms and the gentle stroke of his thumbs. ‘I don’t care. And I lost a little bit of control myself, too, if you must know.’

  His gaze was enigmatic, whatever thoughts he had locked securely away behind the walls in his eyes. And she could see those walls. They were metres thick. And of course her insatiable curiosity immediately wanted to know what was behind them, what he was hiding from her, even though she shouldn’t.

  She shouldn’t want to know anything about her unexpectedly passionate husband and yet she did. Not that she didn’t kno
w things about him already, about his parents and his long dead older brother...

  His thumb moved gently on her skin again and her thoughts scattered in a whirl of sparks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have walked away like that. But you surprised me. You shocked me and I thought I was unshockable.’

  She blinked. ‘But...why?’

  His thumbs paused, the look on his face intensifying. ‘Because I have never wanted anyone as badly as I wanted you.’

  Her pulse gathered speed, the muscular heat of his body warming her straight through. The lace of her veil was scratchy on her skin and she wanted his hands there instead.

  And maybe he knew that. Maybe he could see, because one hand on her cheek spread out in a slow movement, sliding down over her jaw and her neck to rest in the hollow of her throat. The tips of his fingers pressed lightly against her pulse, measuring it. Feeling the pace of her desire.

  The blue of his eyes had gone the deep, inky black of midnight, and just as dark and mysterious. ‘Shall we try that again?’ His voice had become darker too, roughened and hungry-sounding. ‘Slower this time?’

  ‘I don’t need slow.’ She was shivering again, leaning into the hard strength of his body. ‘I just need you.’

  But something in his gaze flared in response and one corner of his beautiful mouth turned up. ‘In that case, you shall have me.’

  He didn’t grab her this time, though. Instead he picked her up in his arms and went into the house, carrying her up the wide staircase and into a bedroom that had windows everywhere facing the sea and a huge white bed.

  There was champagne on ice in a bucket near a low white sofa, and glasses on a low table near by. And rose petals glowing like rubies on the sheets.

  Achilles laid her on the bed and then he stepped back, pulling his own clothes off until he was as naked as she was. As naked as he’d been that day beside the lake. She couldn’t help herself then, shrugging off the lace of her veil and slipping off the bed, going to him.

  The sunset poured through the windows, outlining every perfect muscle of him in brilliant gold, and when she put her hands on him he didn’t move, allowing her to explore. To touch the wide, muscled plane of his chest and then the hard corrugations of his stomach. The powerful contours of his arms and the lean shape of his waist. His skin was golden and smooth and velvety, and when she pressed her mouth to it he tasted salty and delicious.

  His fingers pushed into her hair, cupping the back of her head as she kissed down his chest, her hand stroking lower, finding the hard length of him hot and powerful. She touched him, stroked him, watching the flex and release of his muscles in response to her touch.

  He was mesmerising. She wanted to go down on her knees and worship him, but he stopped her, pulling her close instead, his mouth hungry on hers. He didn’t let her protest. Instead, he picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her out on the mattress, then moving over her. He kissed her deeply, making her moan, and then his mouth went lower, to her throat, tasting her skin the way she’d tasted his.

  Willow shut her eyes as he kissed down her chest to her breasts, his tongue on her nipple, teasing her. She gasped and arched up, her hands in his hair. ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘Achilles.’

  The heat of his mouth closed around her nipple, the pressure drawing a moan from her. She sighed again, arching higher. ‘More, please, more.’

  ‘If this is you being demanding then you’ll have to do better than that, my Diana,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps you need some more provocation. Allow me to provide it.’ And before she could respond he moved to the other breast, his hot mouth covering her nipple and sucking lightly on it.

  Another raw sound escaped her as sensation burst through her in a bright glitter, like sparks against her skin. And, though a reflexive concern rippled through her, she ignored it. Because she’d lost control of herself downstairs and it had been okay. He’d pushed away from her, but it hadn’t been her fault.

  It was because he wanted her. Who had ever wanted her the way he had?

  No one.

  So she did nothing as he moved down further, easing her thighs apart. And when his wicked tongue found the beating heart of her, she gave herself up to the sensation completely.

  Pleasure glittered in her blood, sparks of electricity winding everywhere as his fingers spread her wider, his tongue exploring deeper. She moaned, arching her back and lifting her hips, forgetting herself. Forgetting herself utterly.

  ‘Scream for me, Diana,’ he whispered against her shivering flesh. ‘I want to know exactly how much you like me doing this to you.’

  All her concerns fell away, everything subsumed by the pleasure he was giving her. By the touch of his fingers and tongue. And then suddenly everything was drawing tight inside her and the climax hit her like an earthquake, and she did scream, his name echoing off the walls around them.

  He didn’t stop.

  She was still shivering and half blind with the effects of her orgasm as he settled himself between her thighs. And when he pushed into her, there was only that sense of perfect rightness. Of a completion she’d only ever found in the woods, where she could be herself and be free.

  His body on hers was a glory, the heat of him and the slight prickle of hair. His hardness against her softness. Everything about him different and yet the hunger in his eyes was the same as the hunger in hers.

  She lifted her arms around him, arched against him, encouraging him. He slid deeper inside her.

  ‘Every night,’ he said in a low, rough voice, the intensity of him shivering through her. ‘You and I just like this. Every night. Do you agree?’

  She was lost in the pleasure, lost in him. And right in that moment she would have agreed to anything, especially when it concerned more of him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said huskily. ‘I do.’

  It could have been triumph that flickered across his beautiful face. Or it could have been pleasure. It was certainly satisfaction.

  Then as he moved there was nothing but pleasure and the long fall that came after it.

  Achilles had never spent much time with a lover and so he had nothing to compare being with Willow to. He’d thought they’d probably spend the entire week having sex and sleeping, sharing meals and then more sex, with a couple of swims thrown in for good measure.

  He didn’t think that there would be more.

  After that first day, she wasn’t shy and she didn’t hold back. She made no secret of her hunger for his touch or that she enjoyed the pleasure he gave her. She was as passionate as he’d thought, the hot coal of that passion igniting every time he was around, which gratified him on basically every level there was.

  And as the days passed and they spent them making love on every available surface, or eating delicious food that was brought in and left for them by his staff, or talking about nothing of consequence, he began to realise what he’d already suspected: that the cool, contained woman she’d been back in England was a lie.

  That energy he’d sensed in her, bright and fizzing yet locked down, burst to the surface like champagne bubbles in a glass. She wanted to talk to him about a great many subjects and asked questions constantly, wanting to know his opinion and why and how he formed it. One day she wanted to walk around the entire island and hear about all the different kinds of trees and plants that grew on it, so he hired a local to answer her questions, since he didn’t know the answers himself. The next day she wanted to explore the beach and the coast, again full of questions, and again he hired another local to answer them.

  She liked to argue with him and, since he liked to argue too, they had a great many very vocal disagreements that both of them enjoyed, and which always ended the same way: with both of them naked and him inside her.

  Her bright energy was fascinating to him. He’d been a serious, studious child, always with his head in a book
, and he’d known that if he’d met her as a boy he would have been just as fascinated with her then as he was now. She would have dragged him from his books, would have taken him off for adventures in the woods, and he would have followed, helpless to do anything else. Drawn by her effervescent spark.

  A few days later they were beside the pool built into the cliffside. Willow was naked, lying on her front on the sun lounger. He’d braided her lovely hair into a long plait down her back, weaving flowers into it, because he liked it when there were flowers in her hair. Her long, golden body was divine in the lazy, liquid heat of the late afternoon, her eyes molten as she gazed at him from the pillow on the white linen sun lounger.

  She was a goddess like this. His goddess. A possessive thought and one he allowed himself because she was his now. In every way.

  He leaned over, running a lazy hand down her elegant back, her skin silky and hot and slick with the sunscreen he’d put on it only a couple of minutes earlier.

  ‘You’re made for Greece,’ he said. ‘For sun and good food and sex. How did you ever survive the cold and rain of Yorkshire?’

  She arched under his touch like a cat being stroked. It was strange how the electricity that leapt between them hadn’t decreased in any way since they’d been together. He would have thought it would, but it hadn’t. If anything it had become stronger, a deeper, more intense pull.

  It had made him rethink his initial ‘separate lives’ idea. That maybe, when they returned home, they could spend more time together.

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t so bad.’ Her voice was husky with sex and sun. ‘Dad used to shut me out of the house, so I would always take off into the woods around Thornhaven. I made up a whole lot of friends to have adventures with.’

  Achilles frowned as he stroked down her back again. ‘He shut you out of the house?’

  She sighed. ‘Remember that I told you I was difficult? Well, I was. Always asking questions, always wanting his attention. I was demanding and I hated it when he ignored me. I used to throw the most terrible temper tantrums.’ Her golden lashes had drifted closed. ‘So he’d shut me out of the house and wouldn’t let me back inside until I was quiet. It was good in a way. I found the woods didn’t care if I had a temper tantrum.’