The Santorini Bride

by Anne McAllister

  Martha rubbed the towel across his back, down his spine, over the hard curve of his buttocks and down his legs. They were as strong and hard-muscled as his arms.

  She could understand now why any magazine reporter just looking at the physical Theo Savas would call him “the world’s sexiest sailor.” He would only have had to bare his body and the contest was won. Was that what he had done? Had they seen him nude? Her heart caught in her throat.

  She crouched down and ran the towel down hair-roughened legs, then up again along the backs of his thighs. Down and up. Up and down. He shifted his feet. She ran the towel along the insides of his thighs.

  Was that a hiss of breath between his teeth?

  Martha swallowed. Then, “Turn,” she directed him.

  Theo turned.

  She was staring straight at—

  “I think that’s dry enough.” His voice was a harsh rasp. And abruptly she was hauled to her feet, the towel was tossed aside, and the next thing Martha knew, Theo had scooped her into his arms and was carrying her out of the bath and straight to his bed.

  She felt another moment’s gratitude that he had so thoroughly eradicated all signs of her parents. She wasn’t sure she could have gone to bed with Theo if it had been their bed. But thank heaven—and Theo—every trace of Aeolus and Helena Antonides was gone.

  The room was pure Theo. If pure was a word you could ever use with Theo Savas, she thought, a smile touching her mouth.

  But she didn’t have time to ponder that further as he flicked off the lamp and came to drop down on the bed beside her. The room was lit by the moonlight spilling through the open window so she could still see him, silver and shadow, as he lay on his side next to her. She felt his hand come to brush over her hair, then down her arm. Then he leaned toward her and began to kiss her ear, her neck, her shoulder.

  And then it began again—the slow escalation of passion, the tender touches, the light strokes, the nibbles and kisses. And again her blood heated, her need grew. She shifted, moaned. Her fingers lifted. She wanted to touch him, but she didn’t know if she dared.

  “Touch me,” Theo said, his voice ragged.

  And eagerly, Martha did. It was like being given permission to have whatever she wanted in the candy store. She touched him lightly at first, a little uncertain as she began to learn the contours of his body that was so different from her own.

  When she began a new mural on a surface she had never worked with before, she had to experiment, had to learn how it accepted the paint, how to apply the colors, how to achieve the effect she desired. It was like that now. She was touching, nibbling, stroking, learning his responses as she learned in her work.

  Theo was more responsive than wood, than plaster, than brick, than anything Martha had ever painted. She could make Theo groan. She could make his body tremble with need, could make his muscles tense, could make him bite his lip as he attempted to rein in his passion, to control his desire.

  Martha didn’t want him to control it. She wanted him to lose control just as she had in the shower. She wanted to bring him the same pleasure he had brought her.

  And so she became bolder. Her hands found him, stroked him, touched him—until he could stand it no longer.

  And suddenly he was over her, sliding between her legs and plunging in and—

  Martha stiffened in shock.

  And so did Theo.

  At her body’s sudden resistance, he went rigid and—for an instant—absolutely still. Even in the moonlight his astonished, incredulous expression was one she would never forget for the rest of her life.

  And then it was replaced by one of desperation, as he could no more control his expression than he could control the need that swamped him.

  She knew he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. Which he probably did, but it was too late. Theo shattered in her just the way she had shattered in the shower.

  And then, still trembling, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet, glaring down at her and demanding furiously, “What the hell d’you think you were doing?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “YOU’RE a virgin!” He was outraged. Apoplectic.

  Martha shoved her hair out of her face, looked up at him and stated the obvious. “Not anymore.”

  She sounded perfectly calm and matter-of-fact, as if she gave away her most precious gift every day of the week!

  Theo wanted to strangle her.

  “You know what I mean,” he snapped. He reached over and flicked on the lamp to glare at her in the full brunt of its light.

  Martha blinked and pushed herself up in the bed, dragging the sheet up around her breasts. To preserve her modesty? Theo thought sarcastically. What modesty?

  She certainly hadn’t been modest in the shower. Or in bed! She had been a complete wanton, welcoming his touch, giving herself over to it. And, damn it, she had touched him in return!

  And all the while she’d been a virgin!

  And now she was looking at him as if he were the crazy person, while she sat there acting completely cool and unconcerned—as if it didn’t matter in the slightest that she had just given him what no other woman in his life had ever given him!

  He pointed a finger at her. “You lied!”

  She hauled herself up against the headboard and glared right back at him. “I did not!”

  “Did so!” So what if they sounded like two squabbling children? “You said you wanted three weeks of mind-blowing sex!”

  “Yes. And? What’s wrong with that?”

  “You’re a virgin! Were a virgin,” he corrected himself angrily.

  “And virgins aren’t entitled to mind-blowing sex?”

  He opened his mouth. And closed his mouth. And then he said what he’d been going to say in the first place.

  “No, damn it, they’re not! They’re not supposed to come on to men they don’t even know. They’re not supposed to…to proposition them!” He flung the accusation at her.

  “I didn’t. You’re the one who propositioned me.”

  “The hell I—”

  “You did. You’re the one who told me I had to pretend to be having an affair with you. You’re the one who wanted to lie.”

  Theo ground his teeth. “It’s not the same thing!”

  “No, it’s not, because I didn’t lie. I was just doing what you wanted—and making it the truth. Besides, I’m not complaining. I wanted to have an affair. I still do.”

  He stared at her. She lifted her chin and met his gaze defiantly. But when his narrowed on her, she finally had the grace to turn her head and look away.

  “You’re nuts.” She had to be. No woman just threw away her virginity. Did she?

  Theo frowned, trying to figure it out. Trying to figure her out. It wasn’t working. She wasn’t answering. She was staring off into the middle distance avoiding his gaze. He raked a hand through his hair, still agitated, his body still dealing with the release—and the shock.

  Finally, when she didn’t speak, he had to ask. “Why?”

  She lifted her shoulders in a determinedly negligent shrug and flicked him a quick gaze. “Why not?”

  Her tone was still cool and indifferent. But there was an edginess to it, an undercurrent that told him, just like the surface of the sea sometimes told him, of things hidden beneath it that he couldn’t see but were very definitely there.

  What was under Martha Antonides’s surface?

  What the hell was going on?

  He sighed, reached over and snagged a clean pair of boxers from the top of the bureau and yanked them on. So they could both be modest, he thought grimly, while they sorted this out.

  Then he sat down in the armchair, keeping his distance and asked with deliberate casualness, “Maybe we should talk about this.”

  “Nothing to talk about.” She had her knees drawn up beneath the sheet and her arms wrapped around them. She stared across the room away from him. It was as if she’d wrapped herself in an invisible shield.

  Theo studied her
silently. She looked terrifyingly young and defenseless, and the notion made him worried and angry at the same time. He didn’t do complications, damn it. And Martha Antonides was fast becoming the most complicated woman he’d ever met.

  He drew a careful, deliberate breath and tried again. “Right. You just wanted to throw you virginity away on some mindless meaningless sex?” So he couldn’t quite control the sarcasm. She had it coming.

  And he got a response. Her head whipped around, hair flying as she nailed him with a furious glare. “It wasn’t meaningless to me!”

  The color was high in her face. Her fingers strangled the sheet. And then, as the implications of her own words hit her, she began to qualify them rapidly.

  “I mean, you’re right, of course. In one sense, it was meaningless. It was sex! It had nothing to do with love. With caring. With connections. I know that. I didn’t expect it to! Didn’t want it to! I just—just—” She stopped, then she looked straight at him, her eyes wide and full of dark fire and even darker defiance. There was a long silence, and then at last she said flatly, “I knew what I was doing.”

  Theo believed her.

  Whatever she’d been up to, she obviously thought she had it all worked out.

  He let out a slow, easy breath. “Well, bully for you. But I don’t know what the hell you were doing,” he told her levelly. “And I was part of it. So why don’t you explain it to me.”

  For ages she didn’t speak, didn’t even seem to hear him as she huddled under the sheet, shield-wrapped and distracted. She didn’t even seem to be thinking about him. She pressed her lips together in a thin line and rested her chin on her drawn-up knees.

  With her wild hair and her high color, she looked as wanton as she’d been in his arms. How was he supposed to know she was an innocent? She wasn’t looking at him again. She was chewing on her lip and lacing her fingers together. Still she didn’t speak.

  Theo wondered if she ever would and how he was going to get answers out of her if she chose not to.

  But finally, still not looking at him, she said in a low, offhand tone, “I decided that it was time to find out what all the hoopla was about.”

  He frowned. “Hoopla?”

  “About sex,” she said impatiently, eyes flashing his way again. “Why it’s so damn important.” Her tone was disparaging, making it sound as if it wasn’t.

  “I see.”

  He didn’t. He didn’t have a clue. She was talking nonsense. Or if she wasn’t, she sure wasn’t making sense to him.

  “Go on,” he said when she didn’t. Maybe eventually he’d get a clue.

  “Why it matters more than relationships.” She bit the words off angrily. He could hear the undercurrent of emotion. And as she spoke, her chin lifted again, and their gazes collided for a moment before once again, she was staring out toward the window into the darkness.

  “Does it?” he ventured, not quite there yet.

  “Of course it does,” she spat. “You don’t want a relationship! You said so!”

  “No, but I’m not everybody.”

  “Well, your name is legion,” she said bitterly. She swallowed hard and he could see her lashes flutter rapidly.

  Oh, hell. She wasn’t going to cry, was she?

  Theo lurched out of the chair and came to sit on the bed beside her. “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, it isn’t worth crying about. Don’t cry!”

  Martha sniffed and blinked even faster. “I’m not crying!”

  “Of course you’re not,” Theo said gravely, watching a tear slide down her cheek.

  Martha swiped at it furiously. “Oh shut up. Damn it, I hate this!” She flung the sheet aside and started to scramble out of the bed.

  Theo grabbed her, feeling her warm, smooth satiny skin and experiencing a renewed stab of desire that irritated him, even as he held her fast. “Stop it! Where are you going?”

  She struggled briefly against his strength. But Theo didn’t haul rigging and heavy sails for a living to be tossed aside like unwanted bedding, and after a moment she slumped against the pillows again and grabbed the sheet, scrubbing it fiercely against her face.

  “That’s better,” he said, but he still didn’t let go of her.

  She looked at him over the top of the crumpled sheet. “I am not crying,” she said firmly. “He’s not worth it!”

  Well, finally they were getting somewhere.

  What had she said earlier? Something about there being one man less likely than him she would ever look at? Well, whoever he was, the bastard had a lot to answer for.

  “No, he’s not,” Theo agreed readily.

  Any jerk who had treated her so badly that she was ready to jump into bed with the next man down the pike was a devil indeed. And Theo felt suddenly cold at the thought of all the men who, given the opportunity, would have taken advantage of her. He didn’t dwell too long on his own behavior in the circumstances.

  “Did he dump you?”

  She sniffled. “No. Not exactly. Well, yes. You could say that.” She grimaced and gave a dry harsh laugh, then pushed her hair out of her face. “God,” she groaned and shut her eyes. “I am such a fool.”

  Yeah, probably. But he wasn’t saying it out loud.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  If she told him it was none of his business, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Probably it wasn’t. But he wanted to know. His initial fury at Martha was waning.

  If Agnetta had failed to tell him she was a virgin (and what a joke that would have been) he would have been correct in putting it down to subterfuge. Agnetta did nothing that wasn’t calculated to get her own way.

  But Martha Antonides seemed to have no guile at all.

  She might well be a fool. It was certain she was a bloody innocent. Or she had been half an hour ago, he berated himself savagely. Now he sat still and resisted the urge to shake the story out of her.

  She was watching him warily from beneath her lids, so he clung to his patience and simply sat there, determined to wait her out.

  Finally she sighed. “I had a boyfriend,” she said tonelessly, still staring away into the darkness. “Or—” her mouth twisted “—I thought I did. We’d been going out since around the first of the year. In New York. I live in New York City except when I’m somewhere else working.”

  “Working?” He tried to imagine what sort of work she did that required her to travel. She didn’t seem like a model. She didn’t have the self-absorption that Agnetta and Cassandra had. Nor did she act like a high-powered businesswoman.

  “I’m a muralist,” she explained.

  “A muralist? You paint walls?”

  “I paint on walls. Mostly in New York, but not always. If I get a commission, I go wherever the work is. The past month I’ve been in South Carolina. And all the time I was gone, all I thought about was getting home to Julian.”

  “The boyfriend.”

  “The ex-boyfriend, as it turns out. We had been, I guess you’d say, in a sort of a ‘holding pattern.’ I mean, he wanted—” she hesitated, her cheeks looking suddenly more flushed “—well, he wanted what most men want.” She shot him a quick, edgy look out of the corner of her eye.

  “Sex,” Theo translated.

  Martha pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes. He would have jumped into bed on our first date. I wouldn’t. I didn’t. I don’t believe in that. Didn’t,” she corrected herself.

  “And then you had a change of heart,” Theo said dryly.

  She shot him a hard look, but finally she shrugged and gave a jerky nod. “Yes. But before—when I was with Julian—I thought sex should be a part of love, that it should be an expression of love. That that’s all it should be. See,” she said bitterly, hugging her knees more tightly, “I really am a sap.”

  What she really was, was confusing.

  “It can be,” Theo protested, feeling awkward. “An expression of…love, I mean.”

  He didn’t say the
word love easily. Hadn’t in years. But yes, once, he, too, had believed in it. He’d seen his parents’ marriage, after all. They had been married over thirty-five years now—and had had sex at least five times. He and his four siblings were evidence of it. Still, it made him uncomfortable to think about them that way.

  “I know it can be,” Martha agreed. “But sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Of course not.” He knew that well enough. “But damn it, you didn’t warn me!” Theo was annoyed that now she was going to blame him! “You said—”

  “I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about bloody Julian! I was in South Carolina for a month and I missed him! We talked on the phone every night. Almost every night,” she corrected herself. “Sometimes I didn’t get ahold of him because he’d be working late. Or I thought he was working late,” she said after a moment, apparently considering the possibility that there might be another explanation for his absence. “He’s a lawyer,” she went on.

  “Let’s kill all the lawyers,” Theo quoted lightly.

  Martha nodded. “But I didn’t know that then. I thought I was in love with him. I missed him. I learned that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Or I thought it did. Obviously the reverse is true, too.”

  “Out of sight—”

  “Out of mind.” She nodded. “Which was apparently how it worked for Julian.”

  “Bloody Julian,” Theo reminded her.

  “Yes.” She sniffed again and rubbed the side of her nose with the sheet. “I finished the mural almost a week early. I worked hours and hours so I could get done faster than I’d anticipated. I really wanted to get back to see him. I was going to surprise him, turn up at his apartment and tell him I’d made up my mind. That I knew the truth now. That I was…ready.” Again the color in her cheeks heightened. She strangled the sheet. “And so I did.”

  She didn’t have to go on. Theo could see it coming—like watching an accident about to happen.

  “When I got there, he was in the shower—with someone else.”

  Theo felt a stab of sympathy for her, imagining how stricken she must have been. She still was. She seemed to hold her breath then, for an eon, and then she turned and looked straight at him. She even mustered a watery smile. But she couldn’t hide the disillusion in her eyes. Or the pain in her heart.