The Pregnant Mistress

by Sandra Marton

  “Umm. Nice,” she whispered, her eyes still tightly closed.

  “Very nice,” he whispered back, and drew up the silk duvet.

  She sighed, let out a long breath. He waited until her breathing become slow and steady. Then he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her slightly parted lips.

  Briskly, he undressed and put on a pair of sweat pants in deference to his guest. He turned off all the lights but one that he dimmed, went into his dressing room, left the door open so he could hear Sam should she need him and lay down on the sofa. It was too short for his long legs but he was exhausted and he groaned with pleasure at the cool caress of the sheets. He shut his eyes, rolled over, rolled over again…

  Sleep evaded him. He kept listening for Sam; kept getting up, going into the bedroom, standing over her to make sure she was all right.

  Sometime during the endless hours of the endless night, he heard her moaning. “Sweetheart?” he said, and he threw back the blankets and hurried to her side. She was sitting up, the duvet clutched to her chin, still groggy enough to stare at him blankly.

  “Demetrios?”

  “Yes.” He sat down beside her, stroked a tangle of curls from her forehead. “Do you hurt, gataki?”

  “My ankle feels like an elephant’s sitting on it.”

  Quickly, he brought her one of the tablets the doctor had given him, poured her a glass of cold water.

  “Open your mouth,” he said softly, holding his hand to her lips.

  She took the tablet, her tongue brushing lightly over his palm. A shudder went through him and he cursed himself for being an animal. Only an animal would feel desire now, when she was hurting.

  “That’s good. Now drink some water.”

  She took a sip, sighed and sank back against the pillows. He watched her for a moment before bending to her and brushing a gentle kiss over her mouth.

  “Sleep well, kitten,” he whispered.

  “Stay with me,” she sighed against his lips.

  “Sam. Sam, you’re—you’re as good as drunk…”

  “Stay,” she said softly, and looped her arms around his neck.

  “I cannot,” Demetrios said. “Sweetheart—”

  She was asleep, still holding him, still with her breath sighing from her mouth to his. He stared at her for what seemed forever. Then he drew her arms from his neck, pulled back the duvet and got into bed beside her. She sighed, turned into his open arms and he gathered her close, careful not to touch her injured ankle, careful not to let his body betray him.

  This is torture, he thought. It was worse. It was hell. He would get no sleep this night, but he would see to it that Samantha was safe. He would hold her, protect her, soothe her if she awakened again…

  Demetrios sighed, closed his eyes, slipped his fingers under Sam’s silky hair and cupped the back of her head. She sighed, too, and snuggled against his shoulder.

  It was the last thing he remembered before he fell into a deep, deep sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HERankle hurt.

  Sam moaned, then bit her lip against a whisper of pain.

  It really, really hurt, though maybe not as bad as when she was seven and Billy Riley said she was a girl and girls didn’t have the guts to swing out on the rope over the Nautuck River, and she’d said he was too dumb to know anything about girls—except that her hands slipped and she’d ended up coming down in the shallows, coming down hard. And when Dr. Carter asked how she’d managed to break her leg, she said it was all Billy Riley’s fault and that she was gonna beat him up as soon as the cast came off.

  Then the doctor gave her some medicine and she’d floated away. Just closed her eyes and floated.

  “Sam? Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

  “Mmm.” That was nice. Dr. Carter had his arm around her. It felt good.

  “Sam?”

  “Uh-huh.” She sighed. “I’m floating,” she said happily.

  “Yes, kitten. I know. Does your ankle still hurt?”

  Sam gave a giant yawn. “Uh-huh.”

  “The ice will help bring down the swelling. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more for the pain. You’ve had a reaction to the codeine…Sam?”

  Ice. Ice on her ankle. Heat everyplace else. She was warm. Nice and warm and…

  “Snugly.”

  “Good. That’s my girl. Just lie back against my shoulder.”

  Nice shoulder. Hard and comforting. Sam frowned. How come Dr. Carter smelled so good? He always smelled of mothballs and something her mom called Old Spice…

  “Sam?”

  She didn’t remember Dr. Carter’s voice being like that, either. So low. Husky. Sort of—sort of sexy.

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  Why would she want to do that? She felt fine. Snugly. “Issit still night?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. It is.”

  She sighed, burrowed against the doctor and fell asleep to the feel of his stubbled cheek brushing gently against hers.

  * * *

  She slept, drifted, awoke again. A voice murmured in her ear.

  “Sam? Are you awake?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Does your ankle hurt?”

  Did it? No. She shook her head, burrowed closer. “Thirsty,” she whispered.

  “Sit up, then. Just a little. Fine. Good. Now, take little sips.”

  She drank. The water was cool. Wonderful, going down her throat. Darkness had given way to the gray light of early morning but she didn’t want to get up. Not yet.

  “Doan wanna wake up yet,” she sighed.

  “No. You go on sleeping, gataki. Here, lie—Sam? What are you doing?”

  But he knew what she was doing, turning in his arms so that they lay a breath apart, putting her arms around his neck, giving him the faintest, sweetest of smiles.

  “Demetrios?”

  He nodded, afraid to speak.

  “Demetrios,” she whispered, “you’re not Dr. Carter.”

  He wanted to laugh but he didn’t trust himself. “Who, sweetheart?”

  “Dr. Carter. Mothballs. Liver spots. Ol’ Spice.”

  “No,” he said solemnly, “that isn’t me.”

  “I know.” She touched his face, let her hand linger against his cheek. “I’m glad.”

  Demetrios took her hand from his face, kissed the palm and curled her fingers over the kiss. He wasn’t Dr. Carter, whoever that was. Neither was he a saint. Perhaps the best thing would be to go back to the sofa in the dressing room. A decent man would do so. A moral man…

  “You’re Demetrios,” she murmured. “And you smell good.”

  He groaned. His body was hard as stone. “Sam.” He curled his hand around her wrist, tried to draw back and put a little distance between them. “Sweetheart, now that you feel better, I’m going to—”

  Her mouth, her sweet, soft mouth found his. He hesitated, then gave in to what was happening and kissed her.

  “Sam.” Once again, he thought of how wrong that sweet nickname had seemed, and of how right it now felt on his lips. It was a soft, lovely name, just like her kiss. It belonged to her just as she belonged to him. As she would belong to him. “Sweetheart? Do you know what you’re doing?”

  His question was answered by a gentle snore. Demetrios smiled. His beautiful Sam, his sweetly drunken Sam, had fallen asleep at the worst possible moment—or maybe at the best. Sighing, he gathered her close. Would she remember any of this tomorrow? Would she hate him? Would she want him? And, if she didn’t remember, what was he going to do about it?

  She threw her uninjured leg across his.

  Demetrios could feel the sweat bead on his forehead. He counted to ten in Greek, in English, in every language he knew. Then, carefully, stealthily, he eased Sam onto her back, brushed his mouth over hers, rose from the bed and tiptoed from the room.

  * * *

  Sam opened her eyes.

  The room was filled with sunlight. She was thirsty, her head ached, and her ankle felt as if someone had
used it for an anvil.

  Of course. The rain. The curb. The hospital. And then, what? She frowned. Everything after that was a blank. She couldn’t dredge up so much as an image.

  Well, maybe a couple. Demetrios, carrying her to his car. Demetrios, carrying her into his house. There was more, something hovering just around the edges of her mind. Something about the night. The night, and this bed. And a warm, hard body pressed against hers.

  What kind of crazy dreams had she had? And what was she doing in this room? She sat up against the pillows, ran her fingers through her tangled curls, felt the soft breeze from the partly opened window on her naked skin.

  Naked? She never slept naked. She always wore something. A T-shirt. A cotton nightgown, but all she had on now were her panties.

  Sam grabbed the duvet, drew it to her throat. Then she pushed it down and looked at her ankle. No cast, just an elastic bandage. Good. It wasn’t broken. Probably just a little sprain, she thought, as she swung her legs to the floor…

  “Ah!”

  Pain knifed through the joint the second she put weight on her foot. She’d had sprains before. Were they supposed to hurt this much? She thought back to the last time she’d gone sky diving. Some guy had landed wrong. No break, just a bad sprain, but he’d had to stay off his ankle for days.

  Yes, but she couldn’t just lie here and wait for somebody to come along and tell her what the prognosis was. Why was she in this room? Why was she half naked? How was she supposed to get around?

  Why did she keep thinking about a hard, warm body pressed to hers?

  If only she could remember something. Anything. Something beyond the rain. The car. The hospital. Demetrios, carrying her. To his car. To this bedroom. To this bed.

  “Kaliméra sas.”

  Sam yanked the duvet to her chin again and swung towards the door. “Oh.” She gave a little laugh, told both her heart and her imagination to calm down. “Good morning, Cosimia.”

  The housekeeper smiled. They’d reached a kind of language accommodation over the weeks, a brew made up of the few words of Greek Sam knew, the few words of English Cosimia had acquired, and a lot of body language. It probably sounded and looked weird, but it worked.

  Cosimia lifted her eyebrows, jerked her head towards the bathroom. “Banyío, yes?”

  “I wish the banyío, definitely. But first…” How did you say ‘naked’? “Um, I need something to put on, Cosimia. A robe. Something.”

  Cosimia raised her eyebrows. Sam mimed wrapping herself in the duvet.

  “Clothes?” she said.

  “Ah.” The housekeeper nodded, made motions with her hands. Evidently, her things were being washed.

  “In that case, I hate to ask, but could you go to the guest cottage? Bring me a sweat suit? Jeans? Shorts and a T-shirt?” Nothing. Sam sighed in resignation and mimed slipping her arms into a garment and tying it at her waist. “How about a robe?”

  “Robe,” Cosimia said, and beamed. She went to the closet and took out a navy blue robe. Sam smiled her thanks as she put it on. There was a pair of white terry-cloth robes in the guest cottage. Was she in a guest suite? Was the robe for the convenience of…

  No. Sam froze. Then she lifted the collar and brought it to her nose. This robe belonged to Demetrios. It carried a musky scent mixed with the tang of the sea that she’d come to associate with these islands. It was his smell, and slipping into the robe was like going into his arms.

  His arms, holding her through the long night.

  “Banyío,” Cosimia said politely, “yes?”

  Sam blinked. “Yes, please,” she said, and concentrated on leaning on the housekeeper’s shoulder while she hopped to the bathroom.

  Bathing, washing her hair, then drying it took time. Cosimia fussed; Sam asked questions but unless they were about soap and shampoo and toothpaste, she got no answers. Cosimia’s English and her Greek couldn’t seem to cover the night just past. The housekeeper shrugged her shoulders until, finally, Sam gave up.

  “Okay,” she said, while Cosimia brushed her hair as she sat on a vanity stool, “never mind. What I need now is a cane. A cane,” she said, looking up. “You know…” She curled her hand over an imaginary handle and tapped the equally imaginary tip of a cane against the tile floor. “A cane, so I can go downstairs.”

  “Ah.” Cosimia shook her head. “You stay, please.”

  An entire sentence, more or less, but not one Sam wished to hear. “I don’t want to stay here,” she said patiently.

  “Mr. Karas—”

  “Yes. I know. But Mr. Karas doesn’t make rules for me, Cosimia.”

  “He say—”

  “Never mind,” Sam said, through her teeth. “House arrest,” she mumbled, as she hobbled back to bed with Cosimia’s help.

  “Kahfeh, yes?”

  “Yes. If you’re sure I’m permitted coffee. I mean, shouldn’t you check with Mr. Karas?”

  Cosimia looked blank. Sam sighed and grasped her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault you work for a dictator. Yes, please. Coffee would be lovely.”

  Coffee turned out to be breakfast. Juice, toast, fruit, eggs, bacon. Sam ignored everything but the toast and the coffee. Cosimia had brought two cups. Did that mean the Great Man himself was going to put in an appearance? Was she supposed to wait for his permission to leave this room?

  The hell with that.

  Sam lifted the tray from her lap, put it on the nightstand and took a long look around her. Bed, nightstand, chair, dresser. She could make it from one piece of furniture to the other, then to the door, and figure out the rest when she had to deal with it.

  She flung back the blanket, stood up and balanced carefully on her good leg. Yes. It would work. She was not helpless. Did Demetrios think she would be? Was he still ticked off because she’d walked out instead of taking his orders? And had he forgotten he’d arranged a meeting for this morning? She remembered that, clearly enough. She remembered everything that had gone on in those last humiliating minutes in the conference room, how he’d barked at her, how he’d—

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Sam let out a thin shriek, swung towards the door, overbalanced, windmilled her arms and toppled backwards. Demetrios cursed, sprang towards her and caught her just before she went down.

  “You are an impossible woman,” he said furiously. “And you cannot be trusted.”

  “I’m impossible?” Sam shot back. “That’s great, coming from you. I wake up in a strange bed, in a strange room, my ankle trussed up like a—a lamb chop ready for the skillet, with no clothes, no cane, no way to so much as get from the bed to the bathroom on my own, and I’m impossible?” She glared at him. “Please put me down.”

  “With pleasure.”

  He dropped her onto the bed, put his hands on his hips and eyed her coldly. So much for the sweet, soft woman who’d sighed in his arms last night.

  “I regret the accommodations aren’t to your liking, Miss Brewster. It was the best I could do on short notice. Next time, perhaps, you might consider announcing that you intend to sprain your ankle in advance.”

  “Oh, that’s really funny.” Sam huffed out a breath, folded her arms and considered the situation. “I suppose,” she said grudgingly, “I should thank you.”

  “For what? The fact that you feel like a lamb chop? Please, don’t bother.”

  “Look, maybe I went overboard just now. The thing is, I—I was feeling a little sorry for myself. And then you came into the room and scared the dickens out of me.” She sighed, looked up. “And—and—”

  “And?” Demetrios demanded, but Sam’s brain had stopped functioning.

  She’d never seen him like this, casually dressed in faded jeans and a snug, equally faded black T-shirt. His feet were shoved into a pair of moccasins that looked as if they’d been around for quite a while. His dark hair was damp, his jaw was shadowed with stubble, and not even the glower on his face could change the fact that he was early morning go
rgeous.

  Or that memories were returning. Demetrios, his hands on her skin. His breath mingling with hers. His arms holding her close…

  “And?” he said again.

  “And,” she said slowly, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have snapped your head off.”

  Nothing changed in the way he was looking at her, not for what seemed forever. Then, gradually, a smile began at the corners of his mouth.

  “Apology accepted.” He nodded at the tray on the nightstand. “I thought we could have our coffee together.”

  “Don’t you have a meeting this morning?”

  “I canceled it. How do you feel?”

  “Better. Well, my ankle’s not good enough to walk on, but—”

  “No walking. The doctor says you’re to stay off that ankle for a couple of days. It needs time to heal.”

  “The thing is…” She hesitated. “The thing is…I don’t seem to be able to remember much about last night.”

  Was she imagining things or did two bands of pink suddenly stripe his cheeks? “There isn’t much to remember,” he said briskly. “Is that coffee still hot?”

  “I’m sure it is. But—”

  He sat down beside her on the bed, his thigh just brushing hers. There were layers between them, her robe and his jeans; there was the silk duvet and its matching top sheet, but she could feel the point of their contact burn like a hot iron. Carefully, she drew her leg away from his.

  He poured his coffee, topped off hers, and smiled at her. “Cosimia has made you comfortable?”

  “Is this your room?”

  “You have a habit of answering a question with a question.”

  “Is it?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, what? Why are you here and not in the cottage?” He shrugged, drank some of his coffee. “It seemed unwise to leave you alone in case your ankle troubled you during the night. That turned out to be a good idea, because you had a strong reaction to the medication the doctor gave you.”

  “Reaction?” Now her loss of memory was beginning to make sense. “Was it codeine?”

  He nodded, gave her a little smile. “It made you drunk.”