by Lynne Graham
Standing up, she reached her hands round her back to unzip her wedding dress.
Halfway out of the garment, she heard the door open. She spun round, words of angry rebuke on her lips at that unannounced entrance. As her gown slithered downward, she arrested its progress by spreading her fingers in a frantic movement. Without it she would have been bare to the waist, for the stiffly boned bodice had made the wearing of a bra superfluous.
Nik was lodged one step inside the door, which still stood ajar behind him.
Her mouth ran dry. Her mind went blank. She just gaped at him.
'I came to ask if you were planning to join me for dinner,' Nik drawled in a curiously hoarse undertone.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Dinner?' Olympia queried shakily.
'In fifteen minutes...' Nik extended.
His attention was one hundred per cent welded to her. And, involuntarily, Olympia returned the compliment. Nik looked sensational, sleek and elegant as a jungle cat and intrinsically exotic. His black dinner jacket outlined his broad shoulders, well-cut trousers shaping his narrow hips and long powerful thighs with a smooth fidelity of fit that came only with the attention of a master tailor and the richest, smoothest cloth.
Exclusive, sexy, intensely male. She couldn't block him out any more. She couldn't drag her eyes from his lean, dark, devastating face. But then all women noticed Nik, turning their heads for a second lingering glance, often staring. His superb bone structure, level black brows and high cheekbones were matched to a- narrow-bridged blade of a nose and a sculpted, sensual mouth that was pure temptation. But it was those molten gold eyes accentuated by the luxuriant fringe of spiky ebony lashes that stopped her heart dead in its tracks.
'Fifteen minutes...’ Olympia repeated unevenly, fighting to concentrate as Nik stepped back and shouldered shut the door with a sharp, definitive snap.
A drumbeat of pulsing tension thundered in the atmosphere. As she collided with those burnished eyes, her every skin cell leapt. She could feel each breath quivering through her, the quickening crazy thump of her heart, the swelling mortifying ache of her breasts stirring below the stiff bodice. In desperation, she tore her gaze from his and lowered it.
'But right at this moment eating has to be the last thing on my mind...'
‘Sorry?' she mumbled, knees trembling.
In the seething silence, Nik elbowed back his jacket, drawing her attention to a part of him she was not in the habit of studying, and to something that the fine tailoring of his trousers could not possibly conceal. The unmistakable thrust of overt male sexual arousal. And that recognition shocked Olympia rigid and sent a boiling blush rushing up her throat into her cheeks. She dredged her shaken scrutiny from him, expecting to feel disgusted, disconcerted even more when instead a sensation of hot liquid heat snaked up between her clenched thighs.
'Theos...you look like a pagan princess,' Nik asserted raggedly.
A pagan what! As she lifted her head, she caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing mirror. She stared at that unfamiliar reflection in astonishment. She had forgotten that her hair was loose. Her mahogany mane tumbled to her waist like a waving curtain, one pale naked shoulder displayed, the other concealed, the valley between her breasts accentuated by her folded arms.
'Look at me...' Nik urged thickly.
And she didn't intend to but somehow she did. The growling edge to his accented drawl sent a delicious little tremor running down her taut spine. She flung her head back and looked, encountering scorching golden eyes. She was stunned by the raw desire she saw there.
'Go...' she framed shakily.
'Do you honestly think that I'm about to sit down to dinner in this state?' Shifting his broad shoulders in a fluid movement, Nik peeled off his jacket and tossed it aside. Long brown fingers jerked loose the knot on his bow tie, unfastened the top button of his white silk shirt. 'Even you couldn't be that cruel—'
'Me...cruel?' Olympia interrupted in a bewildered daze. Although held by his smouldering gaze like a butterfly pinned to a collector's board, she was hugely aware of the tie dropping to the carpet, the shirt buttons being undone.
'Let the light of reality in here. Ten years back, while you played Miss Prim and Proper Prude and brandished your innocence at every opportunity, I was in absolute agony... in the grip of overpowering lust and unable to do anything about it!' Nik's lean, powerful face hardened. 'Did that give you a kick, Olympia?'
'A...a kick?' Eyes huge pools of enquiry, she stared back at him, struggling to absorb his assurance that he had found her sexually attractive in those days. That claim ran against everything she had ever believed, and she was paralysed by a sense of sheer disbelief.
'You kept me in a constant state of arousal. I never slept after I was with you. My fantasies about what we were going to do when we got married even embarrassed me!' Nik admitted grimly. 'I wasn't used to going without sex...it was torment; it was seriously painful.'
Olympia just gaped, bereft of all ability to conceal her reactions. 'No...' she whispered in shaken denial. 'No, you couldn't have felt like that—'
'And I don't intend to suffer that way ever again,' Nik incised with husky vehemence as he crossed the room and closed his arms round her from behind. 'Because you want me too, pethi mou.'
'I don't!' she gasped strickenly.
Lowering his arrogant dark head, Nik pressed his sensual mouth to one pale taut shoulder. A streaking dart of fiery awareness flamed through her treacherous body. 'What's the point of lying about the past now?' he murmured intently.
'I'm not lying!'
Nik progressed with wicked expertise from her taut shoulder blade to a highly sensitive spot just below one small ear. Her legs shook beneath her, her throat extending, her head falling back against his chest.
'I need to hear you admit that you burned for me too, that only the fear that I wouldn't marry you or that you might lose your precious inheritance held you back,' Nik continued:
As he nipped at her tender flesh with his teeth Olympia shivered violently, and a muffled gasp broke from her parted lips. What he was doing to her put to flight all powers of reasoning. Her skin felt hot and stretched tight over her bones, and she was mesmerised by their reflection in the mirror. Nik with his proud, dark handsome head bent as she leant back against him for support. It was the stuff of a thousand of her secret teenage fantasies. She watched in trembling breathless excitement as he closed his hands to her crossed arms; his skin was so dark against her paler colouring.
'Olympia...' Nik gritted.
She squeezed her eyes tight shut in sudden shame, fighting for control and intelligence. But still the wave of unbearable heat and temptation beat at her. She was defenceless. For her, at that instant, there was nothing more important than the feel of Nik's lean, long-fingered hands on her, the hard, muscular strength of him, the sinful imagery flickering behind her eyelids.
'You've got it wrong,' she managed to frame jerkily.
'I've got nothing wrong. Ten years ago you played with me.'
There was no resistance in her as he eased her arms apart Indeed she could hardly get air into her lungs. Her lashes lifted and she focused helplessly on the mirror again, watched her wedding gown dip to reveal her bare pouting breasts. Shame and excitement fought for precedence inside her. No man had ever seen her like that before, but then that was not a truth she had ever wanted to boast about.
iTheos...spectacular,' Nik rasped, with every evidence of sincerity.
Momentarily scientific interest overcame her burning self-consciousness. She watched Nik curve his hands to the full straining mounds which she had always despised. However, no such inhibition afflicted Nik. His frank appreciation of her lush curves was unconcealed. His thumbs rubbed in a skilled caress over her engorged pink nipples.
'Nik...' she whimpered between clenched teeth, the current of fiery response shooting to the very heart of her quivering body to leave her boneless and weak.
/> 'Yes...Nik,7 he spelt out with curious emphasis.
With a sure hand he eased her gown from her hips and let it shimmy down into a pool round her feet. Her skin warmed as she saw herself fully revealed in the pale silk stockings, blue garter and bikini briefs which her mother had presented her with. No longer could she watch like an onlooker.
'Definitely worth waiting a decade for, yineka mou,' Nik pronounced with roughened satisfaction. He lifted her up into his arms and tasted her soft mouth with slow erotic sensuality before he brought her down on the bed. 'Now tell me you don't want me.'
And she couldn't, not with her lips still swollen from his, not with her whole body thrumming as if it had a life of its own, craving more of what he had already given her. 'I can't...' she muttered, shattered by the raw power of what she was feeling in every fibre of her being.
Nik gave her a slashing smile that turned her heart over.
Nothing. She wanted nothing but Nik. In the back of her mind she knew it was a mistake, but that terrible hunger for him, fanned to a white-hot heat by his undeniable desire for her, was infinitely stronger. Nik cast off his shirt to reveal a magnificent hard muscular torso. His skin was the colour of living bronze. Black curls of hair hazed his pectoral muscles, petering down to a silken furrow over his hard, taut stomach. She ran out of breath as he unzipped his trousers. Unlike her, he had not an ounce of inhibition, and he moved with the lithe grace of a natural athlete. She liked watching him; she had always liked watching him. Little brown owl, she recalled painfully. But he was just so beautiful...
How could any other man have attracted her after Nik?
Nik had been the ultimate. But Nik had betrayed her, and would surely betray her again, yet still she watched and waited for him, feeling terrifying vulnerable.
'Why have you gone so quiet?' Nik murmured thickly, studying her with hot golden eyes.
Olympia emerged from her increasingly frantic thoughts and her sea-jade eyes widened as she focused on him. He was wearing not a stitch. And all that she had ever been curious about was now on view. She was stunned by the sheer size of him. Her face drenched with colour and she twisted her head away, but the image of him stayed with her, an image both threatening and exciting.
'I could be forgiven for thinking that you've never seen a guy stripped before!' Nik loosed a roughened laugh. 'Or did you find out a long time ago that some men turn on for that little hint of modesty and shyness?'
'That's not funny!' Olympia shot back at him, wounded by his derision and suddenly self-conscious, torn by conflicting needs.
Nik came down beside her and pulled her into his arms. 'I was out of line...but there's something going on here I don't understand. It's spooking me.'
She was more nervous than he had expected, she interpreted, but he wouldn't say that in case she read the comment as another attack. And tears stung her ears, because finally she was facing the fact that she wasn't in control any more. He threw himself back against the pillows, carrying her with him. She was engulfed in him, her breasts crushed by the hard wall of his chest, the hot, musky scent of his skin flaring her nostrils.
'I'm not a bastard in the bedroom,' Nik murmured rawly.
She shivered, the heat of his lean, powerful body percolating through her, the sharp ache of hunger intensifying, 'No?'
'No...so stop shivering,' Nik urged, knotting long fingers into her hair and tugging her lips hungrily up to the urgent demand of his.
And that kiss was pure naked seduction. He made love to her mouth, dipping his tongue between her readily parted lips to tantalise and torment. Her heart hammered, her tummy clenched and she twisted against him. He shifted in a fluid movement and lowered his dark head to find an achingly sensitive nipple. And she gasped, her back arching against that fierce tug of response she could not withstand.
'I want this to be good for you,' Nik intoned thickly. 'I want to be the best you've ever had.'
And even his dark rich drawl made her quiver. At mind-blowing speed Olympia found herself plunged into a world of sweet sensation, and all the time she was getting hotter and more restive. The feel of his hands on her tender breasts, the knowing expertise of his caressing mouth drove her wild. He traced her feminine mound beneath the thin silk panties and she almost passed out with excitement.
'Please...' she moaned.
Burnished golden eyes held hers then. He said something rough in Greek.
'Nik?' she muttered in a daze.
Lush lashes veiled his gaze. Stripping her of the last barrier between them, his fingers found the damp dark curls at the juncture of her thighs. She twisted and tossed beneath that intimate exploration. The fire inside her was voracious now. She was lost entirely in the hot, teasing torment of Nik's skilled foreplay. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, and her body spoke for her, her hips writhing. The need he had taught her to feel had become so powerful it hurt.
Like a lithe dark golden god, Nik came over her and slid between her parted thighs. 'You're so eager...so out of control. Now I finally know how easy it must have been for Lukas to take what should have been mine!'
His tone more than his words made her passion-glazed eyes widen. She gazed up into smouldering golden eyes. Lukas! The name jarred, but she hadn't caught enough of what Nik had said to understand. All that she grasped was that Nik was angry.
'What's wrong?' she gasped.
'Nothing...you're the perfect partner. Hot and willing.'
And, pushing his hands beneath her, he entered her then, in a powerful thrust, and she was so caught up in the newness of sensual invasion she couldn't concentrate. But a split second later she experienced a sharp, jagged pain, and she jerked in dismay under him, a startled cry escaping her.
Nik stilled, pushed himself up and swore in Greek. He studied her with fierce intensity. 'This can't be!'
Already the pain was ebbing, allowing her to unlock her tensed muscles.
'You can't be a virgin!' Nik gritted.
Olympia gulped. 'Nik, please...'
Clenching his teeth, Nik groaned with fracturing control, sinking deeper into her, forcing her tender flesh to yield more fully. And the sensation was so unbearably pleasurable that Olympia rose against him with a surprised cry of response. His hungry gaze blazed over her and suddenly he came back down to her again, to drive into her with long powerful strokes. The storm of desire was unleashed again as if it had never been interrupted.
And it was like nothing she had ever imagined. Caught up in the wild primitive rhythm he set, she was overwhelmed by intense excitement. Heart hammering, body burning with the onslaught of that fierce pleasure, she let him push her higher and higher towards the peak she craved with every sobbing gasp she uttered. And when she hit that ecstatic height, wave after wave of shuddering release engulfed her shaken body.
In the aftermath, she was simply stunned. She held Nik close, a crazy kind of joy already beginning to pierce the sense of peaceful satiation. She felt him brush a soft kiss across her brow like a caress. It felt so good to be in his arms, to share in the sort of intimacy she had never known before. Now, at the back of her mind, she was registering that Nik had actually recognised that he had been her first lover. Somehow, at her age, she hadn't expected there to still be any actual physical barrier. So she hadn't thought of that possibility or of what a difference it might make to their relationship. But now it occurred to her that Nik would surely have to accept that she had not betrayed him with Lukas ten years earlier.
In an abrupt movement that took her aback, Nik pulled away from her and sprang off the bed. With a frown, she flipped over. He yanked the bottle of champagne out of the ice-bucket and uncorked it, his lean, bronzed profile feverishly flushed and taut.
'Surprise...surprise. And of course you didn't warn me I would be the first. No doubt you imagine that being a virgin...technically speaking...wipes the slate clean!' Nik bit out in a charged undertone as he sent the champagne foaming down into a single goblet.
&n
bsp; Noticing that his hand couldn't hold the goblet steady, Olympia sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts, and simply stared, utterly disconcerted by this renewed attack.
Nik tossed back the champagne as if he was relieving a desperate thirst with water. He snapped the empty glass back on the table and finally looked at her, eyes as black and stormy as a wild wintry night. 'No wonder you were so quiet in bed. Did you think I'd be at your feet crawling and begging for forgiveness now?' he demanded rawly.
'I honestly don't know what you're talking about—'
'Like hell you don't!' Nik was ashen beneath his dark golden skin, his superb cheekbones rigid as he surveyed her. 'This changes nothing. Obviously Katerina interrupted you and Lukas before you could take full advantage of your sordid encounter. But it doesn't make you innocent. You still betrayed and dishonoured me...you still behaved like a shameless little whore without an ounce of remorse!'
Olympia was shaken by his reinterpretation of events, and for perhaps the very first time she registered a reality she had been reluctant to confront. 'You really do hate me...' she whispered in sick distress.
'After what you did to me, what did you expect?' As he hauled on his trousers, Nik loosed an unsteady laugh that sent a cold shiver down her spine. 'You covered us all with shame.'
Olympia was now pale as milk, but she still recalled that kiss he had brushed across her brow in the aftermath of their lovemaking, a salutation which to her had signified both tenderness and affection. 'But you...you just made love—'
'You think that was making love?' His expressive mouth curled with derision. 'I just consummated our deal, Olympia. You still excite me like mad, but what we shared is called sex. And, as I promised, we both enjoyed the experience, but don't start looking for anything more than that from me!'
