The tour of the castle and the accompanying cliff-diving excursion lasted for the rest of the day. Erica saw Nikolas diving off the castle’s high overlook, his body a sleek and glistening thing in the light before he plunged into the water forty feet below. She held her breath as she watched him, unable to look away.
At dinner that evening, she sat with the three Australians. Erica joked with them, did a few shots of whiskey and drank as much beer as her body could hold. She was determined to push Nikolas from her mind.
“I think that guy is looking at you,” Grace said to Erica as they sat at the table watching the last of the sun bleed from the sky, their feet stretched out in Aidan’s and Michael’s laps.
“That guy” was Nikolas. Erica looked in the direction the other woman had jerked her chin to see him on the other side of the boat, watching her with an unblinking stare. When Erica looked at him, he dipped his head and flashed her a smile before making his way toward her. Her heart pounded in her chest. She swallowed heavily at the determined look on his face, the slim and gorgeous lines of his body in the faint light. Her breath caught. She couldn’t breathe.
At the table, he greeted the Australians, politeness at its best. The wind ruffled his hair, tugged at his jeans and T-shirt.
“May I talk with you for a moment?” he asked.
“No.” She leaned back in her chair, a bottle of beer held loosely between her fingers.
She felt her new friends’ surprised eyes on her. Grace nudged Erica. “Don’t be rude,” she said. Then she lowered her voice, talking from the corner of her mouth in her version of a whisper. “He’s gorgeous. What’s wrong with you?” Everyone at the table heard her.
“Yes, Erica. What’s wrong with you?” Nikolas tilted his head, charming and sexy at once. “Or is it me?” His mouth was full and hard in the light, his brown eyes bright with humor.
Through the haze of alcohol, Erica didn’t see a damn thing wrong with him. He was beautiful. He was available to sleep with. He made her body feel incredible things. What was wrong with that? Absolutely nothing.
Nikolas extended his hand. “Come with me. Just for a few minutes.”
Before she could speak, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Grace giggled.
“Have fun!” she called out as Nikolas drew Erica away from the small formation of dinner tables, past the Japanese couple sitting closely in a darkened corner, their bodies intimately pressed together. He guided her to the back of the boat, then up the ladder to the platform he’d taken her to yesterday morning. They sat down with their legs dangling over the water, arms braced against the railing separating them from the dark sea. The wind brushed against Erica’s cheeks, pressed her shirt even more to her skin.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
With the wind buffeting them from so high, some of the alcoholic fog cleared from Erica’s head. She leaned away from him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why.”
He made a noise. The light revealed barely a quarter of his face, his mouth and strong jawline, his eyes, the feathery weight of his lashes. “Pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about. Pretend I’m an absolute fool.”
She sighed and leaned back onto her straightened arms. For a moment, she couldn’t even look at him. He was too achingly beautiful. The curve of his mouth only reminded her of last night, when he’d come to her cabin and nuzzled between her legs. Erica bit her lip as a fugitive electric current zinged in her belly. What the hell was wrong with her?
“After you left last night, your crazy ex-girlfriend came into my cabin to claim you. She was very out of line. I don’t deal with that garbage, Nikolas. I don’t put up with drama from anybody.”
His jaw tightened in the half light. “I am no woman’s man.”
“Lani begs to differ.” The anger bubbled up inside her again at the thought of the previous night. “It was my fault, though. Your friends told me you have a complicated situation here. I only have myself to blame for all this foolishness.”
Despite her harsh words, she spoke softly. The blanket of night touched her with its delicate fibers and created an unbreakable intimacy between them.
“I am no woman’s man,” Nikolas said again. “Lani has no claim here. Believe me.”
“Why is she acting like this if she isn’t your girl?”
“Because her eyes are green....” Even in the dark, she saw the teasing arch of an eyebrow. The amused curve of his mouth. But she wasn’t in a joking mood.
“You had sex with her?”
“Over six months ago, yes. But sharing sex is no declaration of a relationship.”
Erica swallowed hard as she digested the truth that he and Lani had been together. There was no point in her being jealous. None.
“Did you ever think that having sex with you was an expression of her love?” She threw his words from earlier on the volcano back in his face.
“No.” Nikolas shook his head. “Never. I was very clear with her in the beginning.”
Curiosity needled her at his tone. She sat up to better see his face in the semidark. “You were clear about what?”
“I don’t do relationships.”
His simple declaration surprised her. But she had no idea why. Was there ever a man in the history of the universe who “did” relationships before being trapped by some enterprising lover? Nikolas was in his twenties. Very few men his age were into anything but indulging in as much uncomplicated sex as possible before marriage or death.
“Why don’t you do relationships?”
She felt rather than saw his shrug in the dark, the warm movement of his body so very near hers, a whisper of his breath against her cheek.
“Did some girl break your heart?” She said it sarcastically, doubtfully.
He made a rueful noise. “There was no girl, just life.”
As he spoke, he leaned closer and Erica detected the faint trace of alcohol on his breath. Not the beer or whiskey that she’d been drinking. It smelled like ouzo, that potent Greek liqueur she’d once sampled at a restaurant and that had knocked her on her ass until the next morning. But Nikolas didn’t seem drunk, simply contemplative.
“What did life ever do to you, Nikolas?” Erica licked her lips, the taste of his name unexpectedly sweet. Like the whiskey she’d drunk earlier.
He laughed, not sounding the least bit amused. “It showed me that relationships end. There’s no point in starting something that’s just going to die. Is there?”
“That’s ridiculous.” She waved away his words with a dismissive hand, fingers slapping accidentally against the chrome railing. “Ouch!” She stuck the tips of her aching fingers in her mouth. “You might as well say every human should just kill themselves at birth since we’re all going to end up in the ground anyway. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“That comparison is ridiculous.” A lock of his hair loosened in the wind and blew across the space between them to lap against her cheek. “We have no choice about being born,” he said.
Erica caught the errant strands of hair and hooked them behind Nikolas’s ear. She caressed his warm skin before pulling her hand back. “If you’re choosing not to love, isn’t it the same thing as suicide?” A devil suddenly pricked at her, taking over her tongue. “For all you know, Lani could have been the woman meant for you, but because of all this background chatter, you’re letting her slip through your fingers.”
She leaned her forehead against the railing with a low sigh. Her head was beginning to spin from all the beer and whiskey she’d consumed. As she briefly closed her eyes, the sea air lapped gently at her too-warm cheeks and throat.
“Maybe you’re the one I’m missing out on,” Nikolas murmured, moving close to her. “Erica. My American Princess.” He sighed, his breath brushing her lips. “You’re in my head, and I can’t get you o
ut. You make me feel things no other woman has.”
She laughed weakly. “Oh, please.” With a pang, she realized she wanted the things he said to be true. Who wouldn’t want to be different for this man? But she knew he was just playing with her head.
Nikolas moved even closer. “Erica, I want to discover you. I want to touch and make love to you.”
He trailed a hand down the length of her arm, and Erica shivered in reaction. Her skin felt feverish in the wake of his delicate touch; her body responded helplessly to him. He traced a tingling line into the center of her palm.
“May I, Princess?”
But he kissed her before she could answer. Erica leaned into him.
He nibbled at her mouth, licked her lips while his hand curved around the back of her neck, cupping the sudden heaviness of her head, filled with so much languor that she couldn’t hold it up on her own. How did he know that? How had he known just how to touch her? Just how to—?
She gasped as his hand slid into her pants. When had he unbuttoned her jeans? Her fingers clutched his arm as his fingers slid into her panties, combed through the curly hairs on her mound. Then they moved lower. Nikolas moaned into her mouth when he finally touched her sex. Erica twitched, her legs falling open to accept the light stroke of his fingers.
My God! What was she letting him do?
His fingers slid over her clit, dancing over the sensitive bud, dipping into her to retrieve more moisture; there was an abundance for him to find. Erica shivered as he explored her mouth with his tongue, stroked her with his fingers. A soft noise escaped her as a lash of heat moved through her belly. She gripped his neck and slid her hands up into his thick hair.
“You’re so amazing...so beautiful...” He tapered off into words she couldn’t understand, seductive whispers against her mouth as his fingers worked their magic on her flesh. He tore his mouth away from hers. Yanked her legs up onto the platform. Jerked her pants down. She squeaked as the denim scraped her thighs. Erica was under him, the deck hard against her back, Nikolas’s body hard at her front.
“Shh...” he murmured as his fingers returned to her hot and tingling spot. “Open your legs for me, Princess!” he gasped against her lips.
She couldn’t have said no even if she’d wanted to. Erica fell back against the boat, a honeyed lushness invading her body, her nipples tingling against the thin material of her shirt. He must have felt it, too. He must have, because he pushed up her shirt, exposing her hard nipples to the sea air and to his mouth.
He sucked her breast, his fingers dipping inside her in search of her pleasure. And he found it. Lost in the haze of delight, her hips surging up against his hand, she heard the liquid kiss of his fingers inside her swimming wetness, felt the heat of his hand on her, his thumb on her clit, pressing lust into her until she was moaning his name behind tightly closed lips. She didn’t want to make any noise, but her body was dangerously close to implosion. His thumb flicked across her clit like a hummingbird’s wing while he curled fingers up inside her, stroking that sweet place again and again.
“Hmm...”
Erica’s body moved with the thrust of his fingers, with the movement of his mouth on her breasts, sucking and biting her sensitive nipples as he probed her deeply with his fingers. The spring of desire tightened more and more inside her until she couldn’t hold back the sounds any longer. She whimpered as his fingers stroked her deeply, skillfully. Then the spring broke.
The orgasm washed over her, swept her away. It grabbed the sound of his name from her throat, set her thighs to trembling, her body completely at his mercy. She jerked in the midst of an incredible satisfaction, gushing a thin stream of wetness over his fingers. He was relentless, still pressing her clit, still stroking her deeply as she gushed, panting his name. Telling him to stop. Then don’t stop.
Only when she slid bonelessly to the deck did Nikolas relent. He raised his head to look at her, complete masculine satisfaction in his gaze. He lifted his fingers from between her legs and put them in his mouth, sucking off her juices glistening on them in the moonlight. Her clit twitched at the sight.
She must be drunk. There was no other explanation for the way she was reacting to him. None. But even as the denial moved through her, she was reaching for his pants.
Although she wasn’t sure if she could manage more than a few strokes, Erica was willing to try and give him even half the pleasure he had brought her. Her body felt well and truly pleasured, weakened with bliss.
He kissed her mouth. Took her hand and pulled it away from his erection. “I don’t need anything,” he said.
“I like you,” he murmured into her throat as he kissed her there. “I really like you.”
Erica closed her eyes, inhaling his scent. And smiled.
Chapter Seven
Erica woke up with a raging headache.
She opened her eyes to the ceiling of her cabin, eyes tracing the familiar piece of slightly irregular wood overhead that led to the wall, then down to the porthole. She breathed in and out very carefully, taking care not to move around too much in the bed.
Bed. Sex.
“Oh. My. God.”
Everything from the night before came rushing to her. Dinner and drinks with the Australians. Nikolas coming to talk with her. His complete seduction of her in the dark. How she had cried out his name as her body had gushed its pleasure all over the deck of the boat. All over her clothes.
“Oh, God...”
She closed her eyes at the memory. Her body warmed with remembered pleasure. And embarrassment.
A tentative glance at her watch told her breakfast time was almost over. She blinked at the dial before slowly sitting up in the bed. On the small bedside table sat an unfamiliar silver tumbler. There was a note under the tumbler in an unfamiliar but masculine hand.
Drink this. It’ll help with the stomach and your headache. It’s a remedy my grandmother swears by. Without it, she would have never gotten out of bed to make Sunday breakfast.
He signed it with a simple N, although he hadn’t needed to. Who else would come into her cabin, strip her naked and leave her a hangover cure?
By the time she felt human again and made it up on deck, it was well past breakfast. As she sat down at a table with Grace, who was finishing her meal, a hand slid a covered tray in front of her. She looked up in surprise as Nikolas flashed her a wink and kept going.
“If that wasn’t an after-sex wink, I don’t know what is.” Grace giggled, leaning over to uncover Erica’s platter.
It was her usual breakfast, Greek yogurt mixed with honey, thick slices of bread drizzled with olive oil and black pepper, a small bowl of dried dates. How did he even know that’s what she normally ate? She looked up to find Nikolas, but he had already disappeared.
“Too bad the tour is coming to an end. Now that you two finally connected, it seems a shame not to be able to enjoy that sexy body of his some more.”
“It is?” Even as she said it, Erica realized that Grace was right. This was the fourth day of the boat tour. The last few hours before they sailed back to Thira. She took a quick breath.
“Unbelievable!” Grace slapped a hand over her mouth. “You forgot, didn’t you?”
She had forgotten. Erica looked around again for Nikolas as a heaviness settled in her chest.
Most of the other passengers were already preparing for the final excursion of the tour. Nearby, the mother and daughter pair she’d never properly met checked their backpacks, as if making sure they had everything, while Ren and Kyoko took photos of each other on every conceivable part of the boat. Grace’s boyfriends and the other couple were nowhere in sight.
The end had come so soon.
Although she wasn’t hungry, she forced herself to put something in her stomach and drink more water. As she ate, a small island formation came
into view.
The rocks were dark and volcanic-looking, the hills steep and treacherous. On low land, she could just make out white marble, a statuary of some kind. Just as she began to wonder what it was, the intercom crackled to life.
Erica winced as Lani’s voice spread through the air. The young woman quickly explained that this, their final stop on the boat tour, was the island of Kos, site of the recently discovered temple to Anahita, the Persian goddess of fertility and war, the patroness of women. The Agape was to spend three hours anchored on the island to give the passengers the chance to not only tour the temple, but also to take full advantage of the most beautiful beach in all of Greece.
Once the announcement ended, Grace quickly excused herself to finish getting ready. As Erica was finishing up her breakfast, a figure high up on the ship’s main mast caught her attention. Nikolas.
He was strapped into some sort of a harness and had a bag draped across his shoulder and chest as he fixed something on the mast. His chest was bare, and the jean shorts hung off his narrow hips. She froze, watching the effortless beauty of the man, the way the sun burnished his skin, the faint sheen of sweat on his body. A lovely sight.
She remembered well the feel of that heated flesh under her hands and longed to touch it again. Erica didn’t fight the craving this time, only allowed it to come, to fill her body with warmth and desire. She spooned a bit of yogurt into her mouth as she watched him, swirling her tongue around the spoon, imagining she was teasing him with her mouth.
“Lucky man.”
She startled at the voice near her. It was Aidan, one of Grace’s boyfriends. He sat down at her table, wearing his habitually happy grin, his blond hair in disarray.
“I wouldn’t know a thing about his luck,” she said with a smile.
“If I had a girl looking at me like you just did at that bloke, then I’d count myself real lucky.”
Dim the Lights: Islands of DesireLiquid ChocolateHer Wild and Sexy Nights Page 7
