by Connie Cox
Outside his cabin door, he asked her once more. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Niko, I want to make love to you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life.”
He opened the door for her and followed her in.
Very quietly, he whispered in her ear, “Let’s make this the first-time experience it should have been.”
Annalise swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I would like that.”
Slowly, gently, he reached up and touched her hair. She breathed in the scent of him as he ran his fingertips across her shoulders. Then he glided his fingers along the edge of her bra, barely brushing the side of her breast.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice throaty, needy, full of want for her.
“Yes.” She turned in his arms, putting them chest to chest.
His hand traced her back through her thin T-shirt, leaving a trail of flame sizzling down her spine.
She lifted her mouth, needing to taste him. He met her lips with his own, teasing her mouth until she opened for him. Her knees weakened as the world around her began to blur, soft and hazy and out of focus. Niko was all that mattered.
His big hands brushed over her shoulders and down her arms, capturing her. A distant part of her mind waited for the flinch that would bring disappointment to his eyes. That’s when the numbness would begin.
But she didn’t flinch, didn’t step back, didn’t squeeze her eyes closed. Instead, her body leaned in as her instincts trusted Niko to bear her weight.
He carried her to the bed, gracefully sitting her in his lap as he leaned against the headboard.
“Niko.” She said his name, soft and husky with an underlying plea for more.
“I’m yours for the taking.” He’d heard her and was willing to give her what she needed. He spread his arms wide, giving her total access.
The moonlight through the open window gave the room a feeling of a black and white movie. He made a hell of a leading man.
The look of desire in his eyes emboldened her so she felt like his femme fatale.
Starting with his top button, her clumsy fingers pushed it free of the buttonhole. With her index finger she traced inside the open V. Under her fingertip his chest hair felt coarse while his skin was smooth.
He groaned, deep and long and soulful. “What sweet agony from my exquisite Annalise.”
“Should I go faster?”
“No. Please.” He kissed the tips of her fingers. “I want this to last forever.”
She worked the next button free but couldn’t stop herself from going for the next and the one after that until his shirt lay open, exposing his chest and abs. She splayed her hands across his chest, feeling the twin peaks of his flat pecs respond to her touch. Experimentally, she rubbed them. He sucked in his breath like he’d been sucker punched.
She’d done that. She’d taken his breath away. A feeling of power rolled through her.
“Are you okay?” She couldn’t keep the provocative pride from her voice when she asked any more than she could keep herself from flicking those sensitive peaks again.
“Vixen.” The amusement in his voice caressed her while goading her to continue.
But her own body ached for his exploring touch.
“Tell me, Annalise. Tell me what you want.”
“Take my top off.” That had sounded demanding, hadn’t it? “Please,” she added.
“Absolutely.” He reached for the hook at the nape of her neck. He pulled her T-shirt over her head.
The appreciated groan he gave her made the heat rise deep down inside that place that had never felt warm before.
She revelled in the way his eyes went dark when she reached back to unhook her bra.
So much appreciation. So much awe. So much desire.
Bare to the night air, her nipples peaked, aching for his attention. “Kiss me.”
Obediently, he reverently suckled first one taut tip, then the other. The moan that escaped sounded like it came from the depths of her.
“Thank you.” She sounded wispy, breathless.
“My pleasure.” His voice was a deeply sincere growl.
“The panties match. Want to see?”
“Yes, oh, please, yes.”
Smiling, she shimmied out of her shorts, revealing her newest purchase. No granny panties for her tonight.
In the gray moonlight, her black panties contrasted with the paleness of her skin, making her feel naughty and so very sexy.
She pushed Niko backwards until his knees hit the back of her bed. Fluidly, he lay back on the bed and she climbed on top of him.
Under her, Niko grimaced and shifted his weight.
Immediately, she lifted herself so she straddled him without holding him down. “Your leg?”
He grinned up at her. “No.”
“Then what?”
“These jeans are getting a bit tight.”
“Oh.” Her own naïveté made her blush.
“Do you think you might want to take them off soon? Or at least unzip them?” Her hand hovered over the zipper as the intimacy of what she was about to do made her hesitate.
He grinned at her, his dimples deep as a cloud shifted and a moonbeam splashed across his face. “Please?”
Shyness won out. “You do it.”
“Cover my hand.” He waited until her hand rested on his before he unbuttoned and unzipped.
“Better?” she asked, even though she could see his jeans restricted him.
“Not quite.” He lifted his hips, putting his rough jeans in contact with the sensitive ache that only the thin silk of her panties protected.
Beneath her, he pushed his jeans off his hips and thighs then kicked them free, all the while bucking underneath her, making her want... Oh, how she wanted.
She marveled at the throbbing that needed fulfillment. She had been sure such passion was only a myth made up for movies and books.
Niko drew in a deep breath. “You are so beautiful.”
She stilled, realizing what a silhouette they made in the moonlight.
Quickly, she pushed down her panties. Just as quickly, Niko grabbed protection from the nightstand. His tip nudged her bud and she guided him inside her. They fit together as if they were made for each other. And somewhere in the joyous center of her soul she knew they had been.
She rode him, with her back arched and her hands braced against his chest. His lean body under hers responded to her pace and rhythm, faster and faster until they were both gasping for breath.
A throaty, wordless note of ecstasy came from her throat. Niko answered with his own deep roar of celebration. Together they pulsed in time with the universe.
After an eternity of bliss Annalise lay spent on Niko’s chest as he brushed his hand along her back.
* * *
“Annalise?”
“Hmm?”
“Tomorrow morning we make port in Malaga. Whatever you have planned, I want to be part of it.”
“No plans for Malaga.” Annalise thought hard about what she was about to offer. Would it be more painful to experience what being a part of a family was like or more lonely to forgo the whole experience?
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Poets were supposed to be experts at this sort of thing, weren’t they?
“I’ve got the perfect idea for your whole family. Do you think—?”
“I think I want you all to myself.”
“This is supposed to be your family vacation.”
He grinned at her. “Now you sound like one of the Christopoulos women.”
“If only you could be so lucky.” Too late, Annalise realized what she’d implied.
Niko lost his grin. “If only...”
He said it low, but Annalise was too tuned in to his every breath to have missed it.
Only what would she do with it?
“Your idea?” Niko prompted.
“Malaga has some great bike tours. They even rent bikes with carriages on the back for Yiayia and the little ones. There’s one tour in particular I’ve heard great things about that I think your family will enjoy.”
Looking deceptively like a tame house cat, Niko turned those tiger eyes on her. But she’d seen them blaze with hunger only a short time earlier and was not deceived. “I’m sure my family will enjoy it, but what’s in it for me and you?”
“I don’t know about you, Niko Christopoulos, but I would love to spend a day with your family.” Had Niko heard her yearning to experience being a part of a family underneath her light and breezy tone? She turned away in case her expression gave her away.
Niko came up behind her, giving her the lightest of kisses along her nape. “My family will love spending the day with you as well.” Those kisses deepened as they travelled across her throat and down her breasts.
“How about room service tonight?”
“Your family—”
“Will have me all day tomorrow. Tonight I’m yours.” He stopped kissing her a lip’s width from the tip of her breast. “If you want me.”
His breath on her sensitive skin made her ache so deeply she groaned her answer.
And Annalise found new pleasures she would never have imagined on her own. Much, much later, as she lay in his arms while he slept, she thought about all she had learned from Niko. The stuff that dreams are made of...
But who could go back to living on dreams of the heavens when she’d touched those glorious heights themselves?
Some time in the wee hours of the morning Niko felt Annalise shift, tidying up the bedcovers as if she were tidying up their relationship.
“Annalise?”
She laced her fingers through his. “The way you say my name makes me feel like the most special woman on earth.”
“Then you’ve caught my meaning exactly right.”
“Tell me what to do to make you feel special, too.”
Niko had never felt so honored. “That you want me to feel that way does the trick for me.”
She unlaced her fingers and sat up, letting the sheets fall to her waist. Moonlight showed her beautiful breasts full and perfect for his hands. He gave in to desire and reached toward her, cupping one, savoring the weight in his palm.
“So beautiful.”
She reached up and brushed his hair from his eyes. “So are you.”
“Tell me what you want, Annalise. Tell me what I can give to you.”
“I want you,” she said, shifting under him. “I want to feel your touch on every inch of me. I want to be so feverish with needing to feel you in me that I scream with desire.”
“Should I start here?” Niko traced her ear then nibbled on the sensitive rim. “And should I taste you as well?”
“Y-e-s.” She drew the word out, like she never wanted to let it go.
“And then move to here?” He trailed kisses down her neck, smiling when she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer.
“Now. I want you now.” She wrapped her legs around him to pull him closer still.
As a gentleman, Niko complied.
And when they came together, each shouting the other’s name, Niko had never had a more special moment in his life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ANNALISE HAD BEEN to Malaga many times before, but seeing it through Niko’s eyes made all the difference. When she’d recommended the tapas and wine bike tour for the family, they had insisted she come too.
For the first time in her life Annalise felt like she could understand the enormity of being accepted. Along with the whole Christopoulos clan, Annalise cycled along the tapas and wine tour route, eating, drinking and laughing. The younger nieces and nephews took turns riding with Yiayia in a carriage behind a bicycle, which the two older nephews were coerced into manning, while all the Christopoulos men opted for bicycles built for two with their women.
No one blinked an eyelash when Annalise paired up with Niko although she did catch a few winks behind her back.
It was a tour after the Christopoulos family’s heart.
At their first stop Stephen raised his glass in a toast to Annalise, with great thanks for the suggestion of the bike tour. When Annalise followed it up with a toast to the strong backs and legs of the Christopoulos twins, the hardy laughs and cheers made her felt like one of their own.
Soon she was stuffed with olives and cheese and fried squid and was giddy from a bit more vino dulce than she was accustomed to drinking.
“This looks interesting. Want to try it?” She held a tapas up to Niko to taste.
He nibbled it from her fingers. “Mmm.”
Stephen leaned forward and watched him chew.
“He swallowed it.” Stephen high-fived his wife. “Annalise, you are some special lady.”
Phoebe explained. “Niko is our picky eater. He won’t put anything in his mouth without knowing exactly what it is first.”
Niko smiled. “I’ll eat anything from the hands of a goddess.”
At every stop Yiayia charmed the chefs into giving her inside information, showing such appreciation for their skills that they were bringing the family their specialties to taste.
Cooking meant so much to them, especially to Yiayia and Stephen. It was a part of who they were even more than what they did.
Like medicine was to Niko and to Annalise.
Annalise rubbed her full stomach. The tapas bars of Malaga would not soon forget the Christopoulos family.
Annalise understood. A Christopoulos was not an easy person to forget. She was certain that, no matter what happened, she would remember Niko throughout eternity.
By the time they all reached their last stop, the beach at the fishing village of El Palo, the children were happy to build sandcastles while the adults and teens rested and watched.
The Christopoulos men procured beach towels and spread them on the sand, each trying to be more gallant than the others as they extended a helping hand to their women.
Annalise couldn’t help pretending she was a part of this great loving family. She was so full of food and wine she could be excused for letting the line between fantasy and reality blur a bit, couldn’t she?
Sitting on the beach, leaning back against Niko, Annalise had never felt more content.
Niko leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “I think this is the happiest day I have ever lived.”
While he didn’t say it, Annalise took liberties in thinking that his happiness was in some small part because she was there.
She knew he was the source of her bliss.
“Me, too,” she said.
* * *
Her voice did things to him deep down that he would never have imagined were possible. His heart beat faster, his breathing deepened, and his hands itched to run along her arms and feel her silky-smooth skin.
He gave a quick look around to see if they had an audience, but his brothers were giving all their attention to their wives while Yiayia and the twins watched the little ones.
As shy as Annalise was in public, he took a chance and dropped a kiss on her neck simply because he couldn’t help himself. Annalise leaned her head, giving him better access to drop a second one on top of the first.
Apparently he wasn’t quick enough because Marcus gave him a thumbs-up. Thankfully, Annalise didn’t notice or if she did, she no longer cared that his family saw their public displays of affection.
He was hoping it was the latter. All day he’d fought the urge to kiss her in front of strangers, which only made his anticipation of their time alone
tonight much more intense.
He would have stayed there forever if not for the children becoming too cold and wet from the spray of the ocean.
Reluctantly they headed back to the ship. The only thought that made leaving the beach bearable was the thought of Annalise in his bed.
* * *
His anticipation was rewarded.
Still shy with him, she asked permission to touch him here and there. Knowing what she was about to do then feeling her gentle, hesitant exploration touched him in ways beyond the physical.
Lying with his hands laced behind his head, he encouraged Annalise to explore. Whatever made her happy made him ecstatic.
She coasted her hands and then her mouth over him, eliciting the most wonderful pleasure he had ever known.
While the night started out for her benefit, her tender explorations quickly turned the tables, making it the most memorable night he’d ever had.
He had a strong feeling that each night with Annalise would be more memorable than the last.
As he was about to grasp a bigger concept, Annalise straddled him. Any logical thought patterns he’d been about to form completely fled his brain while a more primeval part of his body took over.
Softly, sweetly, she mounted him and they came together, swirling, swirling in a haze so rich with the rhythm of love Niko felt her whole body throb in tune with his.
As she lay collapsed on him, he ran his finger down her backside, loving the femininity of her curves.
Annalise soaked up the attention Niko gave her. She’d never had a man want to please her before. All too easily she could become accustomed to feeling cherished. Was it real? Or was it the Christopoulos charm Niko showed all his women?
Happiest day of my life, he’d said. She wanted to believe him. It had certainly been true for her.
But, then, the truth didn’t matter, did it? This chance crossing of paths would soon come to an end.
Annalise thought of the enquiry she’d sent to the board of Doctors Without Borders. Maybe, if fate was kind, she and Niko would cross paths again. But Annalise couldn’t count on fate.
It was time to practice some self-preservation, time to pull away before Niko left.
On the bedside table Annalise’s watch beeped a warning.
