The Greek s Convenient Mistress

by Annie West

She pressed into his kiss, drunk on the taste of him, dark and strong and erotically addictive.

  Sophie welcomed him with her lips, her tongue, as if he was no stranger, but the centre of all her yearning, all her secret dreams.

  His kiss was bold, unrepentant. Yet there was an underlying tenderness, a sensitivity to her own responses, that lulled her into surrender.

  If she’d been thinking straight she would have pushed away from him. Denied the tell-tale excitement she felt at his touch. But Sophie wasn’t thinking. She was drowning in sensations, floating on a tide of glorious passion. Excited by the aura of his severe strength, tightly leashed.

  His hands threaded through her hair and his lips trailed down to the corner of her jaw, to the erogenous zone beneath her ear, and she sighed.

  Giving in to the inevitable, she let her hands slide up his chest, revelling in the way his breath hitched in his throat at their slow, delicious progress. Ribbed muscle, solid chest, up to the hot skin of his neck and his dark, silky hair. Her fingers splayed on the back of his skull and she sought his mouth again.

  Heaven!

  This time the thrust of his tongue was more insistent, blatantly demanding.

  And still she couldn’t get close enough to him. The edgy, unsettling sensation in the pit of her stomach intensified. She shifted her weight, trying to ease that indefinable ache, even as she returned his kiss with a passion equal to his own.

  His thigh brushed hers. He stepped closer. Sophie felt his body lean in towards hers. His heat pressed against her from shoulder to hip.

  And then, on a surge of energy, he crowded her back against the wall, trapping her with his weight so that she couldn’t move, even if she’d sought escape. Her breasts were crushed against him. Her breathing shallowed, but she didn’t want him to move away.

  The feel of him, solid and hot along the length of her body, evoked a passion she’d never known before. She wriggled nearer. Immediately he pushed one heavy thigh forward, holding her still. And then he jammed closer, so close she could hardly breathe, nudging her legs aside so that he could anchor himself within the cradle of her hips.

  Right where the fire he’d stoked flared brightest.

  Every inch of her burned. Burned for him. It was as inevitable as the ceaseless motion of the waves down on the shore. Nothing had ever felt so perfect, as if her body had known him before and was impatient to welcome him home.

  It should have scared her. But Sophie was lost. There were no warning bells clanging in her brain, only the certain knowledge that this was right. And that it still wasn’t enough. The musky scent of him, of powerful, uncompromising masculinity, should have made her pause, so blatant was it now as he clamped her body against his. But it only incited her starved senses. And when his hand swept down her side so knowingly, pressing into the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, and back to tease the side of her breast, she was only aware of the sinuous push of her body into his touch, of her longing for him.

  She stretched up against him, eager to match the demands of his mouth as it plundered hers.

  Then he gripped her torso in both hands and lifted her higher, pinning her against the wall with his lower body. She gasped at the intimacy of his touch, his erection unmistakable between her legs, against her belly. And the need grew in her there, the restless, empty yearning for physical fulfilment.

  His kiss became more potent, devastating in its ruthless sensuality, as he took her mouth, possessed it utterly. His heart pounded against her breasts, its rhythm like a racing train. Matching hers.

  And then his hands slid round and cupped her breasts. Sophie sighed into his mouth. Darts of electric energy tingled from her nipples at his every caress and spread burning devastation along her nerves. To her womb. To her legs. To the juncture of her thighs that softened like warm butter against the press of his strength.

  When he broke the kiss to press his lips to her throat, she gasped for air in huge, frantic mouthfuls. She was out of control, far beyond any mastery of her own body. She shuddered convulsively as he nipped her ear lobe, sending delicious tremors of awareness through her.

  ‘You like this, Sophie?’ His voice was a rasping, air-starved murmur that weakened her even more. Through the cotton fabric of her shirt he tweaked her nipple, creating another jolt of blazing excitement.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed, her hands busy with their restless exploration of his muscled shoulders, so wide and so tense.

  He lifted his head then to stare at her. His eyes glittered with a savage excitement that should have frightened her. Except that it matched her own. The laboured sound of their breathing echoed in the still hall.

  ‘Good,’ he said, his chest still heaving. ‘Because that’s what you can give me, Sophie.’ He slid his hand down to her waist, insinuating it between them to brush across the front of her jeans, lower and lower, till she shuddered at the explicit contact.

  She stared up into a face ravaged by raw need. No evidence of softness, of gentleness there. Only stark lust.

  She shivered, but this time it wasn’t with carnal excitement. Finally, too late, she realised she was dealing with a man who didn’t give a damn for anyone or anything right now except the need for release.

  ‘Sex, Sophie,’ he breathed. His dark-as-sin eyes locked with hers. ‘That’s what I want. That’s all I want from you.’

  She watched his lips move, heard the words, yet somehow she couldn’t take them in.

  But if she sought something else, some shred of tenderness, some deeper emotion from this man, she was doomed to disappointment. His eyes were febrile with lust. And nothing else. His face had a tightly drawn quality that proclaimed the extremity of his need. Pure physical desire. Nothing else.

  What else had she expected?

  Cold, hard, unwanted reality doused the roaring inferno that had held her spellbound.

  She slumped, her hands still grasping his shoulders for support. He let her slide down the wall so she could stand on her own two feet.

  Yet she would have collapsed in a heap if not for his possessive hold on her. Her knees shook as if she’d run a marathon.

  ‘Nothing to say, Sophie?’ His lips twisted in a humourless smile that finally eliminated the last trace of burgeoning excitement that had grown inside her during their kiss.

  All her desperate desire was extinguished as suddenly and completely as a candle snuffed out in a strong wind. She felt hollow, as if something vital had been scooped out of her at his words, and at the emptiness she read in his features.

  An emptiness that echoed inside her.

  She’d been a fool. A blind, unthinking fool.

  There was nothing here for her. She knew it now, without his words. Yet he said them anyway. And each syllable was like a nail hammering into her vulnerable, foolish heart.

  ‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ he said. ‘There’s no place in my life for that.’ He drew in a mighty breath and paused.

  ‘But I’ll take your body, Sophie. Every gorgeous centimetre of it. I want to lose myself in your softness. I want to forget the world for an hour. For a single night. But that’s all. It’s oblivion I want, Sophie. Sex and ecstasy and simple, animal pleasure. Nothing else. Not feelings or tenderness. No relationship. No future.’

  He swiped his thumb over her nipple, once, twice, deliberately, while he stared down at her with a face darkened by pure need. She shuddered in unwilling response to his touch. Her body was so weak. She was appalled not by the ferocity of his stare, but by the shameful realisation that she still wanted him, still responded to him, even though he’d made it unequivocally clear that he didn’t want her. That any warm, willing female body would satisfy him right now.

  And she felt ashamed of what she’d done. Of how she’d responded to him so uninhibitedly.

  ‘So, Sophie. Will you give me what I want? What I’ve craved ever since I saw you? Will you give me sweet oblivion?’

  Sophie opened her mouth. Tried to find the words. Any words that
would end this. But nothing came. She gaped at him, still feeling the echo of desire thrumming through her body, remembering the ecstasy of their mutual need.

  But now she felt cheapened by it. He’d made her feel like a whore.

  She’d reached out to him, wanting to help, to ease his pain and share his burden. And, she realised with brutal honesty that cut through all her instinctive excuses, she’d craved his affection, had wanted to build a relationship, however fragile, with this complex, difficult man who’d taken control of her life from the moment he stalked into it a mere week ago.

  Yet all the while he’d seen her as nothing more than a convenient female body. Lips and breasts and hips to be enjoyed for a moment’s pleasure then discarded.

  He didn’t want her. Didn’t need her. Not her brain or her heart or the person she was, still trying to come to grips with her life.

  She drew a shuddering breath, ignoring the bone-deep pain that lanced through her chest.

  At least he was honest. She should be thankful he’d spelled it all out for her now, before she’d been swept away by his ardour and by her own longing. A longing for love, she now realised, turning her head away, unable to meet his piercing stare.

  His hands tightened around her ribs, their span heavily possessive. ‘Is that a no?’ he drawled. But she heard the urgency behind his contempt.

  And, lord help her, it wouldn’t take much for her to give in and offer him what he wanted. Not when her body responded to his as if they were soul mates. She didn’t doubt for an instant that physically it would be glorious.

  And then how would she feel? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Sophie slid her hands down from his shoulders and shoved with all her might. She had to get away. Now.

  For a few fraught moments he didn’t budge. She didn’t have the strength to shift him, despite her growing desperation.

  And then, abruptly, he stepped back, his eyes shadowed and unreadable. Her hands fell to her sides.

  She didn’t remember running down the hallway to the sanctuary of her room, of locking the door, or stripping off and standing under a shower so hot surely it must cleanse her.

  All she knew was that she’d left her self-respect behind with Costas Palamidis.

  CHAPTER NINE

  COSTAS PACED THE sitting room, flicking another impatient glare at his watch. Where was she? The sun was already riding low in the west and still she hadn’t returned.

  Sophie had been out since early morning. Surely she should be back by now?

  He paused in front of the picture window, scowling as he stared out at the silver-grey olive grove and the glitter of the sea.

  She’d sneaked down for breakfast almost before the staff was awake. Slipped out of the house and told the housekeeper merely that she would be out for the day.

  And she’d taken Yiorgos with her. He didn’t know whether to be glad she wasn’t alone or furious with jealousy.

  It was no good. He had so little control where Sophie was concerned. She intruded on his thoughts all the time. She was there in his mind when he carried Eleni on his shoulders down through the orchard to the sea. And there as he’d tucked his daughter in for her nap, fielding her interminable, sulky questions about where Sophie was today and why she hadn’t come to play.

  He’d known the answer to that. And his flesh crawled as he thought of it now.

  She was avoiding him. It was a wonder she hadn’t disappeared completely, not just escaped for a day. Not after what he’d done to her.

  He spun on his foot and strode the length of the massive room, along the corridor and through the door that led outside. He stood on the stone steps in the warmth of the late sun, breathing hard as if he’d just sprinted a couple of kilometres. He scrubbed his hand over his face and up to tunnel through his hair.

  But he couldn’t hide from it. The guilt that had dogged him since last night. Since he’d kissed Sophie. Since he’d almost ravaged her with a hunger more befitting a beast than a civilised man.

  He’d deliberately taken advantage of her worry and sympathy, allowing his needy, selfish desires to drive him. When he’d felt her hand on him, her gentle, soothing touch to his shoulder, and when he’d seen the answering pain in her soft eyes as he’d sat beside Eleni’s bed, his control had finally snapped.

  In one writhing, overpowering, unstoppable wave, his need had risen and consumed him. Consumed them both. All he’d known was that he had to get her away from his daughter’s room. That they needed some vestige of privacy for what was between them.

  But he hadn’t even made it further than the open hallway!

  Costas swallowed down the bitter taste of self-loathing and stepped away down the path, striding out as if he could somehow escape the knowledge of his own guilt. But of course that was impossible.

  Hell! Even now he could see the distress in her eyes. The horrified recoil as he’d told her exactly what he wanted from her. At every deliberately brutal, cruel word she’d winced, her pupils dilating with pain. He’d taken her charity and thrust it back at her, making it a tainted thing. As tainted as his own lust for her.

  No matter that his body had been rock hard with wanting her. And with the effort of control needed to prevent himself from taking her then and there, without preliminaries, in the corridor. No matter that his soul ached for the comfort he knew she alone could give him, for the touch of her soft hands against his flesh. He’d known that touch intimately every night in his turbulent dreams. And in his waking fantasies. He craved the reality of it as the parched earth craved soft, sweet rain at the end of the long summer drought.

  No matter that she tasted like an angel. So miraculously sweet that he was addicted after just one kiss. Or that she responded to him so completely, so ferociously that his soul cried out in wonder and delight.

  His woman. Those were the crazy, impossible words that had pounded through his numbed, awed brain as he drank in the taste of her, imprinted her soft curves against his rampant body. That was the knowledge that had throbbed through his pulse and made his hands quiver.

  His.

  Even now the primitive, potent need to possess her lay barely suppressed. He wanted to reach out and take her. Hold her fast. Claim her for his own. It was a certainty that defied logic, but resided bone-deep in his body, soul-deep in his psyche.

  He emerged from a thicket onto the bare top of the small headland, came to a stop on the edge of the cliff that dropped down to the shallow curve of the bay. The tang of salt was on his lips. The sound of waves rolling in was heavy and more regular than his own heartbeat.

  He strove for cool logic. The fire in his blood, the proprietorial instinct…they’d clouded his brain. It was simply a volatile surge of lust he experienced.

  She was no more his woman than he was the man of her dreams.

  He owed all his allegiance to his daughter. He had no time for anyone else in his life. Much less a girl with her own life far away in Australia. A girl grieving for her mother, wounded by the memories of family conflict and rejection.

  A girl so passionate and independent that he felt more alive just talking with her, arguing and debating and finally finding common ground, than he had in a long time.

  He shook his head. He was deluding himself. They were strangers brought together by circumstance. That was all.

  That was why he’d been so brutally frank with her last night. Describing his aching need in blatant physical terms, each word designed to shred their growing intimacy and make her shun him. For he knew one thing: he’d lost his own battle to retain his honour.

  That was why he’d deliberately provoked her disgust of him. It was the only barrier left between them. But even as he’d done it, giving her every excuse to hate him, he’d teetered on a knife edge, almost wishing she wouldn’t care. That she’d lead him to her room anyway and take him to paradise.

  No decent man would seduce a guest in his house, a young woman already battling her own pain with a grace and inner strength th
at must draw respect. No honourable man would take advantage of her empathy to force himself on her.

  Yet he would have taken her last night, grateful for the solace of her body, the sweet sensuality of her response. Even hating his weakness, he would have had her. Not once but right through the long, aching hours of darkness.

  His body hardened at the memory of her against him. He should be grateful that she’d shown the will-power he lacked and removed herself from his vicinity.

  Yet he couldn’t stifle his restless unease. Her absence was even worse than the torment of having her close at hand.

  ‘Not far now,’ Yiorgos said with a quick smile.

  The words were like a douche of chill water to Sophie’s spirits. Soon they’d be back at the Palamidis villa and she’d have to face Costas.

  She chewed on her lip, wondering how she was going to brazen it out. How could she see him again after what had happened last night? Now he knew just how weak she was. She’d almost crawled up his body, so impetuous in her need to get close to him. He’d kissed her, held her in his arms, and she’d lost all control. Had offered herself to him, there in the hallway, without thought.

  It had only been his words, pounding into her desire-numbed brain, that finally brought her to her senses.

  And even then, even when he looked at her with the easy contempt of a man who knew she was his for the taking, it had been an almost insurmountable struggle to tear herself away. Despite his words, despite the pain they inflicted, she’d still wanted him.

  What sort of woman did that make her?

  ‘Thespinis? Are you all right?’

  She turned to Yiorgos, noting the genuine concern in his flashing eyes. He’d been a pleasant companion all day, even though she hadn’t been able to convince him to call her by her name. The boss wouldn’t like it, he said. And that settled the matter, of course. The boss obviously got whatever he wanted.

  Except her.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, dredging up a smile. ‘Maybe just a little tired.’

  He grinned then, flicking her a mischievous glance. ‘I don’t see how that could be. After all it was only the markets you visited. And then the archaeological museum. And Knossos. And—’