The Greek s Convenient Mistress

by Annie West

  Silence throbbed between them, beating down against her like a weapon.

  She felt numb. No, not numb. She felt everything. Fear, resentment, despair, grief. And something else, a grudging link she couldn’t explain.

  ‘Look…like…Christina.’

  Her breath snared in her throat at his words.

  He turned his head to glower at her, his eyes fiercer than ever. But now she suspected that look was a mask designed to hide whatever emotions he felt as he stared back at her.

  ‘Sit.’ It was an order, despite his weak voice.

  Sophie held his gaze, knowing that they were both remembering her mother.

  She reached out a hand and drew forward the visitor’s chair. Then she sat down beside her grandfather.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE SUN HAD dropped out of sight, leaving only the pellucid afterglow of twilight to show the cliff path.

  Sophie breathed in the salty air, drawing the aromatic scent of wild herbs and the sea down deep into her lungs. So different from the antiseptic smell of the hospital.

  She wrapped her arms tight round herself, hugging back the pain, dismayed at the welter of confused emotions that bombarded her. Each day they grew stronger.

  Today had been no different from any other. An early walk along the shore and then her hospital visit. A few minutes’ polite, stilted conversation with Costas as she left Eleni’s room. Nothing extraordinary. And yet…today she felt raw, rubbed bare by intense emotion.

  She should feel optimistic. Eleni looked brighter by the day, was making steady progress. Even her grandfather had gathered strength since her first visit. And a relationship of sorts was developing gradually, almost grudgingly, between them.

  Sophie turned her face towards the sea breeze and shut her eyes, seeking peace from her confused thoughts.

  Inevitably she saw him. Costas. His wide-shouldered frame and smouldering eyes filled her mind as always.

  There was no escape, even though they worked hard to avoid each other. He haunted her waking hours as well as her sleep—an edgy, demanding presence that she craved, despite her efforts to be sensible.

  He was pure temptation. He couldn’t give her what she longed for and she couldn’t settle for the little he offered. But the strain of resisting him was almost unbearable.

  Especially when he’d tried to make amends. Not just with easy things like the bouquet of ice-white roses and a written apology after their confrontation. Or the offer of an Aegean island tour on his yacht, no strings attached.

  No, what she appreciated was far more intangible. The first time she’d visited her grandfather she’d left feeling hollowed out, shocked by the depth of her inner turmoil. She’d emerged from the room to find Costas waiting. Tall, silent and surprisingly comforting. She hadn’t even objected when his hand, hard and hot, encircled her elbow and he wordlessly led her away.

  They’d walked in silence through the hospital. Costas’ expression had been unreadable. But something about his taut features as he’d looked back at her spoke of understanding. Strength and sympathy.

  Ever since, whenever she left her grandfather, Costas was waiting. And his solid presence, his unquestioning support, meant more than she’d thought possible.

  Sophie opened her eyes, determined to clear it of his disturbing presence. She turned and headed down the steep track to the cove below the Palamidis villa.

  There were so many thoughts and fears crowding her mind: Eleni’s progress; her feelings for her grandfather; and the dilemma of when to go home. It was time to pick up her life in Sydney. But somehow she couldn’t make the decision to leave.

  She’d told herself she stayed for Eleni. She’d come to care for her and knew the little girl loved having her around. She refused to dwell on the possibility that it was because of her likeness to Eleni’s mother.

  Then too, she wanted to explore the tenuous bond with Petros Liakos. She’d told him she must leave soon and he’d welcomed her idea that she return for another visit to Crete.

  But above all there was Costas. The man tied her emotions in knots and her mind into a syrupy pulp of yearning. And her body—hell! He only had to come close and all pretence of control left her. It was as if something in her body, and in her soul, came alive only when she was with him.

  The light was almost gone when she reached the beach, but the sand was still warm and inviting. She dropped to her knees as the emotions she’d tried so hard to suppress bubbled up.

  How she missed her mum! How much she needed her love and guidance. She’d give anything to wake up and find her mother’s death had been a nightmare. If only the doctors had diagnosed the illness sooner. If only her mother had listened to her when Sophie had told her to rest. If only the drugs had worked. If only…

  Her head and shoulders bowed. She pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling the wetness there as tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mouth slackened, lips quivering till the sobs welled up from deep inside her and she gave in to the force of her grief.

  It was dark when she finally raised her head, bereft now of tears. Evening had fallen, like the sudden drop of a curtain. But early stars already bloomed.

  The storm of weeping had left her boneless, curiously empty as she huddled there. Eventually she braced her hands on the ground to lever herself up. But her right hand didn’t touch sand. It fastened on something soft.

  In the gloom she could make out the large, pale shape beside her. A towel.

  Clutching the cotton towelling with both hands, she stumbled to her feet, then swayed as the circulation returning to her legs prickled her.

  This was a private estate with high-tech security. No tourists allowed here. She turned and stared out into the cove. She’d have seen anyone swimming when she arrived. Wouldn’t she? Or had she been too caught up in her own miserable thoughts to notice the quiet stroke of a swimmer? There’d been no one in the shallows. But further out…?

  The steady shush of waves on the shore was loud in her ears, she couldn’t hear anything else. But then she became aware of movement. A black shape in the sea. It headed straight in to the beach. And now she could make out the faint echo of sound, the splash of a body forging its way through the velvet dark water.

  Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and she saw the precise moment he reached the shallows and found his footing. His wide, rangy shoulders emerged and he shook his head. Water sluiced, streaming over his massive chest, broad and heavy, down his narrowing torso to a lean waist.

  And yet Sophie couldn’t look away. Her breath snared somewhere in her chest as she watched Costas—it could be no one else—rise from the lapping waves.

  She should call out, warn him that he wasn’t alone.

  She should turn her back, give him the privacy she’d demand herself.

  For even in the deep gloom of early evening she could see that he was nude. No shadow of a swimsuit marred the perfect, athletic lines of his body.

  Her breathing faltered, even her pulse stuttered as she stared, transfixed.

  He was perfect. Every taut, ultra-masculine inch of him.

  He’d seen her. He stopped in mid-stride, still knee-deep in water.

  Go. Now!

  Drop the towel and disappear as fast as you can.

  Her mind screamed at her to run. To take herself off before it was too late. They’d been through this before—the searing physical attraction, the driving need.

  It was all he wanted, all he needed from her. He’d never offer her anything more.

  Sophie swallowed hard, trying to summon the strength to ignore the potency of her response to him, her own needs. The longer she stood, transfixed by his presence, the weaker grew the voice of self-preservation. Till it became only a blur of white noise buzzing in her ears.

  Out of the morass of painful emotion, out of the guilt and grief and doubt, only one thing was absolutely clear to her. How much she wanted this man. Wanted him body and soul. Needed him with a desperation that was beyond
understanding. Beyond right and wrong or fear for the future.

  She remembered the bliss of his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, his heat against her own. And she wanted that again.

  This craving for comfort, for Costas, was self-destructive. Foolish. But right now it was beyond her to do anything but stand and wait for him.

  She’d been strong for so long. She just couldn’t do it any more.

  ‘Sophie.’ His voice was as hypnotic as the susurrating waves.

  He strode forward till he stood on dry land. Starlight limned the well-defined ridges and curves of his muscled body. The stark angle of his jaw. The bunch of his fists. The heavy fullness of his muscled thighs. His complete maleness.

  Sophie gripped the towel tighter in her clenched fingers, feeling the now familiar burst of heat ignite within her. She was trembling hard as she stared back at him unable, unwilling, to look away.

  ‘Sophie.’ Her name on his lips was a groan this time, long and low and pained. ‘Go away.’

  She knew he was right. That in the bright light of day she’d run a mile from the dangerous undercurrents swirling around them.

  But, heaven help her, she couldn’t fight any more. All she felt was need. Pure, driving need. Nothing else mattered. Not the memory of his brutal words when they’d kissed, nor the pain she’d felt afterwards. She’d lived with loss and hurt so long now that she didn’t care about tomorrow. Didn’t care about anything but the extraordinary completeness she felt only with him.

  He stalked up the beach, silent and sure-footed. Sophie swallowed hard, trembling at his aura of potent energy. He looked bigger than ever. Impossibly masculine and exciting. Some atavistic part of her wanted to flee before him—the embodiment of the primitive, dangerous male hunter.

  She could smell the heady scent of musk on his wet skin and wondered how it would taste to her tongue.

  Just that wayward thought sent her temperature soaring.

  ‘Don’t you hear me?’ he growled. ‘Go back to the house.’

  He was so close she could feel his hot breath against her face and tilted her chin up towards it, closing her eyes. Even straight from the icy Aegean, his skin burned like a furnace. She could feel the heat of his bare flesh.

  His breathing sawed heavy and stertorous, louder even than her galloping pulse.

  ‘Sto Diavolo.’ His voice was a hoarse rasp of despair. ‘You would try the patience of a saint! Don’t you have any sense at all?’ He sounded desperate.

  He couldn’t be any more desperate than she.

  She swayed towards the sound of his voice and his hands clamped on her shoulders, sure and possessive. She sighed at the thrill of anticipation that shot down through her arms, her torso, at his touch. Her nipples peaked in immediate, agonising sensitivity.

  ‘No, Sophie.’ Costas’ voice rumbled from above her. ‘No, we can’t.’

  But his fingers spread over her shoulders, surreptitiously massaging an erotic message into her flesh. His body communicated directly to hers, and there was no mistaking his intent, despite his verbal denial.

  She lifted her hand, reaching out till she felt his chilled, wet, burning flesh beneath the pads of her fingers.

  His breath hissed violently as his hands spasmed tight then splayed wide over her shoulders.

  Slowly, deliberately, she planted her whole hand against him, skin to skin, and a world of sensation exploded across her palm. She traced the solid ridge of his collar bone, paused at the clavicle and rose to the pulse point beneath his jaw. The life blood throbbed violently there. It raced in a frenzied tattoo that echoed her own heartbeat thudding so hard against her ribcage.

  ‘You mustn’t touch—ahh!’ His words died as she let her hand slide down over the firm strength of his broad chest, finding the crisp, enticing silk of hair, the thud of his heart hammering deep inside.

  His hands slipped then, from her shoulders to her arms, round her back, returning to her neck, her face, pushing into her hair and holding her still.

  His kiss was ruthless—his mouth urgent and hard. His tongue aggressively proprietorial as it explored, dominated, demanded her unstinting response.

  If she’d had any shred of will-power left to resist him it would have melted at the first erotic, knowing lap of his tongue against hers. At the sensation of his searing breath filling her mouth.

  She wrapped her arms tight round his wet torso, pulling herself flush against his blazing heat, his slick flesh. Feeling his solid, unyielding muscles against her skin. His erection pressed long and hard against her. His thighs braced wide enough to encompass her.

  It was so exactly right. Instinctively Sophie knew this was what she’d wanted from the very first. She and Costas together. That was what she’d craved. What she’d pushed into a dark corner of her consciousness, as if she could hide it away!

  The surge of possessiveness that filled her numbed brain was so strong it rocked her. It was even more powerful than the pulsing, urgent need, the wild yearning for more. More sensation. More feeling. More…

  ‘Sophie.’ She felt rather than heard him speak her name between their frantic kisses. The sensation of his deep voice thrumming through her, hoarse with passion as he groaned out her name, erased the last tiny vestige of fear that it might be Fotini he was thinking of.

  Costas was with her, truly wanted her.

  And there was no doubt in her mind they belonged together.

  ‘Tell me to stop, Sophie.’

  How could she send him away when his kisses set her on fire? When his body beckoned hers with such irresistible promise and shivered in response at the very touch of her hands? How could she send him away when he was hers?

  Whatever logic said, or the law, or cold common sense, Sophie recognised it now with absolute certainly. Costas was hers. This was right.

  She sighed into his mouth. This was perfect.

  Costas heard her sigh. Felt it in her warm, fresh breath mingling with his own. Tasted it, sweet and conquering, deep in his mouth.

  And he knew he was lost.

  He let his hands slide from her silky hair, rove her delicately moulded body as he’d longed to ever since he’d seen her standing there, waiting for him in the twilight.

  He’d thought he was seeing things. An apparition come to seduce his waking mind just as she’d come to him every night in his tortured erotic dreams.

  But she was real. He lashed his arms tight round her, pulling her against him, imprinting every gorgeous, seductive centimetre of her body against his. She felt too good to be true. Too perfect.

  Like Circe, the sorceress who enslaved men with her magical beauty.

  No woman had ever been this perfect. Ever.

  He shuddered as she smoothed her hands down his back, into the curve at the base of his spine and out, fingers edging over his buttocks.

  Instantly his whirling half-formed thoughts blacked out. He was incapable of thinking coherently now. Instead it was instinct that drove him. He kissed her so comprehensively that she bowed back over his arm. Tucked her lower body in against him.

  He moved automatically, taking her down with him as he knelt, finding the beach towel with one hand and shaking it out to spread on the sand.

  He didn’t even break their kiss as he prevented her automatic movement to lie down. Her breath still seared into his mouth as he worked the buttons on her shirt undone, dragged her hands away from him so he could strip the top from her. The bra took only a single, tearing wrench and then his hands found her breasts. Firm, pouting, ripe breasts that she pushed into his palms as she sighed her delight into his mouth.

  Oh, lord. He was going to die. She was killing him.

  He was never going to restrain himself. Even as he fondled the soft, tantalising fullness of her, palmed and squeezed her hard nipples, his whole being focused on the effort it took not simply to strip away her jeans and thrust himself into her like some marauding barbarian.

  She pulled away, stunning him with the loss of her soft warm
th. Instinctively he followed, finding himself on all fours as she lay back on the towel. Her eyes were unreadable in this light but they were fixed on him.

  His heart gave a single, enormous thump that juddered through him.

  Then his eyes dropped to her hands, busy tugging down her jeans. Her panties. Revealing a dark triangle of femininity. The tender curve of rounded hips. Slim, shapely thighs.

  He’d reach out to help her pull the denim from her legs but he didn’t dare. If he touched her…

  He shut his eyes, summoning desperate control. Willing himself to exercise some restraint.

  But even in the dark he could see her naked before him. Feel again the impossibly soft texture of her breasts filling his hands. Taste her, warm and generous, in his mouth.

  Their breathing was loud in his ears. That and the thud of his racing pulse.

  He braced himself. Even the sound of her uneven gasps was seductive music to his bewitched senses.

  And the scent of her. The fresh, always enticing perfume of her. It was overlaid now with a tangy, musky invitation. Female scent. His nostrils flared and his arms, braced hard against the ground, trembled.

  ‘Costas.’ It was the merest sigh of sound. And yet it was charged with the same need that drove him.

  He opened his eyes to the woman lying before him. She reached out one slim arm and he felt her fingers trail across his chest.

  He surged over her. Covering her completely so that the magic sensation of her warm, soft female flesh greeted him, tantalised him even more.

  His breath was expelled in a huge sigh. The fit of their bodies was magnificent. Mind-numbing.

  She moved her legs, shifting them outwards so that he felt the smooth skin of her thighs against the outer edges of his own. He let her take just a little more of his weight, allowing his lower body to sink against the feminine core of her.

  There was a hiss of breath, his or hers he didn’t know. And movement. Friction, deliberate invitation. Had she lifted her hips or had he thrust against her?

  He was too dazed by the onslaught against his senses to be sure. All he knew was that he had to concentrate on not moving. Not doing anything. Just till he—