Greek Affairs in his Bed: Sleeping with a StrangerBlackmailed into the Greek Tycoon’s BedBedded by the Greek Billionaire

by Anne Mather

  ‘Don’t try to pretend that you don’t know what I mean. We both know that there is unfinished business between us. Things that we never took to their full conclusion—a hunger that we never got out of our system.’

  ‘But …’

  The word cracked painfully in the middle as she had to swallow hard again to ease her aching throat. He wasn’t touching her and yet her nerves were singing as if he was holding her close, as if his hands were caressing every inch of her skin. He wasn’t kissing her and yet her mouth felt the touch of his lips, the warmth of his breath. She could almost taste him on her tongue.

  They had shared just one kiss—long ago—and yet now, here, in this moment, it was as if it might have been yesterday—an hour—a second ago. Her throat was so tight she could scarcely breathe and her heart was thudding painfully against her ribcage. It took another fight to swallow hard before she felt she could force her vocal cords to work.

  ‘I thought you didn’t play with little girls,’ she croaked and saw a slow, wicked light dawn in his eyes.

  One long hand reached out and touched her cheek, just the tip of a finger resting on the bone below her eye. The contact was so tiny, so light and unmoving, and yet it sizzled all the way down from her face, right to where her toes curled inside the soft velvet slippers she wore.

  ‘Two things,’ he said, very softly, very intently. ‘One, you’re not a little girl any more—we both know that. And two, I am very definitely not playing.’

  ‘Then … then I need to remind you that I am engaged to be married.’

  ‘And I need to tell you that I don’t give a damn. The question is—do you?’

  No woman who looked at a man the way she looked at him was thinking about her fiancé at the same time, Angelos told himself. No woman who followed him with her eyes the way that clear blue gaze tracked every movement, every gesture, lit up at any smile, was thinking of her fiancé as the only man in the world for her—the only man she wanted sexually. He knew she was just too damn scared to admit it.

  And now he knew why he had caught himself up when he had been tempted to kiss her earlier. Why he had known that the urge to react in anger—when they were both angry—would have been a mistake. What he wanted was for her to know just who was kissing her. He needed her to know that he was the man holding her, the man kissing her, the man she wanted to kiss her …

  And she did want it. No matter how much she protested, how much she scorned, it was there in her eyes, in her face, in every inch of her body language towards him, just as he was certain that it was in his towards her.

  ‘Of course I give a damn!’ Jessica’s response was a splutter of furious indignation. ‘I am engaged …’

  Lifting her left hand, she waved it wildly in his face, fingers splayed so that the ring on her third finger showed openly. A cheap ring with only a tiny diamond in it, Angelos noted. A paltry, insignificant stone, and not at all the sort of ring that he would give the woman he loved and wanted to marry.

  If he ever met a woman he could imagine spending the rest of his life with. Right now, there were too many women, too many beautiful, sexy, beddable women in the world for him to want to tie himself down. Women like the one in front of him. Women he could enjoy while the passion burned and then walk away, heart and fancy free.

  ‘Engaged to be married …’ Jessica repeated with pointed emphasis. ‘And that means something to me, even if it doesn’t to you!’

  Looking down into her face, Angelos saw the indignation burning bright in her eyes and the determinedly defiant lift to her chin that told of the story she was trying to convey. But he also noted the faint quiver to her soft, full lips, the way that her not-quite-certain gaze would occasionally flicker and slide away from his, having to be forced back again to keep giving the impression she wanted.

  ‘But does it?’ he questioned softly. ‘Does it really mean so very much to you?’

  ‘Of course …’ she began furiously but the words shrivelled and died as he caught the hand she had been waving wildly between them.

  ‘Of course,’ he echoed, putting the scepticism he felt into the words. ‘We know that you are engaged to this Chris here …’

  Lifting her hand to his mouth, he pressed a kiss on the finger that wore the ring, watching her response intently as he did so, so that he saw the way she shivered so very faintly, and her eyes flickered once again.

  ‘And perhaps you are engaged here …’

  This time his mouth was on her forehead, drifting over the smooth skin, touching briefly, caressing, tasting her. The flavour of her flesh made his tongue tingle and the heat of need sear through him, hot and fast. He felt the kick of lust hard in his lower body as he saw the way her eyes drifted shut just for a moment so that she had to force them open again. The effort of will she was making made her slender body tremble and he could feel the way she was swaying faintly on her feet, drifting imperceptibly closer, then back again as she fought for control.

  ‘But are you engaged here …?’

  This time his free hand moved to touch her chest, just above her heart, and he felt the shudder of response she couldn’t hold back even though his fingers were only resting on the fine green silk of her shirt, not really making contact with her at all.

  ‘Truly engaged?’

  He fully expected her to fight still harder, to slap his hand away, slap his face. It would be worth it, he told himself. He was almost disappointed when he simply heard the breath hiss in sharply between her clenched teeth and she clamped her mouth tight shut against whatever she had been about to say.

  ‘Nothing to say, Princess?’

  His mouth twitched against the smile that almost surfaced as she turned a fulminating glare on him, her cheeks washed with rose-pink at the struggle she was having with herself. Furiously she tugged against his grip on her wrist, trying to free herself, but her actions were impotent against his careless strength.

  ‘Let’s test this …’ he murmured, lowering his head, careful and slow, black eyes locking with blue as she glowered at him in mute rebellion.

  She could slap his hand away, Jessica told herself. She was so tempted to slap his hand away. Her fingers itched with the need for the satisfaction of it—and maybe with a quick whack across his arrogant, triumphant face for good measure.

  But she knew that was just what Angelos expected and so she was determined that it was what she would not do.

  He expected her to panic—expected her to fight. And if she did, then she would reveal how much he was getting to her. The nerve-twisting, mouth-drying effect he was having on her. And right now she would rather die than admit to any of that.

  So she was going to let him kiss her—because that was obviously his plan. She would stand quite still—quite still she warned the muscles that were threatening to give her away by trembling—and she would let him do just what he wanted. And she would stay totally still, totally unresponsive all the way through it.

  And then, when he’d finished, she would wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, smile at him and say quite coolly and calmly, You see, that’s why I’m engaged to Chris. Because there is no other man for me.

  And so she stood there, still and in control. She forced her legs to stay put and not back away towards the door, away from him. He would only come after her if she did that. She could end up against the wall with his hard, powerful body pressed against her, trapping her.

  The shiver that ran through every nerve at just the thought should have warned her. But she was determined not to let anything that might weaken her resolve into her mind and so she pushed it away, forcing herself to concentrate instead on how she would show the Black Angel just how little this all meant. Planning her revenge distracted her.

  She might even manage an extra retort, an extra dig at him. She could get her personal revenge for the callous slight he had tossed at her all those years ago. Don’t delude yourself, Angelos … she would say. I don’t play with older men …

  But
then Angelos’s warm mouth touched hers and immediately the words she planned, the voice in which she would say them, the hauteur she would assume, all evaporated in a whirling haze as her rational mind stopped working and the purely sensual, purely feminine part of her brain took over.

  His gentleness was unexpected, as was the slow, soft way he touched her mouth. She had anticipated that he would use this kiss to stamp his possession on her, to show her how a ‘real man’ might kiss—the sort of man she would get in him and did not have, apparently, in Chris. But this was a man who was taking nothing. Instead, he was giving, teasing, enticing. He was drawing her out, awakening her senses, creating a need in her that she had never known she possessed.

  ‘Jessica …’

  Her name was just a murmur against her mouth, with his accent thickening and his distinctive pronunciation that turned it almost into the drawn-out sound Yessica as his lips covered hers.

  The last time she had kissed Angelos, when she had almost thrown herself at him, into his arms, demanding his attention, wanting him to hold her so desperately, she had been only a teenager, barely a stage or two away from a child. She had known few kisses, very few men—and none of them intimately. She had behaved like a child, kissed like a child, snatching awkwardly at his mouth, trying to press her lips against his.

  This time it was so very different. This time his caress was slow and seductive, his mouth smoothing over hers, his tongue sliding over her lips, teasing its way into the cleft between them, enticing her to open to him. He tasted of the coffee he had drunk and the deeply personal flavour of his own skin that held an essence she couldn’t get enough of. One taste and she was addicted.

  And this time she felt herself respond in a deeply physical way. This time she responded to his kiss as a woman. A fully grown, sexually mature adult woman. It was the only thing she could do because of the way that his mature male sexuality called to her.

  Her heart was thudding heavily, the sound of her pulse throbbing inside her head like thunder in her ears and deep inside her something was flowering, something she had never known before. It was hot and it was hungry and it was so powerfully needy that there was no way she could hold it back.

  ‘Angelos …’

  As she sighed his name she took an instinctive step forward, moving blindly because her eyes had drifted closed at the first touch of his mouth on hers and she kept them shut, the better to enjoy the heated sensations swirling through her. She had to move closer to experience more of them, to know the heat of his body against hers, to feel his arms close around her as they had never done on that other long ago night, when she had been the one kissing him. Then he had held her for a moment, stiffly, as if wanting to restrain rather than encourage. And when his hands had closed about her arms it had been to move her back, away from him, rather than to draw her close.

  There was no such hesitation or restraint this time. This time, as she stepped forward, powerful muscular arms came round her, enfolding her and hauling her up against him. Her breasts were crushed against the hard wall of his chest, her hips against his pelvis so that she could feel the heat and hardness of his erection pressing against the softness of her stomach. Last time that had petrified as much as it had thrilled her. She had known then that he had been lying when he had said that he didn’t play with little girls, but in the same moment, naïve and innocent of what it really meant to be wanted by a mature, predatory male, she had had to struggle not to panic and pull away. This time, she pressed closer, enjoying the heated sensations that seared through her.

  ‘Angelos …’

  His hands were on her back, smoothing downwards from her shoulders to her waist, splaying out over the curve of her hips and buttocks, drawing her even tighter into his hold. And at the same time he deepened the intimacy of the kiss, plundering the soft, moist interior of her mouth, tongues tangling, breath blending. But the hunger that he’d woken in her, the heated throbbing low down in her body, demanded more. So much more.

  Her arms snaked up around his neck, pulling his head down even closer to her, and her fingers threaded through the black silk of his hair, twisting and tugging, a smile growing under the pressure of his lips as she heard the raw moan that escaped him, felt the hot pressure of his hands grow stronger.

  But still she wanted more, needed more. She wanted …

  Any train of thought was shattered, splintering into tiny pieces as the sound of the doorbell rang out into the silence of the morning.

  Her heart jerked hard, her mind jolting into shocked awareness, and just for a moment she knew from Angelos’s indrawn breath, his sudden total stillness, that he too was aware of the sound and the way that it had abruptly changed his mood.

  But only for a moment. A second later he had shrugged the brief distraction away, dismissing the unwanted interruption with a flick of his head. Carefully, deliberately, he pressed his mouth to hers again, cajoling a willing response from her.

  ‘Ignore it,’ he muttered against her lips. ‘We have more important things to consider …’

  And he kissed her again, harder than ever this time.

  Jessica wanted to do as he said. She wanted to kiss him and keep him kissing her. She longed to follow him back into the heated oblivion that made her blind and deaf and heedless of anything else, wanting only his mouth on her, his hands caressing her body, his strength enveloping her. But, having been dragged back to reality even for a split second, something was nagging at her thoughts—a tiny warning voice that something was wrong. There was something she should be thinking about—something important.

  But when Angelos’s tongue teased at her lips again and his hand traced burning erotic patterns over her body, she couldn’t remember what. The truth was that she didn’t want to remember, she only wanted to …

  But then the doorbell rang again, more insistently this time, and cold reality sliced into the sensual haze that clouded her thoughts.

  Stiffening in Angelos’s embrace, she pulled away from him, pushing hard at his chest when he didn’t release her but tightened his grip on her punishingly.

  ‘Let me go. I said let me go—I have to …’

  ‘Leave it …’ he commanded but already her frantic struggle was having an effect and his grip on her was loosening a little.

  ‘I can’t … I have … Angelos—no!’

  One last push and she was free, stumbling a little in the sudden shock of her release. Blundering into a chair, she almost fell but righted herself awkwardly, grabbing at the back of the seat for support.

  ‘Leave it!’ He flung the order at her, rough-voiced, dark-toned, but she couldn’t listen to him.

  ‘I have to answer it … I have to!’

  Not daring to look into his face, fearful of the anger and outrage she would see there, she whirled around, heading for the door. She could have sworn that a cynically mocking, ‘Coward …’ floated after her as she fled into the hall.

  The heavy wooden door resisted her efforts and it was only as she struggled with it that it suddenly dawned on her that she might need to sort out her appearance. Angelos’s urgent hands had tugged at her shirt, pulling it from the waistband of her trousers, and his fingers had tangled in her hair, twisting it into ruffled knots.

  With hurried movements she made a few frantic attempts to improve matters, smoothing down her hair. She was still tucking back her shirt when the stiff bolt on the door finally gave way and she was able to yank it open, blinking in the sudden light as she stared into the paved courtyard.

  A man stood there, his hand already raised to press the bell again. A middle-sized, middle height, fair-haired man who looked at her in some surprise, a faint frown drawing his brows together. Her brain seemed to have slipped out of focus and she could barely see him, let alone recognise him, though she had the dreadful feeling that she really should …

  ‘Jess?’ His voice was puzzled, questioning. ‘Are you all right?’

  And it was the sound of her name that brought her back into
the real world, seeming to hit her in the face like a bucket of cold water dragging her away from the sensual delirium that had possessed her and bringing her up sharp with shock. Only one person in the world called her Jess in spite of her constant protests that she really preferred the full version of her name. It was something that had always niggled her and she supposed that it would never change.

  ‘Chris …’ she managed on a gasp. ‘I’m sorry—I …’

  Dear Lord, no! How could she admit that in the moments after she had got the door open she hadn’t known quite who he was? How had Angelos managed to scramble her brain so completely with one kiss that she hadn’t been able to recognise her fiancé?

  ‘I … I was busy and I didn’t hear the bell …’ she managed, hating herself for the lie, hating Angelos for putting her in the position of having to make it.

  Hating the way that she suddenly felt as if her fiancé was a stranger to her—someone she didn’t know, who didn’t belong in her world.

  Guilt had done that to her, she realised. Guilt at the way that she had let Angelos kiss her, hold her. And it had all meant nothing to him. He had stated his aim right from the start …

  ‘Let’s test this …’ he had said, challenging her assertion that she was engaged to be married to a man that she loved.

  And she had been so confident that she could prove that assertion and meet any test he could throw at her. She’d told herself with foolhardy assurance that she would meet him, match him, be able to pass his test with flying colours. She had even convinced herself that she would be able to fling some nicely calculated barbed remarks in his face to prove how unmoved she was and to even the score after their last encounter.

  Instead of which she had fallen right into his hands like a ripe plum just ready for the picking, He had baited his trap with care, even warning her it was there, but she had still tumbled headlong into it like a naïve, unthinking fool.

  And she didn’t like the way that made her feel.

  She felt dirty, tainted, guilty. Once more it seemed that the malign influence of the Black Angel had reached out to invade her world and damage everything that was good in it.