by Marian Tee
“What the fuck?”
Daria whirled around, paling at the thought that she might have just committed homicide, and all because she wanted to find a prince among frogs.
The first thing she saw was her Gatorade bottle, lying helplessly next to a pair of murderously expensive-looking beach sandals.
Curse you, bottle. It should have known better than to slip out of her grasp!
Another moment, and the pricy footwear’s owner had bent down as he reached for the bottle. Daria caught sight of someone tall, long-limbed, and bare-chested.
The figure straightened.
Beautiful silky black hair, curling at the nape, so thick she wanted to sink her fingers in it and start to comb them.
Olive skin, such a contrast with her pale complexion, and she found herself wondering dizzily if he was that dark all over.
Sculpted body, with his broad shoulders, powerfully muscular arms, rock-hard chest, and washboard abs—
The stranger looked up.
Daria gasped.
The sound had his furious brown eyes jerking up, and the stranger’s gaze instantly found and labeled Daria as the culprit.
She didn’t mind at all. In fact, she found herself praying that he was a cop. If he were, he could arrest her, and she’d go to him willingly.
They stared at each other for a long time.
You’re cruel, God, Daria thought with a mental sniff. The longer she looked at the beautiful stranger she had almost murdered, the more she was convinced this was all a test. It had to be. There was no other reason that God would suddenly place her in the presence of this perfection.
Daria lifted her chin. I won’t fail You, God.
****
What did people do on vacation aside from resting? It was a question that Nik Alexandropoulos had been struggling with since the day he arrived at Kyrillos Gazis’ pleasure island, and until now the answer managed to evade his normally cunning mind. Give him a stock market crisis to solve anytime, Nik thought, and he wouldn’t feel as lost as he felt now. But this whole goddamn vacation thing? How people could stand to spend days doing nothing was beyond him, and if not for the doctor ordering him to rest, Nik wouldn’t have ever bothered to figure it out.
An overseas trip had exposed Nik to a rather severe virus, requiring a week’s stay in the hospital for treatment. Upon his discharge, the doctor had given Nik an ultimatum. Take a month off from work or risk a life-threatening recurrence.
After just a week on the island, Nik’s days had fallen into a routine. He would wake up at four in the morning, work out in his hotel’s gym for an hour, take a shower, go for a run along the beach, and afterwards take a dip. All this he made sure to do before breakfast, which would then be followed by several hours of reading. The need to do more chafed at him, but Nik knew it would be the height of stupidity to ignore his doctor’s advice. And so he forced himself not to do anything after breakfast, since he was anything but stupid.
Or at least that was the plan until some goddamn idiot had thought of throwing a bottle at the side of his head, hard enough for Nik to temporarily feel like the world was spinning faster than it should around him.
“What the fuck?”
He closed his eyes, working hard to get his sense of equilibrium back. After, he touched the side of his head but was not reassured by the fact that he wasn’t bleeding. It could be worse, Nik thought grimly, with the bottle causing internal damage.
Bending down, Nik reached for the bottle, intending to have it scanned for fingerprints. Whoever threw this at him would pay. He would—
A gasp interrupted his thoughts, and Nik’s head immediately lifted up.
A woman?
His attacker was a woman?
She was tall and long-legged, her dark hair wavy, her large gray eyes dominating her heart-shaped face. She also happened to be extremely voluptuous, her hot pink summer dress showing off curves that seemed by inspired by Nik’s own secret fantasies.
Staring at her, Nik found his fury receding in the wake of his lust. The strength of his reaction made him tense. Before this, his sexual appetites had always been under his control. How could this woman affect him so differently? Why did one look at this woman make him want to punish her, made him itch to set her on his lap and slap her plump bottom until it was a rosy shade of pink?
More disturbingly sexual thoughts consumed him, but even so Nik managed to remain still and unspeaking, his face expressionless as he waited for the apology due him. Although the woman’s lovely face was as unreadable as his, her eyes gave her away. It showed inner struggle, as if she was torn between two things.
The thought was bemusing. What the fuck did she have to be confused about? Say sorry or throw a bottle at him for the second time?
Finally, the woman shifted on her feet. Her gaze lifted up to meet his, the same time she raised her chin proudly, almost challengingly. He should find it disrespectful and offensive, but instead Nik found it…arousing.
And then she turned her back on him.
For a moment, sheer incredulity swamped Nik, who had never been treated in such a way. Everyone around him quaked in his presence, and his word had always been law, one glance from him enough to translate into a command. Certainly no one had ever ignored him in this manner, but when the woman kept walking away, her own back stiff but her hips swaying in a mixture of provocation and innate sensuality, Nik realized that she truly was going to leave, just like that.
“Stop.”
Daria halted, but it wasn’t out of fear.
Curse it, curse it, curse it!
Her entire body trembled at the sound of his voice, but it wasn’t out of fear. No, the way her body was shaking right now was simply a basic response to the irrefutable power underlining his word. She craved that power, Daria realized shamefully, craved it so because, for some reason, she wanted the man to use it to dominate her.
And wasn’t that just sick?
Her fists clenched against her sides as she desperately tried to pull herself together. This was not happening. She wasn’t going to fail at the first stumbling block God placed in her way. This guy might be exactly her type, and her attraction to him might be unusually strong, but she would not waver.
She would not!
A shadow fell on the sand, followed by a figure crossing her path before stopping in front of Daria, and just like that, the impact of his sudden nearness hit her, and she was lost. His perfection at a distance, she could barely handle. But this close?
God, You’re killing me here.
He was like a custom designed male, built according to her every specification. Her height had always made it hard to find a taller guy to date, but this man easily topped her by almost a foot. She had also secretly dreamt of dating a man who wouldn’t blink at her weight, who would be able to carry her over the threshold without losing his breath. In all her years of dating, she hadn’t found one who could, but this man?
This man looked strong and powerful enough to carry Daria and her entire set of luggage with him, and that was no light feat, considering her tendency to over-pack.
Dear God, this was too much temptation. Whoever Mr. Right was for her, he had better be perfect. Only perfection could be worth all this agony.
Not daring to look at him, Daria started to speak, only to have the sound of the stranger’s phone ringing breaking the silence between them first. She closed her mouth and instead watched in silence as the man pulled out an iPhone from his pocket. He answered the call in Greek and as he turned sideways, she caught sight of the printed bumper that lined the sides of his phone.
Her breath caught.
No.
It couldn’t be.
She blinked. She rubbed her eyes. She slapped her cheeks.
She knew the stranger could see everything she was doing, but she was past caring. She did it all again, needing to make sure that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.
Daria took a deep breath before raising her gaze to t
he man’s phone.
The printed design on the bumper was still the same, pandas munching on bamboo on a blue and white background.
Pandas.
Pandas!
Pandas!
Not just one or two but a whole bunch!
As she reeled from the realization, people continued to walk past them on all sides, shouting, laughing, and talking. Teleios had finally wakened, and now it brimmed with joie de vivre. Overhead, the sun had completely risen, casting a golden glow all around. A new day had started for everyone, but for Daria it was more than that.
Oh. My. God.
Are You for real?
This was her Mr. Right?
The realization made her feel faint, made her imagine the skies were parting as angels cast their wings and blew their trumpets while singing Alleluia.
She knew it, she knew it, Daria thought giddily. Because she hadn’t lost faith in God, He had rewarded her, and now she had her prince!
“I want you to terminate her immediately.”
Her Greek had switched to English, and she listened to him speak dreamily. He had such a beautiful accent.
“I want her out of the office first thing in the morning.”
The content of his speech wasn’t exactly romantic, but she chose to ignore the fact.
The voice started to fade. Daria thought it was only her imagination, but when she could no longer hear a thing, her eyes fluttered open, and she realized then that the man had started walking away from her.
Daria gasped. “Wait!” The irony wasn’t lost on her as she tried to catch up to her Greek. “Wait!” But he was walking too fast while her three-inch wedges had her walking slower than usual.
Her impulsive nature reasserted itself then, and before she knew it, she was already hurrying back, picking up the Gatorade bottle her beautiful stranger had tossed back to the sand. She pulled her hand back, aimed, and threw.
She missed her target.
Again.
Daria had been aiming for his back, but instead she ended up hitting his head.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK.”
The pain at the back of his head was irritatingly familiar, and the fact made Nik’s teeth gnash. Goddammit. What was it with that woman? He interrupted his secretary’s report mid-call, saying tersely, “I’ll get back to you later.” He pushed the End button and jammed the iPhone back into his pocket.
Then he turned around and started for her.
Daria found herself rooted to her spot, torn between fear and excitement. Curse it, but he looked angry. Curse it, but he looked even hotter when angry. Curse it, but she didn’t know what to—
The man stopped an inch before her, icy fury masking his face.
She shrieked.
Nik almost jumped back in shock. “What the—” Heads turned towards them, with most of the suspicious gazes going his way. “Will you shut up,” Nik hissed at the woman, flushing at the scrutiny he was being subjected to. “You’re the one who threw a bottle at my head twice, so stop acting like you’re the victim here!”
The stranger’s words penetrated her mind, and Daria stopped screaming.
“You’re insane,” Nik said in disgust.
Daria almost hung her head low in shame, perfectly understanding why he thought the same way. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I panicked. I thought you were going to kill me.” She looked at her Greek, hoping for a smile, but the man only scowled at her.
“I should press charges against you.”
Daria winced. My, my, her Greek was testy, wasn’t he? But then, she had thrown a bottle at him twice, and both times, he had ended up with a blow to his head. His bad manners were to be forgiven. Taking a deep breath, Daria started to explain all about messages – or rather, drawings – in a bottle and the pandas on his phone. But then she saw the look on his face—
He was obviously still contemplating whether to press charges.
Daria mentally changed tacks. She mustn’t give her Greek a chance to sue her before she could get them back on proper footing.
And so instead of explaining, she said simply, “Hi.”
The stranger didn’t answer.
Maybe, she thought hopefully, her beauty had struck him dumb the same way his had rendered her speechless. She mentally nodded to herself. Yes, that was it.
Realizing she had to take matters in her own hand while the poor man basked in her loveliness, Daria offered her hand. “I’m Daria.” She smiled up at him. “You are?”
“Insane,” Nik replied unhesitatingly. And just in case the nutty woman still managed to misunderstand him, he clarified, “You’re insane. Certifiably so.” And he, Nik thought, was close to being one himself, with every second that passed without him being able to walk away.
So why couldn’t he?
He waited for the woman to be offended, to flounce off in a huff in hopes of having him run after her, but instead the curvy brunette in front of him only laughed.
“I know I seem that way,” Daria said ruefully, “but I promise I’m not insane.”
An incredulous brow arched at her in response. “You threw a bottle at me twice for no apparent reason, and you think it does not make you insane?”
“The first one was an accident,” she said defensively.
Nik was unimpressed. “And the second one?”
“Not an accident?”
His eyes bored through hers, as if saying, you see then? You are insane.
Daria was having a hard time biting back her smile. He was so serious. Most men would have used this opportunity to flirt with her, but the beautiful Greek stranger God had sent her was doing the opposite.
Daria cocked her head to the side, studying him. She could see it in his eyes, could see it in the way his nostrils flared every time his gaze strayed to her chest. The attraction was mutual, so why hadn’t he yet made a move?
The way the woman was looking at him made Nik’s jaw clench, and he snapped, “Stop looking at me like that.”
Daria blinked. “Like what?”
Heat blazed in the stranger’s dark brown eyes as he gritted out, “Like you want me to pounce on you.”
Her breath caught.
Oh.
Vivid images flashed in her mind at his words.
This man, he looked so in control, but she had a feeling he could be so exquisitely raw and primitive in the way he fucked.
She swallowed.
Moisture started pooling between her thighs.
Even though she was still a virgin, it wasn’t Daria’s first time to be wet. She had always found sex fascinating, had long figured out how to pleasure herself with a few strokes of her fingers.
But this was different.
This was the first time for Daria to feel wet at the thought of a man fucking her.
And wasn’t that another sign he was her Mr. Right?
Nik sucked his breath in hard when their eyes met once more. This time, there was no mistaking the desire clouding her gray gaze, no mistaking the reason for the way she wetted her lips and the way her breasts seemed fuller as they strained against her tight dress.
She wanted him.
And, fuck it, he wanted her.
“This is insane,” he muttered. Flings, affairs, one-night stands – none of it had ever been a part of his life, and he had never thought it would be until she came along.
Daria swallowed. The way he was looking at her, it was like he was just a second away from losing control and ripping her clothes off her body and fucking her right then and there. “What’s insane?” Oh God, was that her voice? It sounded so…throaty.
The heat in his gaze turned feral, and she just about melted at the sight of it. Oh God, he was looking at her so hungrily now, and she was so tempted to plead with him. Rip my clothes off, like you want to. Like I want you to. Please, please, please!
“If you keep looking at me like that,” he growled.
She did keep looking at him like that, just to see how much further she had to pus
h him before—
Another growl.
It was her only warning.
Her beautiful Greek stranger had snapped.
One moment they were apart, the next he had hauled her to him, his fingers digging deep into her hair as his mouth crushed hers.
It was the fiercest, deepest, and roughest kiss she had ever tasted.
She couldn’t get enough of it.
There was nothing subtle or gentle about it, the way his tongue staked its claim inside her mouth bold and dominant. But instead of being frightened, Daria reveled in it, eagerly submitting to his authority. Her hands moved on its own volition, making him shudder as she caressed his chest before curling her arms around his neck.
Another powerful shudder racked his large, strong body before he pulled her closer to him, her breasts pressing hard against his chest. Her mind reeled at the feel of their bodies in contact, and more moisture pooled between her thighs as her breasts started to ache and her nipples started to pucker.
The woman in his arms released a sexy little whimper, and the sound nearly drove Nik insane. For a moment, his hands tightened on her plump bottom, an inch away from ripping her dress apart. Only the knowledge that they were in a public place kept him from doing so, and with near inhuman effort, Nik managed to tear his mouth away from her.
He stared down at her, breathing hard, and the look of dazed surrender in her stormy gray eyes made Nik mentally swear. He wanted her so fucking bad, and he had never felt this way before. He still had no idea what made her different, but at this point, it no longer mattered. After that kiss, Nik knew he would not be able to let her go until he fucked her.
“You will come with me.” His hands released her bottom, slowly, almost reluctantly, but one hand continued its journey to clasp her wrist in a firmly possessive grip.
The seriousness in his voice made her want to tease him, and she asked breathlessly, “Should I?”
His grip on her tightened, not enough to hurt but just enough to let her know he would not let her go so easily. “You will come with me and we will finish this.”
Daria gave up playing hard to get. It was pointless, with the way his words had her panties soaking wet. “Yes, Master.” She tried but failed to stop herself from giggling. She was so right about him. Sex did make this guy primitive.
