Ever Fallen in Love

by Katie MacAlister

  She stood at the side of the pool, laughing, and taunting him with her hips and breasts and those long legs, and looking like she might just run off into the gathering night, but he was on her before she could move.

  “Now, wife, let me show you how we Papaioannou men celebrate their wedding nights.”

  “All right but I should tell you—” she started to say, but the words ended on a shriek when he tossed her into the water, diving after her, intending on touching all the various and sundry parts of her, but she didn’t seem to be on board with that plan. She sank like a rock to the bottom of the pool, her arms and legs thrashing wildly.

  And that’s when he realized she couldn’t swim.

  “I’m sorry, sweet, I’m so sorry,” he apologized a few minutes later while she knelt on the lawn beyond the pool, vomiting up water. “I just assumed that you knew how to swim. Everyone I know swims.”

  “You. Grew. Up. In. Greece,” she said, raising her head and wiping a tendril of saliva from her lips, her eyes all but spitting anger at him. “On a damned island. Of course everyone you know swims.”

  “Do you feel better now?” he asked hopefully, his grandiose plans for a wild, steamy wedding night drifting away on the wind.

  “I may just hate you,” she said, getting to her feet and limping over to her clothes.

  “Sorry about banging your knee on the railing, too.”

  She said a word that made him flinch.

  “Why don’t we take a nice shower together—”

  She spun around to shoot lasers out of her eyes at him, or at least that’s what it felt like to him. She lifted a hand and pointed a finger at him. “That’s it. I’m divorcing you in the morning. And you’d better thank your lucky stars that you signed that prenup, because if you hadn’t, I’d take you for everything you had.”

  With great dignity, she gathered up her clothes and started toward the house, still limping.

  He would have to be dead for a good five months not to admire her ass as she did so. “If I told you that I’m in love with you, would that make things any better?” he yelled after her.

  Her shoulder twitched, but she kept walking.

  He smiled to himself. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d loved anyone as much as he loved Kiera. She was the perfect woman, put on the earth solely so she could make his life worth living. He gathered his own clothing and followed her into the house, calling on all his persuasive powers to get her into a warm tub, where he convinced her he would make her knee feel better.

  “First you almost drown me,” she said, mollified enough that she allowed him into the tub with her. Since it was big enough to wash the pony he was even now planning on buying for Peter, she wasn’t going to suffer unduly from his presence. “Then you break my kneecap. Is this how you famed Papaioannou men have wedding nights? Because if it is, I’m surprised any of you ever had wives long enough to reproduce.”

  “I assure you, that was just a horrible consequence of my own ineptitude.” He sank into the water, pausing to narrow his eyes on her.

  “What?” she asked, scooting a little closer to him.

  “Would you say I’m clumsy?” he asked her.

  “You? On the contrary, you’re probably the most graceful man I’ve ever seen. You never seem to put a foot wrong. You don’t trip over your own feet like me, and I never see you hitting your arm on doorways, which I always seem to do. Why?”

  “Because it seems like whenever I’m with you, I’m always doing things wrong. I scared you that first night. I teased you, and damn near made you barf. I urge you to go to the mainland, and you spend a night on the run, with me worried out of my brain about you, and I want to make love to you in our pool on our wedding night, and just see how that ended. I think it’s you,” he said, not liking this feeling of incompetence. “Harry said I made that damned bachelor list. You don’t make those if you are the sort of man who hits his wife’s knee on a handrail coming out of a pool.”

  She stared at him for a moment, all but oozing disbelief; then her mouth twitched, and she was there, in his arms, sitting across his thighs, her mouth nibbling on his neck in that spot she liked. “You’re absolutely right, Theo. The list people are right. I have been horribly cruel to you making you lose your mojo.”

  “That’s it, exactly. I lose control around you.” He allowed himself to be kissed, his hands filled with her delightful, silky breasts. “I don’t like it.”

  “Well, I do. You’re far too perfect. I like seeing this side of you.”

  He gave her a look that told her what he thought of that. “I’m anything but perfect. I can’t be near booze. I smoked until I stopped drinking. I had a son I didn’t know about because I didn’t bother to stay in touch with Nastya. And I’m not as rich as my brother was when he was my age.”

  Her fingers trailed an intricate dance down his chest, touching and teasing and stroking. “But you don’t drink or smoke now, and you embraced having Peter in your life. As for the last ... is it a contest, this thing between you and your brother?”

  “No,” he said, sucking in his breath when her fingers found his penis. “All right, maybe it is, but only to me. Are you going to let me take the lead?”

  She grasped his testicles, gently scraping her nails down them until his hips flexed, his breath stuck in his chest. “I suppose you’ve earned it, since it’s clear that I am solely to blame for your loss of suavity. Theo?”

  She was teasing him. His heart sang with the wonder of it; then she bent down and swirled her tongue around one of his nipples. He moaned, pulling her up so she straddled his thighs on the narrow seat that ran around the tub, his fingers flexing on her delectable ass, his mouth nuzzling one of her perfect breasts. He deliberately hadn’t shaved that evening just so he had a bit of stubble. She loved his stubble. No woman had ever loved his stubble. It was just one more thing that made her the ideal woman for him. “Hmm?”

  “Did you mean what you said?”

  He stopped nibbling on the underside of one exquisitely perfect breast, looking up. One side of his mouth curled up. “Yes.”

  “But we’ve only known each other for, what, a week?”

  “Sometimes, that’s all it takes,” he told her, and turned his attention to her other breast, allowing it to rub against his cheek. He wanted badly to know if she was falling in love with him, but couldn’t ask. Not yet. Not while she was still recovering from their day from hell. “Now, what do you think of this?”

  His fingers found her in the water, teasing and caressing. He wanted to taste her, but suspected he might drown if he tried.

  “Oh, yes, Lord yes.” She arched back, squirming on his fingers, the feel of her heat as he slipped one inside of her almost pushing him beyond his control. Her muscles gripped him as he slid a second finger in, and suddenly, it was too much.

  “Please tell me you’re ready for this, because try as I might, I can’t think of anything but being deep inside you,” he said, lifting her up.

  “That sounds perfect to me,” she said just as she positioned him, and sank down slowly, the cooling water lapping at her delightful belly as she moved on him. “This is ... hooo! This angle is really nice, isn’t it! It’s like you’re touching all sorts of magical spots inside me.”

  He lurched upward, holding her hips where he wanted them, trying to slow his body’s urges, wanting her to find her own pleasure, but his movements losing all rhythm until he simply thrust into her over and over again, her moans and wiggles and hands touching and tormenting him beyond bearing. He pulled down on her hips as he pushed up hard into her, his thighs tightening with the glory of it all, and just as he gave in to the climax that threatened to leave him senseless, her muscles spasmed around him, tightening to the point where he seriously thought he might just die right then and there.

  He had no idea how they made it out of the bathroom and onto the bed, because Kiera claimed her legs had no bones, and he couldn’t even think, let alone make his limbs answer his b
rain’s demands, but as she drifted off to sleep, tucked into him, his body curled protectively around hers, he knew that this was what he’d been waiting for.

  Now all he had to do was figure out a way to keep her safe.

  TWELVE

  “Theo, we have to talk.”

  “Mmm. With your mouth? I love your mouth. I love you.”

  The scent of him, a warm, sleepy man, my warm, sleepy man, made my toes curl. But a glance at the clock told me that we had just an hour before the Darts were due to bring Peter back. Theo’s hands were wandering, and although his eyes were closed, one hand stroked along my back, down to my behind, his fingers curled around one thigh, pulling it forward over his hip so that his fingers slid down until they found sensitive flesh.

  “I can’t believe you are seriously thinking to do this when just two hours ago—are you taking some sort of male libido pill? Because if you are, I want to buy stock in the company.”

  His lips quirked. How I loved those lips. I spent another of the moments that had gripped me in the past twenty-four hours wherein I stared at the beautiful man who had somehow skipped all the gorgeous models of the Nastya ilk, and instead, chosen me to fall in love with.

  Theo loved me. I cherished that nugget of knowledge, holding it tight to me. It seemed to me to be the most amazing thing, and yet, so perfectly reasonable. Of course he loved me. I was head over heels in love with him, so it was only right and fitting that he should return that love.

  Only ... the dark cloud of worry blotted out the joy that just being with Theo brought me. I stopped the hand where it was questing toward my fun zone, and pushed him over onto his back, parking myself on top of him so he couldn’t distract me. “Theo, I’m serious. We have to talk.”

  “Wedding night,” he murmured, refusing to open his eyes. “No serious talk.”

  “That was over once the sun came up, and we don’t have long before Peter will be back. Dammit, Theo, I don’t want to do this, but we have to.”

  He sighed, but opened his eyes, his hands, which had been drawing circles on my behind, stilled. “You, wife, have a very poor sense of timing.”

  “I know. You can add that to the other things I do to make you awkward and gauche, not that anyone but you thinks that. We have to make plans.”

  “About your ex?” He stretched, the muscles in his beautiful chest doing a dance that made me seriously rethink my need to have this discussion. “I’ve got my lawyer working on the charges hanging over you, and detectives looking around Auckland for him.”

  “What do you intend to do if you find him?” I asked, my heart turning to stone at the thought of Theo facing Mikhail’s wrath.

  “Press charges for assault to start with,” he said, touching the faint bruising on my throat. “And whatever else we can drum up. While he’s in jail for that, we’ll work on putting him away for good.”

  “I would love nothing more, but you don’t have any idea how ruthless he is. He never came out and admitted it to me, but I don’t think he’d stop short of murder.”

  Theo just smiled at me and kissed my nose. “I will keep you safe, little gazelle.”

  That wasn’t what I was worried about, and he knew it.

  “I’ll have to get a replacement driver’s license,” I said, thinking about all the things that I’d lost when my purse tangled around Misha. “Thank God my passport was here. And I’m sure he’ll help himself to the cash—oh, no!”

  Theo picked up his phone, checking his messages. “Hmm?”

  A cold sweat rippled down my flesh. I pushed myself off Theo, my insides feeling like they were in the grip of an iron hand. “Theo, he has my bank card.”

  “So? My assistant canceled the card yesterday, after you told me your bag was gone.”

  “My name was on it,” I said, wanting to run. “Marshmallows from the top down. Snail shells. Mandalas.”

  Theo looked at me with a little frown pulling his black brows together. “What are you round-therapy-ing about?”

  “My name. My new name. Papaioannou. You had it put on the bank card because we were getting married.”

  His eyes narrowed as he thought about that; then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. There are some benefits to being a rich man, sweetheart, and one of those is the ability to maintain privacy in otherwise public records. He won’t be able to find us.”

  I had to leave. I had to get out of there. We all did. “Pizza. Cinnamon rolls. Pies.”

  “You are worrying unduly, but I know you can’t help it. In time, you will see that I mean it when I say that I can keep you and Peter safe.”

  I watched him pad barefoot into the bathroom, my mind spinning around like a gerbil in a plastic ball.

  He stuck his head out of the bathroom, seductive smile on his lips. “Shower?”

  “I thought of leaving, you know.”

  The smile faded as he took a step toward me. “I thought you might.”

  “It seemed like the only thing I could do. The only way I could keep you and Peter from being used by Mikhail. I thought I would leave a note at your office and just disappear. I knew you’d be hurt and mad and ...” I waved a hand in a vague gesture. “Annoyed, I guess. But I also knew you would get over it in time, and you’d eventually find someone else, and your life would be good. Without the threat of Misha looming over it to ruin everything.”

  He stood watching me, his lovely dark blue eyes unreadable. “You were incorrect in that. I would not have recovered. What made you change your mind?”

  I stood up and wrapped my arms around him, kissing the tendon in his neck that always called to me. “I decided that I needed to trust you. To trust that you could do what you said you could do. I want to think we can get away from Misha, Theo, but I don’t see how. And now he knows about my new name, and everything we planned is ruined.”

  His arms were tight around me, protecting me, comforting me. Loving me. He kissed my forehead. “I don’t know when I’ve received a nicer compliment. I will work hard to make sure you don’t regret putting your trust in me.”

  I bit the tendon as he nuzzled behind my ear. “You’d better not. Because I don’t think I could survive a betrayal by you.”

  The shower was made twice as long because I had to keep dodging Theo’s questing hands, but at last we were clean, dressed, and downstairs when Peter arrived home with his entourage.

  I took one look at his happy face and immediately turned to Theo. “The little rotter didn’t even miss us, and I woke up at least three times worrying about him.”

  “He had a lovely time, and was a very good young man,” Anne said, smiling fondly as Theo swung Peter up in the air, making him shriek with delight. “He slept right through the night, and had himself some porridge for breakfast along with his formula. And a piece of garlic bread that I wasn’t fast enough to get away from him.”

  I laughed, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. He no-no-ed me, grabbing for my hair. “He has quite the reach, doesn’t he?”

  “I cleared the course earlier,” Richard said, nodding toward the back of the house. “If you two are ready?”

  “Course?” I asked, making faces at Peter that had him chuckling nonstop. “What—oh, the race.”

  “Ah, yes, I had momentarily forgotten about that.” Theo stopped pretending to nibble on Peter’s arm and leered at me. “I was distracted by a lusty wench in my bed. But now seems as good a time as any, eh, gazelle?”

  I rolled my eyes, but smiled nonetheless. “I wasn’t serious about the challenge, you know.”

  “Afraid I’ll be that much faster than you?” Theo asked, looking smug. “I am a man, after all.”

  “Oh, it’s on now,” I said, marching into the bedroom to change out of my jeans and into a pair of leggings. I also put on my sports bra, and the only tight-fitting T-shirt I owned.

  Richard explained as we left the house that there was a track that led from the beach up the hill and along the spine of the island. The sheep were fenced on either s
ide of the track, which meant we wouldn’t have to add hurdling sheep as part of the race. “There are no holes, no big stones, no obstacles,” he said as we arrived at the far tip of the island, the northernmost end, which was soft sand. “Do you have a preference for the length? Melanie ran it this morning, while you were ... er ... sleeping ... and it took her nine minutes to get to the top and back down to the bench.”

  He pointed to a spot halfway up the path from the beach, where a bench had been set so people could sit and admire the view.

  “What distance was your best time?” Theo asked me, handing Peter to Melanie.

  I eyed the path, noting the grade as it meandered up to the crest of the island. Assuming the part I couldn’t see wasn’t much steeper, it looked doable. “Fifteen hundred meters.”

  “Middle distance? I preferred two thousand, myself, but I’m willing to accommodate your preference,” he said.

  “You are graciousness personified. Do you mind if we have a quick jog along the course first, as sort of a warm-up and to get an idea of the terrain?”

  “Not at all. It sounds like an excellent suggestion.”

  We spent five minutes warming up, then headed up the track, Theo in the lead. I watched his form, but didn’t see anything obviously wrong with it. Damn.

  It took us seven and a half minutes to jog along the track to the far end, stopping before the track veered downward to a flight of wooden stairs that led down to the beach.

  “Stop here, I think,” Theo said, and moved a rock to the middle of the path.

  We got back to find the Darts all making bets with one another, a rock holding down a few bills next to Peter’s stroller.

  “Do I want to know who the odds are favoring?” I asked, as Anne, with a speculative look at Theo, tsked, and pulled another bill out of her wallet to add to the stack. “Thirty for me, Rich. Mind you make a note of it.”

  He duly wrote it down.

  “I hate to let a fellow woman down,” Melanie said, giving me a wry smile. “But Theo said his college track team won awards one year. And I really want to get a new mobile phone.”