The Pregnant Mistress

by Sandra Marton

  “Floaty.”

  “Yes. That was what you said. I phoned the doctor when I realized what was happening. He said you’d be fine as soon as you slept it off.”

  “I remember now. The nurse gave me some pills…I only took codeine once, when I was a little girl. I took a tumble—”

  “—and broke your leg after Billy Riley dared you to use a rope swing over the river.” Demetrios smiled. “I know.”

  “You know?” Sam stared at him. “I told you about that?”

  He shrugged. “As you say, you were—”

  “Floaty,” she said quickly. “Exactly. I don’t remember anything after you took me to the hospital.”

  “There isn’t much to remember.”

  His voice was a little rough and she could sense a tension in him. Something had happened; something had changed. If only she could remember…

  “I brought you home. To my house.”

  “Your house.” Her voice shook and she cleared her throat. “And—and to your room?”

  “My room. And my bed.” He put his cup on the tray, then took hers and put it there, too. “Samantha. I want you to remember last night. I want you to remember all of it.”

  “Demetrios—”

  “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say my name?” He moved closer to her, framed her face with his hands. “I see more questions in your eyes, gataki. Ask them. You want to know why I put you here and not in one of the other bedrooms. You want to know who put you to bed and who took care of you.” A muscle knotted in his jaw. “Ask, and I will give you the answers—or are you afraid to hear them? Would you prefer we went on with this silly pretense?”

  “What pretense? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He nodded. He’d expected that she would choose not to know what had happened. What she felt. What she wanted. Why would he want her to? It was foolish to pursue a woman who preferred a lie to the truth when there were so many others who were eager to acknowledge desire. The world was filled with women who could be easily seduced.

  Except, he didn’t want any of them. He wanted this one, who was afraid to admit her need for him. He didn’t fully understand her fear but he was willing to confront it because, in the grayness of early morning, he’d admitted a truth of his own.

  He was afraid, too.

  After he’d left her, he’d gone to his library, watched the sun feather the sky with pink and fuchsia while he drank bad coffee he’d made himself because not even the cook had been awake at that hour. Alone, he’d contemplated the sunrise as if he’d never seen it before. It had been in the way of a lesson, reminding him that the sun would rise tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, even if neither he or she acknowledged what had happened in that bedroom.

  Every instinct had warned him to do the sensible thing, greet Samantha politely when she awakened and pretend the way she’d sighed in his arms was nothing but a dream. They’d struck sparks against each other from the beginning but he’d lived long enough to know that sparks could as easily sputter and die as they could blaze into a conflagration.

  Yes, he’d decided, forgetting what had gone on in that bedroom was the best solution.

  He’d poured himself another cup of coffee—drinkable, this time, because the cook had made it. He’d climbed the stairs, prepared to smile and say the right thing…and saw Samantha, sitting up in his bed, wearing his robe, and he’d wondered how he could have imagined letting her leave him until they’d faced what they felt and saw it through to its inevitable end. Even as he’d thought it, she’d tossed back the covers, lurched to her feet, that damnable independence of hers driving her to risk her injured ankle…

  “I never would have imagined you to be a coward,” he said huskily.

  “You’re wasting your time.” Her voice was strong but she hadn’t tried to move away. She was trembling under his hands. “Do you really think you can trick me into another silly challenge? Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether I woke up in your bed or—”

  “I brought you into my house because you needed someone to watch over you. Cosimia suggested I put you in one of the guest suites. She offered to sleep in the room with you.” Demetrios took a deep breath. “I said no. Do you know why?”

  “Yes,” she said fiercely. “You said ‘no’ because you can’t imagine not being in charge of everything and everyone. You have to control the world, Demetrios, and I don’t like men who—”

  He covered her mouth with his, silencing her with his kiss.

  “Please,” she whispered, even as she raised her hands and curled them into his shirt, “I beg you. Don’t do this. Don’t say any more.”

  “I wanted to be with you, to be the one you turned to in the night.” He lifted her face and forced her to meet his eyes. “I undressed you, gataki. I put you to bed. And I held you in my arms most of the night, after you begged me not to leave you.”

  Sam drew an unsteady breath. She’d known it. Sensed it. Recalled it all happening, if not as a memory than as something burned into her very soul.

  “No more lies, matyá mou, not for either of us.” He slid his hands down her back, then gathered her to him. “We made a bad bargain that day in New York. We thought the challenge of working together would be enough to quench the fire of what we felt but it isn’t. I want you more than ever, now that I know you. And you want me.”

  “We agreed—”

  “Yes. We did.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “If you tell me, I will walk out of this room and never mention any of this again.”

  She said nothing. He waited, hearing the beat of his own heart, seeing the blurring in her eyes. He could make her admit the truth; he knew that as surely as he’d seen the sun rise this morning. All it would take would be a caress. A kiss. He could breach all her defenses with a touch but he wanted more than that. He needed her to come to him. To reach for him.

  She made a little sound, closed her eyes, caught her lip between her teeth. He could feel his resolve slipping. To hold her in his arms, to feel her warmth and not make love to her, was rapidly becoming impossible. He reminded himself, once again, that he was a man and not a saint…but if he spent many more moments like this, he might yet become one.

  Enough, he thought, and let go of her.

  “I release you from our contract,” he said softly. “I will pay you the full amount we agreed upon, gataki. You may leave for the States as soon as your ankle is healed.”

  “Demetrios—”

  “No. It’s all right.” He rose from the bed and walked to the door, a man destined for sainthood and already damning himself for it.

  “Please. Don’t go.”

  Her voice was soft but it stopped his heart. He turned and looked at her, saw her lips curve in a smile so intimate, so filled with promise, it almost brought him to his knees. Slowly, so slowly that it seemed to take forever, she opened the robe. The edges parted; he saw the rounded curves of her breasts and the gentle rise of her belly.

  “Come to me,” she whispered.

  Sam held out her arms. Demetrios turned the lock and went to claim the woman who had surely been his from the very beginning of time.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE WAS beautiful.

  Sam had never imagined using that word to describe a man but as Demetrios stripped off his shirt, she knew it was the only word that suited him.

  His shoulders were wide, his arms powerfully muscled. An inverted vee of dark, silky hair stretched over his chest and arrowed down to his navel. Clothed, he’d looked like a man of civility and power but she’d always sensed the darker, more primitive side of him.

  Now, as he came towards her, bare-chested, the top button of his jeans undone, his eyes dark and fixed on hers, she knew that this was the real Demetrios Karas. He was a man who took what he wanted—and what he wanted was her.

  The realization was more exciting than anything she’d ever known. She could feel her body readying itself for his. Her nipples were tight with desi
re, her breasts almost aching with it. A heaviness seemed to settle low in her belly.

  “Demetrios,” she whispered, as he reached her.

  “Yes, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I know. We’ve waited a long time for this.”

  She trembled as he slid the robe from her shoulders, moaned when he dipped his head and pressed his lips to her throat. Could he feel the hammer of her pulse against his mouth? He was whispering to her in Greek. She didn’t understand all the words. She didn’t have to. The brush of his hands, the way he clasped her shoulders, was an eloquent language all its own.

  His hands cupped her face. When he took her mouth with his, she could taste the dark, smoky passion he held in such tight control. He was being gentle for her but that wasn’t what she wanted. Not from him. She wanted everything he was, everything he could make her feel, and she wound her arms around his neck as she opened her mouth to his and moved against him. He groaned, caught her wrists and brought her hands against his chest. She could feel the tremor of his muscles beneath her fingertips.

  “Sam. I don’t want to hurt you, gataki. Your ankle—”

  She answered by tugging a hand free, skimming it down his jeans and closing her fingers over his erection, reveling in the life and heat that pulsed at her touch.

  “I want this,” she whispered. “I want you, deep inside me.”

  He could feel his composure slipping away; he was closer to losing himself than he had been since he was a boy. Quickly, he shucked off his jeans. Sam had a fleeting glimpse of all that magnificent male power, and then she was in his arms again, with his mouth on her breast, suckling her, nipping her, tonguing her until suddenly she gave a high, keening cry and she came, came just from this.

  Demetrios held her to him as she arched against him, her cries almost feral in their intensity, and even though he was shaking he told himself not to let go. Not yet. He wanted more, to know that she was lost to the world, to rational thought, to everything but him. Only him, and he swept his hand down her body, cupped the strip of silk between her thighs.

  “No more,” she moaned, “I can’t…”

  But she could. He took her higher and higher, pressing one finger into the silk, into the soft cleft of her womanhood, seeking and finding the sweet, engorged bud that awaited him. He tore the silk away, touched her, stroked her, bent to her and took her mouth so that her cries became part of him.

  The pulse of her climax rocketed through him. He was damp with sweat; his muscles trembling. Still he held back, watching her, exulting in what he had done to her, for her, and then he entered her, moved, moved again. This time, when she sobbed his name, Demetrios let go and followed Sam into a spiraling explosion of light.

  * * *

  Sam didn’t move. She never wanted to move again.

  She’d never experienced anything like what had just happened. All that passion. All that heat. And now, this. Lying beneath Demetrios, his mouth at her throat, his arms hard around her, his body pressing against hers…

  Her blood still hummed with pleasure. She sighed, ran her hands down his back, luxuriating in the firmness of his muscles, the dampness of his skin. Long moments slipped past. Then he lifted his head, kissed her temple and began to move away.

  She tightened her arms around him. “No. Don’t go.”

  “I’m too heavy for you,” he said softly.

  “I like the feel of you against me.” She kissed his throat. “Stay here. Please.”

  She had said almost the same thing to him last night and he would no more have left her then than he would now. Holding her, he rolled to his side, cradling her against him so they still touched, breast to breast, belly to belly. Gently, he slid his hand under her knee, lifted her leg and brought it across his hip.

  “Does your ankle hurt?”

  “What ankle?” Sam laughed softly. “You’re much better for aches and pains than codeine.”

  Demetrios smiled, threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m sure the medical journals would be pleased to learn that, gataki. Seriously, are you all right? I promised the doctor I’d take good care of you.”

  “And you have.” She smiled as she stroked his dark hair from his forehead. “You’ve kept me off my foot, haven’t you?”

  “Mmm.” He bent his head to her breast, licked the nipple until it pebbled. “I told him it would take great effort, that you would need to be kept occupied.”

  Sam gave a soft moan as he slipped his hand between her thighs. “Great effort,” she whispered.

  Demetrios lifted his head and looked at her face. Her skin was flushed, her lips parted with desire as he caressed her. He felt his hardened flesh stir, his arousal heighten with the need to make love to her again.

  “Shall I think of a way to keep you busy?” he said softly.

  “I think…” Her lips parted for his kiss. “I think that’s a fine—”

  He kissed her slowly, deeply, and moved over her again. She saw the intensity in his eyes, the way the bones in his face stood out in stark relief, and something hot and dangerous skittered in her blood, something that was more than desire, more than she was ready for.

  He kissed her again, kissed her breasts, her belly. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted to tell him never to stop, to go on making love to her until neither of them could move.

  “Demetrios,” she whispered, her voice breaking, and what he heard in the way she sighed his name shook him to the depths of his soul.

  “Samantha. O kalóz mou,” he said, as he put his hands under her, lifted her to his mouth, tasted the honeyed sweetness that was for him. Only for him. She came, hard and fast, and he moved up her body as she did, slid deep inside her and took her up and up again until she was weeping with the beauty of what she felt, with the knowledge that this was all she’d ever wanted, this man, this one man, forever…

  Sam stopped thinking and gave herself up to Demetrios’s possession.

  * * *

  She awoke alone in his bed.

  Hours had passed; late afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, filling it with a hot golden glow.

  Sam stretched, yawned, caught her breath as she inadvertently flexed her ankle. The rest of her felt wonderful. She smiled and flung her arms over her head. She’d imagined how it would be, to make love with Demetrios, but nothing she’d imagined came anywhere near the truth. He was an incredible lover. Wild. Tender. Demanding. Generous. Just remembering made her body grow warm and soft with need.

  Sam rolled onto her belly.

  But she’d complicated things. She knew that. Yesterday, he’d been her employer. Now, he was her lover. The delicate balance between man and woman had changed. What would happen now? What would he expect?

  She’d always been careful to keep the personal part of her life separate from the professional. Men had a way of thinking that sexual intimacy gave them the right to take over your existence. It was only logical that sleeping with the man you worked with would make things even more difficult.

  Of course, some women seemed to enjoy having a protective male hovering over them. If that was their thing, fine. Sam couldn’t understand it, but who was she to sit in judgment? But to fall in love with a man like that…

  Fall in love? Where had that come from?

  Frowning, she sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. What had happened in this bed had nothing to do with love. Love was an illusion. A pleasant one, for as long as it lasted, but as far as she could see it was just a way of pretending you hadn’t offered your independence up like a gift.

  There wasn’t much difference between a man’s involvement in a woman’s life and his eventual domination of it. She’d come close to telling that to Carin once. Her sister had been cheerfully explaining that she’d like to come to New York for a visit but first she’d have to check with Rafe.

  “You need his permission?” Sam had said and even though she’d tried to mask her distaste, she knew she hadn’t succeeded because Carin ha
d laughed and said no, of course she didn’t.

  “But I wouldn’t just take off without discussing it with him, Sam. Surely, you can understand that.”

  “What I understand,” Sam had replied, “is that there was a time you thought for yourself.”

  “I’m going to let that pass because I love you,” Carin had said, still laughing but with an edge to her tone. “Rafe would do the same thing for me. We have a responsibility to each other. We don’t live separate lives. Nobody does, once they’re married. Not if the marriage is going to work.”

  Not if you didn’t mind signing your life over to a man, was what she’d meant, but Sam had decided to keep quiet. What her sisters called responsibility, she called dependency but, hey, if Carin and Amanda wanted to delude themselves into calling it love, who was she to spoil things for them?

  And what on earth was she doing, plunging into such deep philosophical water this morning? She’d made love with Demetrios. She hadn’t fallen in love with him. It was just that she’d never gone to bed with a man like him before. There was something about the way he’d taken charge that was different. There was no harm in admitting that to herself. They’d been equals in this bed but a little part of her had always been aware of the differences, of his strength and her softness, his masculinity and her femininity. He’d been gentle one moment, fierce the next. And he’d made her feel something—something she’d never sensed in herself before, something that lurked just at the edge of logic and made her heartbeat quicken, even now.

  Whoa. First philosophy, then introspection. Enough, she thought, and tossed back the covers. Demetrios’s robe lay at the foot of the bed. She grabbed it and put it on.

  What she’d just experienced was the best sex of her life. Why try and put a gloss to something so basic? She wasn’t a woman who’d ever shied away from the truth; she’d never been silly enough to think sex was only a matter of connecting Body Part A and Body Part B. Emotion was everything. You had to like a man, respect him, to sleep with him, but you certainly didn’t have to dream of forever after.

  “Sam?”