His Reputation Precedes Him

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Where are you going to sleep?’

  He shrugged. ‘There are three other bedrooms in the apartment that I can use.’

  ‘And if I would rather you stayed here with me…?’

  Markos drew in a ragged breath. ‘I would ask what I have done to deserve such torture!’

  ‘You’ve been a perfect gentleman,’ Eva assured him firmly. ‘And if I ever chance to bump into your Aunt Karelia, I’ll be sure to tell her what a credit you are to her.’

  ‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he replied dryly. ‘And now I believe it is time for you to kiss me goodnight and then get some sleep,’ he added huskily.

  Eva was only too eager to kiss Markos goodnight, but at the same time as she was totally unsure that sleep would be possible once she had.

  ‘And I am going to return to the sitting room to finish my glass of brandy before taking a very long, very cold shower!’

  The grimness of his smile revealed the depth of self-control he was having to exert not to make love with her as his head lowered towards hers.

  Eva curled her arms up about his neck as their mouths met. She put every shred of emotion she was feeling at that moment into a long kiss. The fondness she felt for Markos. The desire. The aching yearning. Most of all the joy in at last being free of the past and able to feel all of those things…

  For Markos.

  Markos wrenched away from Eva’s tantalising lips, breathing hard as he gently but firmly pulled her arms slowly down his shoulders and chest. ‘Enough,’ he breathed raggedly, shaking his head as Eva’s fingers lingered on the bareness of his chest. ‘Please, Eva, I sincerely hope that I am a gentleman, but I know I am not a saint!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.

  Her lips were swollen from the heat of their kisses, her eyes a dark languid gold as she looked up at him. ‘Goodnight, Markos.’ Her voice was as sultry and inviting as the unhidden longing in those extraordinary eyes.

  Markos rose quickly to his feet, so as not to give in to the temptation to throw back the bedcovers and taste those deliciously naked breasts. ‘I think I may be in need of more than a single glass of brandy to help me get to sleep!’ He stepped away from the bed—away from Eva.

  Eva gave an enigmatic smile. ‘You know where I am if you don’t succeed.’

  Markos ran an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair. ‘You are not helping, Eva!’

  She laughed huskily. ‘I don’t believe I was trying to…’ Her breasts were thrust forward and up as she stretched languidly before once again settling down beneath the covers, those golden eyes gleaming with mischief as her gaze lingered on the obvious bulge in Markos’s trousers.

  ‘Temptress!’ he murmured achingly.

  ‘Spoilsport!’ she came back challengingly.

  Markos gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I will take great pleasure in reminding you of that taunt in the morning.’

  ‘Promise?’

  Markos sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at her for several long seconds more before turning to walk determinedly across to the bedroom door. He paused in the doorway to turn and look at Eva once more. ‘You might want to barricade this door with any of the bedroom furniture you can move!’

  Her eyes shone back at him teasingly. ‘I’m not the one walking away…’

  No, Markos was. And he had more than enough reason to regret it once he had returned to the sitting room. Not even two large glasses of brandy were enough to dispel the knowledge that an almost naked and apparently willing Eva was just a short distance away down the hallway.

  * * *

  ‘You look—’

  ‘Awful,’ Markos finished dryly as he looked across the kitchen the following morning to where Eva stood framed in the doorway. ‘Whereas you look…’ Sexy as hell, Markos acknowledged achingly as he took in her appearance in his black silk dressing gown, which reached almost down to her ankles, and with her hair an ebony tangle about her shoulders. ‘Rested,’ he substituted wryly.

  ‘Did you sleep in those clothes?’ Eva eyed the crumpled white evening shirt and black trousers he had been wearing last night.

  ‘I didn’t sleep at all!’ Markos grimaced.

  Having realised once he had taken a shower the night before that all of his clothes were still in the bedroom where Eva was—hopefully—sleeping, he’d had to put back on the same clothes he had worn to go out that evening. Only to then return and sit in one of the armchairs and stare sleeplessly out at the night sky as it changed slowly from black to grey and then orange as the sun came up and the new day began.

  ‘Perhaps you should go to bed now…?’ Eva suggested throatily.

  ‘Coffee?’ He stood up now from where he’d been sitting at the breakfast bar, moving across the room to the place he had made a much-needed pot of coffee a few minutes earlier. ‘Cream?’

  Eva paused for only a heartbeat to look at the broad expanse of Markos’s back, turned towards her, before crossing the tiled floor on bare feet, knowing from his avoidance in answering her and his guarded expression before he turned away that any move towards intimacy this morning was going to have to originate from her.

  She slid her arms about his waist from behind and leant her head lightly against his suddenly tensed back. ‘That was an invitation for you to come back to bed with me, Markos.’

  He breathed in deeply but didn’t turn. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very sure…’

  ‘If I go to bed with you now I should warn you it would not be with the intention of sleeping!’

  ‘I’m sincerely hoping not.’

  The spoon he had intended using to stir the cream into her coffee landed on the marble worktop with a clatter as he turned quickly and gathered her up into his arms. His mouth came down forcefully on hers.

  Hungry didn’t even begin to describe the fierceness of the passion that flared instantly between them as Markos’s hands became entangled in her hair as they kissed: lips devouring, tongues duelling, their breathing hot and ragged in the silence of the apartment.

  Eva ceased to breathe at all when she felt Markos’s hand cup beneath the fullness of her breast, the soft pad of his thumb moving in a light caress across the hardened tip. Pleasure instantly spiralled through her and she arched into that caress, causing her to groan low in her throat as it pooled, moistened that already aching apex between her thighs.

  His lips left hers to trail across her cheek, moving down the column of her throat, inciting fire wherever they touched. A low moan escaped her as Markos gently pushed aside the black silk robe to take the throbbing tip of her naked breast into the heat of his mouth.

  Eva clung to the hard heat of his shoulders as she stumbled back to lean against the kitchen unit. Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her, pleasure coursing through her hotly now, as Markos cupped her other breast. She looked down at Markos’s darkness against the paleness of her skin, his dark lashes fanned across his swarthy cheeks as he drew her nipple hungrily between his parted lips. Feeling, watching, as Markos paid homage to her breasts, was the most erotic thing Eva had ever done.

  She slipped the unbuttoned shirt from his shoulders and down his arms and he allowed the garment to slip to the marble floor. His shoulders were so wide—much wider than they looked beneath his shirt and tailored suits, and deeply muscled. Proof that Markos didn’t spend all his time behind a desk. The muscles in his back flexed with pleasure as Eva’s fingers lightly caressed down the length of his spine.

  ‘You’re beautiful, Markos…’ she purred.

  He chuckled softly, the reverberations from that chuckle travelling from Eva’s nipple to the pulsing heat between her thighs before he reluctantly released her. The warmth of his breath felt cool against her dampened breast as he spoke softly. ‘These are beautiful.’ He took his time kissing each of her swollen and sensitised nipples in turn before looking up at her, his eyes gleaming a dark, deep emerald. ‘You are beautiful, Eva. All over.’

  ‘You haven’t seen all of me yet�
��’

  ‘But I am going to.’ It was a fierce promise of intent.

  ‘Here?’ Eva looked about at the sterile practicality of the black and white kitchen.

  Markos gave a mischievous smile as he also became aware of their surroundings. ‘The temptation to drape you decorously on top of the breakfast bar and make you the feast is appealing, but, no, I think I would prefer to be comfortable in bed the first time we make love together,’ Markos said with gruff intent.

  ‘The first time…?’ Eva echoed throatily.

  His eyes glowed that deep emerald. ‘You can have no idea in how many locations and in how many ways I have imagined making love with you during my long and sleepless night!’

  Her cheeks warmed. ‘Show me,’ she invited huskily.

  ‘Oh, I intend to!’ Markos assured her decisively, and he slid one arm beneath her knees and the other about her shoulders before lifting her up into his arms and marching out of the room.

  Eva draped her arms about his neck, not in the least self-conscious when her breasts and thighs were laid bare as the black silk robe fell open, knowing she had been longing for Markos to make love to her since last night.

  Possibly since the moment she had first looked across that hotel reception room and seen him looking right back at her…

  CHAPTER NINE

  MARKOS slowly lowered Eva’s feet to the carpeted floor before untying the silk belt about her waist and sliding the robe off her shoulders to allow it to pool at her feet. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at her lusciously naked body: slender shoulders, full and sloping breasts, narrow waist, lush hips covered by that single scrap of black silk and lace, legs long and shapely…

  His heated gaze returned to her face, eyes narrowing as he saw a return of that uncertainty in her expression. Her shoulders had tensed, as if she was waiting for a blow to fall.

  ‘You are beautiful, Eva,’ Markos assured her huskily. ‘And anyone who has told you otherwise is nothing but a fool!’ he added harshly, having no intention of saying Jack Cabot Grey’s name and allowing the other man to intrude into their intimacy, while at the same time well aware that the other man had to be the reason for Eva’s insecurities about her body. ‘An idiot and a fool,’ he repeated firmly. ‘And I intend to worship every delicious inch of you!’

  Eva glowed, feeling beautiful under Markos’s admiring gaze. ‘Can I finish undressing you now…?’

  Markos seemed to cease breathing for several seconds before nodding abruptly. ‘Please…’ He stepped back.

  Eva had never thought of herself as a femme fatale—how could she when she’d only ever made love with one man in her life, and even that had become more of a chore than enjoyment?—but there was something deliciously wicked about slowly unbuckling the belt at Markos’s lean waist. The bulge pressed against the zip as she slowly lowered it to reveal black boxers beneath. Eva sank down onto her knees in front of him as he stepped out of his trousers.

  ‘Eva!’ Markos reached out to tightly grip her shoulders. ‘I am not sure—’

  ‘Oh, my…!’ She had now stripped off those black boxers to reveal the heavy weight of his jutting arousal, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue before her head slowly lowered.

  Markos gave a strangled gasp, his knees threatening to buckle as he felt the moist rasp of her tongue run the length of his shaft before slowly taking him fully into her mouth.

  It was torture. Agony. Of the most exquisite kind!

  An exquisite ecstasy that Markos enjoyed for as long as he could without releasing.

  ‘Next time, Eva!’ he groaned between gritted teeth as he reluctantly pulled away from her. ‘Right now I need to be inside you, before I go quietly and completely insane!’

  He reached down to lift her before placing her against the covers and following her down onto the bed, his thigh draped across hers as he claimed those wickedly sensual lips with his own.

  Markos claimed her mouth again and again as he cupped and caressed her breasts. Their passion was raised to fever-pitch, their pleasure even more so, before he pulled his lips from hers and once again claimed her nipples with his mouth, kissing and biting as Eva gasped her own pleasure.

  Her skin felt like velvet as his hand caressed the curve of her hips, slipping beneath the silk material of her panties. His fingers sought and found her sensitive spot, and Eva’s response was instantaneous as he caressed that throbbing clitoris, before dipping one finger into the moistness of her channel and trailing that moisture over and around that fiercely pounding arousal in an ever-increasing rhythm.

  He gave a low groan even as Eva purred deep in her throat, as she began to thrust her hips up and into that rhythm, her breathing becoming rapid and laboured as her pleasure rose.

  Had Eva ever known such hot, mindless pleasure before? She didn’t think so. She felt truly beautiful in Markos’s arms as he had worshipped every inch of her, and her pleasure had spiralled out of control the moment she felt his mouth and tongue on her, her own movements instinctive as she rose up to meet those moist thrusts.

  ‘Oh, God, Markos…!’ She cried out her need as his hands moved up to cup her breasts, squeezing her nipples with just the right amount of pressure between pleasure and pain. The volcanic heat of her rapidly approaching climax was coursing through her like molten lava.

  Markos looked down at her with hot and heavy eyes. ‘I want to taste you as you come…’ He slid down the length of her body until he lay between her parted and silken thighs, claiming her with his lips.

  ‘Markos!’ Eva cried out as her pleasure intensified to an unbearable degree. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, and she closed her eyes as she gasped and trembled, her fingers curled like talons into the sheet beneath her as Markos refused to release her from that plateau until he had extracted and given every last vestige of pleasure.

  ‘Dear Lord…!’ Eva collapsed back against the pillows, her smile dreamy as she held out her arms to him. ‘Come up here.’

  Markos kissed his way slowly up her body. ‘Now I can say with full authority that you are truly beautiful all over,’ he assured her gruffly.

  ‘I want you inside me, Markos. I need you inside me,’ Eva invited huskily. ‘Please.’

  Markos chuckled his satisfaction as he moved over her, his smile fading as Eva’s hand moved down between them and he felt her fingers close about him before she guided him in. He groaned as he slowly entered her, inch by pleasurable inch, until he was sheathed to the hilt.

  Which was the moment when Markos’s already shaky control broke completely, and he captured her mouth with his as he began to thrust into her with long, claiming strokes, her tightness rippling and clenching about him as he drove into her fully again and again.

  He wrenched his mouth away from hers and cried out as her hands caressed the length of his back. Her fingers suddenly dug into the flesh of his backside, and the intensifying ripples of her body told Markos that she was about to climax for a second time.

  And Markos intended going with her this time.

  He thrust harder, longer, allowing his control to slip completely, shooting hotly down the length of his shaft in a long and satisfying release that shook him to his very soul—and his pleasure was intensified by knowing he had taken Eva with him as her cries matched his own.

  ‘Wow.’

  Eva gave a satiated chuckle at the understatement. Markos’s head lay pillowed against the fullness of her breasts, and both of them were breathing raggedly in the aftermath of their earth-shattering lovemaking.

  It had certainly been earth-shattering for Eva, and Markos’s exclamation gave her every reason to believe he had been equally affected. ‘Was it worth suffering a sleepless night for?’ she teased.

  ‘Most definitely,’ Markos assured her with feeling, knowing there had been no ghosts from the past standing between them this morning—just the two of them making exquisite, perfect love. It had been a lovemaking of such tenderness of feeling, with an int
ensity of pleasure Markos had never experienced before…

  Eva tensed in his arms. ‘Markos—’

  ‘I believe, if I wish us to spend the rest of the day in bed together, that it is time I fed you.’ He lightly interrupted the uncertainty of her tone, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed and standing up.

  ‘The rest of the day…?’ she repeated slowly.

  Markos chuckled at the contrasting emotions of surprise and anticipation he could see in those expression golden eyes. ‘You did not think that I would allow you to leave after making love with you only once?’ He bent down to collect his black silk robe from the bedroom floor.

  ‘I haven’t been able to think at all for some time…’ Eva trailed off as she gazed up unabashedly at the nakedness of Markos’s back, ceasing to breathe as he stretched, the muscles in his back flexing and relaxing with the effortless ease of a jungle cat.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded with satisfaction as he turned, his gaze once again becoming hot and heavy as he saw the open hunger she knew must be in her expression. ‘Food first,’ he repeated firmly, and he laid the black silk robe down beside her before striding determinedly—still naked—from the bedroom.

  Eva lay on the bed for several minutes longer, luxuriating in a feeling of total physical satisfaction as she stretched, feeling the pleasurable ache of muscles long left unused.

  Making love with Markos had been unlike anything Eva had ever felt or known before. More erotic, more pleasurable than anything she had ever experienced with any man.

  There was no point in not being honest with herself at this point in her life. The only other man she’d ever had sex with was Jack. And sex with him had been more centred on his pleasure than hers. Whereas Markos—

  She mustn’t allow herself to blow this time with Markos out of all proportion.

  Not unless she wanted to be left as heartsick as her cousin Donna when whatever this was with Markos came to an end…