by Jennie Lucas
“Do you want me?” he whispered, his voice so low it made her tremble.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Louder.”
“Yes!” she cried, her cheeks burning.
Then Stavros suddenly pulled away, looking down at her. And he spoke words she’d never expected. Words that nearly made her heart stop.
“Marry me, Holly.” Stavros cupped her cheek, his dark eyes burning in the Christmas-Eve night. “Have a child with me.”
Her eyes widened with shock. “Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
Holly couldn’t believe it. Even a one-night stand with a man like Stavros seemed like a dream. But he wanted to marry her? Have a baby with her?
Tears came to her eyes.
“I’ve shocked you,” he said grimly.
“No...yes.” Lifting her chin, she whispered, “It’s like all my most impossible dreams are suddenly coming true.”
Exhaling, he ran his thumb lightly along her cheekbone, brushing a tear away. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He smiled, and it was brighter than the sun, even as she saw a suspicious sheen in his black eyes. “You’ll never regret it. I swear it on my life.”
“I’ll do my best to make you happy...”
“You already have.” Lowering his head, he kissed her. “I want you, agape mou,” he groaned against her lips. “I’ll want you until the day I die.”
She held her breath as he kissed down her throat, to her breasts, then her belly. She shivered, lost in a sensual dream. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to fill her with his child...
He slowly pulled her white silk panties down her legs, and tossed them away. Kneeling between her legs on the bed, he pushed her thighs apart. She felt the warmth of his breath against the most sensitive part of her body, a place no man had ever touched.
Lowering his head, he spread her wide with his hands. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, as he teased her with the warmth of his breath.
Then he tasted her, delicately with the tip of his tongue, swirling against the core of her pleasure. Even as she gasped in shock at the intensity of the sensation, he moved, deepening his possession, reaching around her to hold her tight, as he lapped her with the full width of his tongue.
She cried out, grasping the bed beneath her as electricity whipped through her, causing her back to arch, lifting off the mattress.
He moaned, his hands tightening on her thighs, holding her down as her whole body strained to fly. Her breasts felt tight, her whole body aching with need. Then he pushed a single thick fingertip inside her, stretching her.
Pleasure built inside her, whirling her in every direction, pleasure she’d never imagined. She held her breath, closing her eyes as her head tilted back. Her body arched off the bed as he worked her with his tongue—then, just as she tightened with pleasure almost too great to bear, he pushed a second fingertip inside her. And she exploded into a thousand chiming diamonds, in a million colors, soaring through the sky.
She was only dimly aware as he reached for a condom from a nearby nightstand. But as he started to tear it open, she covered it with her hand.
“No,” she panted, still dizzy beneath waves of pleasure.
“No?” He looked stunned.
“You don’t need that.” She smiled. “Live like you’re alive.”
Savage joy lit up his dark eyes as he threw the condom to the floor. “This is my first time without one,” he whispered, lowering his head to kiss her. “My first time ever.”
“For both of us,” she breathed, closing her eyes with a delicious shiver as he gently bit the corner of her neck. Prickles of desire raced through her body.
“I’ll end the pain as quickly as I can,” he said huskily.
Pain? What pain? All she felt was bliss—
Gripping her hips, he positioned himself between her legs. In a swift, deliberate movement, he sheathed himself deeply inside her.
She gasped as he broke the barrier inside her. But he held himself utterly still, holding her as the sudden pang of pain lessened, then disappeared. His weight was heavy on hers, his hard-muscled chest sliding sensually over her breasts as he lowered his head to kiss her, gently at first, then with rising passion as she started to return his embrace.
Only then did he slowly begin to move inside her, thrusting deeper, inch by inch. And to her shock, a delicious new tension began to coil, low and deep inside her belly.
Reaching up to his shoulders, Holly pulled him down tighter against her, wanting him deeper, wanting more. Wanting everything.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WAS ALREADY deep inside her, so deliciously deep. Stavros fought to keep control as she gripped his shoulders, pulling his naked body down against her. He felt her move beneath him, tightening with new desire.
“Yes,” she’d whispered. He shuddered at the memory.
When Holly had told him she’d marry him and have his child, that single word had nearly unmanned him. And now it was almost impossible to hold himself back, when just the feel of her and the sight of her were enough to make him explode. Especially when he was bare inside her, a pleasure he’d never experienced before. He was a breath from losing control.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. He set his jaw, desperately trying to keep hold of the reins in a ruthless grip.
Stavros felt like a virgin himself.
He’d spoken the forbidden words that seared his heart, words he’d never said to any woman. Outlandish words, asking her to marry him and have his baby. It was his one last chance to leave something of himself behind. An adoring wife, and a son or daughter to carry on his name.
She should have refused him, laughed in his face. After all, they were barely more than strangers to each other.
Instead, she’d accepted him, as if she’d dreamed her whole life of marrying Stavros and having his child.
All he’d wanted to do was possess her, to thrust inside her, hard and fast. But he’d known the first time would be painful for her. So he’d forced himself to go slow, to take his time, to seduce her. To make it good for her.
When he’d first pushed himself inside her, he’d hated to see sudden pain wipe out the joy in her beautiful face. So he’d held her, until her pain passed, though it was total agony to hold himself still, so hard with need, so deep inside her. But he managed it—for her. He’d kissed her sweaty forehead, her soft cheek, and held her close until he felt her shoulders relax, and a sigh came from her lips.
Now, the raw intensity of his desire for her was almost too much to bear. As he felt her move beneath him, her every gasp of pleasure was pure torture.
She was soft, so soft. And so sensual. He was on a razor’s edge of control.
Holly Marlowe was a sensual goddess. He wondered how he hadn’t recognized her beauty and sensuality from the moment he’d first seen her, three years before. He should have seen past the mousy bun and baggy, unflattering clothes. He should have known what they really were—a disguise.
She was his now, and she would be his for as long as he lived. She would be his wife. He would fill her with his child—
With a shudder of need, he kissed her lips, tenderly at first, then with building passion. As her hands gripped his shoulders, pushing him tighter against her, he panted with need, beads of sweat rising on his forehead as he continued to thrust slowly, gently, letting her feel every inch of him moving inside her.
The pleasure was incredible. Some of his control began to slip. But he wasn’t ready for it to end, not yet. He wanted to make it amazing for her.
He looked down. Holly’s face was sweetly lifted, her eyes closed with ecstasy. He almost exploded right then. With a shudder, he gripped her hips and slowly began to increase his pace. Her lips parted as she sucked in her breath, her fingernails raking
slowly down his naked back.
When he finally felt her tighten around him as her gasp of pleasure turned into a scream, he could hold himself back no longer. He plunged deep into her, and his own hoarse shout melded with hers, echoing against the windows overlooking the sparkling lights of the city. The white tree twinkled amid the dark shadows of the bedroom, as the clock struck midnight on Christmas Eve.
* * *
When Stavros woke, the soft light of dawn was coming through his bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, the wintry city looked gray on Christmas morning.
He’d been lost in the best dream he’d ever had. Holly had been kissing him, and she’d been heavily pregnant. Emotion shone from her vulnerable eyes as she’d told him she loved him—
Now, he looked at the soft, warm woman in his arms. Both of them were still naked beneath the white comforter. He realized he’d slept all night, holding her in his arms. They were still facing each other, their foreheads almost touching on the pillow, her curly red hair stretched out behind her. Even in sleep, his arms had been wrapped protectively around her.
I love you, Stavros, she’d whispered in the dream, her heart and soul in her eyes.
It was just a dream, he reminded himself harshly. Totally meaningless. But in the cold light of reality, he felt her imagined words like an ice pick through his soul. I love you.
When he’d imagined leaving her behind after his death, he’d pictured a pregnant wife dressed in black, standing stoically beside his grave.
He hadn’t thought of how it might feel to be the widow left behind. How Holly’s warm, generous, loving heart might react to all that grief. It could destroy her.
Could? It would.
His conscience, buried and repressed for so long, suddenly came out in full force. Could he really be so selfish? Was he a Minos man through and through after all?
I’ll leave her all my fortune, he argued with himself.
But Holly wouldn’t care about that, not really. After all, she’d spent three years working for Oliver without asking for the raise and promotion she deserved. When she’d walked into his twenty-million-dollar penthouse, with its elegant decor created at great expense by Manhattan’s foremost interior designer, she’d been left utterly unmoved.
Holly, alone of all women on earth, didn’t seem to give a damn about money.
So his billions would bring her little pleasure. Far from it. With her kind, sympathetic heart, his widow’s fortune would make her an easy target for unscrupulous fortune hunters. First and foremost: his greedy cousin and her spoiled sister.
Stavros looked back at Holly, sleeping so sweetly and trustingly in his arms.
I’ll leave her with a child, he tried to tell himself. That, at least, was something he knew she wanted.
But a child she would raise alone?
He felt sick. He’d seduced Holly under false pretenses. His dream had only shown the stark truth: he’d soon make her love him. He’d already started to make her care. Her heart was innocent; she had no defense against love, not like Stavros. Only he knew what love really meant: surrender or possession. Being the helpless conquered or tyrannical conqueror. No one came out of it unscathed.
Just the fact that she’d convinced herself, even for a moment, that she could love a man as unworthy of it as Oliver only proved how open her heart was. She was not guarded. She had no walls.
So when Stavros died, which he would before next Christmas, he would not leave behind him a dignified wife in a black veil and chic black mourning suit standing stoically beside his grave, as he’d imagined.
Instead, he’d leave a broken woman, bewildered and lost, perhaps with a child to raise on her own. For all he knew, she might already be pregnant. Stavros would soon be dead and buried, forgotten. But Holly would remain, a widow with a broken heart, bitterly cursing him as the liar who’d seduced her with false promises of forever and changed her life in ways she’d never imagined.
A razor blade lifted to his throat as he looked at her, still sleeping trustingly in his arms. He had no choice. He had to tell her the truth. Explain about his fatal brain tumor before it was too late for her to change her mind about marrying him.
If it wasn’t already too late.
“You’re awake.” Holly’s voice was soft and warm as she drowsily opened her eyes, smiling up at him with love shining from her face. “Merry Christmas.”
Stavros looked down at her. His lips parted to choke out the truth. Then he stopped.
He suddenly realized with horrifying clarity that even if he told her about his illness she would marry him, anyway.
As that sister of hers had said, taking care of other people was what Holly did best. She gave and gave and gave, leaving nothing for herself. From the time her parents had died, she’d put her little sister first. From the moment she’d started working at Minos International, she’d put Oliver first. She sacrificed herself for others, even if they didn’t deserve it.
And if Stavros told her he was dying she would do the same for him. She’d take care of him. She’d hold his hand through chemotherapy appointments. She’d love him. She’d never leave him.
Even if it destroyed her.
“Holly,” he said hoarsely, struggling to know what to do, “there’s something you need to...”
He felt a sharp pain behind his right eye, so sudden and savage he jerked back from her. The bed seemed like it was swaying beneath him.
Holding the comforter over her chest, Holly sat up with a frown. “Stavros?”
The pain was nearly blinding, spreading through his head, causing a rough throbbing in his skull. He put a trembling hand against his forehead. How long did he have? Even his doctor had hedged his bets when he’d given him the news two days before.
“No one can say for sure how long you’ll live, Mr. Minos,” Dr. Ramirez had said gravely. But when Stavros had pressed him, he’d admitted six to nine months might be typical for a patient at his advanced stage.
But Stavros wasn’t a typical man. He’d always prided himself on it. He’d always beaten others, proving himself stronger and smarter and faster. His tumor was part of him. All his worst sins bottled up into one fleshy mass rapidly spreading through his brain.
“What is it?” Holly cried. “What’s wrong?”
Slowly getting out of bed, he stood still, blinking until the blurriness passed and he could see again in the dim early light of his penthouse’s master bedroom. Wearily, he stumbled across the room, opened a drawer and pulled on some loosely slung knit pants. He felt as if he was a million years old.
Going to the wall of windows, he stared out at the cold gray city beneath him. So very cold. So very gray.
All these years he’d hated his father as heartless and cruel. All these years he’d despised his cousin as a selfish bastard.
What Stavros had just done proved him to be the worst of them all.
He was dying, so in a pathetic attempt to make his life matter, to be important to someone other than his shareholders, he’d proposed marriage to this trusting girl. He’d taken her virginity. That was bad enough.
But he’d wanted to do so much more.
He’d wanted to crush her heart and spirit and make her suffer with him as he declined, and failed, and died. Clinging to her like a drowning man, like a filthy coward, he’d wanted to drag her down with him.
Most women he knew might have been happy to exchange six months of holding his hand and watching him die for a vast pot of gold at the end. Those women guarded their souls—if they even had souls.
But not Holly. He’d seen it in her warm, trusting face. From the first moment he’d taken her arm at her sister’s wedding, when they’d danced at the reception, when he’d first kissed her in the snowy darkness of Central Park, he’d seen how quickly her opinion of him had changed, from resentment, to curiosity, to bewildered desire.
And finally, when she’d opened her eyes just now in the gray light of Christmas morning in his bed, he’d seen the way her soft emerald eyes glowed. And he’d known.
He could break her.
“Stavros, you’re scaring me.” From behind him on the bed, the tone of her voice suddenly changed, becoming artificially bright. “You’ve changed your mind about marrying me, haven’t you? You’re scared to tell me. But don’t be. I wouldn’t blame you if—”
“Yes.” His voice was harsh as he turned to face her. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“You have?”
Her lovely face went pale, but she spoke the words as if this was exactly what she’d expected all along. As if she’d known her joy and ecstasy could only be a brief fantasy.
Setting his shoulders, forcing himself not to feel, he said shortly, “Last night was a mistake.”
Holly’s shoulders sagged, and she looked away, toward the twinkling white tree. Holding the comforter over her naked breasts, she whispered, “Was it something I did, or...?”
“I was drunk last night,” he lied harshly, knowing the fastest way through this was to hit her at her most vulnerable point, so she wouldn’t fight it. One hard painful wrench, and it would all be over. “I mean—” he shrugged, the stereotype of a casually cruel playboy “—let’s face it. Like you said, you aren’t my usual type.”
The blow hit her squarely. The last color drained from her cheeks, leaving her pale as a ghost beneath her fiery hair. She swallowed, tried to speak, failed. She was lost in pain and insecurity and couldn’t see past it. Wordlessly, she looked down at her hands, clasped together tightly over the comforter. “I...”
“You should go,” he said coldly.
Not meeting his eyes, Holly slowly got out of bed. Picking up her bra and panties, and her crumpled red gown from the floor, she covered her amazing body. Her face held the pure, unmitigated heartbreak of youth, and he hated himself at that moment more than he’d ever hated anyone. Which was saying something.
“My driver will take you home. He could stop at the drugstore, if you like.”