Giannis studied the delicate palm spread out on his hand and traced his fingers over her elegant ones, surprised to find the tips hardened and calloused.
About to ask how this could be, he met her cornflower-blue gaze and his throat closed up.
He’d tended to Tabitha’s wounded hand with the best of intentions, promising himself they would clean it up and bandage it then go back outside to watch the fireworks together.
He hadn’t considered that his attraction to her would burn even brighter when they were alone in the confines of his apartment or that he would be so aware of her every movement and every breath.
He hadn’t considered that he would tend to her hand and have to stop himself from running his tongue over it.
Since Anastasia’s death he had hardly lived like a monk. He’d been with a considerable number of women, both before his marriage and after he was widowed.
Not one of them had made his loins ache and his chest tighten with one shy smile.
Not one of them had captivated him like Tabitha had, and he still hadn’t seen her face...
Suddenly he found himself needing to see it, to see the whole face of this woman who had enchanted him so much that he couldn’t determine if it was her or the champagne he’d drunk inducing it.
He released his hold on her hand and brought his fingers to her face.
Not a breath of sound could be heard between them as he slowly lifted the mask up and over the honey-blonde hair.
Heart pounding, he stared at a flawless face far more beautiful than he had suspected.
Truly, ethereally beautiful.
He rubbed the back of his fingers down high, rounded cheekbones in wonder, that wonder growing at the sudden pulse he saw in the cornflower eyes.
She gave a sharp inhalation before her own hand reached for his face and tentatively touched his jaw.
A bolt of electricity charged through him, strong enough to knock a weaker man off his feet.
The light delicacy of her floral perfume whirled into his senses.
Everything about this woman was delicate and faultless. Were it not for the warmth of her soft skin and the slight trembles he saw vibrating through her, he could have believed she was made from porcelain.
He traced his fingers across her oval jawline then dragged them down the elegant neck, lingering at the pulse throbbing at the spot before he reached her collarbone and took the one step needed to do what he had spent the entire evening hungering to do.
He brought his face down and captured her heart-shaped lips in his.
Another bolt of electricity rocketed through him, far stronger than the first, crashing hot through his veins and skin with a buzz that must have seeped through him, for Tabitha jolted too.
Pulling back slightly so their lips were barely touching, he opened his eyes and found hers fixed on him, a dazed expression shining at him. The fingers resting on his jaw had frozen.
The walls around him began to spin, heat flowing through him so fast and so thick he wondered if he had drunk more than he’d thought.
He found he didn’t care.
Champagne, desire or a combination of both, at that moment he wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything.
Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him and moulded his mouth to hers, exploring the plump softness of her lips, then parting them to dart his tongue inside and explore the hot champagne-scented depths.
Tabitha succumbed to her very first kiss feeling like she’d fallen into a dream.
The whole night had been a dream.
But this...
It was mesmerising.
She met the strokes of his tongue tentatively at first but the heat bubbling inside her being fed by his heavenly kisses grew at a ferocious pace and smothered any inhibitions she should have had.
Grabbing at the soft leather of his swallowtail jacket to keep her suddenly boneless legs upright, she arched into the hard contours of his body and moved the hand clutched at his cheek to hook tightly around his neck.
She felt intoxicated, could feel the blood pumping in the veins of her mouth and moving relentlessly through the rest of her, heating wherever his firm hands swept over her.
She only realised he’d unpinned her hair when it spilled down over them.
He broke the kiss to turn his face into her hair and breathed it in deeply before bringing both hands to her face and smoothing the hair back.
His eyes had darkened, his hunger for her so stark that her stomach contracted.
Never had she imagined that this man would look at her with such desire in his eyes.
Before this night she hadn’t imagined Giannis would ever look at her.
When his mouth found hers again, the kiss harder and hungrier, fresh heat assailed her, threading through the very fabric of her being, and she tightened her hold around him, suddenly aching for him to rip the beautiful but constricting dress from her burning, sensitised skin.
As if his mind was aligned with her own, Giannis lifted her effortlessly into his arms, the motion making her belly swoop.
The world’s biggest rollercoaster could not have had a greater effect. Or felt a fraction as heady.
The feelings rippling through her were like nothing she had even suspected could exist. Her world—her universe—had shrunk so it contained only Giannis.
He carried her to the bedroom and set her down gently on her feet beside the bed.
During that short walk he’d turned the bedroom light off so they were illuminated only by the light pouring in from his bathroom and the fireworks lighting the sky outside.
His throat moved as his hooded eyes stared at her so hard, she felt stripped naked beneath it.
‘Eisai omorfi,’ he breathed as he tugged her to him again.
She didn’t have a clue what he’d said but pleasure soaked through her at the way he’d spoken the words.
Their arms wrapped around each other and she sank into another invasion of his hungry tongue assaulting her in the most heavenly way.
Reckless, intoxicating madness had caught Giannis in its grip. He knew this was madness: making love to a woman he knew only by first name. Tabitha could have stepped out of one of the fairy-tale books his sisters had read as children, an enchantress casting her spell over him.
If this was a spell, he did not want to find the cure to it. Not yet. He wanted to stay under her enchantment and let it take him wherever it desired.
He dragged his mouth down the column of her throat to where the pulse at the base of her neck now raged while her fingers snaked into his hair and dug into his scalp.
Too many clothes, he thought dimly, his fingers working furiously at the back of her dress, trying to find the hidden buttons. His thumb ran over the bump of a small clasp. He popped it open and immediately found the hidden zip.
In one fluid motion he pulled it down to the base of her spine.
He ran his hands flat over the length of her back and sucked in a breath when he found no bra.
He brought his mouth back to claim her in another hot, hard kiss and shrugged his jacket off, then stepped back, giving himself just enough room to undo the top three buttons of his shirt, then tugged it up and over his face. He threw it to the floor.
Breathing deeply, he gazed again at the captivating face in front of him before closing the small distance he’d just created to place his hands on her shoulders.
His fingers drifted over the soft skin to the band of her dress, which was defying gravity and staying up.
All it needed was one small tug at the waist to help it on its way.
It fell with a whoosh to her feet.
His throat closed as he drank in the body now naked bar a pair of skimpy white knickers.
Thee mou.
Upturned breasts, plumper than
the dress had allowed his mind to imagine, a slim waist and rounded hips...
She was all woman.
She was exquisite.
Unthinkingly, he cupped one of the breasts and ran a thumb over the erect tip.
She swayed. Her lips parted and a small gasp escaped from her.
He gripped her tightly at the hips and lowered himself down to capture the breast his hand cupped with his mouth.
Blood pooled hot and hard in his groin, making his rock-hard arousal throb tightly against the constriction of his leather trousers.
She tasted...incredible.
She swayed again, legs visibly trembling, the fingers on his head digging in harder.
Rising, he shuffled her back until the back of her legs touched the bed.
Chest rising and falling rapidly, hands still reaching for him, she sat.
His arousal had become too painful to endure a moment longer and, not tearing his eyes from hers, he quickly undid his trousers and pushed them down his hips.
Tabitha gazed at the first erection she had ever seen in the flesh and her pelvis contracted all over again.
Her mouth full of moisture, heart thumping painfully, her gaze drifted over the rest of him.
Giannis was beautiful.
His tall frame was broader and far more muscular than she’d imagined—and she had imagined it, in many unbidden moments when the only thing she’d needed to use her brain for was changing bed sheets. Only a small line of hair covered his chest, starting from just above his abdomen, but thickened and darkened considerably at the area where his huge length jutted out proudly.
She felt too intoxicated with all the heat swirling like a furnace inside her to be scared.
Never in her life had she craved something as much as she craved Giannis in this moment. There was something about him that sang to her on a fundamental level she had no chance of understanding so she did the only thing she could do and embraced it.
When he’d divested himself of the rest of his clothing and joined her on the bed, pushing her down so she was flat on her back, she opened her arms to him.
His lips found hers in another crushing kiss and then he was exploring her, using his hands and mouth to cover her body, setting fire to her skin, melting her bones.
He lavished attention on breasts she had never suspected could be so sensitive and yet so receptive. He kissed her belly button, he kissed her sides...and then he tugged her knickers down and kissed her right in the core of her womanhood.
At the first touch of his tongue on her swollen nub she jerked wildly, sensation shooting through her.
Dear God...
One hand grasped his head, the other reaching up to grab a pillow.
Pleasure pooled thick and heavy deep within her and she instinctively lifted her bottom; instinctive, as the action came not from her brain.
Her brain had ceased to function on anything but a primitive level.
Her body had ceased to function on anything but a primitive level.
The only coherent thought in her head was Giannis’s name playing like a distant echo.
Only when he’d snaked his way back up her body, sheathed himself deftly and his mouth hovered over hers for another kiss, his hips lodged between her parted legs, his arousal hard at the top of her thigh, did she get the coherence to gasp, ‘Please be gentle.’
The lips that had been about to claim hers reared back, a question forming in the crease of his brow.
Suddenly afraid that the truth would put an abrupt end to this most magical of moments, she hooked an arm around his neck and pulled him down to mould her mouth to his.
He kissed her back hungrily and shifted his hips so his erection was right where it needed to be.
And then he slid inside her damp heat. Slowly, deliberately slowly, stretching her, giving her the time to adjust and accommodate...
Her eyes flew open as a sharp pain seared through her, fleeting then dissolving...
And then she dissolved.
Her bones softened, her hips arched, she scraped her fingers into his head and parted her lips as he drove into her, the pleasure so intense that all she could do was cling to him and let him move inside her with long strokes, every thrust increasing the sensation, every groan from his lips against her ear feeding it.
He filled her completely. Perfectly.
A large hand skimmed roughly down her side and reached under her bottom, lifting her so their groins ground together, heightening the pleasure to a level that turned her into a mass of nerve endings.
Faster and harder he thrust into her, and faster and harder her hips bucked back, and all the while the sensation that had started life deep inside her spread until, without any warning, pleasure ripped through her, so intense that colour brighter and more explosive than any firework filled her.
It must have been enough to tip Giannis over the edge too for the fingers still holding her bottom clamped tightly on her flesh and his huge body tensed then shuddered.
Long moments later, he collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily in her ear.
It took a long while for Tabitha’s world to right itself and for her heart to regain something that resembled a normal rhythm.
A delicious lethargy came over her. Her eyes closed and the world drifted away.
* * *
The sound of a door closing woke Tabitha with a start.
She sat bolt upright, horrified to find dusky light pouring through the bedroom window.
She looked at her watch and saw the time was six a.m.
No, no, no.
She was due to start work in an hour.
She strained her ears and heard the sound of a coffee machine working.
Giannis must be in the kitchen.
How long did she have to escape?
She cursed herself and tried her hardest to breathe but panic had set in.
Clutching her fuzzy head, she darted her gaze around the room, looking for her dress.
It was draped on the arm chair in the corner. Giannis must have put it there.
She swallowed back a surge of nausea and cursed herself again.
Stupid, idiotic, fool!
Bad enough she’d got so carried away with the romance of the evening and the undeniable yet fatal attraction that had sparked to life between her and Giannis to sleep with him in the first place, but to stay the whole night?
What complete and utter stupidity.
Her cheeks burned as she recalled them making love a second time...
She staggered off the bed and instinctively covered her nakedness.
She had never slept naked in her life!
Snatching the dress, she found his own masquerade costume beneath it, his black shirt at the top.
She debated for a nanosecond before pulling the shirt he hadn’t fully unbuttoned over her head and hurriedly pulled her knickers on, all the while thinking of the best way to escape, wishing she had paid more attention to the layout of the apartment when she’d had the chance.
But of course, she hadn’t paid attention. She’d been too drunk on the strange alchemy of Giannis and champagne to pay attention to anything.
Quickly she scanned her surroundings from the window. The grounds were empty of life but they wouldn’t be for long. Any minute an army of workers would be out there to clear up any mess revellers had made during the event.
She opened the window, threw her dress and shoes out of it, then squeezed herself out behind them.
Bare feet on the cold ground, she scooped her belongings into her arms and fled.
* * *
Giannis whistled as he poured the freshly brewed coffee into glass cups, placed them on a tray with milk and sugar and continued whistling as he made his way back to his bedroom where he’d left his enchantress sleeping.
He could not remember the last time he’d awoken in such a good mood. Years.
Could Tabitha be the one his sisters had been nagging him to find? He knew next to nothing about her but if she could afford a ticket to his ball, and that dress which must have cost more than the ticket, she obviously had wealth. She’d been educated at one of the UK’s finest boarding schools. And they had a chemistry that was off the scale.
He’d never known a night like it.
Whether Tabitha was the future Mrs Basinas or not, right then his intention was to bring her coffee and climb back into bed with her. He hoped she hadn’t made any plans. He’d already messaged his PA to inform her he wouldn’t be returning to Santorini that day and to rearrange his appointments.
Still whistling, he carried the tray to his bedroom and opened the door...
The bed was empty.
‘Tabitha?’ he called. She must be in the bathroom...
The bathroom door was open.
He placed the tray on his dresser and, as he did so, he noticed something else that had gone. Her ball gown.
Two minutes later, every room in the apartment searched, he returned to his bedroom perplexed and angry.
She had run out on him.
From the corner of his eye, something sparkly caught his eye.
He strode to the bed where the sparkly item was and found, on the pillow on which her exquisite head had rested, one of her earrings.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THE FILE IS INCOMPLETE.’ Giannis tapped his long fingers on the thick file which allegedly contained the details and photograph of every guest who’d attended the masquerade ball two weeks ago, when he’d learned there had been no guest by the name of Tabitha on the list. He’d spent the morning studying the dossiers so thoroughly he was quite sure he could bump into any of the guests in this file and relate their name, age and occupation without introduction.
But the one face he’d wanted to find was missing.
His PA sighed. ‘That is the entire list of attendees. It has been triple checked.’
The Greek's Pregnant Cinderella Page 4