The Greek's Virgin Temptation

by Susan Stephens

  ‘Life made me that way, and things are happening so fast between us.’

  ‘Because we both want them to.’

  ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m hardly the most attractive woman in my group of friends, so why pick me?’

  ‘Who can account for attraction?’ he said with an evasive shrug, guessing this was all about a gentle lead up to the inevitable.

  ‘So you’re not another gold-digger with profit in mind when I become a world-famous artist?’ she teased with a cheeky look.

  He laughed out loud and she laughed with him. ‘You’ve certainly got a talent for turning things on their head. I know you’re joking, but let me reassure you that you’re by far the most fascinating as well as the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and your delaying tactics are second to none.’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So...?’

  ‘So, I’ve told you before, I like a challenge.’

  ‘So do I,’ she assured him gently.

  The frown had faded from her face but there were still questions in her eyes he didn’t want to answer. Beneath her outwardly confident exterior Kimmie still felt crushed and shamed by the wedding fiasco, and was so ready to be hurt again he wished he’d never spoken to his uncle, had never considered getting married just to please Theo, and had certainly avoided throwing Kimmie into the ring as a contender. How could she be certain of him when they hardly knew each other? And yet he felt the stirrings of something for her that was out of the ordinary. If she ever found out that he had even half an eye on searching for a suitable bride, she’d be devastated.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered, distracting him.

  His troubling thoughts stood no chance against a sensual onslaught by Kimmie. He wanted to know this woman in every way there was and when their lips touched and he plundered her mouth he knew it would only be a short time before he claimed her completely.

  Kris unpeeled each of the towels in turn until she lay beneath him, completely naked.

  ‘No,’ he warned when she automatically moved to cross her arms over her chest again. Taking hold of both her wrists in one big hand, he pinned them lightly above her head. Then, slipping one muscular thigh between her legs, he parted them just a little...just enough.

  ‘You really want this?’ he murmured, making absolutely sure she was with him every step of the way.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed.

  Dropping kisses on her body until she relaxed, he moved down the bed, making everywhere he touched quiver with pleasure. Stroking and soothing, he finally dipped his head to give her the most intimate kiss of all. She tensed with a gasp, having never experienced anything so sexually adventurous. The level of intimacy was shocking at first, but it flung her into a new world where anything and everything was possible if it made her feel like this. Her gasp soon softened into a series of rhythmic moans as her body undulated in time to the laving of Kris’s tongue. He knew exactly what to do and how to prolong her enjoyment...when to hold back and when to start again. He didn’t need to tell her to relax. She was fully engaged and responsive. The hunt for release was an all-consuming passion, her only goal.

  ‘Yes, now,’ she gritted out and, unlike before, he didn’t make her wait.

  She screamed wildly and repeatedly as she claimed her reward, and then groaned contentedly as the crashing waves of intense pleasure gradually subsided into pleasurable little clenches. ‘Good...so good,’ she managed as he started again.

  But this time he left her hanging right on the edge. ‘No...don’t stop!’

  * * *

  Nothing she could say would move him to rush. Protecting them both, he moved to kneel between her legs and fisted his erection. Her throat dried at the sight of Kris’s massive hand barely able to enclose it. She’d never been this close to so much man before, had never inhaled such a potent mix of heat and sex. Kris was powerful, sex incarnate, and all the more desirable in her eyes for being so dark and rugged against her fragile skin. He hadn’t shaved recently and his stubble was thick and black and sharp. His wild hair had dried and the tiny gold hoop in his ear glinted in its depths. Tattoos on his upper arms pointed up the size of his biceps, while his chest was broad and strong. Everything about him excited her. He was the personification of danger and she was aroused by his brutal, swarthy good looks. She wanted him, and had no intention of waiting this time. Bending her legs, she spread them and, cupping each thigh, she held them apart. She had to have this...him, before she returned home. She was hungry for the touch of a man who knew what he was doing in the bedroom before she resigned herself to mediocrity again.

  Kris refused to be hurried and nothing she could do would change his mind. The fact that he stared down, taking note of her readiness, and then did nothing to hurry things on, only aroused her more. Smoothing the hair back from her face with his free hand, he dipped his head and kissed her. It was as if he had to make one last check that she was up for this. His breathing was the only thing that gave him away. It was a little heavier now. But it was nowhere near as hectic as hers, Kimmie realised when she paused to listen. Everything about Kris was on a grand scale, while she had never felt smaller when he brushed just the tip of his erection against her.

  ‘Please,’ she heard herself beg. ‘Don’t make me wait. I need you now. Please...’

  ‘You’re not frightened?’

  ‘No!’

  Kris’s answer was to brush himself repeatedly against her. It was the most incredible feeling, like everything he’d done to her before, only ten times more effective. When he allowed just the tip of his erection to catch inside her, she stilled, buoyant on a wave of pleasure but afraid to move in case he took it as a signal to take her roughly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kris was measured and completely in control to the point where she groaned with disappointment when he withdrew and whimpered excitedly when he allowed himself to penetrate just a little way inside her. Her nipples were so tight they hurt and her breasts had never felt heavier, while between her legs had become a swollen, greedy place. Air hissed between her teeth as he inserted the smooth, rounded tip again, and this time she was rewarded with a little more pressure as he began to stretch her.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she cried as he pulled out again. ‘Please...’

  Reaching beneath her, he cupped her buttocks to raise them even higher off the bed. Her world was composed entirely of sensation. She didn’t care what he did. And then he leaned forward and very slowly took her to the hilt. She cried out at his invasion and bit hard into the muscular flesh of his shoulder. He tasted of heat and sex and sunshine, and hot, clean man. And she growled as she held herself open, inviting more. Having positioned her for maximum pleasure, Kris allowed her to get used to the sensation of being completely filled by him before moving slowly to withdraw. The loss of him was such a shock she cried out again, but he didn’t make her wait long before taking her again. Inserting himself carefully, he sank deep and then repeated the steady move several times more, which quickly brought her to the edge. This time when she said ‘Please,’ all it took was several firm thrusts to make her lose control and, as she did so, Kris remained deep inside her where he could massage her to the finish. Writhing helplessly beneath him as the orgasm gradually faded, she could only ask for more.

  ‘Much more?’ he suggested with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ she gasped.

  Floating on some higher level of awareness, she was content to obey him for once, when Kris said he would do all the work and she must lie still and concentrate on sensation. ‘Nothing more, just that,’ he urged.

  She’d do so happily, and had no complaint as he efficiently brought her to the edge again. ‘Now,’ he commanded softly, and she did exactly as he instructed.

  An hour or so later, confident she was used to him after about her fourth cataclysmic release, Kris turn
ed her so he was kneeling behind her on the bed.

  ‘Raise your hips,’ he murmured, ‘so I can touch you while I take you.’

  Resting her head on her forearms, she lifted her hips as high as she could, and was instantly rewarded by the sensation of Kris’s big hands holding her in position as he filled her and touched her all at the same time.

  He wasn’t so gentle now, and he pounded into her as she commanded him to work faster... ‘Harder...! Now...! Please now!’ Her loss of control was noisy and wild, but Kris’s hands were firm on her buttocks to keep her in place so she could enjoy every last pulse of pleasure. Wailing, she thrashed about, but his grip was firm, giving her no alternative but to take everything he had to give her. Bucking helplessly in the throes of an orgasm so extreme she doubted either of them could survive it, she finally slumped on to the bed while Kris worked some magic with his hand to make sure she was quite finished.

  ‘More?’ he queried when she was finally quiet.

  ‘Stop teasing me... Let me catch my breath. Don’t you need a rest?’ she demanded groggily. Turning her head, she smiled a secret smile. ‘Obviously not,’ she murmured contentedly.

  Moving behind her, Kris proved her right. Wrapping his body around hers until they were like spoons, he rested her leg on top of his and, having spread her wide, he took her again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  NOW SHE WAS over her fear of sex, intimacy with Kimmie was wilder and more fun than he could ever have anticipated. And intensely pleasurable too.

  Far from tiring of each other, let alone getting tired, it seemed the more they had, the more they wanted from each other. She was demanding. He was too. Even now, with her back turned to him, she had curled up in a ball, raising her buttocks as high as she could to tease and tempt him into delivering more prolonged and diligent attention. She was so tight and hot, and so surprisingly inventive. Far from the ingénue he’d first thought her, Kimmie Lancaster was an extremely sexy woman who’d been trapped in a shell of inexperience and lack of opportunity.

  Lack of opportunity?

  The thought of her being with another man hit him like a freight train, and it did not feel good. He could not, would not allow that to happen.

  As she reached the edge of the plateau of pleasure where he’d been keeping her with steady, reliable strokes, she reached behind her to grab hold of whatever she could. Her fingers were like steel as she urged him on. He’d be covered in battle scars by the morning, and would relish every one.

  ‘Now,’ she commanded with all the confidence she’d gained over the past few hours.

  Bucking furiously as the waves of her release lashed her into a frenzy, she tightened her inner muscles around him, which made holding back an impossibility. His release was extraordinary. Powerful, and seemingly never-ending, he had never known anything like it before. When they had both finally quietened, he embraced her and she wrapped her arms around him as they laughed and kissed and gasped with sheer disbelief that anything could feel quite so good.

  ‘And now I’m going to ride you,’ she said.

  ‘Mercy!’

  ‘There can be no mercy for a man who has so much potential.’

  ‘Okay, then.’ He shrugged and turned onto his back.

  ‘But first...’ Moving down the bed, she took him in her mouth and made him harder still. ‘That’s better,’ she approved.

  He helped her mount up, and from there it was a crazy ride to the finish.

  ‘Amazing,’ she gasped. ‘You’re amazing!’

  ‘And you are too,’ he confirmed, smiling.

  Turning her, he slipped a pillow beneath her hips to lift her into an even more receptive position. As he did so, she met his gaze and held it. ‘I love this,’ she said as his rough hands cupped her buttocks.

  ‘You do surprise me,’ he said wryly.

  As they laughed together, intimately sharing their own particular brand of humour, he realised that sex had never been fun before. It had been a means to an end, a hunger satisfied, a need dealt with until the next time, but this...this was something very different.

  * * *

  Never in her wildest dreams had Kimmie imagined that sex could be as good as this. Not just good—fantastic. Or that she could feel the way she did about Kris. He wasn’t just the consummate lover; he made her feel loved, cherished...special. She didn’t expect the feeling to last. They were worlds apart and she had to be realistic, but while they were here making memories that would have to be enough. She’d treasure those memories, and believed absolutely that they would make her artwork richer and more layered in so many ways. How could she portray life and love without ever experiencing these feelings?

  * * *

  It was late the next day while Kimmie was in the shower that he decided to definitely etch her name right at the top of his so far non-existent list of potential brides. They’d only known each other a few days, but how long would it take to know that this was different and special? The sex was amazing. She made him laugh, made him relax, made him look at life differently. That definitely put her in contention. She would be leaving Kaimos soon. He wasn’t sure of the exact date. He’d been too busy, to put it mildly, to ask questions he’d thought could wait.

  Rolling over in bed to answer the phone, he fielded a call from one of his PAs in New York. Instantly alert at hearing some disastrous news, he was already making plans to leave the island. Not tomorrow, unfortunately, but right now. The crucially important deal he’d thought he’d sewn up had sprung a leak that only his finger could plug. Quitting the rumpled bed, he strode into the bathroom and joined Kimmie beneath the spray.

  ‘Again?’ she whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck and stared up, smiling.

  ‘Why not?’ he agreed, backing her towards the wall. They didn’t have long, but it was enough.

  Would he ever get enough of this woman? He knew the answer even as he lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Pressing her up against cool marble, he took her with crazy passion, and with frustration that they didn’t have longer to spin this out. He could hardly propose they saw each other again just so he could assess her suitability as a potential bride some time in the future. It would be better to walk away now.

  But what would that say to Kimmie? Yeah, the sex was great, but I can’t have you interfering with my life.

  Wasn’t that actually what he was saying, and how it would be if he went ahead with his crazy plan?

  ‘I’ve never known anyone like you,’ he whispered in her ear as the screaming died down and soft, rhythmical moans took its place. ‘You do know how special you are to me, don’t you?’

  With a deep sigh, she stared up, holding his gaze with an expression that took hold of his heart and twisted it. ‘Are? Or have been?’ she said with her usual intuitive shrewdness. ‘Don’t make any promises to me that you can’t keep, Kris. I couldn’t take that.’

  ‘I’m not going to,’ he assured her, trying to close down his feelings. ‘I have to go away,’ he admitted. ‘Right now. Business. But I’ll be back, and I still want to see that exhibition. If that’s all right with you?’

  She blinked rapidly and drew a deep breath. ‘If I’m not too busy, I might make time for you,’ she said, though her teasing sounded strained. ‘You know us artists,’ she continued. ‘We get lost in our own world and forget about everything else. So there’s a big chance I might forget about you too.’

  ‘Paint me and remember,’ he said, selfishly hoping she would.

  ‘And now you have to go,’ she reminded him lightly.

  ‘Yes. Do you mind if I rush?’ he asked, grimacing. ‘I have a flight plan to file and arrangements to make.’

  ‘You go,’ she reiterated. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  * * *

  Kimmie had never seen anyone dress so quickly, or leave a situation so fast. There was a life lesson right
there. Mike had never loved her, she realised now, and yet she’d fallen for the combination of his familiarity and charm. Kris had exploded into her life, changing everything, but had rocketed out of it just as fast. The thought of him leaving so rapidly after what had been such a special moment for her—for both of them, she’d thought—had left her with an aching heart and a sinking feeling in her stomach that she had never been in control, as she’d imagined, and that she had to get a grip before she slid down the cracks opening up in every direction.

  Sitting down heavily on the bed, she threw her head back to stare at the ceiling, but there were no answers there. She’d been the architect of her own misfortune, and now it was time to wake up and sort herself out. When it came to men, she was certifiably hopeless. Learn from that and move on. Thank goodness she had a career. She wouldn’t be making the same mistake twice.

  Twice? Make that ever again.

  * * *

  Kimmie had returned to London as fast as she could—which was to say she’d used the ticket she would have used if she’d stayed on for a few days’ honeymoon. There was no point wasting money when the trip had already cost so much.

  Five months on and she’d heard absolutely nothing from Kris. That must have been some business trip! But she wasn’t going to dwell on it. She hadn’t expected to ever hear from him again.

  London always lifted her spirits. She’d given notice on her tiny flat and made appointments to view some more properties. A new broom sweeps clean, she determined as she strode through the park on a glorious wintry afternoon.

  It was one of those days when London was at its beautiful best beneath a flawless blue sky. The city she loved was crowded and vibrant, with countless different languages floating on the breeze. To Kimmie everything was endlessly fascinating and reassuringly the same.