by Lynne Graham
He stared down at the subtle line of her smooth back and the violin curve of her shapely hips slowly being exposed, and ferocious need broke through the defensive barriers his brain was trying to resurrect. Suddenly nothing mattered beyond having her again. He pushed the parted edges of the bodice apart and watched the wedding dress fall down to her feet in a silky pool of lace. Underneath she wore white lace panties and pale thigh-high stockings and he took his time appreciating that view of feminine perfection.
Slowly he turned her back to face him and then he dropped to his knees in front of her to smooth lean brown hands very slowly up over her beautiful legs until he reached the delicate skin above the lace stocking tops. Winnie went rigid beneath the caress, staring down at him with almost dazed eyes as he gently nudged her slender thighs apart. She could feel every brush of his fingertips across her inner thighs and it set up a chain reaction in her pelvis, awakening a surge of heat that made her squirm.
‘There’s so much I want to do that I don’t know where to begin,’ Eros said softly as his hands curled into the edges of her panties and slowly peeled them down.
Winnie literally stopped breathing, fierce colour sweeping up her throat to engulf her face. She had never been more conscious of being bare.
‘Am I still the only guy to see you like this?’ Eros growled as he tugged the undergarment free by dint of delicately lifting each stiletto-heeled foot in turn.
Winnie toyed with the idea of lying out of pride but then her innate practicality squashed that idea. ‘When would I have had the time?’ she muttered ruefully. ‘First I was pregnant and then I had Teddy and then I was struggling to look after him and work unsocial hours.’
Smiling with unashamed satisfaction, Eros leant forward and planted a kiss on her lower belly. ‘I’m grateful,’ he confided quietly.
Her tummy muscles tensed. Alarmingly conscious of the stretch marks that were slowly fading into silvery lines there, Winnie swallowed hard, wondering if he had noticed, reckoning he was too smooth to comment on her flaws. And, of course, there were flaws, she scolded herself, because a body that had carried a baby changed and there was nothing to do but live with those changes.
Impervious to her insecurities, Eros vaulted upright and scooped her up to settle her down on the wide bed. As he stood over her, he threw off his jacket, jerked loose his grey silk spotted tie and unbuttoned his crisp white dress shirt. All male purpose blazed in the smouldering green eyes welded to her.
‘I have never wanted anything so much as I want you at this moment,’ he told her rawly, and she recognised the faint hint of anxiety that accompanied that admission as if that level of desire spooked him.
Yet he had always made her feel like that, she acknowledged, as though she was especially sexy and necessary to him, as though he truly needed her on some deep fundamental level. It was hardly surprising that she had fallen in love with him. But all Eros had ever needed from her was sex, she reminded herself ruefully. Quickly, she shrugged the thought away again, possessed as she was by a powerful need of her own to live in the moment and look neither forward to a dim future nor back to a past that still wounded her.
Eros pulled off his shirt, exposing a bronzed torso straight out of her most feverish feminine fantasy, lean muscle rippling with his every movement to define powerful pectorals and a stomach that was a taut flat study of hard, corrugated sinew. She stared, her hands falling back from the curves she had been trying to cover, the foolishness of such reticence with her child’s father sending a tide of self-conscious red up into her cheeks. It was a little late in the day for modesty, she told herself impatiently, particularly when there was nothing modest about what Eros made her feel.
Excitement was already licking up through her like a storm warning, her mouth dry, her heart beating so fast it felt as if it was pounding through her entire body. Eros had always had the ability to make her feel like a very different woman from her quiet and sensible self. He only had to look at her a certain way, touch her a certain way and she was transformed into a wanton creature that wanted, craved, needed...
‘I have no patience, moraki mou,’ Eros breathed as he stripped off his trousers, revealing black boxers that he skimmed off with a similar lack of ceremony.
‘You never had,’ Winnie whispered shakily, striving not to stare at his body, a hot flush surging at the heart of her and a wave of desire she could not suppress.
Eros laughed, assailed by memories he hadn’t examined in years, and acknowledged that when it came to her patience had never been his strong suit. Desire had ridden him hard, frustrating his attempt to keep their affair cool and within bounds, demanding more from him than he had ever wanted to give. He shook off the disturbing memories to concentrate on the pale voluptuous vision of loveliness that was Winnie lying across the bed, her wondrous curves exposed for his appreciation.
He came down to her in one lithe movement, all controlled grace and masculine heat, claiming her mouth with demanding, shattering force and for several long moments Winnie was in heaven because nobody could kiss like Eros. Big hands cupped her full breasts, pushing them together to enable him to hungrily tease her straining nipples to lush prominence. Darting arrows of erotic need raced to her core. He worked his sensual path down over her writhing length. He made her hot as hell, her hips rising involuntarily as he ground down on her, letting her feel the full force of his arousal against the most tender spot on her entire body.
‘Thee mou... You drive me insane,’ Eros husked, his hands lifting to pinch at her already swollen and sensitive nipples, wrenching a long, sobbing breath from her parted lips as her back arched in helpless response.
He forced her still before tugging her thighs apart and burying his mouth there to feast on her sensitive flesh with a passionate carnality that made her jerk and moan. Long fingers traced her tender folds and glided between, probing her honeyed depths with precision while his thumb delicately strummed against her, and then he employed his tongue. She shook and gasped as the slow tormenting rise of an explosive climax ached unbearably in her pelvis.
Eros watched her rise beneath him with a breathless little scream at the intensity of the pleasure flooding her, and then fall back, limp and drained against the tumbled pillows. The look of bliss on her face sent a zinging throb of lust straight to his groin, leaving him hard as steel.
‘Let me touch you,’ she mumbled breathlessly as he lifted back from her and she sat up, taking him by surprise as she tugged him back down onto the bed beside her. ‘I have my own agenda.’
‘You...do?’ Eros prompted, taken aback by her sudden boldness for she had always been a shy lover, content to let him take charge.
Winnie nodded feverishly, her heart-shaped face a curious study of self-consciousness and determination. Her small hands spread across his pectoral muscles and then slowly traced down over his tautly muscled stomach, feeling him flex and tense beneath her ministrations even while she recognised his surprise in some dismay.
In the past with Eros, she had been passive, far too afraid of making a clumsy wrong move and either making him laugh or turning him off. But the news that there had not been another woman in his bed since he had last been with her had thrilled Winnie as much as it had startled her and now all the fantasies she had once suppressed, all the desires she had been afraid to express, were powering her. A little voice in the back of her head was also reminding her that Eros could hardly keep his hands off her and that it was past time that she was woman enough to explore her own hunger for him.
She lowered her head, mahogany hair trailing softly across his stomach as she traced the little furrow of dark hair usually visible above his waistband with the tip of her tongue. As she simultaneously stroked his long, thick, urgent length with her hand, his hips lifted and she heard his breathing hitch in surprise. He was so smooth and hard and warm and, as she soon learned, incredibly responsive to her smallest touch. His
hand dug into her thick hair and he arched up to her with an uninhibited moan of pleasure as she laved him with her tongue. For the first time ever with Eros, Winnie felt truly powerful and sexy.
He withstood her attentions for only a few moments before he dragged her back up to him with a kind of wildness that excited her and rasped, ‘I can’t take any more of that. I want to come inside you...’
Flushed and breathless, Winnie grinned at him. ‘To be continued, then,’ she mumbled.
With a wildly impatient hand, Eros grabbed protection from beside the bed and yanked her slight body under him with decisive force. Delighted giggles at his unashamed urgency tumbled from Winnie’s lips. Crushing her reddened mouth beneath his, he extracted a hungry kiss of retribution.
‘Silence, mikri magissa mou,’ Eros urged roughly as he pushed back her thighs with hard hands.
Mikri magissa mou... My little witch. Winnie savoured the label with pleasure, satisfied that her more daring approach had passed muster.
Almost at the same moment, Eros plunged with a savage growl of satisfaction between her thighs and the ability to think clearly was stolen from her. Her body lurched and shivered with the sweet piercing delight of giving way to his, sensations that she had forced herself to forget racking her with waves of delirious pleasure. Every stroke set her on fire, her excitement climbing with every slick move of his hips as he picked up speed, and then there was nothing but the breathless surging exhilaration of his dominance pushing her to the summit again. Heart racing, body writhing, she burned up in the fiery blaze of release that consumed her from the inside out. Electrifying ripples of excitement convulsed her and held her suspended until she tumbled back in a daze to the real world again.
Eros freed her from his weight and then pulled her into his arms, which startled her because once Eros had been chary of touching her after sex, his innate reserve kicking in immediately afterwards, making her drown in discomfiture at a moment when she had craved something less ephemeral than physical satisfaction. Now he took the time to stroke her damp hair back from her brow, gazing down at her with glittering emerald-green eyes while he traced the voluptuous line of her lower lip with a thoughtful fingertip.
‘I’d like to ditch the protection and have another child,’ he admitted huskily, disconcerting her even more with that confession. ‘I missed out on all that the first time around and I’d enjoy the chance to experience it with you.’
‘Are you insane?’ Winnie was startled enough to demand before she could even consider the meaning of such an unexpected proposition. ‘Teddy is only eighteen months old. We don’t even know if we have a future together.’
‘I might trust you a little more if I could see you commit to that future with me by conceiving another child,’ Eros confessed with measured cool. ‘The future is there for us to grab and we’ve got nothing to lose by going for it straight away and ignoring your grandfather’s feelings about us staying married. Of course, if you prefer to keep your options open...’
‘I’m not ready to have another child yet,’ Winnie muttered flatly, still struggling to master her shock at such a suggestion from him. ‘Particularly not with a man who once chose not to tell me that he was married and who broke my heart. You may not trust me but I don’t trust you either! Only couples who are happy and secure together should bring babies into the world.’
At that unhesitating rejection, dark colour sprang up in a feverish line across his high cheekbones, accentuating his shimmering sea-glass eyes. ‘We could be happy.’
‘Could!’ Winnie scorned as she snaked free of him and wriggled off the edge of the bed to head into the bathroom, needing space and privacy from him. ‘That’s not enough!’
His sheer high-voltage sexuality sent her brain careening into the realms of fantasy. But way before that acknowledgement, she had been knocked emotionally sideways by his insistence that he had not slept with another woman since he had last been with her two years earlier. And that had shocked her, but what had shocked her even more was that she had believed him and, rightly or wrongly, it had brought her barriers crashing down, making her vulnerable. It had also encouraged her to do what she had sworn never to do again and that was sleep with Eros. But at the same time, she was currently married to Eros Nevrakis, which had to change her outlook.
Or did it? she reasoned frantically. Did being married to the man she had once loved change anything? According to him, she would be a virtual prisoner on Trilis until he felt that he could trust her again. And when was that likely to be? Particularly when she was not prepared to risk having another child with him. And yet with that suggestion he had ignited the strangest secret yearning inside her. Why? Second time round with Eros, pregnancy would be a very different experience for her because she wouldn’t be going it alone as she had been forced to do while carrying Teddy. And wouldn’t it be wonderful to have that support and to feel valued while bringing a much-wanted second child into the world?
As soon as she recognised that dangerous thought, she stood on it hard and loathed herself for being so weak, so susceptible to Eros’s smallest suggestion. He was asking her to prove her commitment to their marriage but was she committed? Or simply playing for time while she decided what to do next? And how was he planning to demonstrate his commitment? Did he really think that suggesting that she have another child with him was sufficient?
* * *
As she vanished into the bathroom, Eros lay there for long minutes, seething with angry exasperation and an unfamiliar sense of rejection. Winnie could be such a plodder, proceeding directly and without deviation from one milestone to the next, no cutting corners, no shortcuts, no risks that could be avoided taken. Their affair had probably been the most dangerous impulse she had ever given way to and it would be a very long time, if ever, before she forgave him for not telling her that he was on paper, at least, a married man. Perhaps it was past time he explained exactly why he had never mentioned it, perhaps she would then begin to accept that the future was what they alone could make or break.
The bathroom door stood ajar and he pressed it back. Fresh from the shower, Winnie was already towelling herself dry, a glorious vision of tumbled dark hair and damp pink sensuality, chocolate-brown eyes anxious as they zeroed in on him.
‘Er...what?’ she muttered awkwardly.
‘Entaxei... Okay, you win,’ Eros breathed tautly, his bone structure rigid. ‘I’ll tell you about my marriage.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
CLUTCHING HER TOWEL to her full breasts, Winnie froze in astonishment and stared back at Eros. ‘But you don’t want to talk about it...’
Eros shrugged a bare bronzed shoulder. ‘I owe you,’ he said flatly, striding back into the bedroom to rifle through the drawers in the dressing room.
Having followed him on stiff legs, Winnie sank down uneasily on the foot of the bed, watching while he dragged out a pair of jeans and began to pull them on, lean muscles flexing with his every graceful movement. Colour burned her cheeks and she couldn’t think straight for several moments because Eros was knocking her off balance on too many different levels at once.
‘You seem shocked that I’m willing to talk about my first marriage,’ Eros commented in surprise.
‘Even quite recently, you weren’t willing to do that,’ Winnie pointed out tightly, struggling to get her flailing emotions under control.
Eros sent her a steady look from his stunning green eyes. ‘I was too angry then but you’re my wife now. You have a right to know certain facts.’
Winnie nodded dumbly, fearful of what was coming next, wanting to know about that marriage and yet in the strangest way reluctant to know, because she was convinced that he was certain to tell her things that would hurt.
‘A property developer called Filipe Mantalos gave me my first business loan when the banks wouldn’t touch me,’ Eros told her, disconcerting her yet again with that opening. ‘I believe I
mentioned Filipe to you before?’
‘Yes, I remember. He helped you out when you were starting up,’ she recalled vaguely.
Eros compressed his wide sensual mouth. ‘Without Filipe’s support and backing I would never have got that first business venture off the ground and into profit. At the time, Felipe was a widower with a daughter he adored called Tasha.’
Unprepared for the sound of that familiar name, Winnie flinched, wondering what else he was about to tell her. Had his first wife, Tasha, also been his mentor’s daughter? When he had first mentioned Filipe, Eros had been quite clear about Filipe’s role in his life when he was a younger man. For all intents and purposes, Filipe had been the father Eros’s own father had been too selfish to be and clearly the relationship had meant a lot to Eros.
‘Eight years ago, Filipe developed a brain tumour. He had surgery but the tumour returned and was eventually deemed inoperable,’ Eros told her gravely. ‘Filipe was always a very practical man. He immediately began sorting out his affairs and working out how best to protect Tasha, who was still a student. He was a wealthy man and he asked me to look after his daughter’s inheritance until she was old enough to handle the money herself but, because she was young and vulnerable and very much in love with me, he asked me if I would consider marrying her.’
‘Consider...marrying her?’ Winnie erupted into sudden speech with wide incredulous eyes. ‘What age was she, for goodness’ sake? Very much in love with you? You were already involved with her?’