makeshift bed,’ Katrina informed him as she took down a blanket and snagged a spare pillow.
‘The bed is large,’ Nicos said with dangerous softness.
Katrina met his gaze with open defiance. ‘I’m not sharing it with you.’
‘Is it me you don’t trust? Or yourself?’
‘You,’ she responded succinctly, and stepped through to the lounge.
She pulled two chairs together, facing each other, and decided it should be quite comfortable if she adopted a foetal position.
Seconds later she extracted a long cotton tee shirt from her bag and retreated to the en suite to change.
Hmm, not so comfortable, she admitted to herself within minutes of settling herself down. She doused the lamp, and the suite was shrouded in darkness.
Katrina reflected on the events of the day, ruminated the prospect of Siobhan’s enthusiasm at opening a Melbourne branch of her Double Bay boutique…and shifted position on the chairs.
To no avail, for one hip soon became numb from the hard upholstering. Damn. Maybe if she lay on her back with her knees bent.
How long did it take for her to decide the chairs were a no-go sleeping situation? Half an hour? She had no idea of the passage of time when she carefully manoeuvred herself free and spread one half of the blanket on the carpet.
She leaned forward to collect the pillow and knocked her elbow. A faint groan escaped her lips. Hell, that hurt.
Was Nicos asleep? She stifled the temptation to take the pillow and bat him over the head with it.
She should have insisted on two separate suites. Dammit, why hadn’t she?
At that precise moment the bedroom lamp went on, and in the next instant Nicos stood towering in the archway that separated the small lounge and bedroom.
Without a word he moved forward and scooped her into his arms.
‘Put me down!’ Katrina vented in fury.
He did. On the side of the bed he occupied. ‘Stay there,’ he warned in a voice that sent shivers scudding down the length of her spine.
She bounced back onto her feet and watched as he crossed round to the opposite side of the bed. ‘The hell I will!’
He threw her a dark lethal glance. ‘If you want to fight, I’ll oblige.’ He waited a beat. ‘Just be aware how it will end.’
‘I’m shaking!’
‘You will, if you don’t get back into bed.’
She didn’t move, and her eyes burned emerald-bright with rage. ‘Since when did you become such a dictatorial tyrant?’
‘Ten seconds, Katrina,’ Nicos warned silkily.
Her eyes went to the telephone on the bedside pedestal. ‘Reception can find me another suite.’ She picked up the receiver, but she didn’t even manage to punch one digit before Nicos cut the connection.
‘Don’t even think about it.’
She rounded on him in fury. ‘How dare you?’
‘Easily.’
Without thought she snatched up a pillow and threw it at him, only to watch as he deflected it onto the bed.
His anger was a palpable entity. The bedside lamp cast shadows in the room, and his frame seemed to loom large, his features all angles and planes.
‘Three nights ago we shared a bed half this size.’
‘That was different.’
He moved with the grace of a cat, his speed indolently deceptive as he skirted the bed.
Katrina took one look and scrambled across the mattress to the other side. She couldn’t win, there was nowhere to go, and she fought like a wild thing as he caught hold of her, stilling her flailing arms with galling ease.
In a moment of madness she bit him, hard, connecting just above one male nipple, and registered his intake of breath an instant before she was pushed down onto the mattress.
She bucked, trying vainly to free herself, and gave a startled cry as he straddled her hips and pinned her wrists above her head.
‘Get off me!’
He held her securely, his knees trapping her thighs, yet still she arched against him, twisting her body as she attempted to wrench her arms free.
‘Stop it. You’ll hurt yourself.’
‘Dammit, let me go!’
Her eyes were a brilliant green, dilated with a mixture of outrage and anger, her hair a mass of tumbled curls.
She made one desperate last-ditch effort, only to concede defeat. Her chest heaved, and her breath escaped in short, furious gasps. If looks could kill, he’d be dead.
He waited, watching as her breathing steadied, and his eyes were impossibly dark. There was a stillness apparent in those strong, masculine features, a leashed savagery that caused the breath to hitch in her throat.
No. It was a silent scream that didn’t find voice.
The room faded from the periphery of her vision. There was only the man, the latent, magnetic intensity evident.
Primitive awareness eased the sudden knot in her stomach, and she battled the slow heat warming the blood in her veins.
A faint whimper escaped her lips, part groan, part despair. What was happening to her? It seemed as if everything had coalesced and Nicos had become her total focus.
Her body had a memory of its own, and she was powerless to stop the treacherous awakening as passion flared.
Damn you, Nicos. The silent curse didn’t find voice. Don’t.
Except it was way too late.
Slowly he lowered his head, and his mouth brushed hers, the touch feather-light in an evocative, teasing gesture that wasn’t nearly enough.
He felt the faint quiver of her body, sensed the heat, and he nibbled on her lower lip, then nipped the full centre, soothing it with the tip of his tongue before tracing the soft contours.
The strength of his arousal was a potent force nestled against the most vulnerable part of her anatomy, and sensation throbbed, primitive, urgent, libidinous.
She parted her mouth, wanting more, much more than this gentle seduction, and she moaned an entreaty as his lips savoured the line of her throat, then nuzzled the sensitive hollow at the edge of her neck.
I should stop this, now, before it’s too late, she groaned silently.
Except she was powerless to still the deep need, the mesmeric, erotic witchery of his seduction.
