smile sliced through him, wicked with challenge. ‘But you are sticking to it.’
‘Barely.’ The meal had more than satisfied Pete’s appetite for food, and dusk was warming up the crowd for the coming of night. The air lay heavy with the scent of jasmine and he was self-aware enough to know that if he didn’t leave soon his honour wouldn’t be worth a drachma. ‘Close your eyes,’ he told her. ‘Think back to that bad boy with his own car and a smile like a promise.’
‘Why?’ But she did as he asked, her back to the table, her elbows resting behind her, and her head tilted back a fraction as if to catch the moonlight.
‘Work with me here,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve been to the cinema and you’re on your way home. The car stereo’s blaring, the windows are down, the wind is in your hair, and your bad boy has forgotten all about your father’s shark-carving skills. He’s young and reckless, and so are you.’
Her lips curved. ‘And then?’
‘He pulls up outside your front yard.’
‘Does he stop the engine?’
‘No. He’s not insane. He’s planning on a quick getaway.’
Her eyes were still closed. ‘Where’s the shark?’
‘Your father and uncle are hauling the last of it into the freezer. The timing’s perfect.’
‘For what?’ she whispered.
‘This.’ He brushed his lips over hers, a fleeting touch, nothing more, and pulled away. He planned to end it then, to say goodnight and get the hell out of temptation’s way, but her eyes were still closed and before he knew it his lips were on hers again, questing, cajoling, because this time, this time he wanted a response.
He got one.
Serena had played his game because she wanted to. Because she was curious as to what this man with his come to bed eyes and go to hell grin could bring to an evening, a moment, a kiss.
He brought plenty.
A taste so wild and delicious she shuddered. A mouth so firm and knowing she responded instinctively, following his lead with lips and with tongue in a dance as old as time. She wanted more, slid her hand to his cheek, to the nape of his neck in search of it, taking the kiss deeper as she sought the recklessness in him, that piece of him that courted danger, revelled in it, and came back for more. She found it.
And the kiss turned wild.
He murmured something, a deep-chested rumble that sounded like a protest but felt like surrender, and took her under.
Her mind had clouded over by the time the kiss ended, the rapid pulsing of her blood at odds with the languid slide of her hand from around his neck. She leaned back, elbows on the table, and watched as he struggled to surface, clawing his way out of the kiss in much the same way she had, and not bothering to hide how hard he found it.
She liked that about him. She liked it a lot.
‘Damn but he’s gonna break some hearts, kissing like that,’ she murmured.
‘So are you.’
She made a small hum of pleasure. ‘Tell him to kiss me again.’
‘No. If he does he’ll be lost and he doesn’t want that. Besides, the porch light has just come on and it’s way past time to be leaving.’
‘Does he come back?’
‘Try keeping him away. It’s your first kiss, maybe his third, but from that moment on there’s a part of him that’ll always be yours.’
She smiled, enchanted by his whimsy.
‘Thank you for the meal,’ he said softly. ‘Serena?’
‘What?’
‘I’ll honour Nico’s trust in me tonight, but next time I see you I’ll be asking you out to dinner. I’ll be holding you at the end of the evening. I’ll be around these next few weeks. I’ll be taking up some of your free time.’
She liked his high-handedness. She liked it a lot.
‘And Serena?’ He stood and looked down at her, looking for all the world like a dark angel fallen straight from the sky. ‘I don’t give a damn how big the shark is.’
CHAPTER THREE
PETE BENNETT lived to fly. Nothing could change that. Nothing ever had. It was simple fact that he was at his happiest with one hand on the throttle and the other on the joystick of a helicopter that responded to his slightest touch. Oh, he had his favourites, everyone did, and luckily old Tomas’s Jet Ranger was one of them. She was no Seahawk—equipment-wise she was a purely civilian fit—but she had a light touch and he was close to the sea, and for now that was enough.
And if at times skimming low across the water put him in mind of other far more dangerous flights and missions, well, that couldn’t be helped. A man like him did his damnedest to ignore the insistent knocking of the past in favour of whatever else was in front of him.
A man like him took great pains to ensure that whatever was in front of him had a certain basic appeal.
Island-hopping with a cargo of two tourists looking to overnight on a sleepy Greek island, for example, had enough basic appeal in the shape of meeting up with Serena again to drive every unwanted memory from his body.
He touched down at Sathi, Varanissi’s picturesque seaport, just on three in the afternoon, unloaded his passengers, and herded them towards the hotel, their bags slung over his shoulder with his own.
The fiery Chloe was nowhere to be seen as he saw them checked in and arranged to meet them again at nine the following morning. He wasn’t as lucky when it came to the boy, Sam. The kid had appeared in the foyer as he’d arrived and had been hovering ever since. When Pete made to leave, young Sam ventured forward.
‘You’re not staying here?’ he said.
Pete shook his head. ‘I’m staying up at Nico’s. In Tomas’s room.’
‘Oh.’ Sam paused, as if weighing his options. ‘I’m heading up that way too. To see Nico. I could show you a short cut if you want.’
He knew the path the boy was talking about. He’d taken it before, with Nico. And opened his mouth to say so.
But Sam had already read him. Pete watched, eyes narrowing, as bleak resignation flashed across the kid’s face, just before he lifted his chin and looked away. How the hell did a kid get to be so streetwise and still be so soft? He didn’t know. But it got to him. ‘Fine,’ he said, perversely pleased by Sam’s surprise. ‘I figured I’d head on up to the Vespas and say hello to Serena after that. Join me if you want. I could use the company.’ This much was true. He’d be far less tempted to reach for Serena within moments of seeing her if he had Sam with him.
Given the wildness of his fantasies about her, that was probably a good thing.
*
