anger.
She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘I—’
‘Eva, there are very few men who actually prefer women with no breasts or hips,’ he continued determinedly. ‘That is a myth which has been perpetrated by dress designers and by women themselves, I believe.’ The darkness of his gaze swept over her appreciatively.
‘The fullness of your breasts is exactly the right size to fit perfectly into the palms of my hands.’
‘That’s only because you have large hands.’
‘And all of me is in proportion,’ Markos assured her as he reached across the table to clasp one of Eva’s smaller hands in his. ‘Eva, who told you that you are not sexy and beautiful? What ungrateful, stupid man could ever have told you such lies?’
Eva couldn’t breathe. Markos’s sensually descriptive words had aroused her to the point where she had briefly dropped the safeguards that had got her through the past five years—the last two years of her marriage to Jack, suffering his numerous affairs, and the past three avoiding any relationship that even looked as if it might touch her emotionally.
But Markos was a man who had refused from the first to take no for an answer. A man who was now demanding answers to questions that were too painful for Eva to answer.
She pulled her hands free of his before getting abruptly to her feet. ‘Has it occurred to you that maybe it was a woman?’ she challenged scornfully, deliberately. ‘That maybe the reason I’m not interested in a relationship with you is because I’m not into men?’
Markos sat back on the stool. ‘No.’
Eva blinked. ‘Just…no?’
‘Just no, Just Eva,’ he drawled dryly.
She eyed him scathingly. ‘Is that male arrogance talking?’
‘Or the knowledge that seconds ago you were as aroused as I am?’
Her gaze slid down from his, across the rapid and shallow rise and fall of his chest, the flatness of his stomach, down to—
Eva’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the thick hard length of Markos’s arousal clearly outlined against the press of his jeans.
He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said that everything about him was in proportion.
‘You are so beautiful you make my chest ache, and so desirable you obviously make another part of me ache.’
‘Please, Markos—did your years of living in England teach you nothing about our reserve?’ she cut in to prevent him making what she was sure was going to be another embarrassing—arousing!—statement.
‘Oh, yes.’ He walked slowly towards her. ‘But fortunately I am Greek, and we Greeks are far less reserved in our appreciation of a woman.’
He was standing so close to her now—just a heartbeat away—that Eva could feel the heat of his body, smell that lemon soap and sandalwood aftershave. That heat and the male smell that was uniquely Markos was now curling about her, invading her senses until she could no longer think straight.
If she had been thinking straight then she would never have allowed this situation to get so completely out of hand. So charged with sexual awareness she could almost reach out and touch it…
Markos drew his breath in sharply at the first touch of Eva’s hands against his chest. Her palms seemed to burn through the thin material of his shirt to sear the flesh beneath. His first instinct was to reach out and pull her into his arms before lowering his mouth to claim hers.
His first instinct.
His second instinct warned Markos against moving at all as he allowed Eva’s hands to tentatively seek out and touch the hard contours of his chest and the muscled width of his shoulders, sensing that the slightest movement on his part would result in her once again erecting those barriers around her emotions and needs. Barriers some other bastard had instilled in her, which Markos now realised had resulted in Eva hiding her vulnerability behind a mask of spiky cynicism.
It quickly became an agony of self-control for him to withstand the caress of her fingers and palms against and over him. His teeth were gritted, his jaw clamped shut, and his hands were clenched tightly at his sides as he resisted the impulse to reach out and take her into his arms. It was an impulse that became even more painful still as her fingertips ran lightly over the front of his denims, against his thickened length.
Eva’s caresses grew bolder as she felt the pulsing response beneath her fingertips, and she knew a deep and compelling need to release that aroused hardness from the confines of Markos’s jeans and—
She snatched her hand away before moving back abruptly. ‘I think this has gone quite far enough!’ Her voice came out husky and breathless rather than conveying the firm resolve she had hoped it would.
Markos groaned low in his throat, wanting, needing so much more, but instead he allowed himself to be guided by those instincts that warned against pushing Eva too far too fast. ‘Will you come to a party with me on Saturday evening?’
Startled, she raised her lids. ‘What…?’
Markos gave a pained smile in acknowledgement of the fact that his obvious arousal made this the last thing Eva had expected him to say. But he knew that the invitation he wanted to make—for her to stay on here now, so that the two of them could cook dinner together—would be met with a blunt refusal. As would his plans for what happened after dinner…
‘I have been invited to a party on Saturday evening, and I would very much like it if you would agree to be the guest included on my invitation.’
She blinked. ‘You’re asking me out on a date?’
Markos chose his words with care, having realised in the past few minutes that he still needed to go slowly with this particular woman, that to do anything else would only drive her away. ‘I am asking you to accompany me to a party on Saturday rather than leaving me to spend the evening alone in a room full of strangers.’
She shook her head. ‘You must know your host to have been invited in the first place.’
‘He is a business associate. Nothing more.’ Markos shrugged dismissively.
Eva smiled wryly. ‘There are sure to be dozens of beautiful women there, so I doubt you’ll remain alone for long—’
‘And I would prefer to take my own beautiful woman,’ he interrupted firmly.
Her cheeks warmed. ‘I am not your—’
‘Eva, please.’ Markos cut off her protest gruffly. ‘For business reasons I have to attend this party, and for personal reasons I would like you to accompany me.’
When he put it like that…
Every instinct of self-preservation Eva possessed told her to say no to Markos’s invitation. To stand by her earlier decision to recommend he use another interior designer, and then refuse to see him again.
She should say no. She had to say no. She must say no.
