He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘It is the sentiment which is important, no matter who says it.’
Yes, it was, and Markos’s thoughtfulness in not making love with her tonight had succeeded in throwing Eva’s emotions into even further turmoil. As well as making her ache for his touch!
‘Where are you going to sleep?’
He shrugged. ‘There are three other bedrooms in the apartment that I can use.’
‘And if I would rather you stayed here with me…?’
Markos drew in a ragged breath. ‘I would ask what I have done to deserve such torture!’
‘You’ve been a perfect gentleman,’ Eva assured him firmly. ‘And if I ever chance to bump into your Aunt Karelia, I’ll be sure to tell her what a credit you are to her.’
‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he replied dryly. ‘And now I believe it is time for you to kiss me goodnight and then get some sleep,’ he added huskily.
Eva was only too eager to kiss Markos goodnight, but at the same time as she was totally unsure that sleep would be possible once she had.
‘And I am going to return to the sitting room to finish my glass of brandy before taking a very long, very cold shower!’
The grimness of his smile revealed the depth of self-control he was having to exert not to make love with her as his head lowered towards hers.
Eva curled her arms up about his neck as their mouths met. She put every shred of emotion she was feeling at that moment into a long kiss. The fondness she felt for Markos. The desire. The aching yearning. Most of all the joy in at last being free of the past and able to feel all of those things…
For Markos.
Markos wrenched away from Eva’s tantalising lips, breathing hard as he gently but firmly pulled her arms slowly down his shoulders and chest. ‘Enough,’ he breathed raggedly, shaking his head as Eva’s fingers lingered on the bareness of his chest. ‘Please, Eva, I sincerely hope that I am a gentleman, but I know I am not a saint!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
Her lips were swollen from the heat of their kisses, her eyes a dark languid gold as she looked up at him. ‘Goodnight, Markos.’ Her voice was as sultry and inviting as the unhidden longing in those extraordinary eyes.
Markos rose quickly to his feet, so as not to give in to the temptation to throw back the bedcovers and taste those deliciously naked breasts. ‘I think I may be in need of more than a single glass of brandy to help me get to sleep!’ He stepped away from the bed—away from Eva.
Eva gave an enigmatic smile. ‘You know where I am if you don’t succeed.’
Markos ran an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair. ‘You are not helping, Eva!’
She laughed huskily. ‘I don’t believe I was trying to…’ Her breasts were thrust forward and up as she stretched languidly before once again settling down beneath the covers, those golden eyes gleaming with mischief as her gaze lingered on the obvious bulge in Markos’s trousers.
‘Temptress!’ he murmured achingly.
‘Spoilsport!’ she came back challengingly.
Markos gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I will take great pleasure in reminding you of that taunt in the morning.’
‘Promise?’
Markos sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at her for several long seconds more before turning to walk determinedly across to the bedroom door. He paused in the doorway to turn and look at Eva once more. ‘You might want to barricade this door with any of the bedroom furniture you can move!’
Her eyes shone back at him teasingly. ‘I’m not the one walking away…’
No, Markos was. And he had more than enough reason to regret it once he had returned to the sitting room. Not even two large glasses of brandy were enough to dispel the knowledge that an almost naked and apparently willing Eva was just a short distance away down the hallway.
‘You look—’
‘Awful,’ Markos finished dryly as he looked across the kitchen the following morning to where Eva stood framed in the doorway. ‘Whereas you look…’ Sexy as hell, Markos acknowledged achingly as he took in her appearance in his black silk dressing gown, which reached almost down to her ankles, and with her hair an ebony tangle about her shoulders. ‘Rested,’ he substituted wryly.
‘Did you sleep in those clothes?’ Eva eyed the crumpled white evening shirt and black trousers he had been wearing last night.
‘I didn’t sleep at all!’ Markos grimaced.
Having realised once he had taken a shower the night before that all of his clothes were still in the bedroom where Eva was—hopefully—sleeping, he’d had to put back on the same clothes he had worn to go out that evening. Only to then return and sit in one of the armchairs and stare sleeplessly out at the night sky as it changed slowly from black to grey and then orange as the sun came up and the new day began.
‘Perhaps you should go to bed now…?’ Eva suggested throatily.
‘Coffee?’ He stood up now from where he’d been sitting at the breakfast bar, moving across the room to the place he had made a much-needed pot of coffee a few minutes earlier. ‘Cream?’
Eva paused for only a heartbeat to look at the broad expanse of Markos’s back, turned towards her, before crossing the tiled floor on bare feet, knowing from his avoidance in answering her and his guarded expression before he turned away that any move towards intimacy this morning was going to have to originate from her.
She slid her arms about his waist from behind and leant her head lightly against his suddenly tensed back. ‘That was an invitation for you to come back to bed with me, Markos.’
He breathed in deeply but didn’t turn. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Very sure…’
‘If I go to bed with you now I should warn you it would not be with the intention of sleeping!’
‘I’m sincerely hoping not.’
The spoon he had intended using to stir the cream into her coffee landed on the marble worktop with a clatter as he turned quickly and gathered her up into his arms. His mouth came down forcefully on hers.
Hungry didn’t even begin to describe the fierceness of the passion that flared instantly between them as Markos’s hands became entangled in her hair as they kissed: lips devouring, tongues duelling, their breathing hot and ragged in the silence of the apartment.
Eva ceased to breathe at all when she felt Markos’s hand cup beneath the fullness of her breast, the soft pad of his thumb moving in a light caress across the hardened tip. Pleasure instantly spiralled through her and she arched into that caress, causing her to groan low in her throat as it pooled, moistened that already aching apex between her thighs.
His lips left hers to trail across
