he must have come to the room in the past few minutes. Was that what had woken her? Was she that aware of him, attuned to him, even in sleep?
It was a shattering thought. She didn’t want it to be like that. She had to learn to be indifferent to him. Had to.
Starting with doing her own thing.
Hoping he’d gone back to his study and intended to stay there, she stripped off the now crumpled and wilted sundress she’d put on for the doctor’s arrival and got into a sleek white one-piece swimsuit, bemoaning the fact that, sleek as it might be, it did nothing to disguise the curve of her breasts and well-rounded hips.
Not for the first time she wondered how he could have brought himself to make love to her, preferring, as he obviously did, the ultra-sophisticated stick-insect type such as his beloved Irini.
Dimitri had mentioned a swimming pool, so she was going to find it and enjoy the cool waters and continue the long haul of not only acting but actually being indifferent to him. To knock firmly on the head the sneaky wish that her husband truly loved her, only her, and that their time here in romantic seclusion really was a belated honeymoon.
In a hollow beyond a sweeping stone terrace lay the immense oval pool, surrounded by slender cypress trees, blue water lazy, limpid, inviting.
The gentle breeze caressed her exposed skin, carrying the scents of sea, dried grasses and aromatic herbs. Dropping the fluffy jade-green towel she’d brought with her onto the cool marble surround, Maddie took a deep breath and dived in at the deep end, determined to forget her situation and the shameful fact that she’d been too stupid to smell a rat when the super-eligible Dimitri Kouvaris, charismatic and absolutely gorgeous, and a millionaire many times over, had proposed marriage to an insignificant grubber-around-in-the-soil-nobody like her, after such a remarkably short acquaintance.
She would relax, do a few gentle lengths, empty her mind to everything but the perfection of the early evening, the soft caress of the water, and find tranquility—because bad thoughts and a brain that was in knots couldn’t be good for the baby inside her.
And she was doing just fine in that respect when a splash at the opposite end of the pool, the deep end, had her feet finding the bottom in a flurry, her eyes widening, sparking blue fire, as Dimitri scythed through the water towards her in a powerful crawl.
Did he have to spoil everything? Even her relaxing half hour in the swimming pool—not to mention her whole life!
With water lapping her waist she was too stricken to move until he got close. Then, galvanised, she hauled herself out of the pool in a shower of water droplets and headed like a bullet to where she’d left the towel.
But he was there before her, blocking her way. Thankfully, she was able to keep her instinctive groan internal as his honeyed drawl sent shivers right down to her toes. She wanted to drag her eyes from him but couldn’t as he said, ‘Slow down! Honeymoons on secluded Greek islands are meant to be slow and lazy. Relaxed. I will help you to learn that much.’
Her toes curled in reaction to his nearness, to the bronzed body glistening with moisture, tempting her to touch and go on touching, to slide her hands over the muscular strength of his chest, the skin like oiled silk and just as sensuous. Her fingers would glide lower, over the washboard-flat stomach, to the top of the black briefs that did nothing at all to modestly disguise his manhood—
Smartly clasping her hands behind her back to stop them straying of their own volition, she countered on a rasp of breath, and with no pretence of the rapprochement he’d earlier suggested, ‘I was perfectly relaxed until you showed up!’
She bent to retrieve the towel and cover herself up, because he was no one’s fool and would have no trouble working out why her wretched breasts were pushing at the clinging fabric of her swimsuit as if hedonistically eager for the touch of his hands, his mouth.
But he stayed her before she could reach her objective, strong, finely made hands on her shoulders as he brought her upright, moving in closer as he reminded her grittily, ‘I am not your enemy. I am your husband. And I want you so much it hurts.’
Shaken by that admission, she allowed her eyes to meet his. His hands on her naked shoulders sent electrifying shivers down her spine. His eyes were hot gold, burning into her where they touched—her shamefully peaking breasts, the quivering curve of her tummy, and lower, making her shift her feet, part her thighs with blatant invitation and no conscious thought whatsoever.
She jerked in a ragged breath as his hands slid slowly down from her shoulders to fasten around her slender waist and pull her with aching deliberation against him. He hadn’t been lying, was her almost incoherent thought. The state of his arousal left her in no doubt as to the truth of his gritty statement.
Unable to decide what she was thinking, she felt terrifyingly vulnerable, torn between the conflicting need to distance herself from him in every way there was and wanting her charismatic, once-adored husband just as much as she ever had.
The deed was done. She was pregnant. So why should he still want her sexually? She had expected a spurious kindness—not for her sake, but for his child’s. But this? ‘We are not enemies. What we once had was beautiful. We can and will reclaim it,’ Dimitri reiterated rawly. ‘Between us we have made a baby, have created a new life. The future can be golden, chrysi mou, if you will let it be. You still want me—as I need you—I am ready and willing to forget the immediate past, and I hope you are, too.’
A gentle hand slid up behind her head, long fingers slipping through her bright hair, lifting her face, her mouth, to the seductive invasion of a kiss that proved his point—because she could not resist the hunger of his lips, the tongue that dipped, teased and tormented until she was writhing against him, heart hammering, veins running with liquid fire.
Everything inside her quivered as with one fluid movement he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, his mouth unceasing in its ravishment of hers until he laid her on the bed and came down beside her, divesting them both of damp garments in the time it took to draw breath.
She had expected immediate consummation, indeed her body craved it, but he whispered, ‘Slowly, my sweet, slowly,’ which she translated as Gently, for our baby’s sake. But then she didn’t care, because the wicked expertise of his sensual mouth, his knowing hands, as he brought every inch of her restlessly writhing body to a wild crescendo of excitement drove everything else out of her mind until at last, responding to her moans of ‘Please—Dimitri, please!’ he sank between her thighs and with one long thrust instigated an unstoppable storm of white-hot passion that spiralled until control splintered and was lost in the primitive rhythm that swept her up and beyond the very pinnacle of ecstasy.
Held in his arms, his fantastic body melded to the yielding softness of hers, Maddie floated gently back to earth, loving the way he dropped tiny kisses on her damp forehead, the tip of her small nose, the corner of her mouth, revelling in sweet satiation until, at the unmistakable hardening of his body, he released her with a shaky laugh, a reluctant, ‘I am too greedy for you! I hadn’t meant this to happen.
But you, alone among women, are too much temptation for me!’
He sprang off the bed, telling her after a rapid glance at the watch that adorned his flat wrist, ‘Xanthe will arrive at any moment with the evening meal she has prepared.’ Slanting her a smile he promised, his stunning eyes filled with dancing golden lights, ‘I will be patient until after we have eaten,’ and strode to the bathroom where, above the sound of the shower, she could hear him singing in the tuneful baritone she had once delighted to hear.
Pleased
