the impulse to point out to this well-meaning individual that as the one who’d done the inhaling he didn’t need any reminders. After a few moments of fruitless arguing they reached a compromise, of sorts.
‘Though it is an unnecessary precaution I will come with you if you give me a few moments to speak to my wife.’ Nikos gestured towards the solitary figure on the lawn and immediately regretted it because by no stretch of the imagination did she look in need of comfort. In fact she looked extraordinarily composed. ‘I think she’s in shock,’ he improvised.
Hopefully this would adequately explain away the fact that his wife had been able to contain her joy at his miraculous escape. His lips curled in a cynical smile, then he shrugged; at least she wasn’t a hypocrite.
‘Well, just a few minutes…’
Everyone, Nikos reflected, was a sucker for a couple in love.
Did the professionals think it strange his wife had not been part of his reception committee? That she hadn’t dashed to throw her arms about his neck, tears of joy running down her cheeks? Nikos did not ponder the question for long; he rarely worried about how his actions were viewed by strangers. Though the potent image did remain in his mind, not because he was thinking about the impact on others—no, it was the impact on himself that occupied his thoughts.
Smooth arms wrapped around his neck, a soft, pliant body pressed to his, a silky head close to his heart. As he closed the distance between them anyone noticing would have wrongly assumed that the dark bands of colour highlighting the slashing curve of his high cheekbones were a product of the inferno he had just escaped—they’d have been wrong.
This scenario in his head was not a displeasing one, so the primitive response of his body was not, Nikos reasoned, to be wondered at. It was an explanation he was content with, but his reluctance to release this image was less easily rationalised.
Katie levered her back from the tree trunk and pushed a large hank of heavy hair from her face. ‘You found me, then…’
Nikos nodded. Her question made him realise that even though she had made no push to attract his attention, some inner radar had located her the moment he’d emerged from the building.
If you ignored the dark film of grime covering his skin and clothes he looked quite remarkably unscathed by his recent brush with death. In fact, he radiated an almost indecent amount of edgy vitality. It occurred to Katie that this was probably the most natural and relaxed she’d seen him. Near-death experiences obviously did for him what a box of chocolates, a soppy romance and a glass of wine did for her.
One corner of his mouth lifted as their eyes touched. Katie felt a flare of indignation—it clearly hadn’t even occurred to him that she had been through hell and back during the last few minutes because of his ridiculous macho stunt.
She didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or kiss him. Not literally kiss him, of course, because that would involve…her stomach took a sharp dive and the flow of her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt. Her wide eyes were drawn by an invisible but irresistible force to the sensual curve of Nikos’s mouth.
She swallowed convulsively, unable to prevent the image forming in her head of that sexy mouth claiming her own, parting her lips, his tongue invading her mouth, tasting…touching.
She shook her head and took a deep, tremulous breath. But it was too late, the chain reaction had already started.
Her eyelids fluttered as a rush of fluid warmth worked its way up swiftly from her shaking knees until her entire body was bathed in the golden glow. She held her breath and willed the flames consuming her to subside.
Katie couldn’t deny she had wanted to experience that kiss for real; for several moments she had been consumed by the wanting. Even now her bones ached with the raw desire that had swept through her with the ruthless force of a forest fire.
She was guiltily aware that she had never felt that way anticipating Tom’s kiss. She struggled to understand what had happened and more importantly why it was happening. It had to be her hormones; this was some sort of revenge attack because she’d neglected them.
Or maybe this wasn’t just hormones—it was conceivable that she was actually suffering from some post-traumatic thing? Her flashbacks just happened to be of something that hadn’t happened yet—yet! A grammatical error, nothing more, and she for one hated people who banged on about Freudian slips.
The more she considered it, the more she became convinced that the extraordinary things she was feeling were a result of the near-death thing. That sort of ‘we could have died but didn’t, let’s go to bed’ thing—it apparently happened in war situations all of the time. Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized she’d jumped from kissing to bed!
That was an alarming leap by anyone’s standards.
She realised that Nikos was waiting for her to say something.
‘You’re not dead,’ she heard herself blurt out stupidly. Stupid it might be, but it was a far safer option than begging him to kiss her.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit singed if that’s any help.’
Katie took a deep offended breath. ‘Don’t be facetious!’
Nikos inclined his head in meek acknowledgement of her censure. ‘It’s true, look at my eyelashes.’
‘I don’t want to look at them,’ she snapped, turning her head away. In fact looking at any part of him was a bad idea, though unless she wanted to appear extremely odd she had no option. ‘This might be a joke to you,’ she remonstrated severely, ‘but how do you think I’d have felt if I’d had your death on my conscience? Huh, I don’t suppose you even thought of that, did you?’ The hot, impassioned words tumbled out of her. ‘No, of course not, you were too busy being Action Man. Talk about grandstanding!’ She gave a disgusted snort.
It was one of life’s injustices, she reflected bitterly, that men got to do all the glamorous action things and were then patted on the back and told what marvellous chaps they were. While women, because they were delicate and frail creatures, got to wait at home, look after the babies and go prematurely grey.
If Tom ever wanted to do something rash and life-threatening she was going to go with him. It didn’t seem likely her resolve would be put to the test; if anything like that came up Tom would most probably delegate someone else to take care of it—which was the sensible thing to do. You wouldn’t catch Tom rushing into burning buildings for a cat; he would have, quite correctly, left it to a properly qualified person.
Actually, when you thought about it, have-a-go heroes were a bit of a liability.
Katie was disturbed to discover Nikos was looking at her rather too intently. ‘You were scared for me?’ he said, in the shocked manner of someone who had just made an extraordinary discovery.
She strove to calm her laboured breathing. ‘I was…concerned, as I would have been about anyone in the circumstances. Though it seems my fears were groundless. You seem to lead a charmed life,’ she observed heavily.
Her resentful gaze had examined most aspects of his person and she could see no obvious signs of injury other than a bloody gash on his temple. Even if he had emerged unscathed she considered his composure after such an incident abnormal. What did it take to shake this man? Demanding to be kissed would most likely do it. It was almost worth putting the theory
