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Releasing her hands, Alexandros startled her by walking out to the hall. He reappeared barely a minute and a half later.
‘What were you doing?’ Katie almost whispered.
‘I was telling your nanny that the boys need some fresh air.’
Katie blinked. ‘But…but why did you do that? For goodness’ sake, it makes it look as if—’
‘It’s not her job to think about how anything looks. You have such touchingly naive concerns, pedhi mou.’ Stunning dark golden eyes rested on her with a measured power that fired colour into her fair skin. ‘Come here…’
‘No way…absolutely no way!’ Katie asserted with feverish intensity.
Alexandros jerked loose his tie and, unbuttoning his jacket, shrugged his shoulders out of it and tossed it on an armchair.
Green eyes huge, Katie stared at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
His mobile phone buzzed like an angry wasp. He pulled out, gave it a regretful look, sighed, and switched it off without ceremony.
‘But that’s probably the bank and terribly important!’ Katie protested, as he cast his tie alongside his jacket and her sense of panic and confusion rose to suffocating proportions.
‘Theos mou…do you think I always do what people expect me to do? Sometimes obeying one’s natural instincts feels more right than following the rules. This is one of those times.’ Loosening his collar, he embarked on his shirt buttons.
‘Stop!’ Katie gasped, hot-faced.
‘If I stop, I leave…and I start looking for someone else.’ Brilliant dark golden eyes watched her absorb that statement and turn as ashen pale as though some vital life force was being leeched from her.
The very thought of Alexandros with another woman tore Katie to shreds. Just that one little mention of that option and she was living her worst nightmare. Dry-mouthed and trembling, Katie watched a bronzed segment of muscular torso appear between the parted edges of his fine cotton shirt. Her heart was beating very, very fast. ‘You’re threatening me—’
‘No, I’m being brutally honest, glikia mou. Did you think I would wait for ever? Either you want me or you don’t…’
‘Getting married is—’
‘No.’ Alexandros spread lean brown hands. ‘This is much more basic. I’m not talking about marriage. Leave that out of it. You don’t know what you want, and it’s time you did. I want to go to bed with you, but I don’t want a four-act tragedy after it.’
Her chin tilted, green eyes sparkling, cheeks pink. ‘I don’t like the idea of you with someone else!’ she flung back at him chokily, anger and pain coalescing in that forced admission.
Alexandros strolled closer. There was so much all-conquering hero in the blaze of primal satisfaction in his gaze that she was tempted to release her tension by slapping him for an opportunism that smacked of piracy. Furious tears glistening in her eyes, she hissed shakily, ‘Sometimes I hate you so much I could scream!’
Alexandros tugged her to him with strong, determined hands. ‘I know…and it’s refreshing to be with a woman who occasionally finds fault with me,’ he conceded, without a shade of irony.
Feeling like a feather fluttering up against a solid steel wall of assurance, she rested her brow against his chest. The rich, awesomely familiar scent of his skin assailed her and she trembled. She loved him; she hated herself. He had forced her into a tight corner and emerged triumphant with a truth she would never have willingly given him: all her proud independence and defiance was destroyed by the very thought of him slaking that high-voltage sex drive of his in the arms of another woman.
He smoothed her hair almost clumsily, and expelled his breath on a slow, measured hiss. ‘A month is a long time for me…too many cold showers, endless lonely nights.’
Against her stomach she could feel the hard male heat of him, and her tummy flipped in response. Long fingers knotting in her ringlets, he claimed her generous pink lips with a voracious hunger that made her knees give way under her. Bundling her up into his arms with easy strength, he tumbled her down on the sofa and let his tongue delve with erotic precision into her mouth, while he eased her slender thighs apart to explore the taut stretch of fabric that concealed her most secret place from him. He stifled her helpless whimper of need with his lips when she jackknifed beneath the tormenting stroke of his lean fingers, every sensual nerve jangling with urgency.
He pushed up her T-shirt, let his teeth graze a stiff pink crest, dallied there while she arched her hips and gasped, insanely conscious of his every move and her terrifying response. All sensation was centred at the damp hot core at the heart of her. He drew up her knees, tugged down her panties, and told her hungrily that lace-edged white cotton was a real turn-on. The tightness low in her pelvis made it impossible for her to stay still. She dug her hands into his shoulders and pulled him back to her, driven by a need so powerful it was a consuming instinct.
‘Don’t stop…’ she pleaded frantically when he lifted his arrogant dark head.
Passionate dark golden eyes slammed into hers. ‘We need to get a couple of things straight—’
‘Not now!’
‘No more nonsense about friendship,’ Alexandros decreed raggedly, hauling her to the edge of the sofa with strong hands. ‘No more references to duty or love. Let this be pure, perfect enjoyment for both of us.’
Katie wouldn’t let herself think about what he was saying. Her body was on fire for him, singing a pagan song of shameless craving. She knew conscience was going to kill her, but she was prepared to pay the piper. He plunged into the hot satin heat of her receptive depths and she almost passed out with pleasure. What followed was the wildest, hottest excitement she had ever dreamt she might experience, and at the summit an incredibly intense climax.
Afterwards she clung to him, dimly wondering if she was in heaven, trying not to be shocked by the fact that they were both still wearing most of their clothes.
‘I needed that,’ Alexandros confessed hoarsely, seeking and demanding a passionate kiss that demonstrated a renewed hunger that took her aback. He laughed huskily when she looked up at him in bemusement. ‘I really, really needed that, pedhi mou…and I need so much more.’
He lifted her up into his arms, clamped her legs round his waist, and carried her out of the room.
‘No…what about—?’
‘Our children were safely off the premises before you started screaming with pleasure.’ Alexandros pressed his mouth hotly to the sensitive skin below her ear and began doing something so impossibly erotic she moaned out loud.
‘I didn’t scream,’ she mumbled belatedly as he brought her down on her bed.
‘You will this time.’ With single-minded efficiency Alexandros was stripping off her T-shirt and her skirt, yanking the duvet out of her grasp before she could scramble out of sight below it. ‘No…I’m a big boy. I get to look all I like.’
‘Alexandros!’ she wailed, jerking up to hug her knees. ‘I can’t—’
‘Please…’ he said, for the first time, burnished golden eyes smouldering over her.
‘It would make me feel shameless—’
‘Shameless in the bedroom works well for me.’ Meeting her strained gaze, Alexandros hastened to add, ‘But only if it’s you…’
She shut her eyes tight and lowered her knees, lay down like a sacrifice on a slab.
‘You can blush in places that I didn’t know could blush,’ Alexandros breathed not quite steadily, rearranging her slender body into a slightly more daring pose. ‘But if you don’t look back at me I’ll feel like a voyeur…’
Katie went rigid, and then lifted her lashes.
‘That’s perfect.’ Alexandros spoke very quietly, tugging her hands very gently back down to her sides when they made a sudden sneaking attempt to cover up her most interesting areas. ‘You’re so beautiful…’
She frowned. ‘No, I’m not—’
‘You are to me,’ he told her truthfully, admiring her delicate porcelain-pale curves with immense appreciation, and only vaguely wondering why it was the most intensely erotic moment of his life.
