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It was impossible.
Replete, Markos ran his hand along the silken surface of Vanessa’s bare thigh. He might be jet-lagged, he might be exhausted from a twenty-four-hour flight, landing him back in London at some ungodly hour of the morning, he might have a hectic schedule for the coming week and no chance of high-tailing it to the Caribbean for the next ten days at the earliest, but with Vanessa in his arms again he was not about to complain.
Christos, but she was good to come back to! Just knowing she was here, waiting for him, beautiful, sensual, adoring, had been compensation enough not just for the gruelling journey, but also for the excruciating evening he’d spent at his aunt’s. She’d clearly been fully primed both by his father and Constantia Dimistris, and he’d had to use all his considerable finesse to parry the increasingly heavy-handed manipulation to get him to admit that, yes, he was prepared to succumb and take Apollonia Dimistris to wife.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Markos, it will hardly be an ordeal!’ his aunt had informed him exasperatedly. ‘It’s an excellent move. An alliance between Makarios and Dimistris wealth would be formidable. I wouldn’t object to the girl for Leo, my own son, and if he won’t snap her up then you certainly should! Whichever of you two marries her, her money will come into the Makarios family, and that’s what counts.
‘And if,’ she’d challenged him, ‘you and my son think that a wife would cramp your style when it comes to philandering—and heaven knows I can’t decide which of you two is the worse!—then you can be sure it needn’t. Your uncle took a new mistress a month after our honeymoon and I never objected. Why should I have? I’d become a Makarios, and providing my husband ensured I had a Makarios heir, that was all I required of him! Your own mother was a fool, kicking up such an unseemly fuss the way she did, and disgracing herself by flaunting her own lovers all over the place. Discretion, Markos, that is all that is required. Discretion. So…’ Her eyes had rested on him knowingly. ‘All you would need to do is either retire your current mistress and take a new one when Apollonia is decently pregnant, or, if you prefer, park your photogenic redhead—yes, I’ve seen those fashion shots!—in an apartment of her own until you can resume visiting her.’
Her expression had hardened suddenly.
‘You’re not thinking of marrying her, are you? Is that why you are being so stubborn about Apollonia Dimistris?’
Her voice had been sharp. His own had been even sharper.
‘She’s a mistress, that’s all. And that is all, my dear aunt, that I require! Not a wife. Ever.’ He’d thrown her a jaundiced look. ‘With your marriage and my own parents’ as examples, I think you can see why I feel that way.’
‘Feelings?’ His aunt had made a contemptuous noise in her throat. ‘What on earth have feelings to do with it? We are talking about marriage, Markos, that is all. And it’s time you saw sense about it!’
Now, safely back with Vanessa, he need not either see sense, as his father and his aunt defined it, or even waste his time thinking about something that was not going to happen.
His marriage.
To any woman.
Besides—his hand stroked softly, enticingly along Vanessa’s silken flank—who needed marriage when there was such willing beauty to enjoy?
Slowly, savouringly, he caressed the soft swell of her abdomen. She was warm, and smooth, the contours of her body gently rounded. His hand travelled upwards, reaching the sweet swell of her breasts. He palmed them languorously. They felt full to his touch. Fuller than he remembered.
But all the more enticing for that.
Changing position, he shifted slightly and lowered his mouth. He heard her give a soft, helpless moan of pleasure. The sound, the sensual feel of her breasts beneath his grazing lips, aroused him more.
He felt his body respond, full and hard.
He moved over her.
Time to enjoy his homecoming.
‘Close your eyes.’
Vanessa gazed up at Markos. Her body was still glowing from the bliss he had elicited from her.
‘Go on, close them,’ he repeated, brushing her mouth with his.
She let them close. Her heart-rate was still subsiding, her limbs still exhausted. She had given herself to him completely, absolutely, with an intensity that had blotted out everything else in existence. Everything else on her mind.
She felt his weight shift slightly, then a click, and then something cold was slithering over her skin. Her eyes flew open.
She gave a little cry.
‘Oh Markos, they’re beautiful!’ she breathed, eyes wide.
‘Opals from Australia. Each stone has a rainbow in its heart.’ He draped the necklace around her throat. ‘Exquisite,’ he murmured. ‘But never—’ he dropped another soft, slow kiss on her mouth ‘—as exquisite as you.’ He lifted his head to gaze into her dazed eyes. ‘Every moment away from you was a torment,’ he said softly.
Her face lit, glowing with happiness.
‘Oh, Markos,’ she breathed, ‘do you mean it?’
