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‘Hold still,’ he commanded, as she instinctively tried to get away. A large hand closed over her upper arm. She flinched. With a frown, he scooped away the wet tangle of hair covering it, revealing the ugly bruise that had formed.
‘What the hell?’
‘Blame the driver,’ she said briefly. ‘I got a walloping against the door frame of the Jeep.’
He muttered something in Greek that was probably impolite. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said tersely. ‘I didn’t realise.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll live,’ she answered. ‘Give me my comb back.’
He ignored her. Instead, his fingers gently skimmed the smooth skin of her shoulder.
‘Your skin is like silk.’ His voice was low, intimate. His touch made her shiver. But she didn’t feel cold. Heat started to coil in every tensing muscle in her body. For a long moment their eyes met and held—night-dark speculative brown to startled, questioning blue-grey—then, as if in slow motion, Nikos lowered his mouth.
His kiss, on the cusp of her shoulder, was as soft as velvet. Ann’s heart stopped beating. Somewhere, in some small, shrinking space, she knew she should jerk away, shout, scream—anything at all to stop what Nikos was so outrageously, unthinkably doing.
But it was impossible. Simply impossible. All she could do, as the world turned inside out, was to stay kneeling, frozen, weak in every limb, feeling the softness of his mouth on her flesh. She felt his lips part, so the soft, liquid warmth of the inside of his mouth was against her tender skin, moving over it, back and forth, moistening and caressing it. Slow bliss filled her. Then gently, very gently, he lifted his head and drew her around so that she was positioned in the vee of his open thighs as he knelt behind her, caging her. With long, even strokes he started to comb out her hair.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t move to save her life. Every nerve in her body quivered with awareness. Around her the air hung like silk, shimmering in the heat. As he worked down from her scalp to the still dripping ends of her waist-length hair, gently teasing out every last tangle, she felt a drowsy languor steal over her as the sun beat down. With half closed eyes she could still see little Ari quit his sandcastle to go clambering over the rocks, examining the sea life. Behind her, another Theakis male was seducing her.
She had no doubt that that was what he was doing. Long after the last tangle was gone he went on combing down the length of her hair—soothingly, rhythmically, murmuring soft words in his own native language. It might have been a shopping list for all she knew. She knew it wasn’t. He was telling her how much he wanted her, how much his body yearned for hers. How even now—had it not been for the child playing there on the rocks, for the interfering presence of the silky fabric of their bathing clothes—he would have lifted her back on to the hard muscle of his splayed thighs, thigh against thigh, cradling his hips against hers so that she could feel the hardening of his body against her contours.
He would take her soft breasts in the palms of his hands and caress them until her nipples hardened like peaks, and then he would roll them in his long fingers until she cried out, tiny moans in her throat that told him she was ready. Then his hand would splay down over the soft swell of her belly to ease her firm thighs apart, exposing the very heart of her, and he would let his clever, skilful fingers explore her secret folds until they found the pathway to delight. They would rouse her to such a point of glistening ecstasy that her back would arch away from him, her head would drop back, exposing the long line of her tender throat, which he would kiss and bite with soft, devouring kisses while her cry of ecstasy reverberated against his mouth as he possessed her with his body…
Ann felt the heat pool between her thighs and begin to quicken. Her breasts tautened, nipples peaking beneath the damp swimsuit. Her head started to drop as the murmuring voice told her of all the delights he would give her, and her scalp tingled at the touch of the comb he wielded so soothingly. So arousingly.
Her body began to melt against his waiting hardness.
In slow motion she saw the little figure at the edge of her vision reach the top of the highest rock and wave triumphantly. Then, as her eyes widened in shock, she saw him wobble, arms flailing wildly, and start to tumble.
Which of them moved faster she didn’t know. Ann only knew that she had hurled herself forward like a bullet from a gun, scrambling desperately over the rocks to try and break Ari’s fall. She caught at him, gasping out words.
‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe.’
Then Ari was slithering down through her weakened arms, before being halted again by a pair of much stronger, harder arms, scooping him out of Ann’s, holding his kicking, frightened little body against a broad, strong chest. Rapid Greek urgently reassured the child, soothing him.
Carefully, Nikos lowered the crying child down to a towel. Swiftly the pair of them examined him for damage, but apart from a nasty scrape down one calf Ari seemed nothing more than shocked. And being fussed over, plus a packet of crisps, soon put his woes behind him.
‘Tina will put a plaster on it,’ he informed his aunt and uncle as he inspected his scrape again, crunching crisps as he spoke.
‘It won’t need one, poppet,’ Ann said reassuringly. ‘It isn’t bleeding.’
‘It bleeds if I squeeze it,’ Ari corrected her, and proceeded to demonstrate the truth of this with ghoulish pleasure.
Ann looked away, meeting Nikos’ eye. For a moment a gleam of mutual humour passed between them, then he looked back at his nephew.
‘Repellent boy,’ he said.
Ari looked pleased.
&nbs
p; The journey back to the villa was conducted at a far more sedate pace than their outward journey. Nikos was deaf to Ari’s pleas to speed up, and took the rough road slowly this time.
‘Thank you,’ said Ann stiffly, conscious that Nikos had driven slowly for her.
She was still shaken. Not because of Ari’s fall—though that had been a horribly sobering moment. Because of what had preceded it. How the hell had it happened? In the space of a handful of seconds she’d gone from being in control of herself to being…
Helpless. Completely helpless to do anything at all except let the extraordinary velvet seduction of the man take her over completely. Fatally. Lethally.
