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Her eyes skated over his naked torso, the beaming Corfu sun warming the muscles in his chest and shoulders. The little thing was checking him out, and not too subtly, either.
“Better strip down,” he said as he laid their towels down. “The water’s waiting for you.”
Her hands went to the first of a string of buttons that drew a line from her chest to her waist. They were small and white, fine and reflective. Her hands trembled, and after the first button was pushed through its hole, she struggled with the second.
“Do you need a hand?” He stepped forward.
She bit down on her lip. “I know how to undress myself.”
“You look like you’re struggling.”
He wasn’t sure he should help—her curvy figure would be perfection poured into a little white bikini. The textured fabric rubbed against her dress, creating a shadow that told him such a top would hide absolutely nothing.
Getting close to her was a bad idea. But for once in his life, Nico wasn’t inclined to listen to his gut.
Chapter Three
The smooth, white sand stretched into a sea so vividly blue, Marianna wondered if she’d stepped into a painting. The sun was high, and it burned with an intensity that made the mountains in the distance appear golden and shimmering.
“I’m not struggling,” she lied. It was hard to keep control of her motor functions while he looked at her like that. “I’m simply taking my time so I can admire the view. It’s hard not to be distracted, you know. Must be amazing to wake up to this every day.”
Nico drove his fingers into his hair, pushing the onyx strands away from his forehead. “It suits me.”
She couldn’t argue with that. The only way Nico could look any more like he belonged would be if someone cast him in bronze and placed a plaque at his feet.
“Still admiring the view?” he asked with an amused smile.
God, why was she so nervous? They were just going for a swim.
Dark hair dusted his deeply tanned chest, and his nipples were coppery and flat. He was unlike any man she’d seen half-naked before. Definitely unlike Jules with his soft, pink-toned skin and freckles. Nico’s waist was perfectly enhanced by a set of muscles pointing down to the waistband of his board shorts. And a trail of hair drew her eyes down from his bellybutton to the drawstring knotted at his waist. The key to his kingdom.
Suddenly her mouth was as parched as the dusty earth back home.
When his eyes caught hers, challenge glimmering in their icy depths, she immediately looked down. Her fumbling hands came to the buttons at her bust, shaking so hard she had to stop and take a breath so she could get them through the buttonholes.
“Did you know there is a constructed language estimated to have more than two million speakers? People named it Esperanto after the creator’s pseudonym.” Her breath sounded slightly squeaky.
Things are going well. Relax and everything will be okay. This is what you wanted.
“No, I didn’t know that.” His eyes tracked her closely, and it only made the facts spin faster in her head.
The last button finally popped free, and she reached for the hem of the dress and dragged it upward. A sound made her still. It was something like a quick release of breath, but with all the fabric blocking her sight she couldn’t quite tell. Perhaps it was the wind. Or maybe she’d imagined it. Swallowing, she lifted the fabric higher, tugging the dress over her head. But it didn’t budge. She tugged again.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
It was like one of those horrifying moments in a department store changing room. The sweaty, prickly feeling of panic that you were going to have to call the sales assistant to help. She tugged hard, and the sound of a seam ripping made her wince. But it was no good. She was stuck.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Why now?
“You okay?” Nico’s husky voice sent a tremor through her, the sexy sound slicing through her panic.
“Uh, this is the first time I’ve worn this dress.” Her cheeks were flaming hot as embarrassment snaked through her. “I guess I had too many loukoumades.”
The chuckling sound made her feel simultaneously better and worse. Marianna wasn’t exactly thin—she had full hips and a little rounded tummy. Her boobs were a bit bigger and not as perky as she would have liked. But those things had never bothered her before. Her mother had been the same—curvy and soft, rounded—and she thought her mother had been the most beautiful woman on the earth.
But now, struggling in the too-tight white dress, Marianna felt unsophisticated. She was an idiot to think she could pull off some grand seduction with a guy who clearly had the world at his feet.
Eventually she gave up and sighed. “Can you help me? Please.”
Her body jolted when a warm hand brushed the side of her bare waist. The touch—so gentle and feather-light—was like a volt of electricity straight to her nervous system.
“Keep your arms up,” he said. Deft hands eased the narrow waistband of the dress over her bust and shoulders, slowly extracting her from her cotton prison. “There we go.”
He pulled the dress over her head and folded it neatly into a square, placing it on top of the towel so it didn’t touch the sand. The kind gesture warmed her heart. It was an unexpected sweetness from this charming devil of a man who oscillated between goading and studying her.
