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‘What are you doing?’
‘Am I hurting you?’ he asked, before taking another step.
‘No,’ she said into his chest. Instead of pulling away, as he had expected her to do, she leaned into him just a little, and he ignored the shift that he felt beneath his ribcage, pushing away the swift and sudden arousal that had caught him by surprise. She must have been in considerable pain. He’d seen American football players take less hard hits than she had. That was what he told his mind, but his body seemed to have its own thoughts.
He was only wearing a thin T-shirt, the temperature in Greece considerably hotter than the cold dampness of Ireland that had seeped into his bones and not let go until he’d returned Anna and his—their—daughter to his home on this island. The thin material offered no protection against the feeling of her skin against his. Everything in him screamed at him to take her straight to his bed, but he wasn’t that much of a bastard.
He walked back up the stairs to her room and gently slid her down the full length of his body, torturing himself, punishing himself with what he could not have, and settled her gently on the floor.
His arms were still around her and she looked up at him, the golden flecks in her large green eyes flaring. Their breaths caught at the same time. He was chest-to-chest with her, barely an inch between them. It was the closest they’d been since that night.
As she exhaled, he breathed in deeply, and he was half convinced that he could taste her on his tongue. It would take nothing at all to close the distance, to take her lips as his traitorous body had wanted to do since he’d laid eyes on her just those few days ago in Ireland. Need coursed through his veins with lightning speed, tightening muscles all over his body.
And in her eyes, he could see it too, that need, that want. Anna’s breathing became light little
puffs of air against his cheek, ratcheting up his arousal to impossible heights. Begging, pleading almost for him to take her.
His fingers gripped and flexed, trying to find the space where skin met skin and, instead of letting her go as his mind was shouting at him to, he pulled her closer, the inch of air between them became a centimetre and...
‘I should have that shower.’
When she looked back at him some of the anger, the pain had returned to her eyes and somehow he forced his body to let her go. He straightened and walked away, out of the room, out of the house, and kept on walking until he had his body under control once more.
* * *
Anna woke for the second time that day, disorientated and—this time—in pain. Her leg throbbed and her shoulder and arm hurt from where she’d tried to break her fall. As she rose to get up from the bed Flora came in, her arms flapping and a string of Greek accompanying the glass of water and painkillers she thrust into her hands.
Anna took them and drank down the water thankfully. Slowly she tried to get up again and this time succeeded. From the time on the clock, she’d hoped that her daughter would have been put down for her nap. As she looked into the room, Amalia’s soft little breaths assured her that she was okay. She made her way back down to the kitchen area, and asked Flora where Dimitri was. The older woman scowled and with a shrugging of her shoulders went back to preparing a feast fit for a king.
She was in Greece, it struck her fully for the first time. After Dimitri had told her that she wouldn’t get their passports back unless she married him, it had short-circuited all thoughts about the incredible place he had brought them to.
Once again she felt adrift. She watched on helplessly as Flora pottered around the kitchen, occasionally bringing delicious things for her to try. And, as much as she wanted to be excited by the lovely food, she longed for the time when, only yesterday, she would have been able to go to her fridge and prepare lunch with the things that she and Amalia were used to eating. And then she felt ungrateful. Not to Dimitri, but to Flora, who was becoming increasingly attentive the more uncomfortable Anna was feeling.
Dimitri came in from the pool area, looking windswept and mouthwateringly handsome. He had changed from the T-shirt he’d been wearing earlier in the day and replaced it with a white linen shirt that hung slightly open at the neck showing swirls of dark hair on his chest. Just a brief foray out into the sunshine had turned his skin a golden brown, and his dark eyes, heavy with concern, poked and prodded at the memory of the moment they had shared just before her shower. His hands were jammed into the pockets of his tan trousers, and bare feet padded their way towards her.
Anna felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She would have kissed him. The man who had brought her to Greece and taken away her freedom. The man who was threatening to keep her daughter here without her permission.
‘Flora, this smells delicious,’ he said in English, clearly for her benefit.
Flora grunted in response, shrugging her shoulders at him, the way she had done when Anna had asked after him earlier. Anna just about raised a smile for the female solidarity in the kitchen.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked her. As stubborn as she had a mind to be, she couldn’t ignore him completely. Even Flora seemed to hold her breath to see if she would answer him.
‘Stiff. Sore. But okay,’ she said eventually and Flora turned her attention back to pulling a tray of roast tomatoes from the oven.
‘Have you been awake long?’
‘Not very. Flora has been taking care of me,’ she said, smiling over at the housekeeper, who had taken to humming along to herself while she cooked. She pressed two glasses of cold white wine in their direction. Anna frowned. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ve just taken two painkillers.’
Flora hushed her and said something in Greek, which Dimitri translated. ‘She says it’s fine, you’ve only had ibuprofen. A little wine won’t hurt.’ He paused and smiled as Flora continued. ‘She said you need to relax.’
Anna let out a huff at that. Dimitri picked up the two glasses of wine and gestured for her to follow him outside. Flora caught her casting a worried glance up at her daughter’s room, and with a ‘Nai, nai, nai,’ she shooed her outside after Dimitri.
The view that she walked out to was breathtaking. A pergola spread out from the sides of the house, where beautiful tendrils of pink bougainvillea picked up the last rays of the sun as it sank into the welcome arms of the horizon. To her left an infinity pool stretched out towards the sea. Only the pool tiles gave the water a slightly lighter shade of aquamarine, allowing her to pick out the edge of the patio and the start of the sea beyond it.
Dimitri pressed a glass slick with condensation into her hands. The cool drink would be a welcome relief from the heat of the day. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to take a sip of the light-coloured liquid.
She needed to find the strength to ask the questions that had been crying out in her mind since the night before. Since he’d made that awful demand.
