AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Electricity spread up her arms and down her body. She fought the urge to step closer to him, to press her body against his chest. Shaking her head, she breathed, “I can’t.”
“Why?” he growled.
“I don’t want you to marry me out of pity!”
His hands suddenly moved around her, caressing her back through her dress, causing the black silk to slide deliciously over her body with his featherlight touch. “Pity is the last thing I feel for you.”
She closed her eyes, leaning forward in spite of herself. Wanting more of his touch. Wanting to feel his warmth. His heat.
He pulled her more deeply into his arms. She felt the scent of him, the warmth of his body beneath his clothes.
“Come away with me,” he whispered into her hair. “Come to Athens
and be my bride.”
She felt the hardness of his body against hers, the strength of his arms around her. He was so much taller and more powerful than she was. His hands ran softly along the edges of her hips, up the length of her back as her breasts crushed against his chest.
She swallowed, trembling. She licked her lips, moving her cheek against his shirt as she looked up at him. “I can’t just run away,” she sighed. No matter how she wished she could. “I need my memory back, Talos. I can’t just float through the world not knowing who I am. I can’t marry a virtual stranger, even if you’re the father of my child—”
“So I’ll take you to the place where we first met. To where we began.” She felt his dark gaze fall upon her mouth as he said softly, “I’ll show you the place where I first kissed you.”
Her bones turned to liquid. She looked up at him, her heart pounding as she licked her lips involuntarily. “Where is that?”
His eyes were hot and dark. “In Venice.”
“Venice,” she repeated, and the word was a wistful sigh. She looked up at him with yearning, knowing she should refuse—knowing she should stay in London and see the specialist Dr. Bartlett had recommended. But her refusal caught in her throat. Caught by her romantic dreams. Caught by him.
Talos reached down to stroke her tender bottom lip with his thumb, caressing her face with his powerful hands.
“Come to Venice,” he said darkly. “I will show you everything.” He cupped her face with both hands, holding her hard against his body as he looked down at her, commanding her with his gaze. “And then,” he whispered, “you will marry me.”
CHAPTER THREE
SUNLIGHT reflected off the water as they took the motoscafo, a private water taxi, from the Marco Polo Airport. The September weather was bright and warm as they crossed the lagoon, passing by the Piazza San Marco and the Bridge of Sighs on the way to their hotel.
Venice. Talos had never expected to return here again.
But sometimes, he thought grimly, a man had to change the playbook in the middle of the game. He would do whatever it took, be as romantic a fool as any man could be, in order to lure Eve into marriage before her memory returned.
He looked down at her in his arms as they crossed the water of the canal. Her eyes shone with wonder, her full pink lips were slightly parted as she gazed around the city with awe.
The same way every man who saw Eve looked at her.
Even right now in this water taxi. The young Italian driver kept glancing back in his mirror. Talos’s bodyguard, Kefalas, was sitting in the seat behind them, and even he had looked at Eve a bit longer than strictly necessary.
Eve was freshly showered and had changed her clothes on his private flight from London. Her dark hair now fell in thick, glossy waves past her bare shoulders, brushing the nipples Talos could easily picture beneath that clinging red jersey dress. The dress showed off the top swell of her overflowing breasts beneath the spaghetti straps, and barely reached halfway down her creamy thighs. She’d put on lipstick, a red color that matched her dress. Her legs were slender and perfect, ending in sharp black stiletto heels.
He couldn’t blame either of them for staring. Even though he wanted to kill them for it.
Strange, Talos thought, he’d never been jealous before of other men staring at Eve. He’d always accepted it as his due. He’d taken it for granted that other men would always want what he, Talos, possessed.
But for the first time it caused his stomach to curl. Why? Because Eve was carrying his child? Because he intended to make her his wife?
His wife in name only, he reminded himself. To protect his unborn child. Not because he cared for Eve. He felt nothing for her but scorn. And, he was forced to admit, lust.
Giving the driver a hard stare until the young man blushed and returned his focus to the wheel, Talos pulled Eve closer against him on the seat. She leaned back against his chest, reaching her arms over his neck and smiling up at him.
“It’s beautiful here.” Her blue eyes were as warm as bluebells in a spring meadow. “Thank you for bringing me to Venice. Even though I’m sure it was very inconvenient…”
