AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
HE STARED AT THE bride, his expression grim, his eyes watchful.
She looked beautiful, as always. She looked the same as ever, in fact. He’d say age had forgotten Kat Cassidy, only it wasn’t that so much as an excellent plastic surgeon had made a fortune arresting her body clock.
She turned in her new husband’s arm, and Vitalo Katrakis fought a wave of bitterness.
Forty eight hours ago, she’d turned up on his doorstep in Athens. Forty eight hours ago she’d told him she still loved him. That she’d cancel the wedding if he’d only give her a reason to.
God, how he’d loved her.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when he’d still been young and easily led by women. When he’d allowed infatuation to take grip even when he’d known he should have kept it at bay.
It was some small mercy that he’d been loyal to his best friend and mentor, Senator Andrew Cassidy, refusing to sleep with Andrew’s wife even when she’d begged Vitalo to give into their desire and take her to bed. Even when she’d crept into the guest room he’d been using wearing only a lace thong, her long, blonde hair tumbling over her full, beautiful breasts, as she’d moved towards him, pleading with him to make her his.
Nausea surfed inside of him.
He’d hated her that night, because he’d wanted her. He’d come so close to breaking the bonds of friendship and loyalty and doing just what she’d asked.
He’d almost slept with her.
God knows he’d wanted to.
But he hadn’t. And now, so many years later, he was at her wedding, wondering what had stopped him from saying ‘yes’ to her this time? Was it still loyalty to Andrew, even now, so many years after the older man’s death? Was he so bound by their friendship that he couldn’t bring himself to sleep with a woman he’d desired since he first met her?
As of five hours ago, she was married again. And while he didn’t know nor respect her groom - Lorenzo someone or other - Vitalo did respect the institution of marriage.
This marriage was the ending of a chapter in his life – one in which he and Kat lived out a sort of fantasy. One in which he gave into decades’ old temptation and finally made love to her.
Vitalo exhaled impatiently, throwing his scotch back and looking around for a waiter. He’d arrived at the wedding late – after the cake had been cut – and everyone was now drinking and dancing.
The room was full of well-dressed revelers.
His eyes skated across the guests, searching for someone who would bring him another drink, and landed instead on a woman who looked about as unimpressed with the wedding as he felt.
She was brunette – a point in her favour. After Kat, he’d assiduously avoided blondes, and she was also textbook beautiful. Beautiful in a way that was obvious and classic. Wide-set eyes, almond shaped, with an aquiline nose and a pouting mouth, full heart-shaped lips painted a perfect pink. Her cheek bones were impressive, giving her face the impression of having been sculpted with care and precision – whether by a surgeon’s scalpel or God’s hand - making her seem haughty and unapproachable, and out of nowhere, he ached to approach her.
Out of nowhere, he ached to make this woman his.
With one last look at the bride, a woman he’d desired and refused to possess, he stood slowly, stretching his six and a half foot frame to full height. At thirty five years of age, he had the latent power of a twenty-something athlete, the strength of a warrior and the looks of some kind of ancient Adonis.
There was a determination about him, a confidence bordering on arrogance, that demanded respect.
His dark eyes followed the brunette’s progress intently. She was moving through the crowd, her slender figure sashaying as she went, and certainty firmed in his gut.
He knew from experience, there was one very good way of putting the enigmatic Katerina Howard from his mind – one way of obliterating the hold she’d had over him to bits and pieces.
There was one way to forget about Kat, and what she’d meant to him, what his need for her had done to him; and like all the other times he’d slept with another woman to forget Kat, he knew he’d enjoy it tonight. He knew he needed it tonight.
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IN THE WORLD was she doing?
His weight against her was some kind of kryptonite, his body strong and powerful. Bella had to tell him she’d never done this before. She had to… he slipped his fingers under her dress, pushing it up her legs, running over the silky softness of her thighs. She whimpered, deep in her throat, pleasure making thought almost impossible.
This was madness.
The best kind of madness.
His fingers found the lace of her thong and he cupped her buttocks possessively, pressing her closer to him, so she felt the strength of his arousal and a low, groaning noise broke from her chest.
“Yes,” she whispered, not even sure what she was saying ‘yes’ to, knowing only that she needed him in a way that was important and essential. “Yes,” she said, again, lifting her hands to tangle them in his thick dark hair.
He pulled up, his eyes locking to hers, and then he kissed her, his mouth expert as it moved over hers, seducing her senses, driving her to the point of oblivion. There was pleasure and there was radioactive desire, and this was the latter.
Not that she had any experience. Only, she didn’t want to think about her loveless, failed marriage. She didn’t want to think about her ex-husband. She didn’t want to think about anything. Not the wedding she’d just been at – her mother’s, to a man decades younger. She didn’t want to think about the father she’d lost years earlier, who would surely be devastated by his wife’s choice of second husband. She didn’t want to think about the lik
elihood that her new stepfather was using her mother for wealth and connections. She didn’t want to think about the plastic surgery her mother had had, to look more like Bella’s contemporary than parent.
The man lifted her dress higher, his fingers running over her sides, and she pulled her hands out of his hair purely so she could lift them up above her head. He pushed the dress up, tossing it across the room, and her eyes followed it, taking in more details of this place he’d brought her to.
Never in her life had she done something so spontaneous as this. She blamed champagne, and the wearing down of her soul.
Thoughts. More thoughts.
But not for long. He dropped his head, swooping down to collect one of her breasts in his mouth, taking it deep, sucking it in between his teeth and rolling her nipple with his tongue until fireworks danced behind the lids of her eyes, burning her with brightness, making her ache with pleasure.
His hands tested the weight of her other breast, his fingertips delighting in the feel of her nipple, her body arcing forward. She had to tell him. Tell him she’d never done this. He lifted his mouth, claiming hers, and then his strong hands found her waist and lifted all of her, carrying her, legs wrapped around his waist, towards the bed.
She tasted scotch in his mouth. He’d arrived at the wedding reception late – it had almost been over. She’d never met him before, never seen him, and presumed he was one of the groom’s friends. He wasn’t in good humour, though, unlike the other wedding guests.
He’d been drinking scotch when she’d walked past, in search of a quiet place in which to hide out the rest of the reception, and he’d snaked a hand out, curling it around her wrist.
