Hot Nights with a Greek: The Greek's Forced Bride / Powerful Greek, Unworldly Wife / The Diakos Baby Scandal

CHAPTER FIVE

NO MAN had a right to be as overwhelmingly masculine as Leo did, Natasha thought as the feathering sensation increased as she walked. With his superior height, the undeniable power locked into his long, muscled body and that bump on his nose, which announced without apology that there was a real tough guy hiding inside his expensively sleek billionaire’s clothes.

He turned towards the house as she reached him, the outstretched hand becoming a strong, muscled arm he placed across her back, long fingers curling lightly against her ribcage just below the thrust of her breasts.

Antagonism at his confident manner began dancing through her bloodstream—fed by a fizzing sense of anticipation that held her breath tight in her lungs. Walking beside him made Natasha feel very small suddenly, fragile, so intensely aware of each curve, each small nuance of her own body that it was as close as she’d ever come to experiencing the truly erogenous side of desire.

Inside, the villa was a spectacular example of modern architecture, but Natasha didn’t see it. She was too busy absorbing the tingling sensations created by each step she took as they walked towards a waiting lift.

Once she stepped into it she would be lost and she knew it.

So that first step into the lift’s confines felt the same to her as stepping off the edge of a cliff. The doors closed behind them. She watched one of Leo’s hands reach out to touch a button that sent the lift gliding smoothly up. He still kept her close to him, and she kept her eyes carefully lowered, unwilling to let him see what was going on inside her head. The lift doors slid open giving them access into a vast reception hallway filled with soft light.

The very last thing Natasha wanted to see was another human being standing there waiting to greet them. It interfered with the vibrations passing between the two of them and brought her sinking back to a saner sense of self.

‘Kalispera, Bernice,’ Leo greeted smoothly, his hand arriving at Natasha’s elbow to steady her shocked little backwards step.

‘Good evening, kirios—thespinis,’ the stocky, dark housekeeper turned to greet Natasha in heavy, accented English. ‘You have the pleasant flight?’

‘I—yes, thank you,’ Natasha murmured politely, surprised that she seemed to be expected, then blushing when she realised just what that meant.

Bernice turned back to Leo. ‘Kiria Christakis has been ringing,’ she informed him.

‘Kiria Angelina?’ Leo questioned.

‘Okhi…’ Bernice switched languages, leaving Natasha to surmise that her ex-future mother-in-law had left a long message to relay her shock and distress, going by the urgency of Bernice’s tone.

‘My apologies, agape mou, but I need a few minutes to deal with this.’ Leo turned to Natasha. ‘Bernice will show you where you can freshen up.’

His expression was grim and impatient. And despite his apology he did not hang around long enough for Natasha to answer before he was turning to stride across the foyer, leaving her staring after him.

‘Leo…?’ Calling his name brought him to an abrupt standstill.

‘Yes?’ He did not turn around.

Natasha was tensely aware of Bernice standing beside her. ‘W-will you tell your stepmother for me, please, that I am truly sorry ab-about the way that—things have worked out?’

His silent hesitation lasted longer than Natasha’s instincts wanted to allow for. Beside her, Bernice shifted slightly and lowered her head to stare down at the floor.

‘I l-like Angelina,’ she rushed on, wondering if she’d made some terrible faux pas in Greek family custom by speaking out about personal matters in front of the paid staff. ‘None of what happened was her fault and I know she m-must be disappointed and upset.’

Still, he hesitated, and this time Natasha felt that hesitation prickle right down to her toes.

Then he gave a curt nod. ‘I will pass on your message.’ He strode on, leaving her standing there feeling…

‘This way, thespinis…’

Feeling what? she asked herself helplessly as Bernice claimed her attention, indicating that she follow her into a wide, softly lit hallway that led off the foyer.

Bernice showed her into beautiful bedroom suite with yet more soft light spilling over a huge divan bed made up with crisp white linen. Dragging her eyes away from it, Natasha stared instead at a spectacular curving wall of glass back-dropped by an endless satin dark sky.

Bernice was talking to her in her stilted English, telling her where the bathroom was and that her luggage would arrive very soon.

Luggage, Natasha thought as the housekeeper finally left her alone. Did one hastily packed canvas holdall classify as luggage?

Dear God, how did I get to be standing here in a virtual stranger’s bedroom, waiting for my luggage? she then mocked herself, and wasn’t surprised when her gaze slid back to that huge divan bed, then flicked quickly away again before her imagination could conjure up an image of what they were going to be doing there soon.

Heart thumping too heavily in her chest, Natasha sent her restless eyes on a scan of the remainder of her spacious surroundings, which bore no resemblance at all to Leo’s very traditional Victorian London home. Here, cool white dominated with bold splashes of colour in the bright modern abstracts hanging from the walls and the jewel-blue cover she’d spied draped across the end of the bed.

Needing to do something—anything—to occupy her attention if she didn’t want to suffer a mad panic attack, she walked over to the curved wall of glass with the intention of checking out the view beyond it, but the glass took her by surprise when it started to open, parting in the middle with a smooth silent glide—activated, she guessed, by her body moving in line with a hidden sensor.

Stepping out of air-controlled coolness into stifling heat caught her breath for a second, then she was dropping her purse onto the nearest surface, which happened to be one of the several white rattan tables and chairs spread around out there, and she was being drawn across the floor’s varnished wood surface towards the twinkle of lights she could see beyond the white terrace railing, while still trying to push back the nervous flutters attacking her insides along with the deep sinking knowledge that she really should not be doing this.

A city of lights suddenly lay spread out beneath her, looking so glitteringly spectacular Natasha momentarily forgot her worries as she caught her breath once more. She’d been aware that they’d climbed up out of the city on the journey here from the airport, but she had not realised they’d climbed as high as this.

‘Welcome to Athens,’ a smooth, dark, warm velvet voice murmured lightly from somewhere behind her.

She hadn’t heard him come into the bedroom, and now tension locked her slender shoulders as she listened to his footsteps bring him towards her.

‘So, what do you think?’

His hands slid around her waist to draw her against him. ‘Fabulous,’ she offered, trying hard to sound calm when they both knew she wasn’t by the way she grew taut at his closeness. ‘Is—is that the Acropolis I can see lit up over there?’

A slender hand pointed out across the city. When she lowered it again, she found it caught by one of his.

‘With the told quarters of Monastiraki and the Plaka below it,’ he confirmed, taking her hand and laying it against her fluttering stomach, then keeping it there with the warm clasp of his. ‘Over there you can see Zappeion Megaron lit up, which stands in our National Gardens, and that way—’ he pointed with his other hand ‘—Syntagma Square…’

The whole thing turned a bit surreal from then on as Natasha stood listening to his quietly melodic voice describing the night view of Athens as if there were no sexual undercurrents busily at work. But those undercurrents were at work, like the tingling warmth of his body heat and the power of his masculine physicality as he pressed her back against him. She felt wrapped in him, trapped, surrounded and overwhelmed by a pulse-chasing vibration of intimacy that danced along her nerve-ends and fought with her need to breathe.

‘It is very dark with no moon tonight but can you see the Aegean in the distance lit by the lights from the port of Piraeus.’ She had to fight with herself to keep tuned into what he was saying. ‘After Bernice has served our dinner I will show you the view from the other terrace, but first I would like you to explain to me, pethi mou, what has changed in the last five minutes to scare you into the shakes?’

‘Leo…’ Impulsive, she seized the moment. ‘I can’t go through with this. I thought I could but I can’t.’ Slipping her hand out from beneath his, she turned to face him, ‘I need you to understand that this…’

Her words dried up when she found herself staring at his white-shirted front. He’d taken off his jacket and his tie had gone, the top couple of buttons on his shirt tugged open to reveal a bronzed V of warm skin and a deeply unsettling hint of curling black chest hair.

The air snagged in her chest, the important words—this will be my first time—lost in the new struggle she had with herself as her senses clamoured inside her like hungry beasts. She wanted him. She did not understand why or how she had become this attracted or so susceptible to him but it was there, dragging down on her stomach muscles and coiling around never before awakened erogenous zones.

‘We have a deal, Natasha,’ his level voice reminded her.

A deal. Pressing her trembling lips together, she nodded. ‘I know and I’m s-sorry but—’ Oh, God. She had to look away from him so she could finish. ‘This is too m-much, too quickly and I…’

‘And you believe I am about show my lack of finesse by jumping all over you and carrying you off to bed?’

‘Yes—n-no.’ His sardonic tone locked a frown to her brow.

‘Then what do you expect will happen next?’

‘Do you have to sound so casual about it?’ she snapped out, taking a step back so her lower spine hit the terrace rail. Discomforted and disturbed by the whole situation, she wrapped her arms across her front. ‘You might prefer to believe that I do this kind of thing on a regular basis, but I don’t.’

‘Ah,’ he drawled. ‘But you think that I do.’

‘No!’ she denied, flashing a glare up at him, then wished she hadn’t when she saw the cynically amused cut to his mouth. ‘I don’t think that.’

‘Good. Thank you,’ he added dryly.

‘I don’t know enough about you to know how you run your private life!’

‘Just as I know little about your private life,’ he pointed out. ‘So we will agree to agree that neither of us is without sexual experience and therefore can be sophisticated enough to acknowledge that we desire each other—with or without the deal we have struck.’

‘But I haven’t,’ she mumbled.

‘Haven’t—what?’ he sighed out.

Too embarrassed to look at him, cheeks flushed, Natasha stared at her feet. ‘Any sexual experience.’

There was one of those short, sharp silences, in which Natasha sucked on her lower lip. Then Leo released another sigh and this one kept on going until it had wrung itself out.

‘Enough, Natasha,’ he censured wearily. ‘I did not come out of the womb a week ago so let’s leave the play-acting behind us from now on.’

‘I’m not play-acting!’ Her head shot up on the force of her insistence. All she saw was the flashing glint of his impatience as he reached out and pulled her towards him. Her own arms unfolded so she could use her hands to push him away again, but by then his mouth was on hers, hot, hard and angrily determined. Her fists flailing uselessly, he drew her into his arms and once again she was feeling the full powerful length of him against her body. Without even knowing it happened she went from fighting to clinging to his shoulders as her parted mouth absorbed the full passionate onslaught of his kiss.

There was no in-between, no pause to decide whether or not she wanted to give in to him, it just happened, making an absolute mockery of her agitation and her protests because Leo was right, and she did want him—badly.

This badly, Natasha extended helplessly as he deepened the kiss with that oh-so-clever stroke of his tongue, and she felt her body responding by stretching and arching in sensuous invitation up against the hardening heat of his.

And she knew she was lost even before he put his hands to her hips and tugged her into even closer contact with what was happening to him. When he suddenly pulled his head back, she released a protesting whimper—it shocked even Natasha at the depth of throaty protest it contained.

He said something terse, his eyes so incredibly dark now they held her hypnotised. ‘You want me,’ he rasped softly. ‘Stop playing games with me.’

Before she could answer or even try to form an answer, he was claiming her mouth again and deepening the whole wildly hot episode with a kiss that sealed his declaration like a brand burned into her skin. Her arms clung and he held her tightly against him—nothing, she realised dizzily, was now going to stop this.

And she didn’t want it to stop. She wanted to lose herself in his power and his fierce sensuality and the heat of the body she was now touching with greedily restless fingers. She felt the thumping pound of his heartbeat and each pleasurable flinch of his taut muscles as her fingers ran over them. His shirt was in her way—he knew it was in her way and, with a growl of frustration, he stepped back from her, caught hold of her hand and led her back inside.

The bed stood out like a glaring statement of intent. He stopped beside it, then turned to look at her, catching her uncertain blue stare and leaning in to kiss it away before stepping back again. If there was a chink of sanity left to be had out of this second break in contact, it was lost again by a man blessed with all the right moves to keep a woman mesmerised by him.

He began removing his shirt, his fingers slowly working buttons free to reveal, inch by tantalising inch, his long, bronzed torso with his black haze of body hair and beautifully formed, rippling muscles, which Natasha’s concentration became solely fixed on. She had never been so absorbed by anything. Sexual tension stung in the air, quickening her frail breathing as he began to pull the shirt free from the waistband of his trousers. When the shirt came off altogether, she felt bathed in the heady thrill of his clean male scent. He was so intensely masculine, so magnificently built—she just couldn’t hold back from reaching out to place her hands on him.

And he let her. He let her explore him as if she was on some magical mystery journey into the unknown, his arms, the glossy skin covering his shoulders, the springy black hair covering his chest. As her hands drifted over him, her tongue snaked out to taste her upper lip, but she knew that really it wanted to taste him.

Leo reached up and gently popped the top button of her jacket and she gasped as if it was some major development, her eyes flicking up to catch his wry smile sent to remind her that this undressing part was a two-way thing. He leant in to kiss her parted lips as he popped the next button, and the whole battle they’d been waging with her jacket took on a power of its own as she just stood there and let him pop buttons between slow, deep, sensuous kisses, until there were no buttons left to pop.

He discarded her jacket in the same way he had discarded it once already that day, without letting up on his slow seduction by making her shiver as he trailed his fingers up her bare arms and over her shoulders, then down the full length of her back, making her arch towards him, making her whisper out a sigh of pleasure, making her eyes drift shut in response. Then he just peeled her stretchy white top up her body and right over her head. Cool air hit her skin and the shock of it made her open her eyes again. He was looking down at her breasts cupped in plain white satin, the fullness of their creamy slopes pushing against the bra’s balcony edge. When the bra clasp sprang open and he trailed that flimsy garment away, her hands leapt up to cover her bared breasts. Leo caught her wrists and pulled them away again, his ebony eyelashes low over the intense glow in his eyes now as he watched her nipples form into pink, tight, tingling peaks.

Nothing prepared her for the shot of pleasure she experienced when he drew her against him and her breasts met with his hair-roughened chest.

No turning back now, Natasha told herself hazily as the wriggle of doubts faded away to let in the rich, drugging beauty of being deeply kissed. She felt her skirt give, felt it slither on its smooth satin lining down her legs to pool at her feet. Her bra was gone. The thong was nothing. The fine denier stocking clung to her slender white thighs. Her hair came loose next, unfurling down her naked back like an unbelievably sexy caress.

Leo had all but unwrapped her and she’d never felt so exquisitely aware of herself as a desirable woman. When he drew back from her, she reached for him to pull his mouth back to hers. He murmured something—a soft curse, she suspected—then picked her up and placed her down on the bed. Natasha held on to him by linking her hands around his neck to make sure that the kiss did not break. She wanted him—all of him.

‘Greedy,’ he murmured softly against her mouth as he stretched out beside her, and she was! Greedy and hungry and caught in the sexual spell he’d been weaving around her for most of the day.

Then one of his hands cupped the fullness of her breast and her breath stalled in her throat as he left her mouth to capture the tightly presented peak. Sensation made her writhe as he sucked gently, her fingers clawing into the thick silk of his hair with the intention of pulling him away—only it didn’t happen because his teeth lightly grazed her, and soon she was groaning and clinging as the smooth, sharp feel of his tongue and his teeth and his measured suck drew pleasure on the edge of tight, stinging pain downward until it centred between her thighs.

Maybe he knew, maybe she groaned again, but his mouth was suddenly hot and urgently covering hers. And she could feel the hunger in him, the urgent intent of his desire demanding the same from her and getting it when he kissed her so deeply she felt immersed in its power.

Then he was leaving her, snaking upright and trailing the thong away as he did so. Eyes hooded again, dark features severe now, he removed her stockings, then straightened up to unzip his trousers and heel off his shoes while running his eyes over her possessively.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Tell me you want me.’

There was no denying it when she couldn’t take her eyes off him, no pretending that she was a victim here when her body responded wildly to the sight of his naked power.

‘I want you,’ she whispered.

It was Natasha who reached for him when he came down beside her again. It was she that turned to press the full length of her eager body into his.

Then he was taking control again, pushing her gently onto her back and rolling half across her. What came next was a lesson in slow seduction. He laid hot, delicate kisses across her mouth, touched her with gentle fingers, caressed her breasts and her slender ribcage, stroking feather-light fingertips over her skin to the indentation of her waist and across the rounded curves of her hips. It was an exploration of the most intense, stimulating agony; her flesh came alive as she moved and breathed and arched to his bidding. When he finally let his hand probe the warm, moist centre between her thighs, she was lost, writhing like a demented thing, clinging to his head and begging for his kiss. And he was hot, he was tense, he was clever with those deft fingers. The new shock sensation of what he was doing to her dropped her like a stone into a whirlpool of hot, rushing uproar.

‘Leo,’ she groaned out.

Saying his name was like giving him permission to turn up the heat. He appeared above her, big and dark—fierce with burning eyes and sexual tension striking across his lean cheeks. He recaptured her mouth with a burning urgency, shuddering when her fingers clawed into his nape. And still, he kept up the unremitting caresses with his fingers, driving her on while each desperate breath she managed to take made the roughness of his chest rasp torturously against the tight, stinging tips of her breasts.

She could feel the powerful nudge of his erection against her. Her tongue quivered with knowledge against his. A flimsy, rippling spasm was trying to catch hold of her and she whimpered because she couldn’t quite seize it.

Leo muttered something thick in his throat, then rose above her like some mighty warrior, so powerfully, darkly, passionately Greek that if she had not felt the pounding thunder of his heartbeat when she sent her hands sliding up the wall of his chest, Natasha could have convinced herself that he just wasn’t real.