Prudence shimmied across the divide that separated them and nuzzled into connection with his lean, bronzed torso and a long, hard, hair-roughened thigh. "I just like touching you-"
"I want you." s.e.xual heat pulsing through him like a rocket charge, Nik found concentration overborne by his instinctive response to her and he flattened her to the pillows again and kissed her breathless.
The burst of pa.s.sion he ignited extracted a muted gasp from her. In the s.p.a.ce of an instant she went from languor to hunger, wildly conscious of the moist, throbbing heat at the heart of her. His wicked mouth and expert fingers teased at her swollen nipples, releasing a shower of sensual sparks inside her responsive body. A burning sense of tightness began to build low in her pelvis and it made her squirm helplessly beneath him and angle up her hips.
"You don"t control the pace any more," Nik told her thickly, surveying her with smouldering golden eyes. "I will-"
"Partnership?"
"No...I"m an old-fashioned guy. This is the wedding night we missed out on. Just lie there and allow me to drive you out of your mind with pleasure."
"Hmm..." Prudence ran her full mouth in a gentle foray over his strong brown throat and liked the contact and the taste of him so much that she repeated it with the tip of her tongue and the occasional nip of her teeth.
Shuddering in reaction beneath that artless onslaught of encouragement, Nik groaned. "You"re driving me wild."
"It"s my wedding night, too," she whispered, skimming her toes down over the backs of his calves, full of leaping s.e.xual energy.
Nik closed both hands over hers and held her captive while he gazed down at her with shimmering dark golden eyes. She looked at him with dark dilated pupils and let the tip of her tongue sneak out to wet her full lower lip.
"You"re a witch." Nik claimed her inviting lips with savage urgency, before spreading her beneath him and working his erotic pa.s.sage down over her squirming body to ensure that her response to him more than equalled his to her.
When he finally traced the delicate folds at the heart of her body, she shivered violently with the hot, sweet pleasure of his caresses. The tightness deep within her became a taut, spiralling knot of desire.
Her entire being, her every breath, seemed to ride on his slightest touch. Her heartbeat raced and she writhed and moaned, all control vanquished by the fierce need that made her ache. She wanted him, and she wanted and she wanted until the wanting was a frantic and ferocious craving that hurt.
Only then did he plunge into her with a single thrust of possession that jolted her with intense erotic sensation. That very intensity overwhelmed her. His hands closed to her thighs to raise her so that he could sink deeper into her tight pa.s.sage. Hot, drugging pleasure engulfed her and it went on and on and on. Wild sobs of excitement escaped her. Her unbearably tense body craved release from the pa.s.sionate torment of his driving rhythm. The tension built and built and then finally spilt over. With a broken cry she jerked and shivered at a peak of ecstasy that surpa.s.sed her every hope. The sweet, drowning pleasure hit her in wave after wave of joyful, quivering relief.
In the delirious aftermath she studied the strong, hard planes of his darkly handsome face and glowed inside and out with love and happiness. She held him close, smiling as he brushed his lips over her brow and returned her embrace. Such happy contentment was new to her. Wary thoughts and misgivings threatened in the back of her mind but she fought them off, determined to make the most of her bliss. For now, Nik was hers, her husband, her lover, hers alone. What did it matter if it was to prove to be just one stolen moment in time? Did she want to turn into a dreary, bitter woman who always expected the worst to happen?
"That was...astonishing, pethi mou," Nik muttered raggedly, distinctly disconcerted by that truth and his own inability to explain just why s.e.x had never been so good before. He struggled to comprehend that mystery. She was hot-blooded and so was he. She was also his wife. Was it possible that that knowledge had added some strange extra dimension? His frown line deepened, distinct unease developing, for such introspection was not a habit of his.
Prudence smiled as he crushed her to him with almost clumsy affection. He was amazingly appealing, she reflected, running loving fingers gently through his tousled black hair.
"You"re so pa.s.sionate." Nik stretched lazily, enjoying the confident way she touched him. "Yet so tranquil. We are going to have a fantastic honeymoon, Mrs Angelis."
Prudence tensed. "A honeymoon? You never mentioned that-"
"It"s a surprise. Why do you think I"ve been so busy the last few weeks?" Nik continued to indolently wind a long chestnut strand of her hair round his forefinger. "I had to clear a s.p.a.ce for us to spend time together-"
Prudence was startled by the rush of anger that the mere mention of that word "honeymoon" induced in her; she had never forgotten Ca.s.sia"s cruel crack about that lack on her wedding day. Her pride stung as much as though he had slapped her and she shook her hair free of his hand. "I can"t possibly leave the sanctuary-"
"Of course you can. Why do you think I insisted that you take on a competent employee?"
Her temper flared at that arrogant a.s.sertion. "You can say what you like, but I"m not leaving my animals to go off on some stupid honeymoon!"
"Oh, yes, you are," Nik delivered. "Had we had the same opportunity eight years ago, we would have been forced to sort out the misunderstandings and we would have had a viable marriage by the end of it. This time around we"re doing everything by the book-"
"I"m sorry, but you can"t rearrange my life that way. Sometimes being a responsible person entails making unselfish choices."
Nik groaned out loud at that lofty declaration.
"And you know it does. Why else did you marry me eight years ago? Why else did I marry you?"
"Isn"t it time we dispensed with the polite fiction that you had as little choice in that event as I had?
" Nik enquired with lethal cool.
Prudence sat up, clutching the sheet to her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "What are you trying to say?"
"You married me because you were hot for me...Let"s not pretend that marrying me was any great sacrifice for you at the time!"
Prudence blinked and then lifted her lashes on shattered blue eyes. "You are so full of yourself. That"s not fair and you know it. I didn"t have a choice. My grandfather refused to help my mother unless I married you."
His winged ebony brows snapped together. "Theo was to help your mother? How?" he queried. " What are you talking about?"
"You always behave as though you gave up more than me. But I only agreed to marry you because my mother was an alcoholic in serious debt. She was drinking herself to death and rehab was her only hope-"
Thrusting back the bedding with a measured hand, Nik sprang out of bed and studied her with frowning intensity. "Start at the beginning of the story...you said that Theo refused to help Trixie."
"As you should know, something for nothing is not his style. He said he couldn"t care less whether my mother lived or died. Unfortunately we needed his money to pay off her debts and put her into rehab. The price he demanded in return was that I marry you!"
"I didn"t know...I swear I didn"t know." Nik"s lean, strong face had set into hard, forbidding lines. "Why didn"t you tell me that you were under that kind of pressure?"
It was Prudence"s turn to be taken aback. "You really didn"t know?"
"How could I know what n.o.body bothered to tell me?" Nik demanded fiercely.
"But you didn"t ask...I just a.s.sumed you knew...I mean, I knew about your family"s financial problems. But you didn"t discuss that with me and, well...I wasn"t in any more of a hurry to talk about the mess my mother was in," she protested.
"I had heard that your mother had abused alcohol in the past, but by the time I met her she was almost an invalid and she was no longer drinking. I was not aware that her problems had been so recent, or that Theo didn"t take full financial responsibility for her before our marriage."
"He despised Trixie. All we ever got from my father"s side of the family was the right to live at the farm. Don"t get me wrong...over the years I learned to be very grateful for that security." Prudence was marvelling that Nik could have remained in ignorance of the true facts behind their marriage for so many years without either of them appreciating the fact. Yet even as she grasped that reality, her defensiveness was replaced by a sudden surge of cringing dismay. "Hold on a minute...you actually thought that I was so infatuated with you that I was willing to grab the first chance I got to marry you?"
Nik was stunned by the discovery that she had been as much of a victim of circ.u.mstance as he had been when they first married. "Ne...yes," he admitted in Greek. "What else could I think?"
Prudence turned white with raging humiliation. "So, in essence, you did think that my grandfather had bought me a husband. That I was so desperate I would take you on any terms!"
"I need a shower, glikia mou." For the first time in his life, Nik saw retreat as the most tactful response. He had believed that and, hot-headed and arrogant as he had been, it was a conviction which had filled him with considerable scorn and defiance. After all, the more cynical of his relatives had congratulated him on his good fortune on having the pulling power to attract an heiress. His pride had been battered because, like it or not, she"d had the power to rescue him and his family. Ultimately, however, he had excused and forgiven Prudence for taking him on such terms because he had always believed that she loved him. In fact, he had taken that fact absolutely for granted.
Now the picture had radically changed and Nik felt suddenly as though he had strayed into an earthquake zone. He might want to destroy Theo Demakis for treating Prudence with such callous cruelty, but he was fiercely aware that he had resorted to equally brutal tactics when Prudence asked him for a divorce. Had Prudence ever loved him? Or had it just been the crush she had said it was? After what he had just found out about their marriage eight years back, a decent guy would let her go free. His lean brown hands clenched into imprisoning fists. Well, so much for decent. What if she was in love with Leo Burleigh? She would just have to get over it, Nik decided with ferocious resolve.
Tears of frustrated fury and hurt in her eyes, Prudence curled up in a heap of throbbing mortification. How dared Nik have believed that she had been so pathetic? So mad for him that she would consent to such a marriage? Once again she was being made to appreciate how very tenuous their relationship had been when they first married. Both of them had been too proud to lower their defences and the chance to break that deadlock had never come.
At the time of their marriage, Nik"s apartment had been undergoing major renovations and they had been forced to embark on married life beneath his parents" roof. They had slept in adjoining bedrooms, separated by a locked door. Surrounded by Nik"s cool, distant family, she had felt more isolated and wretched than ever. Within weeks she had used the excuse of her mother"s ill-health to leave Athens. She and Nik had never got to share anything. A honeymoon would certainly have made a difference.
Was she now about to let pride come between her and what might be the best chance she ever had to make something of their marriage? Shouldn"t she be pleased that Nik wanted to take her away and spend time with her? Suddenly she saw how her own negative att.i.tude might bring about what she most feared, and in dismay she scrambled out of bed. Her head swam for a split-second and she wondered if she had stood up too fast. Hearing the shower in the bathroom switch off, she pulled on Nik "s discarded shirt. It smelt of his skin with a hint of the designer cologne he used. That fragrance was awesomely familiar to her and she drank it in greedily until she realised what she was doing and turned hot pink with shame over the level of her addiction to him.
"Nik...?" she said hesitantly from the threshold of the vast bathroom. Seeing it for the first time since viewing the house, she blinked in astonishment. The Victorian fittings were still in evidence but an all-singing, all-dancing array of contemporary equipment had been installed on the other side of the bathroom. "My goodness..."
"His and hers." Nik slicked back his wet black hair with a graceful movement of one hand. "It"s temporary until the architect comes up with a better solution."
Prudence discovered that it was an exercise in self-denial to take her eyes from him. With a towel casually linked round his lean brown hips and crystalline drops of water caught in the black curls hazing his pectorals, Nik looked breathtakingly gorgeous.
"I"ve been thinking-er-reconsidering the honeymoon idea," she mumbled. "Possibly I was a bit, well, more than a bit ungracious. I do fuss about the sanctuary. However, with a farm manager here on the estate, I know there"s no need."
Smouldering dark golden eyes ran over her. "None," he confirmed. "You look so good in my shirt I want to take it off, thespinis mou."
He closed his hand over hers and drew her closer. Her mouth ran dry, her throat tightening with helpless excitement as a deep inner quiver slivered through her taut frame. She knew she should be asking him when they were leaving, but as he began to peel her out of his shirt she could not find the strength to voice the question.
Getting dressed up felt strange to Prudence: Nik had bought her a designer wardrobe before they even embarked on their honeymoon, but she had scarcely worn most of the outfits. Indeed, for almost three weeks she had lived in the barest minimum of garments. At that reflection, a bemused smile spread over her full red mouth.
Nik had brought her to Tuscany to stay in an old villa surrounded by silvery olive groves. It was a timeless place and in every sense a hideaway where the rest of the world seemed as remote as the stars. Since their arrival, Prudence had got used to being happy. As each long, lazy day melted into the next, they had become a couple. She had desperately missed that bond of friendship and affection while they had been at daggers drawn. Although they were very different personalities they held surprisingly similar opinions on many topics, but occasionally she deliberately took an opposing viewpoint just for the fun of arguing with him.
Pa.s.sion simply added a very stimulating extra layer to their relationship. Even so, she was now so hooked on Nik she felt like his shadow. Every day she wakened with the same incredible sense of joyful discovery. Early-morning sunlight would filter through the shutters, casting slanting arrows of light and shadow over Nik"s magnificent bronzed length, and he would stretch like an indolent tiger. Studying her with slumberous dark golden eyes, he would give her a smouldering smile and tug her back into his arms to make love to her.
Only a few weeks ago she had been afraid to trust him. Since then, however, she had learnt to be impressed by his unswerving belief that their marriage had a strong future. They spent so much time together yet they still got on like a house on fire. When they dined out in picturesque hill villages, he would walk hand-in-hand with her through the cobbled streets. That closeness, that wonderful physical warmth and acceptance, meant so much to her. Most days he had had to excuse himself for a couple of hours to deal with business matters and he would act as if her ability to amuse herself with a walk or a book or a swim was an amazing achievement.
"Maybe you"re only used to helpless, dependent women," she had contended.
"Or maybe I would like it if you acted as if you needed me occasionally."
"Sorry...not my style." There was a cheeky sparkle in her blue eyes and she veiled them, for she often wrapped herself round him like a vine in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep. But she reserved all such revealing demonstrations of love and need for stolen moments. After all, Nik liked to be challenged. Betraying weakness, letting him know how much she loved him, would change the balance of power forever.
Surfacing from her abstraction, Prudence reached for the turquoise sun dress she wanted to wear and put it on. It was their last day. An ache stirred in her heart and she scolded herself. Such privacy, such round-the-clock togetherness could not last forever and it would be selfish to wish that it could. The British banker Robert Donnington was an old friend of Nik"s and when he had realised that Nik was in Italy he had invited them to lunch at his summer home in the Tuscan hills.
Prudence studied her reflection in the mirror. The generous swell of her bosom seemed to rise above the snugly fitting bodice and she grimaced. The dress was tighter than it had been a few weeks earlier. Was it the birth-control pills she was taking? she wondered ruefully. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been rather sensitive of late as well. Could she be suffering from fluid retention? Or was she just refusing to face the obvious? Was she simply putting on weight as a result of the twin sins of sloth and overeating? Nik had had baklava flown in for her from Greece, and eating the honey-drenched pastries, thick with nuts, was not the road to take to being slim, Prudence conceded guiltily.
She tried on several other outfits. She was dismayed to register that virtually everything in a dressier mode was too tight for comfort at the bust. The mound of discards on the bed grew and her frustration increased because it was far too hot to be fussing over what she wore. With a sigh she put the sun dress back on, for it was comparatively loose and looked better on her than anything else had.
She walked out onto the sun-drenched terrace. "I"m getting fat," she told Nik morosely.
Sleek, dark and spectacular in a white shirt and beautifully cut chinos, Nik extended a lean brown hand and drew her to him. "Don"t stop eating," he urged huskily. "From this vantage point, I feel like I"ve died and gone to heaven. More can only mean s.e.xier."
Registering that his shamelessly intent gaze was welded to the creamy prominence of her overly abundant bosom, she shot him a look of incredulity. "Nik!"
"I can"t help it," Nik confessed with an earthy grin of appreciation that made her heart lurch, "I love your body. It"s wonderfully voluptuous."
That fatal word made Prudence think of a woman of generous proportions in a Rubens painting, but she said nothing. If there was anything she had learned, it was that Nik genuinely could not keep his hands off her and that had done wonders for her self-esteem. Whenever a dangerous little voice in her subconscious tried to suggest that Nik"s over-active libido might explain her apparent irresistibility she refused to listen. She was determined to maintain a positive att.i.tude. She decided that when she went home, however, she would quietly embark on a diet that would take her back down to her usual size again.
Nik curved his arms round her and pulled her back into the shelter of his big, powerful frame. Smiling, she rested back against him. The terrace had a fabulous view of the rolling hills. Dense woods of oak, cedar and black cypress gave way to lush green lines of fruitful vines and billowing fields of golden corn. The sky was a deep sapphire blue. Mellow terra-cotta roofs topped the ancient stone buildings that clung to a distant hilltop in the hauntingly lovely landscape.
"Close your eyes," Nik instructed her huskily.
The sun was a warm caress on her face and another smile curved her generous mouth as he lifted her hand.
"You can look now," he told her.
Feeling his tension, she gazed down in lively surprise at the ring that now adorned her wedding finger, and the diamond so dazzling it made her blink.
"It"s an engagement ring...a proper one."
"Oh..." Her throat convulsed, her eyes misted over. Once she had been a dreaming teenager who made a naive romantic statement out of the prosaic presentation of a family ring and lived to learn her mistake. For that reason the significance of Nik"s gift of a ring touched her to the heart, for it had been chosen especially for her and it was being given with sincerity.
"I had it engraved with our names...and the date our marriage was blessed," Nik imparted.
"It"s amazing..."
"Let it mark our new beginning."
She gazed up at his lean, dark, angular face, as always arrestingly aware of the strong, cla.s.sic planes and hollows of his fabulous bone structure. He was so incredibly handsome but even while she fought the breathless sensation he always induced she felt moved to say gently, "You can"t rewrite the past-"
"But we don"t need to go there," Nik incised in the same authoritative tone that he might have employed to teach a stubborn child a safety lesson. "You"re my wife now in every sense of the word, thespinis mou."
Her tummy muscles tightened at the mere vibration of his rich, dark drawl and his words released a shocking tide of intimate memory. In every sense, she conceded, her mouth running dry as she acknowledged the extent of his power over her. Hot-blooded, pa.s.sionate and unashamedly masculine as he was, Nik had broken down her every barrier and taught her to crave him like a drug. And in his strength was a hard core of bone-deep arrogance and obstinacy. Even as his intense charisma held her fast, she knew that he believed that he could rewrite history.
His brilliant gaze fully trained on her, Nik scored a provocative fingertip gently across her lush pink lower lip. "And you"re happy, aren"t you?"
"Yes..." The sensual spell he cast made her downright dizzy with longing.
"The past...what came before doesn"t count now, thespinis mou," Nik drawled with immense satisfaction.
Her mobile phone buzzed and she tore her gaze from his to dig into her bag. It was Leo. "I"ve got the job...I"ve finally got a permanent job instead of a temporary contract!"
Prudence grinned. "Congratulations. I told you that you could do it. When will you be starting at the new school?"
"Next month. When are you coming home?"
"Tomorrow."
"I"m going to ask Stella to help me find somewhere to live in London."
"That"s a good idea."
"I"ll be able to see a lot more of Stella and the kids when I move to the city," Leo p.r.o.nounced with satisfaction.
Prudence almost suggested that he try to find out how Stella would feel about that before he made a.s.sumptions, but decided that it would be wiser to mind her own business. Tucking her phone back in her bag, Prudence noticed that Nik"s dark gaze was resting on her. "What"s wrong?"
"We"re running late for lunch at the Donnington"s."
"Oh, dear, my fault...I took ages getting dressed!"
"No problem," Nik murmured in his dark, silken drawl. "Where"s Leo"s new school?"
"London."
Nik resisted the urge to comment on how convenient London was for Oakmere Abbey. After all, he knew that Leo was just a friend, a rather needy character, who discussed his every move in life with Prudence. Nik had decided that Leo was a wimp, whom his wife mothered. A baby would knock Leo"s current appeal stone dead, Nik thought cheerfully. Often the best solutions were the most basic and simple to execute...