The Greek's Blackmailed Wife

She whimpered his name and he licked into her mouth, stealing the words, her breath and her will-power.

She felt the thrust of his body against hers, the thickness of his erection pressing through the fabric of his trousers and she lifted against him, instinctively drawing closer to his masculine heat.

A ferocious need engulfed her and it was only when he dragged his mouth away from hers and muttered something in Greek that she realised that they were close to making love in the back of his car.

His eyes fierce with passion, he gazed down at her, his breathing unsteady. ‘Theos mou, I don’t know myself with you,’ he groaned. ‘I start off wanting to punish you and end up punishing myself.’

Punish her?

He wanted to punish her?

Utterly disorientated, she stared up at him dizzily, looking first at the dark curls that shadowed his muscular chest and then at the streaks of colour that touched his hard cheekbones. Her whole body throbbed with unfulfilled need, ached with a desire so powerful that she had to struggle not to grab him again and beg him to make love to her. For a brief moment she wondered where he’d found the will-power to stop. But he had. And his cool-headed ability to end the contact between them with so little effort suddenly quenched her own frantic response.

Gradually the harsh reality of what they’d done—what she’d done—intruded on her sex-induced stupor.

She pushed at his broad chest and he shifted, something unfamiliar blazing in his eyes as he looked at her. It occurred to her that he certainly didn’t look cool.

‘We shouldn’t have done that.’ Lauranne scooted away from him, shredded by humiliation, her cheeks flaming red as she tugged her skirt down over her exposed thighs. ‘I-it was a mistake.’

‘I agree. My car is not the place,’ he said savagely, raking long fingers through sleek dark hair in a very obvious effort to regain control. ‘Let’s end this farce and go back to my hotel.’

His intention was quite explicit and she shook her head.

‘No!’ Her lips were swollen and tingling from the heat of his kiss, every secret corner of her body awakened by his touch. ‘It’s not the car. It’s you. Me. It isn’t what I want.’

He sucked in a breath, still visibly aroused and battling with his baser instincts.

‘Not what you want?’ As he registered her words he shot her an incredulous look. ‘So what was that all about? You were ripping my clothes off in case I caught a chill?’

Breathtakingly aware of his bare chest still within touching distance, she forced herself to look away. Forced herself to resist temptation—

‘Of course not—’ she was too shocked by her own fevered response to be anything but honest with him ‘—but it isn’t right, Zander, and you know it.’

He frowned. ‘It was totally right. It was what we both want and if I hadn’t called a halt then we would now be making love on the back seat of my car.’

His less-than-subtle reminder that it had been him that had stopped it made her want to sink into a dark hole. She was just so vulnerable to him and she hated herself for it. Hated herself for her lack of control.

She looked at him and then wished she hadn’t as her eyes homed in greedily on his sexy mouth and the darkness of his very masculine jaw. If ever a man had been designed to tempt a woman it was Zander Volakis.

Maybe she needed to face the fact that she’d never be immune to him.

‘All right. It was you that called a halt,’ she admitted bravely, ‘but there’s more to a relationship than sex. We’re opposites, Zander.’

‘And opposites attract,’ he said dryly, ‘as we seem to prove every time we meet.’

‘They also make each other’s lives miserable,’ she pointed out with a humourless laugh. ‘We’re too different.’

‘Differences are good. It’s the differences that make our relationship so exciting, agape mou.’ He lounged back in his seat, totally relaxed, the expression in his eyes shielded by thick, dark lashes. ‘You’re totally unpredictable and you always surprise me. And I look forward to being surprised again and again.’

‘No!’ She said the word to herself as much as him, trying to remind herself of the havoc that this man had created in her life and in her heart. ‘Do you really think I’d sleep with you after everything that’s happened?’

‘Why not?’ He lifted broad shoulders in a casual shrug. ‘We’re both consenting adults and we share a powerful attraction. I’ve already told you that I’m willing to forget the past. Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Because our marriage is over!’

He smiled, maddeningly unperturbed by her passionate outburst. ‘Stop changing the subject.’

‘I hated you—’