The Demetrios Virgin

Without knowing she had done so she opened her mouth, hesitantly allowing him access to its sweetness, shyly starting to return his kiss and even more shyly allowing her tongue to mesh seductively with his.

‘Andreas? Are you in there? It’s me, Athena...I need to talk to you.’

Saskia froze as she heard Athena’s voice from the other side of the door, but Andreas showed no sign whatsoever of any confusion or embarrassment. Still holding Saskia against him in a grip she could not break, he opened the door and told Athena flatly, ‘Not now, Athena. As you can see, Saskia and I are busy.’

‘She is with you,’ Athena snapped angrily, darting Saskia a look of icy venom. ‘Why isn’t she in her own room?’

‘She is,’ Andreas returned coolly. ‘My room is Saskia’s room. My bed...her bed. My body...her...’

‘Your grandfather will never allow you to marry her,’ Athena breathed, but Andreas was already closing the door, ignoring her insistence that he listen to her.

‘Andreas, let me go,’ Saskia demanded. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to do anything, least of all think about the way she had responded to him...the way she had encouraged him...

Derisively Andreas watched her.

‘Okay, Saskia, that’s enough,’ he told her. ‘I know I told you I wanted you to act like a faithful fiancée, but that does not mean you have to pretend to be an innocent virgin who has never—’ Abruptly he stopped, frowning as he mulled over the unwanted suspicions that were striking him as he looked at Saskia’s pale face and hunted eyes.

Even though he had let her go she was still shaking, trembling from head to foot, and he could have sworn just now, when he had held her in his arms and kissed her...touched her, that he was the first man to make her feel so...

For a moment he examined what he was thinking, and feeling, and then firmly dismissed his suspicions. There was no way she could be so inexperienced, no way at all. There was enough Greek in him for him to consider that the gift of her virginity, her purity, was one of the greatest gifts a woman could give to the man she loved, but his cultural heritage from his British father and schooling mocked and even deplored such archaic feelings.

Would a woman expect a man to keep himself pure until he met her? No. So why should it be any different for a woman? As a mature man he accepted and respected a woman’s right to choose how she dealt with her own sexuality. But he knew too that as a lover, a husband, there would be a deeply, darkly passionate and possessive part of him that yearned to be his beloved’s only partner, an ache within him to teach her, show her the delights of sensual love. And right now something about Saskia’s reaction to him was sparking off a reaction he was having to fight to control, a response that was pure primitive Greek male. A need!

‘I’m not sleeping in this room with you,’ Saskia reiterated numbly. ‘I’m...’

If she was acting then she deserved an Oscar, Andreas decided grimly. But a fiancée who looked terrified at the very thought of being with him was the last thing he needed. He had to calm her down, to calm them both down.

‘Come with me,’ he commanded, taking hold of her hand and drawing her towards one of the doors that opened off the bedroom.

When he opened it Saskia could see that the room that lay beyond it was furnished as an office, with all the latest technological equipment.

‘Will it make you feel any better if I tell you that I intend to sleep in there?’ Andreas demanded.

‘In there? But it’s an office. There’s no bed,’ Saskia whispered shakily.

‘I can bring in one of the sun loungers and sleep on that,’ Andreas told her impatiently.

‘You mean it...’ Saskia was wary, reluctant to trust or believe him.

Andreas nodded his head grimly, wondering why on earth he was allowing his overactive conscience to force him into such a ridiculous situation. He knew there was no way she could possibly be the naïve, frightened innocent she was behaving as though she was.

‘But surely someone would notice if you removed a sun bed?’ she was asking him uncertainly.

‘Only my room opens out onto this pool area. It’s my private territory. The main pool which everyone else uses is round the other side of the villa.’