‘No…’ Nik lowered his handsome dark head to kiss the tear from her smooth cheek. She had the scent of a peach: warm and ripe and ready to eat. For a fraction of a second he hesitated and then, recognising his moment, he went for it with all the ruthless, single-minded purpose which his business competitors feared.
Astonishment shrilled through Prudence when Nik captured her lips with a hungry urgency that rocked her down to her toes. Bemused, she began to pull away but he wound her hair round his fingers, tipped her head back and traced a path across her face with kisses as light and tantalising as butterflies. She liked it. Without meaning to, she shut her eyes and let her head fall back, extendin
g her throat. He took instant advantage of that new expanse of territory. His mouth probed a tender spot below her ear and her pulses all leapt in concert. She gasped and shivered violently, her legs suddenly behaving like bendy twigs.
‘Still want me to leave?’ Nik asked soft and low.
In answer, Prudence gripped the lapels of his suit jacket and stretched up, wanting his mouth on hers again so badly she could taste it. He kissed her with a slow, sensual thoroughness that turned her bones to liquid and yet still filled her with screaming impatience. Her hands swept up over his shoulders, rejoicing in the strength of his powerful frame while her fingertips flirted with the luxuriant black hair brushing his shirt collar. She shifted against him and he caught her to him with a sensual growl low in his throat, his hands splaying across the curve of her hips to press her into energising contact with his bold arousal.
Her initial shock was followed by a giddy mixture of shy satisfaction and sudden triumph: Nik wanted her. Nik could find her attractive and worthy of desire. No man could fake his physical response to a woman. That knowledge filled her with a highly feminine sense of joyful achievement. He hoisted her up into his arms with a brute strength that thrilled her to the marrow. ‘You make me very hot,’ he whispered thickly, letting the tip of his tongue slide between her lips in a single lancing foray that set her every nerve-ending on fire.
Nik carried her into the bedroom and sank down on the bed with her. His lean, bronzed profile intent, he tugged loose the tantalising strings that shaped the neckline of her dress and buried his mouth hungrily in the deep cleavage formed by her lace-edged bra. A stifled sob of pent-up response was wrenched from Prudence. A heavy pulse of need had started to pound in her pelvis. She leant back into the support of his arm, her fingers spearing into the ebony depths of his hair. He flipped loose the hooks holding the satin cups in place, letting her firm, full breasts spill free.
‘You are magnificent,’ Nik told her raggedly, surveying the pouting silken swells with reverent appreciation and capturing the hands that she instinctively raised to cover herself from him. ‘No, don’t you dare try to hide yourself.’
Embarrassment and gratification at his response made her acquiesce. He massaged the stiff, rosy crests that crowned the creamy mounds of her breasts and she ran out of breath all at once. All of a sudden every part of her was taut and deliciously sensitised. Lowering his proud dark head, he used his mouth on the distended buds. A helpless moan broke from her, for the coil of heat unfurling low in her tummy merely intensified the tormenting ache between her thighs.
‘Nik…’ she gasped, amazed by the surging tide of sensation engulfing her inexperienced body.
‘I know. I feel it, too.’ Springing upright, he laid her down on the bed. He peeled off his jacket and let it fall where he stood. Smouldering dark golden eyes fixed to her, he yanked loose his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a muscular, bronzed wedge of chest ornamented with crispy black whorls of hair. ‘We should have done this a long, long time ago.’
Her soft blue gaze was veiled, frantic thoughts consuming her and momentarily pulling her in opposing directions. What on earth was she doing? How could she have let things go so far? But she knew why. Her mind was as clear as a pane of glass on the fact that she wanted him. After all, she had wanted him for what felt like half a lifetime even though she knew it was senseless. She doubted that any other man would ever make her feel as he did. So why should she not finally go to bed with her own husband? Why should she not find out what sex was like before they divorced? She could live out a little harmless fantasy, a little voice whispered seductively in the back of her mind. It would be a risk-free venture that would cost her nothing but a little pride.
‘Prudence…’ Nik murmured huskily, saying it like a guy getting into practice, his Greek accent scissoring carefully round the syllables. ‘Don’t look so worried, pethi mou. There isn’t a problem in the world I can’t sort.’
He leant over her and drove her lips apart in an explosive kiss. It was as if a ball of energy had ignited inside her. Her heart thumped like crazy and she quivered as the sweet flood-tide of desire flared, making her achingly aware of every inch of her body. When he shaped her breasts she arched her spine to press the excruciatingly tender, rosy peaks into his palms. He laved the tortured tips with his tongue and she moaned with impassioned abandon while he proceeded with all the skill in his repertoire to dispose of her remaining garments without her noticing.
When he traced the delicate softness below the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs she trembled, mortified by the moist heat at the heart of her receptive body. The fierce surge of excitement that followed shattered her expectations. Suddenly, thought was no longer possible and she was writhing, her hips shifting on the bed as he tantalised the most sensitive spot of all with expert fingers and explored the slick wet heat of her.
‘Will I be the first?’ Nik husked, coiling back from her to strip off his trousers.
With difficulty she focused on him and she was shaken by her desire to tell him that no, he would not be, even if it would be the most awful lie.
As the silence lengthened, tension screamed through Nik’s big, powerful frame: had she been with someone else?
Her gaze locked to his lean darkly handsome face and her heartbeat raced. She discovered she could not lie to him on that score. ‘Yes…’
Raw relief drenched Nik in a rush of gratitude to the fates. Clad only in his shorts, he came back to her to curve long brown fingers to her cheekbone with an almost clumsy tenderness that was unfamiliar to her. ‘I had no right to expect or even to hope…but that you are a virgin will mean a great deal to me,’ he swore, speaking half in English, half in Greek.
‘Will it?’ She shut her eyes tight because they were prickling with tears.
‘Of course…you are my bride and you will know no other man,’ Nik rasped half under his breath.
As he eased back from her to finish undressing, Prudence did not let her attention stray from him for a second. Her breathing grew quick and shallow. From the steely contours of his shoulders to his long, powerful, hair-roughened thighs he looked spectacular. He had the broad, muscular chest, the sleek, iron-hard torso and the lean hips of a natural athlete. He removed his shorts and she almost stopped breathing altogether. She was shocked by her first glimpse of a fully grown male in a state of rampant arousal.
‘If I had waited another few minutes I wouldn’t have needed to ask whether or not you were a virgin,’ Nik murmured with unholy amusement lighting his eyes to pure golden enticement. ‘Your face says it all.’
Dropping down on the bed beside her, he ravished her reddened mouth with passionate thoroughness. A wave of heat consumed her. The tender flesh between her legs was shamefully moist. With a husky sound of male appreciation he let his teeth graze the achingly stiff bud of a swollen pink nipple and slowly and surely he rediscovered the slick dampness that betrayed her need. Her lips parted on a long-drawn-out moan and she clenched her teeth on a pleasure that came close to pain. Her excitement built up in layer on layer until she could hardly get air into her lungs.
‘I didn’t know I could feel like this…’
His scorching gaze welded to hers. ‘Not everyone can. Your passion matches mine.’
She drowned in the hot, sweet pleasure of his caresses. She could not stay still. Beyond all thought, she surrendered to sensation until it seemed that the torment of such craving would tear her in two. ‘Please…’ she gasped then.
Nik arranged her under him, sliding fluidly between her thighs. ‘I may hurt you,’ he warned her unevenly, his lithe, bronzed length ferociously tense over hers.
‘S’OK,’ she mumbled, dry-mouthed, her entire body thrumming with the intolerable hunger.
‘I want it to be perfect…’ he swore raggedly, stunning golden eyes locked to hers with passionate resolve.
He tipped her back and eased degree by degree into her slick, tight depths. Her eyes widened at the fullness of
him. He breached the barrier that would have repelled him with a single thrust. The stab of pain was an unwelcome surprise. ‘Oh, my goodness…Nik-’
‘Shush…it’ll get better. I promise,’ he husked raggedly, sinking his hands beneath her to cup her hips and steadily deepen his penetration.
‘Don’t move…’ she begged, waiting for the discomfort to recede.
‘I hurt you,’ Nik groaned, rigid with the tension of exerting such fierce control over his overeager body. ‘But you’re very small.’
Prudence allowed herself a minor exploratory wriggle and then another. A cat-that-got-the-cream expression crept over her absorbed face as sensation returned in abundance. He felt incredible inside her. The erotic pulse of desire controlled her again and she angled up to him in encouragement until he lifted her to meet his primal thrust. Her heart started to pound, her voice to catch in her throat. His every fluid movement engulfed her in sensual pleasure. He moved in slow provocation at first and then skilfully increased his rhythm. Wild excitement seized her. When she reached a fever pitch of unbearable sensation, he took her higher still into a shattering crescendo of ecstasy. Crying out his name in a frenzy of delight, she lost herself entirely in the blissful aftershocks of sweet pleasure.
In a daze, Nik rolled back against the pillows and held her close. He was trembling, in shock after the longest, hottest release of his life. She shifted in his arms and he tightened his grip on her. Well, she wasn’t going any place now…except home with him. Home where? The apartment really wasn’t suitable. It was a playboy’s pad, not the place for Prudence. They could live in a hotel for a while. He would have to buy a house. What about all the animals? A house in the country within easy reach of London. He pressed a kiss like a benediction to her smooth brow. ‘That was awesome, pethi mou.’
Prudence breathed in the hot, damp, wonderfully familiar scent of his skin. Her head was still swimming, her body languorous from the glorious surfeit of pleasure. In quiet, appreciative silence she revelled in a rare moment of pure, unvarnished happiness. Try as she might, though, she could not shut out her thoughts and just as fast the clouds rolled in. In going to bed with Nik she had been living out a fantasy, she reminded herself. In time-honoured style, he had been fantastic and he had fully justified his wild reputation, she reflected with a pain she refused to acknowledge. But wasn’t it a bit sad of her to be still clinging and pretending he was a real, loving, caring husband after the main event was over? Wasn’t it time for her to get back to the real world?