The Greek's Virgin Bride

It was bliss of a different kind. She gave a sigh, and gave herself up to the warmth, pausing only to reach and twist her hair into a precarious self-fastened knot on top of her head. She closed her eyes and let the water swirl around her.

There seemed to be fine jets of water shushing out at her from all around, and she realised the huge bath must be some kind of Jacuzzi. As the tumult in her heart subsided, washed away by the warm, relaxing water, she felt for the first time die physical effects of what had happened to her. She eased her thighs, letting the water swirl gently, soothingly, around her ravished body.

'Are you in pain?'

Nikos's voice was concerned. She opened her eyes. He had not put on the central light in the bathroom, only the light above the mirror, so the brightness was mellow, not glaring. He had put on a bathrobe and was looking down at her, his hands plunged into its pockets.

She could not quite meet his eyes. Not yet.

'No, not pain, but...I feel...exercised.'

She caught his eye then, and suddenly there was an answer­ing gleam in his.

'Oh, yes,' he answered softly. 'As do I, I assure you...'

He held her gaze, and the knowledge in his eyes flooded her. For a moment the mutual acknowledgement of what had hap­pened flowed between them.

'Nikos, I—' she began—because she had to say something, she must.

He shook his head, silencing her. 'No. Say nothing. We will take this slowly, Andrea mou. As slowly as we need. Now-he held up a hand '—I shall leave you in privacy a while. Relax and recover. Don't move until I come and get you.'

He left her in peace, the silence broken only by the occasional popping of a bubble. She felt—-fulfilled, she realised, and a quiet wonder went through her to lie like a fine, rare sheen over her heart.

The warmth and the water, the silence and the solitude eased] her, lapping her spent body. With a light tap to the door Nikos returned after a little while and helped her out of the bath, enveloping her in a huge fleecy bathtowel. She was almost asleep, and he could see that all she would do now was rest for the remainder of the night.

He gave a private rueful smile. He could have kept going all night, but for now he must let her set the pace. She had entered a new kingdom—he must give her time to take possession of it, to know its ways and passions.

So he simply lifted her off her feet, carrying her back to the bed like a swaddled baby, and set her down between smooth satin sheets, gently drawing the towel off her. The satin felt cold to her skin, and when

he returned from the bathroom a moment later, and turned off the night, she welcomed the warmth of his encircling embrace.

'Nikos,' she breathed, as his arms wrapped around her from behind and her spine warmed itself against his hair-roughened chest.

'Hush,' he said. 'Go to sleep.'

He soothed his hand over her rough thigh and for a moment she went rigid in his arms, and then, with a little sigh, she relaxed again.

Slowly, soothingly, he smoothed the scarred and runnelled skin, as if it were lustrous marble.

CHAPTER TEN

His hand was still covering her thigh when she awoke. Sunlight pressed against the heavy drapes, dimly illuminating the op­pressively decorated bedroom. She felt the bed swaying slightly, she thought, and remembered that this was no ground-based dwelling, but that they were afloat upon the bosom of the sea.

When she stirred, Nikos did too. And as he moved she real­ised, with a little gasp, that as she lay spoon-like, back against him, his body was taking notice of the fact.

He felt it too, the moment he surfaced into consciousness. The same sense of ruefulness he had felt last night filled him. Whatever his leap of appetite right now, he must not risk hurt­ing her.

Besides, he thought encouragingly, abstinence now would bring its own rewards later.

So he stretched backwards and away from her, languorously extending his limbs before lithely jack-knifing and getting out of bed.

'This morning,' he announced, 'we shall have breakfast in bed. And then more sightseeing!'

He certainly needed something, Nikos thought throwing on his bathrobe before striding to the phone to order breakfast, to divert him from what he really wanted to do right now.

Sightseeing would do as well as anything.

In fact, he acknowledged later, it had its own compensations. It was another glorious day, fresh and sweet in the early sum­mer. Setting off in the four-by-four, Nikos at the wheel, they merged into the general throng of holidaymakers.