Husband By Request

After helping her into the estate car he whispered in his deep male voice, “Follow me.”

She waited until he’d driven out to the road, then stayed right behind him. He drove another two minutes before entering a marina, where there was a speedboat rental shop. She pulled in next to him and got out of the car.

Though it was the middle of the night, her husband showed no hesitation in knocking at the door of the cabin next to the office to waken the owner.

The older man who answered in a bathrobe greeted Andreas with a clap on the shoulder and a hearty welcome. They spoke in Greek. While she waited outside, they went into his office.

In a few minutes the owner came out with a set of keys. Andreas trailed, carrying a cooler. He’d obviously planned an outing for them. Her reward for being a good wife while he’d been gone to help Olympia with her son?

Pain pierced her heart, robbing her of the joy he wanted to give her. Not willing to make a scene, she walked behind them and climbed in the boat. Andreas placed the cooler on the floor before handing her a life jacket to put on.

The proprietor untied the ropes, giving Andreas the signal to start the motor. They reversed before heading out into the bay. The owner waved them off with a smile, unaware of Dominique’s turmoil.

To him it probably looked romantic. A couple out for a moonlight picnic.

Her husband flashed her a covert glance. “The ocean’s calm tonight. Lie back against the seat and enjoy the view.”

His nearness created havoc with her senses. “Are we going far?”

“Let me surprise you.”

She had to admit the next hour was one of enchantment. They followed the coastline up the northwest side of the island. The panorama changed from lush fertile land to towering cliffs. He brought the boat in close, to see them at their greatest advantage. They were so steep she got dizzy when she looked all the way up their sheer walls.

Here and there she glimpsed secret coves and impossibly white beaches that appeared untouched by humans. The powerfully built man at the helm, with his disheveled black hair and penetrating eyes, might well be a descendant of the ancient Achaean pirates, stealing her away to a lonely grotto only he knew about.

Something in his demeanor sent a delicious shiver through her body. He was the same man she’d married, yet he wasn’t. Few words had passed between them, making her the slightest bit nervous in an exciting, breathless kind of way.

She’d thought she knew everything about her husband, but the possessiveness in the curl of his hard mouth added a new dimension that made the blood sing in her veins.

The boat cleaved through the water faster and faster. He had a definite destination in mind. A few more minutes and she let out a gasp to see Shipwreck Beach before them. Andreas’s backyard.

The pristine beach was hemmed in on three sides by tall, gigantic cliffs. It was a difficult place to reach. You could take a footpath after parking your car way back on the road. But the best way to visit it was by water.

She’d been down here with him once before, but only during the day, when boatloads of tourists stopped for a brief look on their tour of the island. An old rusted hull of a ship, stranded in a storm years earlier, lay in the middle of the sand.

Tonight they had the whole place to themselves beneath a full moon that made the oceanscape surreal. Not a soul was in sight. They could be the last two people on earth.

She saw fire glint in the black depths of his eyes. He wanted to make love to her here in this paradise he’d loved from boyhood. She sensed his excitement at being here alone with her, away from the world.

The palpable sensual tension had been building between them since they’d lain together on the grass watching the turtles.

Dominique was furious with herself for feeling this weakness around him. Earlier tonight she’d been on the verge of leaving for Sarajevo.

Yet here she was, full of desire for her husband.

If she gave in to her longings now, it meant something was wrong with her. It would be clear to Andreas that she was willing to put up with Olympia in their lives because she couldn’t give him up.

“No, don’t—” she cried when he cut the engine.

Shadows darkened his features. “What do you mean, don’t?”

“I—I want to go back to our cars.”

“It’s too late,” he said in a grating voice.

In front of her astonished gaze he walked to the back of the boat and jumped into the water in order to push them up on the sand. Before she could blink, he swam around to her side and lifted her bodily from the boat, with her life jacket still on.

He was big and moved like an athlete. Carrying her in a fireman’s hold, he walked up the beach with her as if she weighed no more than a couple of cotton balls.