A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

‘It should be here soon,’ she said soothingly. ‘Just chill.’

‘Don’t have a lot of practice at just chilling. I’m naturally impatient.’

Pixie sat on her knees by the bed because there was nowhere else to sit in the room. She breathed in deep and slow. She was very tired but she had to stay awake until the taxi arrived and she saw him off. At least he had taken her mind off what had happened during her shift: the pointless death of a young life in a car accident, a young woman on the brink of marriage, deeply mourned by her heartbroken fiancé and her devastated family.

‘What’s he like? The guy you want to notice you?’ Tor prompted without warning, startling her out of her reverie.

‘What’s it matter? Leprechauns aren’t sexy,’ she pointed out in a defeatist tone. ‘Antony’s a paramedic so I don’t know much about him, only that he’s a lovely guy. For all I know, he could have a girlfriend.’

‘I think you look more like a forest fairy than a leprechaun,’ Tor remarked, wondering when a woman had last told him that she was attracted to someone else rather than him. He didn’t think it had ever happened to him. It was a startling, disconcerting novelty. He was used to walking into a bar and every beautiful woman there making a beeline for him. He was young, he was rich, he was single. That was how his world worked and casual sex was always easily available, not something he had to plan.

Before his marriage, though, he hadn’t had much experience. He had grown up with Katerina. Their families had been and still were friends. He had known even as a teenager that he would marry Katerina and he had insisted on going ahead and marrying her when he was only twenty. Maybe his parents had been right when they had tried to talk him out of that, tried to tell him that they were too young. He had been ready for that commitment but evidently Katerina hadn’t been. Yet he had honestly believed that she loved him the way he loved her.

Forest fairy? That sounded rather more complimentary than a leprechaun, Pixie was reflecting ruefully. OK, she was fishing for hope! What he had already taught her without even trying was that what she had regarded as attraction with Antony was a laughable shadow in comparison to the way in which Tor drew her. Perhaps she had only focused on Antony because there was nobody else around and she had yet to find a boyfriend.

‘Maybe that depends on your point of view. If I still look like I belong in a kid’s storybook, it’s not exactly seductive,’ Pixie muttered. ‘But you’ve definitely got the gift of the gab.’

‘Gift of the gab? What’s that?’ he questioned.

‘A ready tongue. You know the right thing to say. If you were interested in a woman, you would know better than to compare her to a leprechaun,’ she guessed.

‘That’s true,’ Tor acknowledged without hesitation.

Pixie studied him, liking his honesty in admitting that, where women were involved, he was as smooth and cutting edge as glass, instinctively knowing the right words to impress and please. That fitted. No guy as downright gorgeous as he was could be an innocent or clumsy with his words. He had already been married, which made her respect and trust him more because he had committed to one woman young when he must have had so many other options.

In his marriage, however, he had been badly burned, she reflected with fierce compassion, because the woman he had married had betrayed his trust and hurt him. And that was what he was truly struggling with, she decided thoughtfully. He wasn’t only striving to handle the pain of loss, but he was also dealing with the pain of being betrayed by someone whom he had loved and trusted.

She went out to the front door to check for any sign of the taxi, but the street was quiet. She padded back into her room, colliding with watchful dark eyes shot through with accents of gold. He really did have the most beautiful eyes and the thickest, longest, blackest lashes and any woman would have noticed those attractions, she reasoned uncomfortably. The guy had dynamite sex appeal. ‘Why were you on your own tonight?’ she asked him curiously as she leant over him.

‘I go out every year on this date and remember Katerina’s and Sofia’s deaths,’ he confided, dismaying her.

‘If you have to drink to handle those memories, it’s a destructive habit,’ Pixie told him gently. ‘It would be wiser to talk about them and leave the booze out of it.’

Tor pushed himself up on his elbows. ‘And what would you know about it?’

‘I lost my parents six years ago,’ she reminded him. ‘I used my nursing course to work through those feelings of loss by helping other people. I have to deal with bereaved people at work on a regular basis. Sometimes their unhappiness makes me feel anxious and sad. Let me look at your head.’

She had the brightest blue eyes and a full soft pink mouth. Arousal slithered through Tor and he struggled to master it and concentrate on the conversation as he lowered his head. ‘And how do you handle it?’

‘I have a box with a lid at the back of my mind. At work I cram anything that makes me uncomfortable in there and then close the lid down tight. I don’t allow myself to think about any of it until the end of my shift.’

He shivered as gentle fingertips brushed his brow and delicately traced the bump. He was already imagining those soft fingers smoothing over a far more sensitive part of his body and he castigated himself for his arousal because she had been kind to him and she was too young for him, possibly not that experienced either. She didn’t deserve for him to take advantage of her sympathetic nature.

‘All that restraint sounds rather too taxing for me.’ Tor tilted his head back again to look up at her.

And her heartbeat pounded like a crazed drum as their eyes met again, a wild fluttering breaking free in her tummy even as an almost painful ache thrummed between her thighs. It was lust, instant and raw and nothing at all like the simple sexual curiosity Antony had stirred in her. A man had never made her feel anything that powerful before and that shocking intensity stopped her dead in her tracks. Long brown fingers reached up to lace with care into her curls, tugging her head down to his.

‘I want to kiss you,’ Tor murmured almost fiercely.

‘Do it,’ she heard herself urge without hesitation, so greedy was she for more of the new sensations he had awakened.

And his mouth tasted hers, gently parting and seeking, startling her with that sensual testing appeal and warm invitation. His mouth sent a curling flame of liquid heat to the heart of her, which made her lean down, instinctively seeking more of the same. Long, lazy arms extending, he brought her down on top of him and effortlessly turned them both over, flipping her down onto the bed beside him without her registering any sense of alarm.

In fact, as he slid partially over her, the weight of one masculine leg parting hers, a naked thrill of excitement raced through Pixie and her entire body tingled as the tip of his tongue skidded over the roof of her mouth. Nothing had ever felt so good or so necessary as the hot urgency of his mouth on hers. She was no innocent when it came to kissing but never before had she enjoyed kisses that set her on fire. Beneath her top she was ridiculously conscious of the heavy swell of her breasts and the prickling tightening of her nipples while in her pelvis a combustible mix of heat and craving seethed.

He eased a hand below her top and cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing an urgently tender nipple, and her back arched and her hips bucked, and a breathless moan was torn from her lips without her volition. He thrust the top out of his path and locked his mouth to the straining, tightly beaded tip of her nipple and her whole body rose against his on the surge of tormenting sensation that darted straight to the hollow between her legs.

‘I love your body,’ he husked. ‘It’s so sexy.’

And her lashes almost fluttered open on surprised eyes because she had never been told she was sexy before. No, she was always the girl the stray men locked on to and shared their life stories with. They told her about their past break-ups and what sort of girl they were hopin

g to meet. It was never ever a short curvy blonde who liked to listen and didn’t like exercise much. No, it was always someone tall, slim and into the gym. She had more gay friends than heterosexual ones, friends who told her she needed to be more confident, outgoing and chatty if she wanted men to notice her. That instant of clear thought and surprise faded as Tor divided his attentions between her breasts with a single-minded intensity that destroyed any control she had over her sensation-starved body.

Tor was making her feel sexy. He was making her feel good about herself and her body and the burning, yearning ache at her feminine core, making her hips writhe, cutting through every other consideration she might have had. He touched her there, where she needed that touch most, tracing her slick folds with skilled fingertips, toying with her to make her gasp and then circling her unbearably sensitive core until she didn’t know what she was doing any more, only knew that her body felt like one giant yawning scream in desperate need of release. She was shifting, moving, out of control, feverish with a need she had never felt so strongly before.

‘Want me?’ he groaned as he skimmed off her pyjama bottoms.

‘Yes!’ she exclaimed, longing for that gnawing hunger to be satisfied.