Her curling lashes hid her expression but the angle of her chin had a firmness that spoke for her.
‘You’re very wary,’ Nik drawled. ‘Can’t you trust me?’
Prudence shook her head.
Nik was taken aback by the speed of that response. ‘But you must trust me to some extent.’
Prudence shook her head a second time.
Nik levelled censorious golden eyes on her. ‘That is outrageous…you’re my wife!’
‘Let’s not forget why I’m here today.’
His gaze shimmered like a heatwave. ‘I’m fighting for our marriage…why can’t you appreciate that?’
‘Maybe I don’t like your methods.’
‘Some day you’ll look back and be glad I fought for you, pethi mou,’ Nik declared with fierce assurance.
‘So you think you’ve been fighting for me?’ Prudence was shaken by the obvious strength of his conviction in that fact. She could see that the secret of his phenomenal success lay in his outlook. When blackmail could be presented as an act of heroism and matrimonial devotion, how could she help but be impressed?
Nik flung back his arrogant dark head. ‘What else?’
‘But you still haven’t explained why you’ve gone to so much effort,’ she pointed out gently.
Nik sent her a winging look of frustration as if he could not comprehend why that should seem a mystery to her. ‘You’re my wife. What other reason do I need?’
Prudence lifted and dropped her shoulders for if he had no idea why, she had even less.
‘Did you enjoy today?’ he asked huskily.
Meeting his stunning dark golden eyes, she felt a sensation like her heart lurching inside her: he was that beautiful. ‘Much more than our wedding day…’
‘The night will be spectacular,’ he promised, leaning down to tip the bolero jacket off her shoulders and slide it off.
All of a sudden her agile brain stopped racing and throwing thoughts at her faster than she could handle. She connected with smouldering dark golden eyes and breathing became a considerable challenge. Simply by looking at her, Nik could plunge her into a state of hopeless desire. In an effort to overcome that sense of weakness, Prudence tugged him down to her and began to unknot his tie.
‘I like this sudden need to rip my clothes off,’ Nik confided, hot eyes melded to her.
Although her face was burning, Prudence had not lost her resolve. Rising onto her knees, she helped him out of his jacket and embarked on his shirt buttons with fingers that felt mortifyingly clumsy. ‘But maybe it’s a little less practised than what you’re used to-’
Disconcerted by that comment, Nik closed his hand over hers. ‘Don’t undervalue what I have with you. This is different for me.’
Wanting to believe that but afraid to, Prudence hesitated momentarily. ‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is…’ Nik covered her lips with an unexpected tenderness.
His tongue delved into the moist cavern of her mouth and sensual anticipation took her by storm. Suddenly the hunger he had taught her to feel, and which she had suppressed with every atom of her considerable will-power, was in the ascendant again. She was shocked by the urgency of her craving. The skilled movement of his mouth on hers, the explicit intrusion of his tongue were enough to make her shake and shiver as though she had a fever. One kiss ran hotly into the next.
A dark flush scoring his hard cheekbones, stunning eyes glittering, Nik undid the halter-neck of her dress and slowly drew the opulent fabric down to release her full curves from the shaped bodice.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said thickly.
Entranced by her creamy breasts and the distended rosy buds awaiting his attention, he pressed her back against the pillows. Smoothly extracting her from the gown round her hips, he tossed it aside. He bent over her with a husky sound of satisfaction to let his lips toy with a pouting pink nipple. Heat burst low in her pelvis and tensed her hips and an ache that was almost painful began to stir.
‘You’re also very clever,’ Nik murmured intently as he dragged himself back from her with flattering reluctance to shed his clothes.
‘Am I?’ Her body was taut and heavy with the sensuality he had awakened and she found it an effort to string even those two words together. With his amazing eyes fired to scorching gold and his shirt hanging loose on a brown, hair-roughened expanse of muscular chest, Nik also looked utterly breathtaking.
He gave her a slashing grin of masculine appreciation. ‘You said no…you made me wait. I’m not used to practising patience, but there has been an unexpected benefit-I haven’t been this excited since I was a teenager.’
Embarrassment at his candour and satisfaction mingled within Prudence, before she picked up on the much more important fact he had just given her: he had not allowed any other woman to assuage his hot-blooded libido. As there were always sexually available women within reach of rich powerful tycoons, this could only mean that Nik had made a new and conscious choice to be faithful to his wife. Happiness thrilled through Prudence. For the first time it occurred to her that, if she set the marital bars high enough, his natural need to compete, excel and win might actually make him strive to meet her expectations.
‘I wasn’t thinking of that angle,’ Prudence muttered honestly, self-conscious but trying to smile rather than act the prude.
‘I’ve thought of you from every angle, thespinis mou,’ Nik confessed, strolling back to join her, unashamedly naked and brazenly aroused.
He had called her his woman and she wondered if she could be. Because, if she set her pride aside, it was what she had always wanted, indeed all she had ever dreamt of. And for that chance she was still willing to put her pride on the line, she acknowledged, her mouth running dry as he came down beside her on the bed. He was as lithe and powerful in his masculine beauty as a pagan god.
‘Nik,’ she whispered below the passionate onslaught of his hungry mouth, fingers spreading against the warm, muscular wall of his hard torso. ‘When I look at you-’
‘Don’t just look…touch,’ Nik urged, hungry golden eyes striking hers as he carried her hand down over his flat stomach to the aggressive jut of his bold erection.
Involuntarily she froze. ‘I don’t know how-’
‘But I know…’ a provocative smile slashed his handsome mouth ‘…and I intend to enjoy teaching you.’
It had never occurred to her that picking up fresh skills could be so stimulating. Or so empowering. She was absorbed by the delight of that new intimacy. The right to touch and explore Nik, the challenge of pushing him to the edge of his self-control, was utterly seductive.
When he swore quietly and wrenched himself back from her, his hot golden gaze ablaze with passion, she could see how hard he had found it to rein back his libido. His big, powerful body was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, his muscles were knotted and he was trembling. He was breathing fast and shallowly.
‘Enough…’
‘Spoilsport…’ Prudence gave him a languorous glance and slowly she smiled, her own body tingling with sensual awareness. The next time she would fine-tune her technique, she reflected with newly learnt confidence.
Sheer bewilderment gripped Nik. She was lounging back against the pillows like a sex goddess, natural sexuality emanating from her every pore. Out of nowhere came a fierce flash of jealousy that slivered through him like a knife. Had he just taught her, or had she just taught him? Was his wife-until very recently a virgin-actually a woman with excessive experience in the foreplay department? And if she was, how could he possibly complain? After all, who was he to moralise? Why were his thoughts even running on such a theme? He was not a jealous or possessive guy. He was not one of those sad, inadequate men who questioned their partners about their previous lovers. Of course he wasn’t.
‘You’ve done that before,’ Nik heard himself say.
Prudence laughed. ‘No, I haven’t-’
‘You must’ve done-you’ve got incredible aptitude…That’s OK, I’m cool with it,’ Nik framed with a tense smile.
Prudence shimmied across the divide that separated them and nuzzled into connection with his lean, bronzed torso and a long, hard, hair-roughened thigh. ‘I just like touching you-’
‘I want you.’ Sexual heat pulsing through him like a rocket charge, Nik found concentration overborne by his instinctive response to her and he flattened her to the pillows again and kissed her breathless.
The burst of passion he ignited extracted a muted gasp from her. In the space of an instant she went from languor to hunger, wildly conscious of the moist, throbbing heat at the heart of her. His wicked mouth and expert fingers teased at her swollen nipples, releasing a shower of sensual sparks inside her responsive body. A burning sense of tightness began to build low in her pelvis and it made her squirm helplessly beneath him and angle up her hips.
‘You don’t control the pace any more,’ Nik told her thickly, surveying her with smouldering golden eyes. ‘I will-’
‘Partnership?’