The Greek's Unwilling Bride

LAUREL’S KISS almost undid him.

It was not so much the heated passion of it; it was the taste of surrender he drank from her lips.

She had been his, but only temporarily on that night in New York. Now, holding his wife in his arms on a windswept hill above the Aegean, Damian made a silent vow. This time, when he made love to her, she would be his forever.

Was he holding her too closely? Kissing her too hard? He knew he might be and he told himself to hold back—but he couldn’t, not when Laurel’s mouth was so soft and giving beneath his, not when he could feel her heart racing, and he knew that her desire burned as brightly as his. Desire, and something more.

He couldn’t think. All he could do was feel, and savor, and when she moaned softly and pressed herself against him, so that he could feel her body molded to his, he almost went out of his head with need.

“Damian,” she whispered. Her voice broke. “Damian, please...”

He thrust his hands into her hair, his thumbs tracing the delicate arch of her cheeks, and lifted her face to his. Her eyes were dark with desire; color stained her cheeks..

“Tell me,” he murmured, just as he had that first time, and he moved against her so that she caught her breath at the feel of him. “Say it, o kalí mou.”

Laurel brushed her lips against his. “Make love to me,” she sighed, and he caught her up in his arms and carried her to a stone watchtower that was a part of the wall.

The tower was ancient, older, even, than the wall. A thousand years before, it had been a place from which warriors safeguarded the island against pirates. Now, as Damian lay his wife down gently on a floor mounded with clean, sweet-smelling hay, he knew that the battle that would be fought here today was one in which there would be no way to tell who was the conqueror and who the conquered.

He told himself to undress her slowly, despite the hunger that beat within him. But when she moved her hands down his chest, down and down until she cupped his straining arousal, the last semblance of his control slipped away.

“Now,” he said fiercely, and he tore away her sundress.

Beneath, she was all lace and silk, perfumed flesh and heat. He tried again to slow what was happening but Laurel wouldn’t let him. She lifted her head, strained to kiss his mouth; she stroked his muscled shoulders and chest, drew her hand down his hard belly, and then her fingers slid under the waistband of his shorts. Damian groaned; his hands closed over hers and together, they stripped the shorts away.

At last, they lay skin against skin, heat against heat, alone together in the universe.

“Damian,” Laurel said brokenly, and he bent his head to hers and kissed her.

“Yes, sweetheart, yes, o kaló mou.”

And then he was inside her, thrusting into the heart of her, and in that last instant before she shattered in her husband’s arms, Laurel, at last, admitted the truth to herself.

She was in love, completely in love, with Damian Skouras.

* * *

A long time later, in the white-hot blaze of midday, they made their way to the house.

Someone—Eleni, probably—had closed the thin-slatted blinds at all the windows so that the foyer was shadowed and cool. Everything was silent, except for the soft drone of the fan blades rotating slowly overhead.

Laurel looked around warily. “Where’s Eleni?”

“Why? Do you need something?” Damian pulled her close and kissed her, lingeringly, on the mouth. “Let me get whatever it is. I’ve no wish to share you with anyone else just now.”

“I don’t need anything, Damian. I was just thinking...” She blushed. “If she sees us, she’ll know that we—that you and I—”

Damian smiled. Bits of hay were tangled in his wife’s hair, and there was a glow to her skin that he knew came from the hours she’d spent in his arms.

“What will she know, keería mou, except that we have made love?”

“What does that mean? Keerya moo?”

“It means that you are my wife.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “And a husband may make love to his wife whenever he chooses.” He put his hand under her chin and gently lifted her face to his. “On Actos, in New York...any where at all, so long as she is willing. Do you agree?”

“Only if the same rules apply for the wife.”

Damian’s eyes darkened. “Has no one ever told you that democracy was invented here, in these islands?”

Laurel smiled. “In that case...”

She rose on her toes, put her mouth to her husband’s ear and whispered.

Damian laughed. “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said, and he lifted her into his arms, carried her up the stairs and into his bedroom.

* * *

The days, and the nights, flew past. And each was a revelation.

Damian, the man who could do anything from saving a dying corporation to making an endless assault against a boulder, turned out to have a failing.

A grave one, Laurel said, with a solemnity she almost managed to pull off.

He didn’t know how to play gin rummy.

He was, he assured her, an expert at baccarat and chemin de fer, and he admitted he’d even been known to win a dollar or two at a game of poker.

Laurel wasn’t impressed. How could he have reached the age of forty without knowing how to play gin?

“Thirty-eight,” he said, with only a glint in his eye, and then he said, well, if she really wanted to teach him the game, he supposed he’d let her.

He lost six hands out of six.

“I don’t know,” he said, with a sigh. “Gin just doesn’t seem terribly interesting.”

“Well, we could try playing for points. I’ll keep score, or I can show you... what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s just... I don’t know. Points, scoring... it seems du

ll.”

“Okay, how about playing for money?”

“A bet, you mean? Yes, that would be better.”

“A nickel a hand.”

Damian’s brows lifted. “You call that interesting?”

“Maybe I should tell you that I’m the unofficial behind-the-runways-from-Milan-to-Paris gin rummy champion.”

“So? What’s the matter? Afraid of losing your tide?”

Laurel blew her hair back out of her eyes. “Okay, killer, don’t say I didn’t warn you. We’ll play big time. A dime a hand.”

Damian’s smile was slow and sexy. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we play for an article of clothing a hand?”

Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “You sure you never played gin before?”

“Never,” he said solemnly, and dealt out the cards.

Half an hour later, Laurel was down to a pair of jeans and a silk teddy. Her sandals, belt, shirt, even the ribbon she’d used to tie back her hair, lay on the white living-room carpet.

“No fair,” she grumbled. “You have played gin before.”

Damian gave her a heart-stopping smile and fanned out another winning hand. He leaned back against the cushions they’d tossed on the floor and folded his arms across his chest. “Well?”

Laurel smiled primly and took off an earring.

“Since when is an earring an article of clothing, keerta mou? An article of clothing for each losing hand, remember?”

Her heart gave a little kick. “You wouldn’t really expect me to—”

He reached out a lazy hand, drew his fingertip lightly over her breasts, then down to the waistband of her jeans. “Your game and your rules,” he said huskily. “Take something off, sweetheart.”

Laurel’s eyes met his. She rose to her feet, undid the jeans and slid them off.

“Your turn is coming,” she said, “just you wait and see.”

He smiled and dealt the cards. It pleased her to see that his hands were unsteady. Surely he would lose now.

“Gin.”

Laurel ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, and Damian’s eyes followed the gesture. Heat began pooling in her belly.

“Damian, you’re not going to make me...”