The Greek Tycoon's Defiant Bride

‘And I also appreciate you very much, glikia mou,’ Leonidas stressed as though he could read her mind. He lowered his arrogant dark head, his breath fanning her cheek. ‘Se thelo…I want you.’

Shaken by that additional declaration, Maribel blinked in confusion. It felt like too much too soon, but Leonidas was very decisive and he always moved fast. It would be stupid, she told herself, to expect a male as forceful an individual as he to behave like everyone else. The faint familiar tang of his cologne flared her nostrils, releasing an intoxicating tide of intimate memory. She felt weak, wicked. A little inner voice warned her to back off and she ignored it, ensnared by the frisson of anticipation coursing through her. He made her feel astonishingly good. He made her feel sexy. He made her feel totally unlike staid, sensible Maribel, and she would not have exchanged the high she was on at that instant for a fortune in gold and diamonds. It was crazy. He had not seen her in over two years and yet he was inviting her to live with him.

‘Are you planning to slap me?’ Leonidas husked, pressing his expert mouth to a tender pulse point just below her ear and almost making her knees buckle in the process.

Her clutching fingers curled round his lapel to help her stay upright and tip him towards her. A low-pitched, sexy laugh was dredged from deep in his throat. He toyed with her mouth. She couldn’t breathe for excitement, certainly couldn’t think. Time hung in suspension while her heart hammered. His tongue slid moistly between her lips in a sensual plunge that stirred a shocking ache between her thighs. That cautionary voice at the back of her mind was jumping up and down and shouting now. Stop, don’t be stupid…it’ll end in tears again! But she could not resist the temptation he offered. Her disobedient fingers dug into his hair and held her to him as she kissed him back with passionate fervour.

Leonidas hauled her up into his arms with more haste than ceremony, as he was determined to take advantage of the moment. One of her shoes fell off and she giggled. She was all passion and high spirits, and he couldn’t get enough of her in that mood. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her that night he’d slept with her either. She had put a pillow down the centre of the bed and threatened to scream if he dared to cross it again. As he bore her off to the bedroom he was satisfied that he had played a winning hand. He had not been totally confident that she would agree to his scheme. Ninety-nine out of a hundred women would have bitten his arm off in their eagerness to say yes, but Maribel approached every issue with a shopping list of far from flexible expectations. Add in her old-fashioned streak, and when she dug her heels in it could take dynamite to shift her.

A door thudded shut somewhere. Maribel had yet to open her eyes again. He lowered her to a carpet that was soft and silky below the sole of her foot. She kicked off the remaining shoe and snatched in a jagged breath when he released her reddened mouth from the devouring onslaught of his. He was unbuttoning her cotton cardigan. Long brown fingers anchoring in her hair, he tipped her head back. ‘Look at me,’ he urged thickly. ‘I’ve waited a long time to get you back into my bed.’

Her lashes lifted on dazed violet-blue eyes. Just like that occasion more than two years previously when she had thrown her principles in the rubbish heap, it was all happening too fast for her and doubts were piling up almost as quickly. He nipped at her tender lower lip with his teeth and made her jerk taut with delicious tension. But that tiny pleasure pain reunited her with rational thought and she muttered feverishly, ‘Shouldn’t we be talking about what you suggested?’

‘Later…’

‘But…isn’t this a very big step for you?’ Maribel prompted worriedly.

‘Ne…yes,’ Leonidas confirmed in husky Greek, uneasy with the topic, determined not to go there unless forced. He’d planned to ease her into the arrangement with every atom of guile he possessed and gloss over the imperfections.

‘Are you sure about this? That we’re what you want?’ Maribel whispered with wide, anxious eyes welded to his darkly handsome face.

‘Absolutely.’

‘But I’m so ordinary,’ Maribel muttered, still unable to credit that he was willing to offer her more than she had ever dreamt he might.

‘Filise me…kiss me,’ Leonidas urged, coaxing her lips apart to let his tongue dart with sinuous skill into the sensitive interior of her mouth and wreak havoc with her self-control. Irresistible sensation made Maribel shudder and a whimper of reaction escaped low in her throat.

By the time Leonidas set her back from him, she was trembling. Not quite knowing what to do, she hovered while he unclipped her bra. Last time she had had two glasses of wine, a lot of turbulent emotion and a sense of recklessness to get her to the brink of intimacy. But guilt and an unplanned pregnancy had given her an instinctive fear of her wanton inner woman and when the swollen bounty of her breasts spilled free of the lace cups his guttural groan of masculine approval only fired self-conscious crimson colour into her cheeks.