Heat pooled low in Betsy’s pelvis and she fought that sizzle of awareness with every fibre she possessed. After all, there was no point trying to play it cool with Nik to keep him on his metaphoric toes while at the same time falling into the nearest bed with him at every possible opportunity. Wasn’t that what she had been doing? Whenever she looked at Nik, she could barely keep her hands off him.
Nik studied her with unconcealed appreciation. ‘Blue is definitely your colour, kardoula mou.’
Betsy’s midnight-blue evening dress was fitted at breast and hip and the sleeves and skirt were made of lace. Her pale skin gleamed with the shimmer of a pearl through the mesh and her bright eyes reflected that rich blue like a mirror.
‘I appreciate you coming to this with me. I know you don’t like parties unless you’re tucked away somewhere quiet talking solely about business,’ Betsy remarked ruefully. ‘But you’ll have your brothers there for company—’
‘And all the little half-brothers and sisters,’ Nik reminded her wryly. ‘I’ll make an effort to get to know them but, as I lack small talk and Belle’s probably already given them a poor impression of me, I can’t make any promises.’
‘A little bit of an effort is all that is required from you,’ Betsy assured him, trying not to smile at his willingness to extend an olive branch to Gaetano Ravelli’s youngest children. He had listened to her and he was prepared to change the status quo and to her way of thinking that was more than enough to earn him four gold stars.
‘Obviously I’m willing to make any effort required,’ Nik countered.
Betsy looked up at him with her very blue eyes. ‘Why?’
Nik linked his arms round her still-slim waist, slowly easing her slender body into connection with his while he stared down at her with green eyes that had flared to jewelled brilliance with desire. ‘I want you to be happy with me, Betsy.’
‘I am happy,’ she assured him, colour rising in her cheeks, hugely erotically aware of his big, powerful body and the erection he was making no attempt to hide. She stared up at him, treacherously enthralled by his sleek, dark, masculine beauty. The knowledge that in every way that mattered he was still hers in spite of the separation they had endured thrilled her and played merry havoc with her defences. Her body hummed at her feminine core, desire stirring in her, even while common sense fought to suppress it and remind her that she was all dressed up and keen to arrive on time for the party.
Nik lowered his handsome dark head and in an abrupt motion Betsy twisted her head aside, fighting her natural inclinations before he could succeed and wreck her lipstick. ‘I’m all done up now,’ she reasoned in breathless excuse and then glanced up at him, disconcerted when she recognised a fleeting flash of wounded uncertainty in his gaze. Her heart leapt in dismay at the memory that look provoked. He had looked at her precisely like that the day he had walked out, as if he didn’t understand quite what he had done by making a secret of his vasectomy, couldn’t credit her reaction to the revelation and was incredibly hurt by it. She hadn’t understood it then but it still wasn’t an expression she could be comfortable seeing him wear again.
In an equally sudden movement she pulled free of his arms and spun to present him with her back. ‘Unzip me,’ she instructed.
‘But I thought—’ he began in apparent mystification at her change of heart.
‘Since when was I so fussy?’ Betsy teased shakily, eyes over-bright with sudden tears, her pregnancy hormones all on override because she wanted him, she always wanted him and she marvelled that he should not immediately grasp that little fact.
The dress shimmered down to the floor and she stood revealed in lacy underwear. He feasted his eyes on her tiny, increasingly curvy body while she scooped up the gown and laid it carefully over a chair. ‘Sometimes I want you so much it almost hurts,’ he told her in a hoarse undertone.
Colour mounted in her cheeks as he shed his jacket and shirt with none of the care she had employed. She strolled back to him and unfastened his trousers, slender hands delving beneath to find the long, hard evidence of his arousal and stroke his velvet-smooth, rigid shaft with wondering fingers until he swore in guttural Greek under his breath and wrenched off the remainder of his clothing with less patience than he had shown a moment earlier. She knelt at his feet pleasuring him with her lush mouth and knowing fingers, excitement lancing almost painful waves of arousal through her heated body with every groan she wrenched from him.
‘I want to make love to you,’ Nik growled, bending down to scoop her up and plant her down squarely on the end of the bed. He skimmed off her knickers and ran the tip of his tongue across the pointed evidence of her achingly sensitive swollen nipples before testing the honeyed welcome between her thighs with the single dip of a long, appreciative finger.
Even before he came down over her, Betsy was gasping and arching, unbearably eager for the finale she longed for. Nik tipped her legs over his shoulders and sank into her slick channel hard and fast, stretching her with delicious force.
‘You’re incredible in bed, kardoula mou,’ he told her rawly, angling back his hips before thrusting back deep inside again in a movement that wrenched a helpless cry from her convulsed throat.
Her heart raced and she struggled to breathe as the excitement built, backed by the ever-tightening constraint of tension gripping her pelvis. His fast, fluid rhythm became rougher, rawer as he pounded into her and finally she lost control, overwhelmed by the passion and the wild explosion of pleasure that assailed her when she could hold it back no longer. Even afterwards little tremors of delight continued to rock through her in rippling waves while she buried her face in Nik’s damp shoulder and drank in the hot, musky scent of the lean, powerful body pinning hers to the mattress.
‘I think we’d better make a move if we want to make the party before midnight.’ Mocking light green eyes rested on her dazed expression and he laughed as awareness reclaimed her, dismay flashed across her face and she shoved against his shoulders, scrambling to get up and reclaim her party finery.
* * *
‘I was really chuffed to see Nik taking some time to chat to Bruno about his art course,’ Belle confided as she urged Betsy into the conservatory at the rear of the vast and luxurious London town house she and Cristo lived in. It was two in the morning and most of the party guests had already taken their leave.
‘Nik probably finds Bruno less intimidating than his sisters,’ Betsy joked.
‘I invited far too many people tonight. I haven’t been able to get five minutes alone with you all evening,’ Belle complained, waving her glass of champagne in an emphatic gesture of annoyance, which sent a quantity of the golden liquid spilling over the lip of the goblet and down the stem.
Betsy laughed because the birthday girl was definitely a little tipsy. ‘It’s your party. Naturally everyone here wanted to speak to you personally—’
‘But you and Nik...it’s definitely all back on again?’ the lively redhead asked with a fascination she couldn’t conceal. ‘When Cristo first told me that Nik had moved back into the hall, I refused to believe it.’
Betsy resisted an urge to admit that she too had initially been incredulous about that development. But some things were better kept private. ‘The divorce is off,’ she confirmed. ‘We’re going to try again.’
Smooth brow furrowing, Belle studied her with keen curiosity. ‘In spite of everything that’s happened between you? Regardless of everything he’s done?’
Betsy chose to respond to those thorny questions with honesty. ‘Apart from the fact that Nik’s not the only one of us to have made mistakes, I never stopped loving him. I thought I had but then once I was with him again, I realised I’d only been kidding myself.’