His Reputation Precedes Him

She smiled. ‘Must be all that hot Mediterranean blood!’ Her cheeks coloured hotly as she seemed to realise what she had just said. ‘I meant—’

‘I know what you meant, Eva.’ Markos chuckled at she blushed. It was an endearing and unexpected quality in a woman in her late twenties who had been married and divorced, had lived in New York for the last seven years, and ran her own very successful interior design company. ‘And I believe you once implied that you thought Drakon cold when you met him?’

Eva was beginning to wish she had never continued this particular conversation! ‘You must have realised after last night that my judgement of a man’s character isn’t all that good—oh, good Lord!’ She winced as Markos raised one mocking brow. ‘I obviously wasn’t referring to you when I said that—what I was really trying to say was—’ She broke off with an irritated frown as Markos began to chuckle. ‘It isn’t funny!’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He was still smiling as he stood up slowly to move around the breakfast bar until he stood beside her. ‘Obviously I need to take you back to bed and refresh your memory as to how un-cold my own character is…’

He held out his hand, very dark and handsome with his dark hair still slightly ruffled, his jaw unshaven, and the tight-fitting black T-shirt outlining the muscles of his chest and flat abdomen.

‘So soon…?’ Her eyes were wide.

Markos eyed her quizzically. ‘You would rather not…?’

‘I didn’t say that!’ she protested instantly, her nipples having noticeably tightened beneath the black silk robe, and that moist warmth once again heating between her thighs. ‘I just— I’m just surprised that you—well, that—’

‘That I would, or could, want you again so soon?’ Markos finished huskily, his eyes dark with intent. ‘Come back to bed, Eva, and let me show you how much and in what ways I want you!’

Eva felt slightly shy as she placed her hand in Markos’s and stood up to accompany him to the bedroom. A ridiculous feeling after the intimacies the two of them had shared earlier.

The intimacies they were about to share again…

* * *

‘You may just succeed in killing me with pleasure, Eva!’ Markos groaned as she collapsed on top of him a long, long time later.

‘Not intentionally, I assure you.’ Eva chuckled weakly as she lay against the dampness of his hair-roughened chest, having totally lost count of the number of times and in how many ways Markos had brought her to climax—before she had gently pushed him back against the pillow and made love to him, first kissing his chest and the flatness of his stomach, before moving lower to take him into her mouth. Her fingers had encircled him as she’d licked that responsive length, until Markos had begged her to stop and she’d moved up to straddle his hips, taking him deep inside her, inch by pleasurable inch, before riding him—riding them both—to explosive pleasure.

His arms encircled her as he rolled to one side and took her with him. ‘What are your intentions towards me?’ he prompted gruffly.

Eva’s heart gave a leap even as she opened one wary lid to look up at him. ‘Entirely dishonourable, I assure you,’ she said softly.

Markos felt a sense of disappointment in Eva’s answer, even though he held her in his arms and had every intention of doing so for the rest of the day. And tomorrow…? Tomorrow, as he had already stated, was another day…

‘Markos?’

He gave a relaxed smile. ‘We will sleep now and talk later,’ he encouraged huskily, and he rested her tousled head more comfortably against his shoulder before settling back against the pillows.

‘Talk about what?’ she prompted, that earlier wariness now back in her voice too.

‘Whatever needs to be talked about,’ Markos dismissed lightly, and he closed his eyes, Eva still held firmly in his arms.

Eva lay awake for a long time after she knew by the soft and even tenor of Markos’s breathing that he had fallen into an exhausted sleep—hardly surprising when he’d confessed to having had no sleep the night before, and then embarked on two athletic bouts of exquisite lovemaking.

Amazingly wonderful lovemaking, during which Eva knew she had lost all and every inhibition she had ever had as Markos touched and kissed her in places she had never been touched or kissed before…

She felt…wonderful. Deliciously satiated. Every part of worshipped. And for once in her life Eva intended to let tomorrow take care of itself.

* * *

She had no idea whether it was day or night when she woke up, although the brightness of the sun shining through the bedroom window would seem to indicate it was probably late on Sunday afternoon.

Amazing.

She had never ever spent the whole day in bed with a man. And this was not just any man, but Markos Lyonedes.

She turned her head sideways on the pillow to look at him, smiling warmly as she saw that Markos was doing exactly the same thing. Those green eyes gleamed appreciatively, and the stubble was darker on his square chin, his hair tousled on his forehead, his muscled shoulders bare above the bedcovers.

‘Good afternoon,’ she greeted him huskily.