Nikos caught her thigh and hitched it up, bringing Maggie’s body into closer contact with his. He looked down at her and forced himself to hold back, even though he could feel the sweat breaking out on his brow.
‘Just so we know where we stand... Later you can have as boring as you like, but right now...in the short term...you have me.’
He surged deep inside her and Maggie’s whole body arched up to his, heightening the mind-melting sensation of joining their bodies.
Nikos let the physical momentum clear his mind of the fact that his encounter with this woman was way out of his usual comfort zone. And every coherent thought dissolved as they raced once again to the shattering peak of pleasure.
Nikos stood looking down at the sleeping Maggie for a long moment. Not the kind of behaviour he usually indulged in. A prickle of unease lay under his skin. He was reluctant to leave. When he never stayed. He always moved on.
He didn’t like this. At all. He felt out of control. At the mercy of a force outside of himself. Exposed.
He blamed the uncharacteristic sense of restlessness that had been plaguing him recently.
He reminded himself that, as erotic as this encounter had been, and as surprising as Maggie had been, she wasn’t any different from other women. She’d just been a virgin. That was it. That had to be the element that had elevated this experience ab
ove all others, distracting him when he knew he should have left already.
She was just a woman, and she’d piqued his interest briefly. Within a few days he’d have moved on and she would have become a dim memory.
The sense he’d had here of coming home was an illusion, and she’d been part of that illusion. A moment of craziness. But just a moment. Which would not be repeated.
Nikos injected ice into his veins and turned and walked out, already thinking ahead to the things he should be thinking of, and not lingering on a virgin Viking Queen who had given up her innocence with such artless passion.
When Maggie woke up the sun was streaming into the bedroom. She was disorientated—and then it all came back. She was in the master suite. Because she’d slept with the master.
She looked around. No sign of Nikos Marchetti. Everything felt very silent and still. The sheet was over her breasts, as if someone had pulled it up.
She came up on one elbow, her hair falling over one shoulder. She felt hollowed out from an overload of sensation, her body aching in places she hadn’t known she had muscles.
She saw the robe at the end of the bed and reached for it, pulling it on and getting out of the bed. She noticed that Nikos’s clothes weren’t scattered on the floor as they had been before.
The nape of her neck prickled.
The bathroom was empty.
She went out of the bedroom and down the corridor. She checked the kitchen. But even before she checked the study and the main living room she knew that she was alone.
He’d gone. Left.
Maggie went into the hall, and it was there that she saw the card propped up on the table, addressed to her with a slashing line in dark ink: Maggie.
She opened it.
Thank you for last night, I enjoyed it.
I apologise for the lack of notice. It won’t happen again.
Remember, no regrets.
If you need anything, contact my team.
Nikos
It took a long moment for the full impact of the note to hit her. It was like a slow punch to her belly, spreading outwards and making her feel cold. He hadn’t even left her his personal number.
Contact my team.
He couldn’t have made it any clearer that what had happened had been a very transitory moment.