The Maid's Best Kept Secret (The Marchetti Dynasty 1)

She was frowning. ‘What was that, Nikos? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

‘Is Daniel okay?’ he asked.

She frowned again. ‘He’s fine. He’s already asleep. Nikos, you didn’t hurt him.’

He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t that... I just...’

‘What was it?’

Nikos put up a hand. ‘You shouldn’t come any closer.’

Maggie could feel the unmistakable electric charge in the atmosphere. Her body was reacting to it, making her want to move closer to Nikos even though the warned her not to.

She knew she should turn and leave—clearly he didn’t want her here—but there was something in his face, in his eyes, that told a different story.

He needed her.

She didn’t even know how she knew that—she just did.

She could only guess that holding his baby for the first time had been about as cataclysmic as it had been for her when Daniel had been born.

She tried again. ‘What just happened?’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t explain it... Theos, Maggie, just get out.’

Maggie’s heart spasmed at the raw tone in Nikos’s voice. ‘Why?’

‘Because if you don’t I’ll have to touch you.’

Her pulse tripped and started again at a faster rate. ‘Why would that be a bad thing?’

Nikos’s jaw clenched. ‘Because I don’t feel very gentle right now.’

His warning didn’t scare her—it excited her.

She told him without words that he could touch her if he wanted to by stepping right in front of him.

Nikos said warningly, ‘Maggie...’ But there was something unguarded in his expression. In his voice.

She lifted a hand and touched his jaw, felt the stubble tickling her palm. He caught her hand and turned it, pressing a kiss to the centre, flicking out his tongue. Her insides seized on a spasm of lust.

When he bent his head she was already reaching up, meeting him halfway. Mouths collided as her arms slid around his neck. She was arching her body even closer. Nothing could hold her back from this.

She was vaguely aware of Nikos lifting her and settling her onto a hard surface. The bathroom counter. It put their mouths on the same level. He tugged at her shirt. She heard something ping. A button? She didn’t care. She just wanted Nikos’s hands on her bare flesh.

He pushed off her shirt, opened her bra, cupped her breasts. Laved one peak with his tongue and then the other. They were so sensitive... Maggie gripped Nikos’s head, her whole body tingling.

His shirt was open—had she done that? She reached for him, pushing it off his wide shoulders. It fell to the ground and she half slipped, half slithered off the counter to reach for his trousers, undoing the belt, then the button, the zip, pulling them down. She was infused with a kind of confidence that would have shocked her if she’d been able to appreciate it.

His erection was long and thick. ‘Touch me, Maggie...’

She wrapped her hand around him and he pulsed against her fingers. She moved her hand up and down experimentally and heard Nikos hiss a breath through his teeth.

He reached for her now, opening her jeans, tugging them down, taking her underwear with them. Then he lifted her again, back onto the marble surface. Her hands were dislodged from his erection and they went to his chest, fingers tangling in the dark hair curling over his pectorals.

A very feminine part of her exulted in his virile masculinity. It roused something that felt very primal in her. He pushed her legs apart, coming between them, and at the same time captured her mouth again.

He put his hand on her, between her legs. She could feel how hot she was. How damp. She might have been embarrassed if she hadn’t felt so needy. She pushed against him, silently begging him to—