Книга - Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress
LYNNE GRAHAM


The right mistress…but the wrong bride!Lindy was amazed when shipping tycoon Atreus Dionides made her his mistress. Her – with her fuller figure and lowly lifestyle, making candles and pot-pourri! However, Atreus seemed enchanted by her curves when he made passionate love to her at his country retreat.But Lindy came down to earth with two bumps – first when Atreus revealed she was just his weekend mistress; his bride would be selected from the upper echelons of Greek society. The second bump she wouldn’t be able to hide…because she was carrying Atreus’s baby! Pregnant Brides Inexperienced and expecting, they’re forced to marry!









‘We share the most unbelievable chemistry. No other woman has ever given me so much pleasure in bed.’


Lindy’s mind was still working back over what he had said only minutes earlier. ‘Why did you say a mistake with contraception would wreck everything?’



Atreus tensed. ‘Because it’s the truth. I don’t want a child with you.’



Inside herself, where he couldn’t see, Lindy recoiled from that cruel candour. ‘Don’t you like children?’ she asked.



‘A couple of paternity battles took the edge off any desire I might have to reproduce.’



‘Paternity battles?’ Lindy parroted in dismay. ‘Are you saying that you already have a child?’



‘None that I know of—a reality that some women have in the past chosen to regard as a challenge.’



‘In what way…a challenge?’



‘A rich man is a lucrative target in the paternity stakes,’ Atreus extended with rich cynicism. ‘I will only want a child when I’m married.’





Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress


by




Lynne Graham











www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)




Table of Contents


Cover Page (#uf0259446-d26b-52fc-b2f7-492d55cc9288)

Excerpt (#u9e090de0-7ecc-5170-88b9-2ab871cd5a19)

Title Page (#u4c15ca21-f528-57bf-a41a-c176615f39d7)

Chapter One (#uf3f8e12a-6568-55dc-be94-1cea8ee22a74)

Chapter Two (#ub48df96a-5b44-5462-998a-a9dc2bfdee75)

Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Preview (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One


AS TWO of the more elderly directors of Dionides Shipping again pressed questions that had already been answered Atreus let his attention stray to the Art Deco bronze on the far side of the boardroom. It was of a voluptuous Spanish dancer, only half-clad in what might once have been a romanticised concept of gipsy clothing.

When Atreus had first taken over as CEO of the family business he had been stunned by the sexy statue, which had seemed so out of step with his grandfather’s stern, old-fashioned outlook on life.

‘She reminded me of my first love,’ the old man had confided with a faraway look in his faded eyes. ‘She married someone else.’

Atreus could not imagine such a disappointment happening to him. The women he met these days were financially astute and a challenge to shake off. Ever since he’d been a teenager he had been relentlessly hunted by gold-digging beauties who would throw themselves in his path in attempts to ensnare him and his wealth. Black-haired, with eyes dark as sloes, and six foot three inches in height, Atreus had always been an object of desire. By the time he had twice become the unhappy focus of false paternity claims he had decided that he would only marry a woman with a fortune and social standing to match his own. His late father, Achilles, had set his only son a chilling example by living an exemplary life until the age of forty, when he had inexplicably gone off the rails by abandoning his wife and only child to run off with an artist’s model famous for dancing on tables. From then on wild self-indulgence and extravagance had ruled the lives of both Atreus’s parents, and he had lost his early childhood to their excesses. After that, raised almost entirely by his strict paternal uncle and aunt, Atreus had been deeply suspicious of any inner prompting to step off the straight and narrow. That had been his father’s fatal flaw; it would not be his.

Regardless of that fact, the Art Deco bronze had contrived recently to acquire a strange significance for Atreus. It reminded him of an episode some weeks earlier that had taken place on his country estate. On a warm summer afternoon while he had been walking through the woods he had come upon a curvaceous brunette skinny-dipping in the river. Her presence on private land had infuriated him. After all, he had paid a fortune for the seclusion of his large estate, and he employed numerous staff to guard his privacy from trespassers and camera lenses. Ironically, ever since then the memory of the brunette’s indescribably lush and creamy curves had had an extraordinarily erotic hold on him—awake and asleep. Yet she had been a woman who had borne not the slightest resemblance to the slender elegant blondes who usually attracted him…

In fact she had not been his type in any way, Atreus acknowledged impatiently. According to his estate manager, Lindy Ryman was an eccentric animal-lover who scratched a living making and selling pot-pourri and candles. A regular churchgoer, she was also a well-respected member of the local community, who hid her remarkable curves beneath drab long skirts and wintry woollens. Atreus had been tough on her in the woods, for at first he had been convinced that she had deliberately schemed—like so many women before her—to set up their encounter. Once he’d appreciated that she was no cunning temptress he had sent her flowers and an apology. He’d been amazed when she’d ignored those olive branches and failed to make use of the phone number he had included.

His mood darkening at the length of time his thoughts had stayed focused on the Ryman woman, Atreus suddenly wondered if he should offer her compensation to surrender her tenancy on his estate. Out of sight would be out of mind, and that might well be the best cure for what afflicted him. He had no doubt that he was too intelligent and logical to succumb to the attraction of a woman who was so outrageously unsuitable for him in every way…

‘You dumped Sarah?’ Lindy repeated, turning to glance at Ben.

‘She was getting serious. Why do women always do that?’ Ben enquired, with the pained expression of a male continually tortured by besotted females.

Look in the mirror, Lindy almost told him. She could still recall when she had fallen under the enchantment of Ben’s floppy blond hair, light green eyes and rangy frame. That had been way back when they’d first met at university, and he had put her firmly in the pigeonhole marked ‘Friends’. There had been no jumping ship. Some of the best days of her life had been wasted while she’d wished that she was tiny, cute and giggly instead of shy, sensible and quiet. Since then Lindy had got over him, and grown accustomed to watching him cut a destructive swathe through a long line of beauties. Ben didn’t want commitment, it seemed, just a good time. A City of London trader, he had a successful career and all the worldly trappings that ranged from a flash car to smart suits and the membership of the right gym. Yet Ben never really seemed happy with his lot, Lindy acknowledged ruefully.

‘If you weren’t as keen as she was, I suppose you were better breaking up with her,’ Lindy retorted evenly. Her soft heart went out to Sarah, who had sounded like a pretty nice person and who was probably grieving now over the loss of him—as Lindy had once grieved without even the excuse of ever having had him.

‘You are the most fabulous cook.’ Ben sighed, taking another bite of her crumbly iced carrot cake and savouring the taste.

Lindy compressed her lips, too well aware that no such proficiency would ever increase her appeal to the opposite sex. She was convinced that her real problem was that there was too much of her. Ever since she had been likened to a fertility statue at school, and bullied unmercifully on that basis, she had despised her full-breasted, generous-hipped body. Diets and exercise seemed to have little impact, and although she carried no surplus weight anywhere else she was embarrassed by her healthy appetite. Ben always dated small, skinny girls who made Lindy feel enormous and clumsy.

Lindy had dropped out of university when her mother fell ill. An only child from a poor home, she had had to give up studying for a law degree to nurse her mother through a long and sadly terminal decline. On the brink of returning to university Lindy had come down with a nasty bout of glandular fever. By the time she had recovered her own health she had lost interest in studying and had gone for an office job instead. Her flat-sharing days in London with her friends Elinor and Alissa had been fun, but since then both women had married, moved abroad and had families, so their meetings now were few and far between. Even so, it had been during a summer visit to Elinor and her husband Jasim’s English country home that Lindy had first fallen blissfully in love with the countryside. As soon as she had found a rural property at a rent she could afford—The Lodge, a small gatehouse at the edge of a grand estate—she had taken the plunge and jumped off the hamster’s wheel of urban working altogether.

Since then Lindy had devoted herself to making a living through pursuits she enjoyed. She grew lavender and roses, and made pot-pourri and candles which sold well via the internet. She took occasional part-time jobs when her bank account needed plumping up, but devoted most of her free time to helping out at the local animal sanctuary. She had acquired two rescue dogs: Samson and Sausage. Her friends might insinuate that she was throwing her youth away, but Lindy was content with her home, her small income and her simple life.

Of course every Eden had to have a serpent, she conceded ruefully. Hers was Atreus Dionides, the new, fabulously wealthy owner of Chantry House, a wonderful Georgian jewel of a mansion surrounded by a beautiful estate. Thanks to him, she was no longer free to roam where she liked through hundreds of acres of parkland and wood. Worst of all, her single unforgettable meeting with the wretched man had humiliated and distressed her so much that she had actually considered moving.

‘Are you quite sure that you don’t mind looking after Pip?’ Ben checked again, on his way out of the front door.

‘He’ll be fine here.’ An essential streak of honesty made Lindy sidestep the question, for if truth be told Pip was far from being her favourite house-guest.

The Chihuahua belonged to Ben’s mother, who expected her son to look after her pet whenever she went on holiday. Unhappily, Pip was a very cross little animal. Had he been larger he would have had to wear a muzzle. As it was, the tiny canine continually growled, snapped and barked, and even Lindy’s love of dogs was taxed by Pip’s bad temper and tendency to bite.

Lindy walked Ben out to his car. ‘You shouldn’t have parked on the drive. I don’t have a parking space here. The estate manager did ask me to ensure that my visitors parked outside the gates,’ she reminded him awkwardly.

‘The new owner is really making life difficult for you. If he keeps it up, I bet it could constitute harassment,’ Ben replied, climbing into the driver’s seat and opening the window on the passenger side to continue the conversation.

Lindy tensed and then froze when she saw a long dark limousine gliding through the tall black gates. In a trice, she had dropped down into a crouch by the passenger door, so that she was hidden from view by Ben’s sports car.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Ben demanded with raised brows.

‘Just don’t drive off until the limo has gone past!’ Lindy hissed, staying down, her face as red as a beetroot and as hot as fire.

The limousine continued down the drive at a stately pace and disappeared round a corner. Lindy slowly rose up to her medium height, glossy dark brown hair rippling round her shoulders, her violet-blue eyes strained and uneasy.

‘What were you doing?’ Ben asked in a tone of wonderment.

‘Never mind.’ Lindy shrugged rather unconvincingly. She told Ben she would see him the following Friday, when he came back to pick up Pip, and hurried into her cottage as fast as her legs would carry her, where she found the Chihuahua snarling viciously at poor Sausage, who had taken refuge beneath a chair.

Six weeks had passed since Lindy had met Atreus Dionides, in circumstances that still brought her out in a cold stricken sweat of reluctant remembrance when she strived to adjust to the reality that the Greek shipping tycoon had seen her stark naked. As he was the very first male who had ever seen her in that state, and he had utterly humiliated her, she was still struggling to get over the experience. Had she had the slightest suspicion that anyone might see her she would not have removed so much as a sock in public. After all, she was self-conscious even in a swimsuit, and skinny-dipping wasn’t something she had ever done before…or would ever do again in this lifetime.

In fact every time she thought about that afternoon she cringed and cursed her stupidity. On what had turned out to be the hottest day of the year she had spent the morning helping to unload a delivery of hay at the animal sanctuary. Riding home on her bike, her clothes sticking to her overheated skin, she had thought longingly of the river, where the rocks formed a safe natural pool. The previous summer she had paddled there on several occasions.

Of course back then the estate had been deserted, for it had still belonged to an old man who’d spent most of his time abroad and who had placed no restrictions on his tenants’ movements. Atreus Dionides, on the other hand, surrounded himself with high-tech security and knew to the letter of the law what rights he had and what rights his tenants had. The estate office had wasted no time in sending out a letter laying out the new ground rules and stressing the new owner’s desire for total seclusion and privacy within his extensive grounds.

But on that hot day six weeks ago Lindy had only intended to cool her bare feet for a few minutes. It was a quiet part of the river, where she had never seen another living soul before and where the trees and shrubs on the banks provided dense cover. Aware that Atreus Dionides usually only used the house at weekends, and that it was midweek, Lindy had succumbed to temptation and impulse and had done something totally out of character. Stripping down to her birthday suit and leaving her clothes in a pile, she had sunk slowly into the pool with a heady sigh of pleasure, revelling in the clean, cold refreshment of the water on her hot damp skin.

‘What are you doing here?’ an authoritative male voice had demanded, only minutes after her immersion, and she’d very nearly jumped out of her skin in fright.

Whirling round wide-eyed, Lindy had focused on the male poised on the bank and hastily dropped lower in the water to conceal her breasts. Sporting a sophisticated urban black business suit, teamed with a white shirt and silk tie, Atreus had looked bizarre against the backdrop of the natural woodland and all the more unreal. She had known who he was immediately as she had seen his photo when the local newspaper had published an excited article about the new owner of the Chantry estate. Even in black and white newsprint he was a very handsome man, if a little cold and grim in his chilly perfection of features. In person, however, Atreus Dionides was a glowing vision of bronzed masculinity and dark Mediterranean good-looks that would have stopped any woman dead in her tracks.

‘This is private property.’

Lindy had crossed her arms in front of her lest the water was not providing sufficient concealment. ‘Er…I’m sorry. It won’t ever happen again. If you go away I’ll get out and get dressed.’

‘I’m not moving anywhere,’ Atreus had delivered loftily. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

‘It’s a hot day. I fancied a swim to cool off,’ she’d explained uneasily, while wondering why on earth he felt the need to ask when the answer should have been obvious.

‘Stripped, ready and waiting for my first appearance?’ the Greek tycoon had retorted with sizzling derision. ‘I don’t go for naked ladies in the woods, or for brief outdoor encounters. You’re wasting your time.’

As it had dawned on Lindy that he actually suspected that she might have whipped off her clothes and got in the water purely in an effort to lure him into some sleazy sexual encounter, she’s been so aghast that she’d simply gaped at him in amazement.

‘Which of my staff told you I was coming out here?’ Atreus Dionides had shot at her.

‘Are you always this paranoid?’ Lindy had questioned in disbelief. ‘Look I’m getting really cold. Move away and I’ll get out and be off your land before you know it.’

It had been immediately evident that her reference to paranoia had gone down like a brick thrown through his front window, since he’d pushed back his big wide shoulders and, his aggressive jawline clenched, fixed his dark-as-treacle eyes on her. ‘Who tipped you off about my presence here today?’

Her very blue eyes had widened. ‘Nobody, I swear. I’m just an ordinary trespasser in the woods—one of your tenants, actually—and I would like to get out of the river and go home now.’

‘You’re a tenant?’ Atreus had queried harshly. ‘So, you’re trespassing in spite of the estate office’s request that you respect my privacy?’

‘I live at The Lodge. If I’d known you were at home I’d never have dared,’ she’d admitted truthfully, trying and failing to suppress a shiver, because she had only been able to bear the cold water while she was free to move around and jump up and down to keep warm. ‘Now, please be a gentleman and return to your…er…walk.’

‘The creed of the gentleman is long dead.’ He’d produced a mobile phone. ‘I’m calling Security to deal with you.’

And that was when Lindy had really lost her head with him. ‘How much of a bastard do you have to be? I’ve said sorry. What more can I do or say? I’m a woman standing naked in freezing water and you’re threatening to muster more men to see me like this?’ she’d shouted at him in horror. ‘I’m very cold, and I want my clothes!’

Hard, dark and unrepentant eyes had rested on her hot, angry face. ’I’m not preventing you from retrieving them.’

And she hadn’t been able to wait any longer. By that stage her feet had been so cold she’d been in pain, and she hadn’t been able to bear to stand there at his mercy any more. Utterly mortified, and inflamed by his intransigence, she’d waded out without looking anywhere near him. He’d not turned his back as any half-decent man would have done either. He’d stayed where he was and he hadn’t apologised. The very fact that no man had ever seen her naked before had made the ordeal that much more painful for her. Unbearably conscious of her bare breasts, and the all too great expanse of the rest of her, almost sick with embarrassment, she’d had to struggle with the difficulty of dragging her jeans and T-shirt over her wet skin. Naturally she hadn’t extended the time of her exposure by trying either to dry herself or put on her bra and knickers first.

She’d run all the way back to The Lodge, where she’d sat shell-shocked and tearful over the indignity of the ordeal he had put her through. Forty-eight hours later Atreus Dionides had sent her a superb bouquet of expensive flowers with a card that had contained an apology and the suggestion that she call him to arrange a dinner date. She had not been able to credit his nerve. His insolent invitation had simply sent her into paroxysms of frustrated rage.

Lindy was, after all, quite friendly with his housekeeper, Phoebe Carstairs, and as such was already reasonably well acquainted with his reputation as a womaniser. Phoebe had yet to see her wealthy employer with the same woman twice. According to Phoebe, Atreus liked dainty blondes in very high heels, and they all fawned over him like groupies and slept with him the first night they arrived. Lindy had read between the lines: Atreus was accustomed to a diet of flattery, awe and easy sex, with women capable of amusing him only for a single weekend.

Lindy was not and never would be that kind of a woman. Furthermore, how dared he even suggest that she would want to lay eyes on him again after the brutal, callous way he had treated her? He had shown the true colours of his character by the river. On the surface he might well be everything the newspaper had suggested—a phenomenally brilliant businessman who had taken a failing family company and transformed it into a contemporary Goliath which dominated the world shipping markets. And he was breathtakingly handsome and extraordinarily rich and privileged. But below that lustrous, classically beautiful surface he was a hatefully cold and unfeeling guy, with no manners and a considerable contempt for women. If Lindy had to wait a lifetime to see Atreus Dionides again it would be too soon.

But in fact she was to see Atreus again much sooner than she expected—and in circumstances that would prevent her from expressing her antipathy in the manner she would have liked.

Her bedroom was the only room in her compact gatehouse which provided her with a view of Chantry House. All she could actually see was the west wing of the extensive property, and at present that was not a pretty view because for many weeks that part of the building had been shrouded in unsightly scaffolding while it was being converted into staff accommodation. It was a clear night, without clouds, and when Lindy was closing the curtains shortly before midnight she immediately noticed a puff of smoke issuing from the roof. A frown line dividing her brow, she stared until she saw another, floating up slowly into the night sky. There was no chimney, and nobody living there yet either. She snatched in a dismayed breath, her fingers biting into the curtain as she peered out at the house. She was striving to crush back the bone-deep terror of fire that was already bringing her out in a cold sweat. Could it really be a fire? A suspicion of an orange glow behind a formerly blank window unfroze her from her position. She immediately reached for the phone to call the emergency services.

Then, in a frantic rush, she raced downstairs and snatched up her mobile phone to ring Phoebe Carstairs, who lived in the village and was the sister of Emma, who ran the animal sanctuary.

Phoebe ran out into her garden to take a look at Chantry House from across the fields.

‘Oh, my goodness, I can see the smoke from here! We’ll have to try and get the house cleared—it’s full of priceless furniture and paintings!’ Phoebe exclaimed in consternation.

‘Phoebe…’ Lindy interrupted as the other woman outlined her plan to call in the neighbours to help. ‘Is there anyone staying in the house at present?’

‘Mr Dionides arrived this afternoon…Oh, yes, and the cat—Dolly. I borrowed her from Emma to catch mice. I’m trying to call Mr Dionides…on the landline right now…but he’s not answering. Oh, no, maybe he’s been overcome by smoke! Look, you’re much closer than I am. You’d better go and knock him up before he gets incinerated in his bed!’

Wincing in reaction at that unfortunate turn of phrase, and suppressing the panic and reluctance awakened by Phoebe’s instruction, Lindy fled outside and jumped on her bike. She knew she had no choice but to get involved, and she was determined not to let her fear of fire prevent her from doing what she had to do. She pedalled frantically down the drive. There were no lights on. The mansion looked dead. Letting the bike fall to the gravel, she took the steps to the front door two at a time and hammered as noisily as she could on the giant knocker. Breathless and fiercely concerned, she kept on thumping the knocker until her arm ached and she had to change hands. By the time the big door finally opened, she could hear cars coming up the drive.

‘What the hell—? It’s after midnight.’ Atreus Dionides stared out at her with a frown of incomprehension. He was still fully dressed in an elegant pinstriped suit. With his luxuriant black hair dishevelled and a blue-black shadow of stubble roughening his strong jawline, he was no longer immaculate in appearance, but he looked startlingly masculine and…sexy, Lindy conceded—in some shock at this awareness occurring to her. Her tummy flipped, and perspiration dampened her short upper lip. She was embarrassed for herself.

‘The west wing is on fire!’ she gasped.

Atreus dealt her a look of frank incredulity. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Look, your house is on fire…don’t be pigheaded!’ Lindy yelled at him, sensing that being obstinate and independent of thought ran through his every fibre, like a name stamped indelibly into a stick of seaside rock.

Atreus strode down the steps. ‘On…fire?’

‘West wing. Top floor!’

His long, powerful legs cut the distance to the corner of the house at a rate she could not keep up with. Once there, he stilled at the sight of the glow lighting the darkness, while Lindy’s tummy gave a sickening lurch and cold fear chilled her to the marrow. A biting phrase of guttural Greek escaped him before he was galvanised into action.

Several powerfully built men had already jumped out of a big four-wheel-drive to race across the gravel towards him. Lindy recognised the musclebound males who seemed to travel everywhere with him as his bodyguards. He rapped out instructions to them and they walked straight into the house.

‘Is it safe to let them go inside?’ Lindy queried worriedly.

‘If it were not I would not send them. The seat of the fire is a considerable distance from the library,’ Atreus responded loftily, his irritation at that suggestion of censure unconcealed. ‘My laptop and sensitive papers must be retrieved.’

Lindy could not credit that he could still be concentrating solely on business when the superb paintings she could see decorating the hall walls were under threat. Didn’t he appreciate how terrifyingly fast a fire could move through a building? A terrifying shiver of remembrance that was a powerful hangover from her childhood experiences ran through her. Clenching her hands into fists of restraint, she turned away to approach Phoebe, who was surrounded by a cluster of locals. All of them were frozen into inactivity in the weird fascination of spectators watching a potential disaster develop.

‘There’s no time to waste. Let’s get the artworks out,’ Lindy urged.

A chain of willing helpers formed, and the first paintings were removed and passed out through the windows from hand to hand. Lindy, always a talented organiser, co-ordinated the effort, and once the Dionides bodyguards and estate workers joined them the salvage operation began to function with greater speed and efficiency. Two fire engines arrived and Atreus went into immediate consultation with the senior officer in charge. Ladders went up and hoses began to cover the ground. Chantry House sat on a hill, and water would have to be pumped up from the lake if the flames got a firm hold.

The task of clearing valuables from the vast mansion was eased by the fortunate fact that many of the rooms were awaiting redecoration and still empty. As the pressure on the salvage operation lessened Lindy watched in fierce trepidation as jets of water were directed into the burning building and billowing clouds of black smoke poured into the night sky. Even the smell of the smoke in the air made her feel queasy.

‘The fire’s travelling through the roof void,’ Atreus ground out.

‘Did the cat get out okay?’ Lindy asked, belatedly recalling Dolly, the animal the housekeeper had mentioned.

Atreus urged her back onto the lawn as the orange glare behind a sash window loudly cracked the glass. ‘What cat? I don’t have animals in the house.’

Lindy dealt him a look of consternation and raced over to Phoebe. A storage lorry was reversing in readiness to load the paintings stacked on the tarpaulins that had been spread on the grass.

‘Did Dolly get out?’ Lindy asked frantically.

‘Oh! I forgot about her!’ the older woman admitted guiltily. ‘I closed her in the kitchen for the night. I didn’t want to risk her getting out and wandering round the house.’

The fire team in the hallway told her she couldn’t enter the building. Tears of frustration in her eyes, Lindy pelted round to the back of the house. Would she really have the courage to go inside? she asked herself fiercely, doubting her strength of will in the face of such a challenge? The back door lay open. Her legs felt weak and woolly. She thought about the cat and, sucking in a deep jagged breath, conquered her paralysis and stumbled forward to race into the house. She sped down the flagged corridor and past innumerable closed doors. For a split second she froze in fear, for the smell of the smoke was rousing ever more frightening memories. But commonsense intervened and she snatched up a towel in the laundry room and held it to her face because the acrid smoke was catching horribly at her nose and her throat. Long before she reached the kitchen door, it had become a struggle to breathe.

She could hear a dull roaring sound behind the kitchen door and her courage almost failed to her, but she was powered by an image of Dolly’s terror and the sick memory of herself as a child, trapped in a burning house. Using the towel to turn the door handle, in case it was hot, she opened the door just as a man shouted at her from behind.

‘Don’t open the door…no!’ he roared, but she was on an adrenalin rush and she did not even turn her head.

She was shaken by the discovery that the ceiling was on fire. Although there was a scattering of small burning pieces of debris on the floor, the kitchen was still eerily intact within that unnatural orange glow of impending destruction. The heat, however, was intense. Dolly had taken shelter under the table. An elderly black and white cat, with big green eyes, she was clearly not her usual placid self. A smouldering piece of wood lay nearby and Dolly was snarling at it, with her hackles lifted and her fur standing on end.

Lindy surged forward and snatched up Dolly just as the most dreadful rending noise sounded from above her. Inadvertently she paused and obeyed a foolish compulsion to look up. Someone lifted her bodily off her feet and hauled her backwards. A burning beam fell on the table and rolled off again, showering sparks and choking dust only feet away from her. She had been right in its path, and the fear of what might have been hit her hard and left her limp.

Atreus carried Lindy and the struggling cat to safety and withstood a volley of reproof from the fireman who had followed his rescue bid. She was coughing and spluttering as Atreus lowered her to the cobbled yard outside, and she breathed in the clean air with feverish relief.

‘How could you be so stupid?’Atreus yelled at her, full volume. ‘Why didn’t you stop when I shouted at you?’

‘I didn’t hear you shout!’

‘You risked my life and your own for an animal!’ Atreus launched at her in condemnation.

That verbal attack shocked her, and at the same moment she feverishly fought disturbing recollections of the household fire that had many years earlier taken her father’s life. The combination made her eyes prickle and overflow and she flung him a speaking glance of reproach. ‘I couldn’t just leave Dolly to die in there!’

The cat was now curled up in Lindy’s arms, with her furry head tucked well out of view. She was paying not the smallest heed to the crackling flames leaping through the roof of the west wing, or to the noise and activity of the human beings rushing around. Dolly had had enough excitement for one day and recognised a safe haven when she was offered one.

‘You could have been killed or at the very least seriously injured,’ Atreus admonished fiercely.

‘You were a hero,’ Lindy pronounced through clenched teeth of ingratitude. ‘Thank you very much for saving my life.’

Fighting to contain his anger with her, Atreus gazed down at her defiant oval face. She wasn’t beautiful but there was something about her, a heady je ne sais quoi that made him blatantly aware of her femininity. Was it those clear bright eyes? The luxuriant mane of long dark hair? Or the voluptuous figure that had infiltrated his dreams and caused him more disturbed nights that he cared to remember? She was full of emotion, a far cry from the reserved and controlled women he was used to dealing with. Her tear-filled eyes were as bright as amethysts, her lush, vulnerable mouth as ripe as a peach, and she continued to tremble as if the fire was still overhead. Anger lurched inexplicably into more complex responses that tensed his big powerful frame with surprise and electric sexuality. Hunger for her hit him as hard as a punch in the gut.

‘I know I don’t sound grateful,’ Lindy added gruffly, staring up at him, striving not to notice how beautifully his thick black lashes enhanced his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘But I am really. Dolly was so frightened—didn’t you see her?’

‘Nasi pari o Diavelos,’ Atreus swore raggedly under his breath. ‘I saw only you.’

His intensity slashed through her strained attempt to behave normally. Her mouth running dry in the tension-filled atmosphere, she collided with his smouldering gaze and her ability to breathe seized up. He swooped like the predator she sensed he was at heart. He did not ask, he simply took, and his wide sensual mouth engulfed hers with a hot, driving energy that sizzled through her unprepared body like flame consuming tinder-dry wood. She moaned at the penetration of his tongue between her lips and the slow, sensual glide of it against hers, because her body was going haywire.

Sultry heat was tingling through her nerve-endings in a seductive wave. She tried to make herself pull back from him but could not find sufficient will-power to contrive that feat of mind over matter. Her nipples were lengthening into pointed pulsing buds constrained by the lace cups of her bra, and there was a treacherous yearning burn and an embarrassing dampness between her thighs. Together those sensations were winding her up as tight as a clock spring. As he pressed her against him, even through the barrier of their clothes, she was hopelessly aware of the hard, thrusting evidence of his arousal.

‘Full marks for surprising me,’ Atreus said huskily, surveying her with bold appreciation as he tilted back his handsome head. ‘You are hotter than that fire in there, mali mou.’

Lindy, who had never seen herself as being hot in any capacity, sucked oxygen into her depleted lungs and accidentally, in her eagerness to avoid Atreus’s scrutiny, caught the eye of the woman who had taken up a hesitant stance several feet away. It was Phoebe Carstairs.

‘I’m sorry for interrupting, Mr Dionides,’ the older woman said awkwardly. ‘But I thought I could take care of the cat for you.’

On wobbly lower limbs, Lindy detached herself from Atreus and moved away to hand over the cat, who had tolerated being crushed between their straining bodies without complaint. She could not meet Phoebe’s eyes; she was in shock…




Chapter Two


‘WE CAN make tea, coffee and sandwiches at The Lodge,’ Lindy told Phoebe only minutes later, whipping herself straight back into her sensible self and suppressing all memory of that temporary slide into a persona and behaviour alien to her. ‘Everyone will need a break and my house is the most convenient. I have to get my bike. If you have nothing more pressing to do, follow me down in your car.’

But even back within the cosy confines of her safe home Lindy discovered that she couldn’t stop her hands shaking. She might have mastered her thoughts, but her body was still caught up in shock. She leant up against the sink, breathing in and out in steadying streams. She had gone into the house and got Dolly. That was all that mattered. She hadn’t let her terror of fire paralyse her as it had threatened to do, she reminded herself soothingly. She was not the hysterical type. She was not. She would leave the past where it belonged and stay calm. There would be no crying or silly fussing. The deed was done and nobody had got hurt.

Slowly her hands began to steady and she felt in control again. That reminded her that for a timeless instant in the circle of the Greek tycoon’s arms she had felt frighteningly out of control. Of course the fire had roused distressing fragments of memory which had knocked her very much off balance. How silly she had been, clinging to him like that! But these days what was in a kiss? she asked herself in exasperation. In the press, kisses had become almost meaningless in the face of far more intimate embraces, and in the literal heat of the moment were men not more prone to such physical reactions?

It hadn’t meant anything—of course it hadn’t. It was just that they were both shaken up and rejoicing in being alive and unharmed. Goodness, she wasn’t Atreus Dionides’s type at all! She wasn’t small, blonde and beautiful, or even wellgroomed. Lindy glanced down at the corduroy skirt and V-necked sweater she wore and a rueful peal of laughter parted her lips. The kiss had just been one of those crazy inexplicable things and she would soon forget about it…

But she would not forget how he had made her feel. No, indeed. It would take total amnesia to wipe out the memory of that jaggedly sweet pleasure—jagged because it hurt to feel anything that strong and sweet, because it had melted every bone in her body and dissolved her self-discipline. No other guy had ever managed a feat like that. In fact, never until now had Lindy realised what all the fuss was about when it came to sex. She might not yet have met a man she wanted to sleep with, but she had certainly kissed plenty of frogs in her time. By no stretch of the imagination was Atreus a frog, but that had no bearing on the fact that he was as out of her reach as an astronaut on the moon.

Phoebe finally arrived with a laundry basket packed with provisions. The owner of the village shop had opened up specially to sell her bread and cooked meats, and had donated a pile of paper cups. The two women set about making trays of sandwiches.

‘Lindy?’ Phoebe said tautly, breaking the companionable silence. ‘Please don’t be offended, but I feel I should warn you to be careful with Mr Dionides. I have every respect for him as my employer, but I can’t help having noticed that he’s a very smooth operator with women. I don’t think he takes any of them seriously.’

‘The kiss was a flash in the pan—one of those daft things that just happens in the heat of the moment,’ Lindy responded in a dismissive tone of faked amusement. ‘I don’t know what came over either of us, but it won’t be happening again.’

‘I would hate to see you getting led down the garden path,’ the housekeeper confided in a more relaxed tone.

‘I’m very resilient and not given to flights of fancy,’ Lindy countered.

And she reminded herself of those facts when Atreus himself put in an appearance an hour later. She saw him across the crush in her small packed living room where, to find a space, people stood or sat on the arms of chairs, or even lounged back against the walls. Atreus was unmissable because he towered over everyone else, his dark well-shaped head instantly visible. He was talking on a mobile phone, the shadow of stubble outlining his masculine jaw line heavier than before. He had fabulous bone structure, from the defined width of his proud cheekbones divided by his arrogant blade of his nose to the unsettling fullness of his wide, sensual mouth.

She had to drag her attention from his hard, handsome face to notice that there was a long rip in the sleeve of his jacket, and the cuffs and front of his shirt were smoke-stained. She wondered with a stab of concern if he had got hurt. She glimpsed the glimmering gold of his stunning eyes as he frowned, ebony brows pleating, and she ducked back into the kitchen before he could see her. Even after that brief exposure her heart was already hammering as fast as if she’d run a marathon. He was gorgeous—there was no other word to better describe him. Instant exhilaration and renewed energy leapt and bounded through her, banishing her weariness, overpowering any sensible train of thought.

‘More tea?’ Phoebe prompted.

‘No. I think the rush is over.’ As the kitchen door opened Lindy swivelled, and when she saw who it was she felt ridiculously like a schoolgirl being confronted by a grown-up who knew she had a huge crush on him.

‘So this is where you are,’ Atreus drawled. ‘Come into the other room.’

‘I’m really busy—’

‘You’re a hive of industry, a very capable woman. I’m impressed, but it’s time you relaxed,’ he intoned, closing a dominant hand over hers and tugging her willy-nilly back to the door where he stood.

Never comfortable in receipt of praise, Lindy frowned. ‘I didn’t do anything that other people didn’t do.’

‘You organised them all. I saw you in action. You’re a remarkably bossy little thing,’ Atreus remarked with unhidden amusement.

Nobody had ever described Lindy as ‘little’. But then he was very tall, and in comparison to him she supposed that she could be considered small. Her fingers trembled in the hold of his. After those unexpected compliments she could hardly catch her breath, never mind speak. They were on the threshold of the living room. Heads turned in their direction and stayed turned at the sight of them poised there together. Her creamy skin flamed. She saw the speculative looks they were attracting and averted her gaze.

‘It doesn’t take much to encourage gossip round here,’ she warned him ruefully.

‘Does that bother you? Conventional women don’t strip and jump into rivers in broad daylight,’ Atreus countered.

Lindy froze. ‘I still haven’t forgiven you for the way you behaved that day.’

Atreus was not accustomed either to seeking forgiveness or indeed absolution. Women invariably made life easy for him by affecting not to notice his mistakes or omissions. Last-minute cancellations and his appearances in the company of other women were always ignored to ensure that he called again. He had learned that when it came to her sex he could get away with just about anything.

‘You were a real seven-letter-word that day at the river!’ Lindy proclaimed without hesitation, when he made no comment.

Atreus tried to recall when he had last heard anyone utilise such care to avoid a swear-word and he was amused.

‘You were rude, thoroughly unpleasant and unreasonable, and you humiliated me!’ Lindy spelt out in a fiery rush to get her point across.

‘I apologised to you,’ Atreus reminded her, with more than a touch of impatience. ‘I rarely apologise.’

It was true that he had apologised, Lindy acknowledged ruefully, wondering if she was being unfair in still holding spite. After all, the man had saved her from serious injury when she’d rescued Dolly. He had also proved that in a crisis he was cool, courageous and protective, all sterling qualities of character which she very much admired. So why couldn’t she escape the suspicion that treating a woman well didn’t come naturally to Atreus Dionides?

‘I don’t know why you’re flirting with me,’ she told him flatly.

‘Don’t you?’

The doubt in his tone provoked her into looking up, and she met smouldering golden eyes below the black sweep of his lashes. Excitement hurtled through her like a wild wake-up call. Thought and breath were suspended. Without any warning at all she wanted his mouth so badly on hers that being denied it hurt. In shock, she tore her gaze from his and retreated into the kitchen.

A split second later all the lights in the house went out. A buzz of dismayed comment was accompanied by the sound of switches being put on and off without success. The kitchen door opened.

‘Your electricity supply must be connected to that of Chantry House, which has been disconnected for safety.’ Atreus’s accented drawl came out of the darkness. ‘It’ll take some time to reorganise that, and it’s unlikely to be today.’

‘Oh, great,’ Lindy muttered ruefully, leaning back against the kitchen cupboards and pushing her dark hair off her damp brow. The shower she had been dreaming about was out of reach now.

The locals began to leave with a chorus of thank-yous for her hospitality.

‘You go as well, Phoebe,’ Lindy urged the Chantry housekeeper, who was hovering at her elbow. ‘It’s been a long night and there’s no need for you to stay on. Most of the cleaning up has already been done.’

‘If you’re sure?’ Phoebe said uncertainly.

‘Of course I am.’

‘Why don’t you come home with me?’ the older woman asked. ‘At least we have electricity.’

‘We’re not that far away from dawn. I’ll be okay,’ Lindy pointed out, reckoning that her companion, who had five children and a husband packed into her tiny terraced house, had quite enough people to contend with when she got home. She groped below the sink to locate her torch, and lit Phoebe’s departure through the back door, locking up in the older woman’s wake.

‘Lindy?’

Lindy flinched in surprise at the sound of the Greek tycoon’s distinctive accented drawl, travelling from the room next door. ‘I thought you’d already gone,’ she admitted, able to distinguish now between different shades of light and dark and picking out his tall, dark silhouette by the living room window.

‘Some thanks that would be for the assistance you gave tonight—abandoning you here without either power or heating,’Atreus derided. ‘I have a suite booked at Headby Hall and I’d like you to come with me.’

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Lindy breathed, taken aback by that casual invitation to the leading country house hotel for miles around.

‘Don’t be impractical. You must be as eager for a shower and a break as I am,’ he pointed out. ‘In little more than four hours I have to be back at the house to meet the insurance assessors and the conservation team being put together as we speak.’

‘I’ll be fine here,’ she asserted.

‘You would genuinely prefer to sit here unwashed and cold rather than accompany me to a more civilised and comfortable location?’

Her small white teeth set together hard, because he was making her sound peculiar while at the same time his tone somehow contrived to suggest that such standoffish behaviour was only what he had expected from her all along. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to pack a bag,’ she told him, her voice as abrupt as the decision she had reached.

By the light of the torch she flung pyjamas and a change of clothes into an overnight bag. The dogs had food, water and cosy kennels, and although they were accustomed to sleeping indoors with her they would be all right until the morning. Even so, she was belatedly stunned that she could have agreed to go to a hotel with Atreus Dionides, for such bold behaviour didn’t come naturally to her.

Lindy eased into the back of the limousine with as much cool as she could muster. In the act of regretting her agreement, she turned to address Atreus—but his phone was already ringing again and his attention was elsewhere. She listened to him talking in what she assumed to be Greek and asked herself why she should feel so apprehensive. After all, he was only being kind in offering her an escape from a cold, dark house without hot water.

Headby Hall was the ultimate in luxury hotels, and Lindy had never crossed its threshold before. She was horribly conscious of her humble clothing and severely tried by Atreus’s efforts to get her to walk through the foyer ahead of him when what she most wanted was to reach the lift without being noticed by a single living soul.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him in wonderment when he completed yet another phone call.

‘I’m still operating on adrenaline.’

‘I’m sorry about the house. I know that the work you were having done was almost complete.’

‘I have other houses,’ he asserted.

Without thinking, Lindy rested a light hand on his arm. ‘I noticed the rip in your jacket. Did you get hurt?’ she asked anxiously.

Atreus looked down into her warm, sympathetic gaze and wondered when a woman had last looked at him as if she was restraining a powerful need to offer him comfort and a hug. Never, he acknowledged wryly, not even when he had been a child. In his experience women were usually more gifted at taking, and there was a hefty price ticket attached to anything on offer with any greater depth.

‘It’s only a scratch.’

Meeting his brilliant dark golden eyes, she felt her mouth run dry and her tummy lurched. The lift doors opened and she stiffened and tore her gaze from his. They walked down a private corridor to a door that was already being opened by a member of his staff. Tense with unease, Lindy entered a splendid, sumptuously furnished reception room adorned with fresh flowers. Designer luggage was being carried into one bedroom while her ancient holdall was already comfortingly visible through the doors of a second.

‘I’ve ordered some food for us. You didn’t eat anything while I was around,’ Atreus remarked.

‘I’ll get changed,’ Lindy muttered, heading for the second bedroom with alacrity.

In the en suite bathroom, she stripped where she stood and used the hotel toiletries to wash her hair and freshen up in the shower. It was wonderful to rinse away the smell of smoke that seemed to have impregnated her skin and everything she wore. Clean again, she dried her hair with the dryer provided, using her fingers and then fetched her clothes from the holdall. She donned a long green skirt and a cream T-shirt, and left her legs and feet bare because she couldn’t face struggling into tights or shoes. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, for her glossy dark brown hair had fallen into the natural waves she disliked and she was convinced that her face was as pink as a freshly scrubbed lobster.

A trolley of food now stood beside the table and chairs in the reception room next door. Atreus was waiting for her and, like her, he had opted for informality. His black hair was damp and swept back from his lean, darkly handsome features. He was wearing black designer jeans and an open-necked shirt. As she appeared he studied her for a long moment and then slowly smiled.

And that smile on his wide, sensual mouth lit Lindy up inside like the blazing fire that had devoured a good third of Chantry House. It left little room for anything but instant reaction on all fronts. Her face was hot, and she sat down because she felt dizzy. Eyes screened by her lashes, she surveyed him, from his straight brows and dark deepset eyes to his newly shaven jawline, no longer defined by a blue-black shadow of stubble. There was something about the exact arrangement of his arrestingly beautiful features that drew her more than mere good-looks, she acknowledged in a daze. He magnetised her, exuding an irresistible pull of energy that overwhelmed her usual common sense. Sexual attraction had never hit her so hard.

Lindy accepted a couple of snacks and nibbled at them without much appetite while Atreus talked about the meetings he already had lined up for the morning. Even the sound of his voice set up a responsive vibration in her backbone. When she met his eyes she felt as if the ground had vanished and she was in mid-air, in the act of falling from a great height. It was terrifying and exhilarating and, because such excessive sensations were previously unknown to her, she decided that feeling that way around him was wrong and dangerous.

Indeed, as soon as an opportunity offered itself Lindy rose to her feet and smoothed damp palms down over her skirt. ‘I’m very tired. I think I’ll turn in now. Thanks for supper…and the shower was very welcome,’ she added with a warm smile.

And just like that she was gone.

Atreus studied the closed door of her bedroom in amazement and wondered when he had last run into a brick wall put up by a woman flatly refusing to acknowledge or respond to his signals. Never. He was torn between amusement and frustration.

Lindy leant briefly up against the back of the door and tried to be proud of her self-restraint. She had resisted him, the most beautiful sexually compelling male she had ever met. She was still stunned that he had found her attractive. Or had it simply been a matter of her being the only woman available for a little dalliance after a stressful day? Was that her putting herself down again? Whatever, she had no doubt that he had had every intention of their ending what remained of the night in the same bed.

That would have been a very foolish move on her part, she told herself ruefully. The idea of a one-night stand with a man she hardly knew filled her with distaste. On the other hand, a little voice she didn’t recognise murmured inside her head, he might well have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or was that wishful thinking? She was ashamed of the way her mind was working. She had never planned to be a virgin at her age; it was just something that had happened when a serious relationship failed to transpire. Atreus was pretty much the first man to seriously attract her since those first heady days in Ben’s radius. Of course she was curious about sex, but that was not an excuse to conduct an experiment. If she had been embarrassed when he’d seen her naked in the river, how would she feel meeting him in future if she had shared a bed with him?

With a shudder of reaction at that mortifying thought, Lindy embraced her cautious, sensible self and climbed into bed naked, enjoying the cool feel of the sheets against her bare skin. She had never been so tired in her life, but she still felt very jumpy and found it hard to relax—even though her limbs felt like lead weights on the comfortable mattress. She set her mobile phone alarm to rouse her at eight and mentally counted sheep. Within minutes she was sliding into a deep sleep. Her dreams, however, were very far from being soothing. Too many disturbing memories had been unleashed by the fire, and all her rigorous attempts to suppress those upsetting images while she was still awake had failed to lay them to rest.

‘Lindy…wake up!’ She fought through the barriers of sleep and realised that her shoulder was being shaken.

She sat up with a start, her eyes flying open not on the scary scene which had been unfolding behind her lowered eyelids but on a lamplit and momentarily unfamiliar room. Bewildered, and very distressed by what she had recalled, she only then processed the reality that she was shaking and sobbing.

‘You were dreaming. You’re awake now,’ Atreus asserted, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Bare-chested, he had clearly only paused to pull on his jeans before coming in.

As Atreus entered her field of vision Lindy belatedly acknowledged his presence and stiffened in alarm. ‘Did I wake you up?’

‘You were screaming at the top of your voice. That must have been some bad dream,’ Atreus responded, his attention roaming to the ripe swell of her full breasts which were only just covered by the sheet and resolutely shifting upward again.

A violent shudder rippled through Lindy. ‘Because it wasn’t a dream,’ she shared, on the back of another heaving sob. ‘When I was f-four years old, I was in a house fire.’

Atreus tensed, frowning while he watched the tears drip off her chin and listening to her sniff. She was really crying, and not in a cute way either, for her nose had turned pink and her eyelids were swollen. But there was something extraordinarily touching about her genuine distress, and he closed an arm round her in an abrupt and almost clumsy movement.

It was one of those very rare occasions in life when Atreus felt out of his depth. Being supportive didn’t come naturally to him. He had grown up in a family famed for its reserve and formality. He had been taught to avoid emotion like the plague and he had no close ties with his surviving relatives. He had never had a serious relationship with a woman, and had always walked away when an affair threatened to become complicated.

The warmth of his arm was comforting. Lindy struggled to control the sobs and the tempest of emotion still rising inside her. ‘Afterwards, my mum told me that my dad must’ve fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand and the sofa caught fire. He’d been drinking—my mum was in hospital. I woke up and there was smoke coming under the door and a funny smell,’ she related shakily.

Atreus swore half under his breath in Greek. ‘And yet you went into a burning house to save a cat tonight?’ he breathed, in wrathful incredulity.

Lindy’s mind was still firmly lodged in past events. ‘I tried to go downstairs but I could see something was in flames at the foot. I was terrified, so I started screaming for Dad.’ Her voice cut off, and she twisted and buried her face in the warm living flesh of Atreus’s bronzed shoulder. ‘For a moment I saw him, but until tonight I didn’t remember that I had actually seen him. He was trying to come to me but the fire got him!’ she sobbed brokenly.

Atreus was appalled. A dark frown stamping his features, he wrapped his other arm round her shuddering body and held her close. He was thinking about the selfless way she had rushed to the fire at Chantry House and helped out in every way she could. Not by a word or even a gesture had she hinted at what that intervention must have cost her emotionally. ‘You’re a very brave woman, mali mou.’

‘I’m just ordinary.’ Lindy snatched in a sustaining breath and choked back another sob, fighting with all her might to get a grip on her flailing emotions. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying now about something that happened so long ago.’‘

‘The fire at Chantry last night brought it all to the surface again. How did you escape when you were a child?’

‘I believe a fireman rescued me, but I don’t remember it. I was incredibly lucky to survive.’ Her voice petered out in shock as she finally registered that the sheet between them had slipped. Her bare breasts were crushed against his hair-roughened masculine torso. ‘I’m so sorry I woke you up.’

‘You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep,’ Atreus admitted, long lean fingers lacing into the tousled tumble of her dark hair to turn her face up.

Smouldering dark golden-brown eyes assailed hers, and then he brought his handsome mouth down and captured her lips with a piercingly sweet eroticism that cut through her defences like a knife. Breathing in little fractured bursts, Lindy drowned in those hungry, drugging kisses, her body quickening and heating in response. There was a frantic driving edge to every sensation: the stingingly tight sensitivity of her nipples, the tugging pull of dissatisfaction at the heart of her.

Atreus closed his hands round the creamy magnificence of her jutting breasts and moulded them with a husky masculine sound of satisfaction. He used his thumbs to chafe the quivering pink tips until, in pursuit of closer contact, he pressed her back against the pillows and put his mouth to her breast instead.

A gasp was dragged from Lindy, who was reeling in sensual shock from the impact of his lovemaking. The tug of his lips and his teeth, and the brush of his tongue on her tormentingly sensitive nipples, made her squirm while desire flared ever higher and stronger inside her. That she had to struggle even to think straight, however, scared her.

‘We hardly know each other!’ she protested.

‘This is the very best way to get to know me, glikia mou,’ Atreus intoned with conviction

‘But I didn’t want to get to know you!’ Lindy objected, guiltily studying the clinging fingers she had knotted into the springy depths of his black hair.

‘You want me and I want you. Why should that be a problem?’

‘Because it is…I don’t do stuff like this.’

‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Atreus declared with single-minded purpose.

‘You’re not my type,’ she told him in desperation.

‘Why didn’t you say so sooner?’ Atreus levered back from her to gaze down at her with shimmering golden eyes full of enquiry.

Lindy crossed concealing arms over her breasts.

‘I love looking at you,’Atreus confided, stroking an appreciative hand down to the point where her surprisingly small waist segued into the violin curve of her hip. ‘You have the most spectacular shape.’

The intensity of his appraisal convinced her of his sincere approbation and lessened her discomfiture. Without being aware of any prompting to do so, Lindy slowly, shyly parted her arms again, because she was discovering that she really loved the idea of him looking at her and admiring her. Not a single compliment on that score had ever come Lindy’s way. Until that moment her voluptuous curves had been a physical flaw and an embarrassment which she hid to the best of her ability. But, transfixed by the glow of bold appreciation in Atreus’s gaze, she felt like a goddess come to earth to mesmerise mortal man.

‘You looked at the riverbank,’ Lindy accused him.

‘Ise omorfi…you are beautiful…of course I did. The glory of you took my breath away, mali mou.’

He had barely finished speaking before Lindy stretched up and sought his wide, sensual mouth for herself again. She savoured the taste of him like a precious wine, parting her lips eagerly for the erotic plunge of his tongue while she quivered at the clenching tightness of response low in her pelvis. He had ignited a hunger in her that she could not resist.

‘Is this a yes?’

‘Yes…’Lindy whispered, feeling madly daring and sexy for the first time in her life while she defied the voice of restraint and reproach striving to be heard in the back of her head.

The pressure of his mouth on hers was an enticement of no mean order. Her head fell back against the pillows, her neck extending in a soundless sigh as he touched her where she had never been touched before. Little tremors of fierce response assailed her while he teased the honeyed folds of flesh between her thighs. The pleasure was exquisite, but as her excitement grew the pleasure came closer to sensual torture. The more he touched her, the more she wanted, and the less she wanted to wait. He suckled the distended peaks of her breasts and her spine arched, and she cried out as he probed the narrow passage at the swollen heart of her.

She was dimly aware of him removing his jeans and a moment of panic claimed her. ‘Don’t get me pregnant…’ she warned him. ‘I’m not using anything.’

‘That’s not a risk I would ever take,’Atreus imparted, donning protection and hauling her back to him with impatient hands. ‘I want you so much it hurts.’

‘Will it hurt?’ Lindy pressed awkwardly.

A look of bemusement clouded his smouldering gaze. ‘Why should it hurt?’

‘I haven’t done this before…I just wondered.’

Atreus studied her with frowning intensity. ‘I will be the first?’

Her body tingling, her face burning, Lindy nodded.





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