person who had ever loved him had gone.
Rina’s loss was clearly still raw, the unspoken plea in her eyes asked for comfort, and that was all Nikos intended to give when he lowered his head and brushed his mouth softly over hers. For a moment she did not respond, but neither did she pull away and he tasted her again, delicately, offering her the warmth of his body and silently letting her know that he understood the agony of grief. Even when she parted her mouth beneath his and tilted her head back a fraction for him to deepen the kiss he was sure he was in control. But her lips were so beguilingly soft and the temptation to dip his tongue between them and drink the lingering nectar of champagne became overwhelming.
Slowly he tightened his arm around her and slid his hand into her hair. It felt like silk against his skin and his heart began to pound with a thudding drumbeat of desire as he tangled his fingers in the chestnut strands and drew her closer still so that her breasts pushed against the wall of his chest.
Kitty couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when Nikos’s kiss changed from a gentle caress that soothed her fragile emotions to one of hungry passion that stirred her soul and sent molten heat flooding through her veins. All she knew was that the pressure of his mouth increased and slid over hers with increasing urgency, and his tongue no longer traced the shape of her lips but thrust between them with a fierce demand that made her tremble.
The voice in her head warned her that she was heading into dangerous waters and she should pull back now, before she was swept away. But she did not want to move out of his arms and feel cold and alone again. She wanted him to hold her even closer so that she could absorb the warmth of his body, and she curled her hands around his neck and pressed herself against him, making no protest when he drew her down so that they were stretched out on the sand.
Now they were lying hip to hip, and the unmistakable evidence of Nikos’s arousal jutting against her thighs caused her muscles to tense. This was wrong, very wrong, and it had to stop—now. But when he found her mouth once more in a slow, drugging kiss, she could not help but respond. Just a few more minutes in his arms, and then she would draw away from him, she promised herself. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask—a few passionate kisses with the sexiest man she had ever met before she returned to her lonely life. But now she no longer felt relaxed, she was aware of a restless ache deep in her pelvis, and when he lifted his mouth from hers she gave a little murmur of protest.
‘Theos, Rina!’ Nikos’s ragged voice echoed harshly in the cloistered quiet of the cave. ‘This is insanity. You should leave while I still have some measure of control.’ He stared down at her, his blood thundering in his veins when he saw the dazed passion in her eyes, and said slowly, ‘Because if you do not, I can’t guarantee that I will be able to stop.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NIKOS’S words were an unwelcome intrusion, slicing through the fog that clouded Kitty’s brain. She didn’t want to think, she wanted to feel and touch and lose herself in the world of sensory pleasure that his kisses evoked. She felt as though she were standing on the threshold of some new and wonderful place and Nikos was giving her the choice of stepping through the door, or closing it and turning back. Her mind flew to the royal ball and the loneliness she’d felt as she’d watched the couples on the dance floor. Everyone seemed to have a partner except her. All her friends were getting married and starting families but she had never even had a proper boyfriend. She recalled Vasilis Sarondakos’s cruel taunts that she would end up a virgin spinster, and despair tugged her heart. She didn’t want to be alone any more, and the flames of desire in Nikos’s eyes told her that tonight she didn’t have to be.
Tentatively she touched his face, and traced her finger across his mouth. She could hardly believe she was lying in the dark cave with the sexiest man she had ever met, and that sense of unreality numbed her to everything but her longing for him to kiss her again. Her innate shyness trapped her tongue, but the silent message in her eyes was enough for Nikos, and his chest heaved as he drew a harsh breath. The flare of feral hunger in his dark gaze sent a frisson of trepidation through Kitty, but then she forgot everything but the feel and touch and taste of him as he kissed her with an unrestrained hunger that warned her she had opened Pandora’s box and had better be prepared for the consequences.
The feel of Nikos’s hands brushing lightly against her skin as he unfastened the buttons on his jacket caused Kitty’s heart to jerk frantically beneath her ribs, and doubt flooded through her. The memory of Vasilis roughly pawing her breasts filled her mind, and she tensed, her breath coming in sharp little gasps of panic. But Nikos was not rough, and the glitter of male appreciation in his eyes as he slowly pushed the edges of the jacket apart and revealed the pouting fullness of her breasts sent a shiver of another kind through Kitty. Her panic gradually receded as he gently cupped each breast in his palms and felt their weight and softness.
He muttered something indistinct beneath his breath and colour flared briefly along his cheekbones. ‘Beautiful,’ he said thickly, and stroked his fingertip across one nipple in a feather-light caress. The sensation was so exquisite that Kitty gasped and then closed her eyes and felt the pleasure build when he brushed his thumb pad lightly over the crest of her other breast.
Nikos guided her hands to the front of his shirt and aided her in freeing the buttons. Hands shaking, Kitty pushed the material aside to reveal his broad, muscular chest; olive-gold satin covered with whorls of dark hair that arrowed down over his taut abdomen. He drew her to him and she caught her breath at that very first contact of a hard male chest pressed against the softness of her breasts. It felt so good, so right, and so very seductive that she burrowed closer still, loving the strength of his arms around her as he found her mouth once more and kissed her until she was breathless.
Nikos had convinced himself that he was in control and that he would only allow things to go so far before he called a halt. He had occasionally had one-night stands: brief, mutually satisfying encounters with sexually confident women who, like him, wanted to answer a basic need without the complication of emotions. But those occasions had always been on his terms and, although the sex had invariably been enjoyable, he had never been driven by uncontrollable desire. For reasons he did not understand Rina was different. The raging need he felt to make love to her had never happened before and he was shocked to realise that he couldn’t fight it.
Perhaps it was because she was so amazingly responsive and so unguarded in her pleasure when he caressed her? Frustrated by his inability to resist her, he gave her a hard, almost angry kiss, but she responded with such sweet passion that he gave up battling with himself and eased the pressure of his lips until the kiss evolved into a sensual tasting that became increasingly erotic. When she was utterly pliant in his arms he trailed his mouth lower, following the path of his hands to her breasts and drew lazy circles with his tongue around one nipple until it hardened to a taut peak.
The sensation of Nikos’s mouth on her breast was indescribable, and when he drew her nipple fully into his mouth Kitty instinctively arched her back. She curled her fingers into his hair and gave a soft cry, shifting her hips restlessly beneath him as the tugging sensation on her breast became unbearably exquisite.
‘Nikos…’ His name left her lips as a whimpered plea and she tossed her head from side to side when he transferred his mouth to her other swollen crest and metered the same delicious torture.
He growled something she did not catch, but his intention became clear when he unfastened the last button of his jacket and spread the material to reveal the faint curve of her stomach and the triangle of dark curls clustered at the junction between her thighs. He moved so that he was kneeling above her, and Kitty blushed when he trailed his eyes deliberately down her body. The knowledge that he had watched her undress earlier was no help. She had been unaware of his presence, and even beneath the bright moon she must have been partly in shadow. Now she was completely exposed to him. No man had ever seen her body before, and desperate shyness, combined with her insecurities about her figure, caused her to try and shield herself with her hands.
It was time to end this craziness, Nikos acknowledged, trying to ignore the stomach-dipping sense of disappointment that clawed at his insides. He couldn’t quite comprehend how they had got to this point. He’d had no intention of actually having sex with the waitress