is a damn good starting point.” His slow, sizzling smile made her heart turn over and her pulse rush into overdrive.
How could she resist him in this mood? Did it matter that he didn’t love her? Zac wasn’t a fortune hunter. And, despite what she’d said, he wasn’t cruel or barbaric. He loved his family. He was a good man, a man of principle, the kind of man she’d dreamed of marrying.
Could this simmering sexual connection between them be enough, as Zac had suggested? Should she take a chance and hope that he’d learn to love her?
“We’ll take it slowly, one day at a time,” Zac was saying. “And if you stay, let’s get to know each other a little more. I don’t expect you to share my bed right away.” But his gaze had dimmed a little as he’d added the final words.
“You’d do that?”
“This is important to me. Give it two weeks here on Kiranos. At the end of that time, we talk again. Nothing is lost. If you still want to go, you can walk away and go back to your life in New Zealand. I’m offering you your freedom.”
“You’d let me go?” Her heart sank. For some ridiculous reason, that wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear; she wanted him to fight for her, convince her.
“I won’t keep you against your will. I brought you here to talk, to ask if you would consider staying for a while so that we could get to know each other a little better. Unfortunately—”
“Unfortunately I told you I wasn’t a virgin.”
“That confession made things a little … difficult,” Zac admitted, his eyes hooded from her gaze. “I needed time to come to terms with your revelations.”
When his gaze met hers again, she thought she glimpsed something in the depths of his eyes, something vulnerable, uncertain. Then she dismissed it. Zac uncertain? Never!
“And what,” she asked, “if after two weeks I decide I want to … to leave?”
“We go our separate ways for a year or so and then file for a quiet, low-profile divorce. I’ll do my best to protect you from the media backlash that will follow. Being in New Zealand will help—it’s a world away.”
It sounded so simple. She could do that. Spend two weeks on Kiranos relaxing, enjoying Zac’s company.
“You’ll have no pressure of any kind. No lovemaking. Just the sun and the sea and spending some time getting to know each other all over again.” Zac echoed her thoughts. “To see if it can work.”
Except he omitted the one thing that she found herself thinking about most. His impact on her …
His touch.
His kisses.
And, above all, his lovemaking.
Disappointment curled inside Pandora. Their wedding night had been so exciting, a storm of passion. Nothing had prepared her for the wonder. The experience with Steve had not come close. Then, she’d been tipsy, filled with guilty excitement, and it had been over before it had started, leaving her feeling more than a little cheated. With Zac it had been different …
But Zac was right. A lot had passed between them. This was a chance to start over. To see what they had. All she had to do was sit it out on an island paradise and then she could walk away—if she chose to—without involving her father.
It wasn’t even as if she was at any risk. Zac had made it clear he expected nothing from her—not even sex. Nothing except to give their marriage a chance.
“Okay,” she said. “Now can I have my cell phone back?”
“Okay? Just like that?” He gave her a long look. “And why do you want your cell phone?”
She shrugged. “There’s no reception, so it won’t be much use to me. But think of it as a gesture of good faith.”
“Agreed.” A strange smile played around his mouth. He reached into his shorts pocket and drew out her small, shiny silver cell phone and held it out to her. “And now you can give me something.”
Pandora hesitated, the glint in his eyes warning her. Then she took the phone. “What do you want?”
“A kiss.” His smile widened. “Think of it as a gesture of good faith.”
Seven
“A kiss?”
Zac didn’t answer. But the teasing glint in his eyes challenged Pandora. He expected her to refuse. He was laughing at her, darn him.
Recklessly, she blew out the nearest candles, leaving only one fat white candle burning on the sideboard, then she rose and leaned over the table toward him. “All right.”
Placing her hands on his shoulders, Pandora pressed her lips against his … and waited. He stayed motionless. Yet her own response flared wild and primal in her belly, and her breath came more quickly. The velvety darkness surrounding them intensified the sensual mood of the candlelight. Beneath her palms, his Polo shirt had become a barrier that prevented her from caressing his sleek skin. She moved her hands in urgent little circles against the fabric.
Under her mouth, his lips moved. A sigh. His? Or hers? She didn’t know … and didn’t care.
His body heat rose through his shirt, warming her hands, and his scent was intoxicating.
Pandora’s breathing became ragged. Parting her lips, her tongue stroked across the seal of his lips in a bold caress.
Zac’s body tensed, coiling into a tight, expectant mass of bone and muscle and man.
She repeated the soft stroke.
He groaned and his mouth gave under hers. The only sound in the room was their ragged breathing. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders.
At last Zac pulled away. “You are so beautiful.” The hand that stroked her hair away from her face shook. “You are kind to Maria—yes, she told me you gave her a silk scarf you valued. You think of your father worrying about you. Your heart is pure.”
She thought of the lie she’d told him and her hands slipped from his shoulders. She forced a smile. “You’re embarrassing me. I’m far from perfect. And I did consider asking my father for help. But I decided against it.” And she squirmed inside.
“Pandora.” Holding her a little distance away from him, he said, “Zeus, this is hard for me, but I’m not going to break my promise to give you time. I’m not going to make love to you.”
His eyes were clear of everything except an intensity that drew her in, making her aware that he was male and she was his mate … and nothing else mattered.
“I’m not going to rush you into something that might be a mistake. I want you to be very, very sure. Understand one thing—I want this marriage to work, okay?”
Slowly she nodded.
The next week passed in a daze of sun and sea and sleep. As part of their two-week truce, they’d fallen into meeting before breakfast for a run along the footpath that wound past the pebbled beach in front of the villa and then curved away from the beach, between the olive trees up to the headland, before descending to a sandy cove on the other side. The sand in the secret cove was soft and silky, so different from the pebbled beach. Zac would strip off his singlet and charge into the water, and Pandora would drop her towel and follow at a more sedate pace.
Since kissing him at dinner, Pandora found it increasingly difficult to ignore the effect Zac’s briefly clad body had on her. She seemed to have developed an inner sensitivity to his closeness. Each morning when they swam out and around the tall rock that jutted out from the sea, she was intensely aware of the smooth, easy stroke of his arms cutting through the water beside her.
Once back in the shallows, she struggled not to gawk at Zac as the droplets streamed off him, his broad muscled chest sheened by