hoping to avoid.
His first reaction was to acknowledge that she was a remarkably good swimmer. Accustomed to women who preferred to pose by the edge of the pool rather than actually expose themselves to the realities of getting wet, he watched for a moment, surprised by her skill. She slid through the water with the fluid grace of a sea creature and Angelos was gripped by an attack of lust so powerful that it shocked him.
Also accustomed to being with women whose choice of swimwear could only be described as minimal, he couldn’t immediately understand why a plain black swimming costume, clearly designed for sport rather than seduction, could have had such a powerful effect on him. A few minutes of studied concentration gave him the answer. His reaction had nothing to do with the swimming costume itself and everything to do with the woman wearing it.
The costume moulded to her shapely body, emphasising her long, slender legs, the tempting curve of her hips and her astonishingly small waist. Her body was incredible, and a rush of red-hot lust engulfed him. His reaction to her was so absolutely primitive that he took a step backwards, seriously disconcerted by the almost overpowering response of his body. He was not a man who indulged in thoughtless, mindless sex. Not since his teenage years had impulse played any part in his relationships.
It was true that beautiful women played an extremely important part in his life, but he was fiercely exacting in his choice and he was always the one in control. He made the rules. Relationships began and ended when he decided they should begin and end.
Understanding the true meaning of the word temptation for the first time in his life, Angelos inhaled deeply and attempted to obliterate thoughts that were as inappropriate as they were unwelcome. But his head was filled with a disturbingly clear image of her lush breasts trapped against his body and those long, long legs wrapped around his waist.
After the stress of the past two weeks, all he wanted to do was drag her out of the pool, strip her naked, and slake his lust in a vigorous session of mindless sex designed to leave them both numb and exhausted. At that precise moment he didn’t actually care that she represented everything he despised in a woman. He’d even stopped caring that she’d ripped off two vulnerable men. How could that possibly affect him? Vulnerable wasn’t a word that appeared in his vocabulary, so he wasn’t in the least bit worried for himself. He was as tough and uncompromising as she was and all that interested him was a thorough exploration of the physical connection that drew them together.
Trapped in a vortex of sexual hunger, he suddenly acknowledged a more immediate problem.
Once she finished the lap and saw him, she’d also see the very visible outwards signs of his reaction to her.
Solving the problem with his customary decisiveness, Angelos strode to the edge of the pool and executed a perfect dive, plunging head-first into the deep end and allowing the cool water to close around his thoroughly overheated body.
He rose to the surface and then powered through the water in a perfect crawl, reaching the side just as she turned.
He saw from the shock in her eyes that she hadn’t been aware of his presence until that moment.
‘I didn’t know anyone was—I thought you were working—’ The water clung to her cheeks and her upper lip, and her dark eyelashes were fused into spikes. Far from attempting to keep her hair dry and away from the vicious attack of the pool chemicals, she’d obviously swum under the water and it now lay sleek and smooth against her head. Wet, it was darker than its usual shade, but her eyes still sparkled the same miraculous blue.
Disconcerted by the feeling that this whole situation was slowly spiralling out of control, Angelos dragged his eyes away from the tempting fullness of her mouth. The cold water was supposed to have helped.
‘I needed some exercise.’ Suddenly he wished he’d chosen a run on the beach as an alternative to the swim. It would have been hot, but he doubted that it was possible to be any hotter than he was at the moment. His entire body felt as though someone had lit a furnace inside it.
How was it possible to feel hot in cold water?
‘Did you finish your business?’ It was an innocent enough question, but sufficient to remind him of the stress he’d been trying to put out of his mind.
‘For now.’ Deciding that lingering next to her was putting unacceptable pressure on his self-control, Angelos terminated the conversation by plunging forward and swimming twenty lengths in rapid succession, pushing his body to the limits as he chose athletic endeavour as a means to work off some of his mounting tension.
He finished yet another length, and turned, but this time his body collided with something soft and yielding.
She gave a soft gasp and swallowed a mouthful of water as she sank below the surface of the pool.
‘Theos mou—’ Angelos immediately hauled her back to the surface, his hands sliding round her waist to support her as she choked and coughed. In the water she was slippery and lithe, and she rested her hands on his shoulders as she regained her breath. His fingers felt the smoothness of her skin and the surprising delicacy of her frame. He’d just decided that touching her had been a mistake of monumental proportions, when she looked at him. The light in her eyes changed from a sparkle of blue to a deeper shade and Angelos suddenly wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life before.
Without thinking, he lowered his head and kissed her. Instantly her mouth opened in response to the demands of his. He probed with his tongue and the hot, sweet flavour of her mouth sent fire spurting through his veins. His fingers tightened on her waist and he pulled her hard against him, feeling her lithe, sinuous body twine itself around the hard length of his like a delicate flower seeking support and strength. She pressed herself against him, clearly as hungry for him as he was for her, and the last desperate flicker of self-restraint died inside him.
He was immersed in her—the scent of her, the feel of her, the race of her heart against his seeking hands—and his physical arousal was so powerful that it obliterated all other thought.
The water of the pool lapped quietly around them, and his kiss changed from exploratory to hard and savagely urgent. Fantasy merged with reality as her legs wound themselves around his waist and he felt her feminine mound press against him. He slid her costume from her shoulders. Her nipples were hard against his chest, physical evidence that her degree of desperation was no less than his. His hands swift and skilled, he tugged her costume down her legs. She unwound herself from him for long enough to free herself of the wet cloth, and then she was pressing against him again, and this time it was her hands that were doing the exploring.
Angelos felt her seeking fingers close around him. Light exploded in his head and a desperate urgency consumed him. The entire focus of his world became this one moment. This one woman.
Pumped up, and more aroused than he’d ever been in his life before, he closed his hands over the top of her thighs, driven by an almost primal need for satisfaction. In the water she was weightless, and she writhed and moved against him as she searched instinctively for the ultimate connection. Taking control, Angelos dug his fingers into her soft flesh and angled himself slightly until the tip of his erection finally met the burning heat of her damp core. The contact drew a gasp from her lips, and for a moment they remained poised on the very edge of the final intimacy. Then Angelos could wait no more. He entered her with a smooth, expert thrust and drove himself full length into her soft, quivering body.
She was exquisitely, maddeningly tight, and as her moist feminine heat closed around him his world imploded. Dimly he registered the sudden tension in her body, and felt a sharp pain in his shoulders as she dug her nails into hard muscle. His brain tried desperately to decipher the signals, but she was hot, so unbearably, deliciously hot after the cold of the water, that it took him a moment to clear his head sufficiently and register that something wasn’t as he’d expected. He tried to control his own reaction, but at that moment her vice-like grip on his shoulders eased and she slid her arms round his neck, drawing closer to him as she moved her hips and pressed herself to him, urging him on.
Her soft moans of excitement drove him over the edge and his mind