Irresistible Greeks: Red-Hot and Rich. Кэрол Мортимер

      ‘Spoilsport!’ she came back challengingly.

      Markos gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I will take great pleasure in reminding you of that taunt in the morning.’

      ‘Promise?’

      Markos sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at her for several long seconds more before turning to walk determinedly across to the bedroom door. He paused in the doorway to turn and look at Eva once more. ‘You might want to barricade this door with any of the bedroom furniture you can move!’

      Her eyes shone back at him teasingly. ‘I’m not the one walking away…’

      No, Markos was. And he had more than enough reason to regret it once he had returned to the sitting room. Not even two large glasses of brandy were enough to dispel the knowledge that an almost naked and apparently willing Eva was just a short distance away down the hallway.

      ‘You look—’

      ‘Awful,’ Markos finished dryly as he looked across the kitchen the following morning to where Eva stood framed in the doorway. ‘Whereas you look…’ Sexy as hell, Markos acknowledged achingly as he took in her appearance in his black silk dressing gown, which reached almost down to her ankles, and with her hair an ebony tangle about her shoulders. ‘Rested,’ he substituted wryly.

      ‘Did you sleep in those clothes?’ Eva eyed the crumpled white evening shirt and black trousers he had been wearing last night.

      ‘I didn’t sleep at all!’ Markos grimaced.

      Having realised once he had taken a shower the night before that all of his clothes were still in the bedroom where Eva was—hopefully—sleeping, he’d had to put back on the same clothes he had worn to go out that evening. Only to then return and sit in one of the armchairs and stare sleeplessly out at the night sky as it changed slowly from black to grey and then orange as the sun came up and the new day began.

      ‘Perhaps you should go to bed now…?’ Eva suggested throatily.

      ‘Coffee?’ He stood up now from where he’d been sitting at the breakfast bar, moving across the room to the place he had made a much-needed pot of coffee a few minutes earlier. ‘Cream?’

      Eva paused for only a heartbeat to look at the broad expanse of Markos’s back, turned towards her, before crossing the tiled floor on bare feet, knowing from his avoidance in answering her and his guarded expression before he turned away that any move towards intimacy this morning was going to have to originate from her.

      She slid her arms about his waist from behind and leant her head lightly against his suddenly tensed back. ‘That was an invitation for you to come back to bed with me, Markos.’

      He breathed in deeply but didn’t turn. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Very sure…’

      ‘If I go to bed with you now I should warn you it would not be with the intention of sleeping!’

      ‘I’m sincerely hoping not.’

      The spoon he had intended using to stir the cream into her coffee landed on the marble worktop with a clatter as he turned quickly and gathered her up into his arms. His mouth came down forcefully on hers.

      Hungry didn’t even begin to describe the fierceness of the passion that flared instantly between them as Markos’s hands became entangled in her hair as they kissed: lips devouring, tongues duelling, their breathing hot and ragged in the silence of the apartment.

      Eva ceased to breathe at all when she felt Markos’s hand cup beneath the fullness of her breast, the soft pad of his thumb moving in a light caress across the hardened tip. Pleasure instantly spiralled through her and she arched into that caress, causing her to groan low in her throat as it pooled, moistened that already aching apex between her thighs.

      His lips left hers to trail across her cheek, moving down the column of her throat, inciting fire wherever they touched. A low moan escaped her as Markos gently pushed aside the black silk robe to take the throbbing tip of her naked breast into the heat of his mouth.

      Eva clung to the hard heat of his shoulders as she stumbled back to lean against the kitchen unit. Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her, pleasure coursing through her hotly now, as Markos cupped her other breast. She looked down at Markos’s darkness against the paleness of her skin, his dark lashes fanned across his swarthy cheeks as he drew her nipple hungrily between his parted lips. Feeling, watching, as Markos paid homage to her breasts, was the most erotic thing Eva had ever done.

      She slipped the unbuttoned shirt from his shoulders and down his arms and he allowed the garment to slip to the marble floor. His shoulders were so wide—much wider than they looked beneath his shirt and tailored suits, and deeply muscled. Proof that Markos didn’t spend all his time behind a desk. The muscles in his back flexed with pleasure as Eva’s fingers lightly caressed down the length of his spine.

      ‘You’re beautiful, Markos…’ she purred.

      He chuckled softly, the reverberations from that chuckle travelling from Eva’s nipple to the pulsing heat between her thighs before he reluctantly released her. The warmth of his breath felt cool against her dampened breast as he spoke softly. ‘These are beautiful.’ He took his time kissing each of her swollen and sensitised nipples in turn before looking up at her, his eyes gleaming a dark, deep emerald. ‘You are beautiful, Eva. All over.’

      ‘You haven’t seen all of me yet…’

      ‘But I am going to.’ It was a fierce promise of intent.

      ‘Here?’ Eva looked about at the sterile practicality of the black and white kitchen.

      Markos gave a mischievous smile as he also became aware of their surroundings. ‘The temptation to drape you decorously on top of the breakfast bar and make you the feast is appealing, but, no, I think I would prefer to be comfortable in bed the first time we make love together,’ Markos said with gruff intent.

      ‘The first time…?’ Eva echoed throatily.

      His eyes glowed that deep emerald. ‘You can have no idea in how many locations and in how many ways I have imagined making love with you during my long and sleepless night!’

      Her cheeks warmed. ‘Show me,’ she invited huskily.

      ‘Oh, I intend to!’ Markos assured her decisively, and he slid one arm beneath her knees and the other about her shoulders before lifting her up into his arms and marching out of the room.

      Eva draped her arms about his neck, not in the least self-conscious when her breasts and thighs were laid bare as the black silk robe fell open, knowing she had been longing for Markos to make love to her since last night.

      Possibly since the moment she had first looked across that hotel reception room and seen him looking right back at her…