Tears pricked in her eyes. Blinding her vision. Blinding her senses. So she did not feel his arms come around her, taming her into him, folding her head upon his chest so that the tears might come.
'Hush,' he murmured. 'Hush.'
For a long, timeless moment she let herself be held by this man, this complete stranger, who had shown her so unexpectedly the kindness of strangers.
Tm sorry,' she mumbled. 'I think it's being here, in the house he lived in, and realising how real he once was.'
She pulled away from him, but he caught her elbows so she could not back away completely.
'Don't be ashamed to weep for him,' he said to her quietly. 'You honour him with your tears.'
She lifted her face to his. The tears gleamed on her lashes like diamonds beneath the starry heavens. Her soft mouth quivered.
He could not help himself. Could not have stopped himself if an earthquake had rumbled beneath his feet.
His mouth lowered to hers. Caught her sweetness, her ripeness. His hands slipped from her elbows, around her slender back, pulling her in towards him.
She gave a soft gasp, and it was en
ough. His tongue slipped between her parted lips, tasting the nectar within. He moved his mouth slowly, but, oh, so sensuously on hers, and he felt her tremble in his arms.
A rush of desire flooded through him. She was exactly how he wanted her to be. Her body ripe in his arms, her mouth tender beneath his.
He deepened his kiss, his hands as of their own volition sliding down her back to shape the rich roundness of her bottom.
Sensation whirled through Andrea. She felt as if she was melting against him, her body moulding to his, and her mouth—oh, her mouth was like a flower, dissolving in sweetness.
Warm shivers ran through her body. She couldn't think, couldn't focus on anything, anything at all, except the sensations flooding through her veins, liquid, honeyed, sweeping her away, drowning her in desire.
And then, with a rasp of reality, she surfaced, pulling away from him. She was shocked, trembling.
'No—' The denial breathed from her, eyes distended. Heart pounding.
What was she denying? she thought wildly. Denying his helping himself to her? Denying that a moment's brief human comfort had suddenly been transformed into a sensuousness so overwhelming she was reeling with it?
Or more? Denying—and her stomach clenched as she faced
up to what she was really denying—denying that never, ever in her whole life had she ever dreamt it was possible to feel such sensations...
He had not let her go, she realised. Although she had pulled away, he was holding her still, his hands in the small of her back. She was arching back, away from him, totally unaware of how the gesture thrust her breasts towards him, making him ache to bend his head and touch his mouth to their swollen fullness, aroused, all against her knowledge, to crested peaks.
'No—' she breathed again. Her hands came up to the corded strength of his arms and tried to dislodge them.
He felt the pressure on them and released her immediately, though it went against every primal instinct, which was to keep her close against him, closer still, press her warm, ripe body against his, moulding her to him, feeling every rich curve, every soft, delicious inch of her...
Theos, but he wanted her! Wanted her with an urgent aching that was nothing, he realised, nothing at all like the controlled, detached sexual desire that he felt for Esme, or Xanthe—or any other woman he had ever bedded, he realised with a shock.
Was it because this woman here, now, was to be his bride, his wife? Was it the primeval emotion of bonding, cleaving, that had released something in him he had never known existed?
Until now?
A rush of fierce possessiveness surged through him. It was like a revelation. He had never felt possessive about his women before—had always known that for them he was just one more male, just better-looking, richer—or both—than most of the men they took to their beds. Exclusivity, on either side, was not a word applied to the relationships he had enjoyed. He knew perfectly well that Esme Vandersee had a whole court she picked her lovers from, depending on her whim and their availability in her hectic globe-trotting life. And Xanthe—well, he was not the only man keeping her in the luxury she enjoyed so much. Of course she was skilful enough, tactful enough, never to let her lovers catch a glimpse of each other, but Nikos could have named a handful of wealthy Athenians who enjoyed her carefully disposed favours.
It didn't bother him.
Not like the thought of Andrea Coustakis thinking about another man...
The rush of possessiveness intensified. It was as alien as it was heady, and he gave himself to it totally.