‘But you implied it!’ So upset now, she pushed up her chin and looked away from him, fighting the tears trying to burn in her eyes. ‘He bruised my wrist too but I suppose I should apologise for not allowing him to throttle me at the same time!’ she shook out thickly. ‘Perhaps you could—W-what are you doing—?’ she broke off to choke out.
He’d undone his seat belt and arrived across the gap separating them with the speed of an attacking snake! Now he was picking up her bruised wrist and inspecting it, the curses that flooded from him in several different languages should have turned the dark night air bright blue.
‘I will kill him,’ he rasped, going pale with fury when he saw the livid purple fingerprints marking her delicate skin.
Mia snatched her wrist back, hurting it in the bargain, but she just did not care. ‘You…men—you are all the same, ready to parade your macho strength when you feel like it,’ she shook out in burning contempt. ‘Yet you are quick to play the victims when a woman so much as looks at you! No, don’t touch me.’ She jerked away when he tried to capture her bruised wrist again. ‘I am angry with you!’
‘I can see that,’ Nikos said quietly.
Her face flushed, the tears daring to press against the muscles in her throat now. ‘I behaved myself tonight—for your benefit! I did not do anything to earn your contempt! It was not my f-fault that a nasty p-person like Anton Brunel wished to push me in the pool—and you are not my hero just because you happened to pull me out of it!’
The helicopter had come to a standstill without either of them noticing. Mia undid her seat belt and stepped over Nikos, just needing to get out of there before she did something really stupid like bursting into a flood of hot tears!
She was already halfway to the house by the time Nikos had stepped onto the darkened lawn. With a growl of frustration he strode after her and entered the house in time to watch her fly up the stairs. And even in flight the sensual flow of her lush black-clad figure reacted on him with all the gut-grinding promise of a—
‘Theos,’ he breathed.
He wanted her.
His hand snaked up to grab hold of the back of his neck.
He was not her hero, but he had this angry desire to charge up those damn stairs after her and at least be her lover!
He remained standing like that for the next thirty control-clutching seconds—until he heard her bedroom door close with a thud. Then with a violent swing of his body he strode off towards the back of the house, discarding his clothes as he went. By the time he reached the door which led into his all-purpose gym he was almost naked but for a pair of black cotton undergarments that moulded his fiercest problem with no conscience at all.
He used the gym as if it was his own personal war zone, pounding his body through a series of physical drills that did nothing to ease what was really driving him. Giving up on that form of torture he slammed through another door and dived into the glistening blue waters of his indoor swimming pool. Fifty hard laps later and he was climbing out again and heading back through the house, grimly gathering up his discarded clothes as he went.
The moment he reached his bedroom he headed for the bathroom. The heat of the shower made his glistening skin sweat and his chest was heaving from his recent exertions, but one part of him still dominated everything else. Cursing he switched the shower to cold and punished himself by letting the icy water dowse his entire frame. By the time he came out of the bathroom covered by a white towelling robe he thought he was finally beginning to get a grip.
Then a soft knock sounded on his bedroom door and he knew, even as he walked barefoot across the room, that no matter how hard he’d worked at it, he’d controlled nothing at all. For there was only one person in this house who could be knocking on his door and she was naive enough and blind enough not to know what she was tempting by doing it.
And there she stood in a short ivory silk robe with her recently shampooed hair a pagan swathe of glossy damp waves around her beautiful face. Her blue eyes looked anxious. A set of even white teeth were pressing into her full bottom lip.
‘I’m s-sorry to disturb you,’ she stammered out, ‘but In-need…’
The stammer did it; the big blue eyes staring up at him did it, the pearly white teeth worrying her lip. She’d been disturbing him for too many frustrating hours and days and weeks, and he just reached for her and pulled her into his arms, then drove his hungry mouth down onto hers.
And the hell of it was, she let him. Next thing he knew he was stepping back with her trapped against him and kicking the door shut so he could press her back against it to indulge in the kind of hot sensual embrace that said goodbye to his self-control.
Mia fell into the kiss like a starving woman. It was so much what she wanted there wasn’t a single second when she thought to pull free. Her arms had already wrapped around his neck to fasten tightly and she was kissing him back so deep and hotly she did not recognise herself. The feel of his strong hard masculine body pressing against her felt glorious, the flood tide of pleasure that went rushing through her made her gasp and groan and quiver feverishly as he explored her mouth with a deep hot knowing intimacy which had her lips open wider in search for more.
Her reward was a lusty masculine growl that excited her dreadfully. Tightening his arms around her he lifted her up against him and fed her legs around his waist, then just stood there with her clamped against him, their parted mouths fused together and the intimacy taking place with their tongues a shattering mimic of something else he was doing to her.
His hands were splayed across her silk-covered buttocks, the fiercely bold evidence of how he was feeling shocked and excited her in equal amounts. When she moved voluptuously against him she felt his shudder that blew the last of his common sense to bits.
Turning to walk with her over to the bed, as they landed on the mattress in a tangle of clinging limbs, he pulled his head back. ‘What did you come here for?’ he rasped out.
Having to fight to try and understand the question, Mia opened her eyes and just stared blankly up at him. His mouth was barely an inch away, his warm breath scoring her face. She could feel the pounding pump of his heart against her tightening breasts as he waited for her to give him a response. To tell him she had come here to ask for a couple of headache pills was just not going to leave her warm moist swollen tongue. This was more important. She no longer even had a headache!
When she didn’t say anything, with a softly grated curse he repeated the question, watched her blink slowly, watched her teeth press down into that hot plump lower lip—and lost patience.
‘Well, I’m in no mood to stop now,’ he groaned thickly. ‘So if you decide that you do want to stop you’re going to have to say it loud and clear.’
But Mia did not want to stop. And she proved it by running her fingers into his thick black wet silken curls on his head and drew his mouth back to hers. She could not explain it, did not want to try and explain it. All she knew was that, tough as he was, and hard and cold and dangerous as he was, Nikos Theakis had grabbed something from her that day on Oscar’s driveway and deposited this terrible need for more of him in its place.
The kiss drove out any need for more talking; it was hungry and it was deep. And he was so practiced at this she barely felt his weight on top of her or the deft way that he undid her robe belt. The burning pleasure when she felt their naked bodies come together was just about the most overwhelming sensation she had ever felt.