He arched one of his flat black eyebrows. ‘Like what?’
‘Like you…’ Running out of words she dragged in a tense breath of air and looked away.
‘Like I’m considering—other options to help you to catch up with me?’
He was thinking sex, Mia saw, though she did not want to. In the space of a few short minutes he’d gone from domestic animal to wounded animal, and now he was displaying the sexual animal.
‘This is an—improper conversation to be having in—in the middle of a crisis,’ Mia said primly.
‘I’m having improper urges,’ he came back quick as a flash.
Shocked by it, Mia gasped, her eyes widening and her pulse accelerating as he came to his feet.
‘Don’t you dare to come near me!’ She took another jerky step backwards and her spine made painful contact with the corner of the door frame. ‘Ouch,’ she jerked out.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Nikos murmured, walking forward to reach out to draw her towards him while Mia made a weak flailing attempt to ward him off. ‘You’re so fevered and flustered you hurt yourself. Much safer here,’ he said, folding her in against his warm hard frame.
A single night of passion with him had not prepared her for the shockingly patent physical evidence of his aroused state pressing against her. Surprised by the inner surge of heat which poured from her towards that contact, she swayed her hips away from him in sheer self-defence.
He used the flat of his hand to bring her back to him again, and smiled at her stifled gasp. ‘At last you’ve caught me up.’
‘N-no,’ she denied it.
He bent his dark head and touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of her trembling mouth. It was Mia who turned that teasing touch into a full-on kiss. It was she who pressed the already stinging tips of her breasts into his chest and floated her arms up around his neck.
His arms banded her to him. He prized her mouth open and ruthlessly deepened the kiss. If she had a single ounce of pride she would be fighting him like crazy, but hectic little whimpers of pleasure were rolling from her instead.
‘I am not going to bed with you!’ she shrilled up at him during a moment of separation when he reached up to drag her hair free of its clip.
‘The floor will do for me, amore mia,’ he countered huskily, helping her hair to tumble over his fingers. ‘The wall, the sofa, the kitchen table, even the door behind you.’
‘And stop talking to me in Italian,’ she shook out, shocked by his cool declaration and terribly excited by it at the same time.
‘You understand Italian better when you’re out of your head with pleasure,’ he confided, flaming her a hot mocking look. ‘I spent several very passionate hours loving you in Italian and you did not notice my testing efforts, did you? Shame on you, Mia. This time I will make love to you in Greek and you will wish by the time I have finished that you had bothered to learn my language!’
‘You’re mad. W-we can’t do this—’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m s-sick—’
‘With pining for me,’ he agreed. ‘Well, you’re pining is over, agapita.’ Something soft hit the backs of her knees and she collapsed onto a bed. She did not know how they’d even got here! Her arms jerked up around his shoulders on a startled shriek. ‘That’s right,’ he encouraged. ‘Cling to me, you are going to need me to keep you this close to stop from drowning.’
Her eyes fluttered open. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Lifting his dark head, Nikos looked down at her, eyes as black as midnight in his taut face. ‘Because you’ve got me, cara, even if you’re ashamed of me. Now I’m going to love you senseless before I take you somewhere and marry you.’
Marriage—did he say marriage—? ‘I’m not marrying you!’ she cried out shockingly. ‘No way!’
He took her lips with a hot driving hunger that devoured her ability to protest any more. Mia tried to hang on to her sanity but he robbed her of it as he explored her mouth with the sensuous force of a ruthless raider. She felt as if she was being consumed by his desire. She should be fighting him. She knew she should be fighting him, but the only urge flowing through her was the urge to rake her fingers through his hair and to apply pressure to his head to stop him from breaking the hot deep hungry kiss.
She didn’t even know where it had all come from. One minute they were fighting, the next minute eating, the next they were here on his bed making love with the kind of fever that should be shocking her stupid, but instead she was revelling in it. For days now she had walked around like a car accident, stunned by the way he’d enthralled her with his passion, then dumped her without a single qualm. Now here she lay being enthralled again as if all the hurt and rejection meant nothing at all!
He skimmed a restless hand down her body and located a silken slender thigh exposed because her dress had ridden up to her waist. The feather-light brush of his caress set her squirming against him and he muttered something hard and impatient, used his other hand to lift her up towards him, then without breaking the passionate seal of their lips, he ran down the zip of her dress. Cool air hit her skin and she shivered. In the next second she was breaking her mouth free on a cry of protest as he wrenched the pale blue cotton downwards, forcing her to let go of him so he could free it from her slender arms as it was trailed away.
Her lacy white bra drew the heat of his attention, and with breathtaking economy it sprang free and it too was being trailed away, revealing the firm fullness of her breasts with their twin tight peaks posing like shameless provocateurs.
‘Oh,’ Mia groaned and closed her eyes as he lowered his dark head and took one straining tip into his mouth, her fingers clawing at his shoulders when she just went wild.