The Antonakos Marriage

She had just this one night; she couldn’t risk the nightmare of any physical legacy that might result from it. That would destroy her and her family at a single stroke.

‘Do you…?’

It was a struggle to get the words out and not succumb to the erotic enticement that his lips were promising. But she had to say it. The woman he thought she was would never let it go unmentioned.

‘Have you any—protection?’

‘Of course.’

He didn’t even miss a beat. The response came as his caressing lips moved lower, found another pleasure spot Skye hadn’t even known existed.

‘The hotel shop stocks everything.’

‘Oh, yes.’

She hoped she sounded more assured than she felt. She had had a desperate attack of nerves when he had approached Reception to register and with a muttered excuse had disappeared into the nearest Ladies to hide for a moment. By the time she had emerged, cheeks flushed brightly, he had been waiting for her by the bank of lifts, the room key in his hand.

‘So now you can relax and know I’ll take care of you.’

There was such a darkly sensuous undertone in that remark that it made her toes curl inside her shiny patent leather shoes. Suddenly wanting to be rid of even such minor restrictions, she kicked off the high-heeled pumps and relaxed into Anton’s hold, abandoning herself to the moment. His arms almost lifted her off her feet, taking her up and hard against him so that she shivered at the feel of the hard ridge that marked the arousal he had no intention of hiding.

She flung her arms up around his neck, linking her fingers in the silky strands of the black hair as she gave herself up to the kiss. It was hard and hot and hungry and it fuelled an answering need inside her until she was burning up with it, swimming on a heated flood tide of passion.

Skye had never known her body to feel so alive before. Her heart was thudding, her head spinning. Her breasts felt swollen and, oh, so sensitive, the tight buds of her nipples stinging sharply.

She was swung off her feet, lifted from the floor and carried the short distance to the bed. Laying her down gently on the blue and green quilted covering, he kept his mouth on hers while his wickedly enticing hands found the fastenings of her dress, dispensing with the buttons in moments, the delicate lace of her bra no protection at all from his burning gaze.

Or the touch of those knowing hands.

At the sensation of the heat of his palms on her breasts, stroking delicately over the peach-coloured lace, catching and rolling the hardened nipples between strong fingers, Skye’s eyes flew open, meeting the glittering black gaze of the man above her.

‘An—’ she began, but he silenced her once more, kissing the exclamation from her trembling mouth.

‘Close your eyes,’ he commanded against her lips. ‘Close them and keep them shut.’

He caught her uncertain, anxious gaze and lifted his head to kiss her eyelids closed again, returning her to the warm velvet darkness once more.

‘Don’t look, just feel.’

How could she do anything else when already those tormenting hands were easing her bra from her, tracing hot, erotic patterns across her breasts, circling the peaks, making the nipples strain against their touch?

‘Feel this…’ he muttered with another tormenting caress across the sensitised skin, trailing fiery paths that sent shock waves of sensation pulsing through her.

The gentleness was not enough. She wanted—needed—more! Blindly reaching for him, she closed her hands over his powerful shoulders, pulling him down towards her, crushing her lips to his.

‘Help me—show me…’ she began against his mouth, only realising just in time what she had almost given away, revealing herself to him more than she truly wanted to.

She didn’t want him to realise—or even to suspect—her innocence. What would a man as sophisticated and worldly as this Anton seemed want with an innocent fresh up from the country—a real country bumpkin who had never known how it felt to make love with a man? An innocent whose lack of experience would no doubt make him laugh or shake his head in disbelief.

This man didn’t want an untutored lover. He must be used to women as knowing and as experienced as he clearly was. She would die of embarrassment if he realised how far from experienced she was.

‘Show me how to please you,’ she amended hastily, hoping she had caught the betraying words soon enough.

‘You’re doing okay all by yourself,’ was the muttered response and the raw edge to his voice made her heart jerk in unexpected sensual triumph.

Perhaps with her eyes closed she could be the woman he would want. With her eyes closed she felt less inhibited, less self-conscious. With her eyes closed she could indulge her need to reach out and touch, to let her hands close over the tight muscles of his shoulders and arms under the fine linen of his shirt.

When had he shrugged off his jacket?

Even working blind, her fingers had no problem dealing with the buttons down the front of his shirt, and within moments her searching hands had found the hot, hair-roughened skin of his chest. It felt so warm to her touch, the tingling excitement tantalising her, driving her to explore further—much to Anton’s delight, to judge by his groan of response.

‘Quite okay…’

‘You’re not doing badly either.’

Somehow she managed to find just the right, casual tone. She was stunned to realise that he had slipped her clothing from her without any of the awkward tugging and pulling she had anticipated. The air of the overheated hotel room was warm on her exposed flesh, and, keeping her eyes closed, she managed not to blush hotly at the realisation that those dark, deep-set eyes were now fixed on her near naked body.

But she couldn’t ignore the fact of his touch. Her heart leapt at the first brush of hard fingers on delicate skin and it was all she could do not to curl up into a defensive ball and, muttering, ‘Oh, don’t,’ try to hide away from him.

The sensation only lasted a moment. A couple of heart-shuddering seconds later she was relaxing into the wonderful sensations his caresses woke in her. Her hungry senses stirred, thrilled, cried out for more. And the whimpering cries that were all she could manage spoke to him only too clearly of her need.

The stroking hands grew harder, urgent, more demanding. And as she writhed beneath his touch his mouth moved over her too, kissing his way along her shoulder, down to the slope of her breast, catching the already aching nipple between his lips and tugging hard.

Skye’s only response was a high, wordless sound of wonder as her breath stilled in her throat and her body arched against his in urgent invitation.

‘Please…’

It was all she could manage, though she had no idea whether she was begging for more of the sharply sensual caress—or for him to stop before she fainted away completely from a pleasure that was so intense it was almost a pain. Burning sensations of delight sizzled through her, making her head spin, and the spiralling delight took all her ability to think from her.

Those wickedly tormenting hands were heading lower, stroking up the soft inner flesh of her thighs, slipping under the waist of the peach silk knickers that were somehow her only item of clothing, easing the flimsy garment away from her body.

All the embarrassment she had thought that she would feel at being exposed in this way was swept away on a molten tide of hunger. This was what she wanted; what she needed. This was…

Her mind splintered in an explosion of erotic delight as that tormenting touch reached the most sensitive spot of her femininity. The tantalising caress had her gasping in uncontrolled response, moving convulsively, stretching to press herself against that arousing fingertip. Wave after wave of heated pleasure throbbed through her, leaving her weak and abandoned, adrift on the aftershocks of a pleasure she had never known existed.

And in that moment Anton covered her body with his own, fitting his heavy, muscled legs between the splayed whiteness of her thighs, pushing them wide. The hot power of his erection sought the warm, slick darkness of her innermost core, and there was no time for hesitation or for fear. No time to suffer second thoughts or worry about her inexperience.

The actual moment of possession was so swift, so sure, thrusting deep into her already yearning body that only the faintest sting of pain, of protest from the stretching of tender tissues, gave any indication that this was the first experience of an unknown sensation. For just a brief heartbeat her eyes flew open wide, staring up into the dark, intent face above her in stunned bewilderment, blurring into a wild kaleidoscope of misty colour. Dazed grey gaze locked with passion-glazed black and the rest of the world went completely out of focus.

But then he began to move, deep and strong within her; each thrust piling sensation upon sensation, fire upon fire, until she thought her mind would surely melt in the inferno of pleasure that assailed her.

Her eyes fell closed again, the better to enjoy the stunning sensations rippling through her body. Her head went back against the pillows, her mouth slightly open to enable her to catch the breaths that seemed to have abandoned her needy lungs, her whole system going into shutdown, into primitive total concentration on the one vital core of her being.

She was being taken up and up again, lifted higher, higher, higher—climbing towards the peak she hadn’t known existed, but had somehow, intuitively, instinctively, been reaching for. And in the instant that at last she reached it she toppled over the edge, no longer inside her body but floating high and free on a wild explosion of starlight, tumbling into complete oblivion, into the blank unconsciousness of total ecstasy.

A heartbeat later, Theo joined her, his harsh cry of fulfilment the last sound before he too lost all consciousness of the world apart from this woman whose body enclosed his so hotly, and the ragged, thudding beat of his own heart.

It was an unconsciousness from which he barely surfaced long into the night. There were times when his senses struggled to the surface of the erotic stupor into which he had fallen, and almost regained the knowledge of reality and where he was.

Almost.

Because each time he came close to waking, each time he stirred and reached out a hand or moved a sensually aching limb, he encountered the soft, warm shape of the woman beside him. And each time he touched her it was like connecting with a live electric current. The wildfire magic flared again, rousing them both from the depths of sleep, making them hungry again, setting their pulses pounding, their breath rasping. Bringing them together in a wild, fierce coupling that once again obliterated thought or any sense beyond the primitive demands of their bodies and the appetites that only each other could appease.

Until in the end a total exhaustion claimed them, dropping him down into a sleep so deep, so all-enclosing, that he didn’t even stir when, just as dawn was breaking, Skye managed to drag herself from the depths of oblivion and forced her reluctant body to slip from the bed.

She couldn’t even look at the sleeping man as she pulled on her clothes with more haste than finesse though she was painfully, agonisingly aware of his dark head, the powerfully carved features still resting on the softness of the pillows. She didn’t want to leave. Tears stung her eyes at the thought of the moment that she would step outside the door of this small room—this small, uninteresting, anonymous room that had come to seem like a tiny piece of heaven to her. She would have to walk out that door, out of the glorious dream she had known for one night, and back into the cold, cruel world of life.

Reality would close around her once again and this very special time would just be a memory.

She didn’t even dare press the kiss she hungered for on his sleeping face for fear that even the lightest touch would wake him. That those deep, dark eyes—the eyes she had lost herself in last night—would fly open and look straight into hers. She could almost see the frown that would crease the space between the black, arched brows, hear his softly accented voice demanding to know where she was going.

She couldn’t face that. It would destroy her even to try.

Another day; another time. The words echoed like a lament inside her head.

If they had met another day, another time, then perhaps they might have had a future. She might have been able to—

No!

Fiercely she caught back her wayward thoughts, knowing they would weaken her resolve, tie her already leaden feet to the ground if she let them into her head.

She had to go—now—as fast as she could. Not even troubling to pull on tights over her bare legs, she forced her feet into her shoes, snatched up her jacket and bag, and fled towards the door.

There was a long desperate moment of panic as the handle squeaked, the hinges creaked, but then she was out and easing the door shut, allowing herself only a moment for a gasping sigh of relief before she fled down the carpeted corridor, heading for the lift.

Had she forgotten anything? Left a betraying clue behind?

A desperate check of her belongings confirmed she had everything with her—a fact that should have reassured her, but it didn’t.

Because the truth was that what she had left behind was a vital part of her soul.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WE’LL be landing in five minutes, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

Theo acknowledged his pilot’s words with a nod. He hadn’t even needed them, really. His own eyes had told him just how close they were getting to Helikos, the small dot in the ocean that was his father’s private island.

The island that had been home to Theo himself, all the time he had been growing up.

Then, when he had been just a boy, and had returned home from the long weeks away at the exclusive English boarding-school he had detested but which his father had been determined would turn him into a gentleman, he had recognised every tiny landmark on the flight from Athens airport. He had almost hung out of the helicopter cockpit to spot each change in the scene beneath them, the dozens of other, tiny, uninhabited islands that marked the familiar route to his beloved family home.

And when Helikos had finally come into view, at first as just a small dot on the horizon, he had always let out a great cheer to celebrate that, at last, for him, the holidays had begun.

But this time there was no excited thudding of his heart, no resounding cheer on his lips. Instead he viewed the approaching coastline with a dour, cynical expression, watching it come nearer with a complicated mix of emotions in his soul. He was heading back to Helikos after an absence of five long years, but the island was no longer truly home to him. The split with his father had seen to that. And now there was the new wife to consider, too. Theo scowled as the sound of the engine changed subtly, indicating that the pilot was beginning their descent. Another complication he could well do without. Though, from the little information he had had about her, this marriage was clearly not a love match. More like a business deal.

‘I don’t think you’ll find the island much changed.’

It was the pilot again, interrupting his thoughts as his voice came through the earphones both men wore.

‘I doubt if it’s changed in the least.’

Theo kept his eyes on the dark mass of land set in the brilliant sea. He was not in the mood for conversation; in fact he was not in the mood to be here at all. He most definitely was not in the mood for meeting his father’s latest floozy and trying to be polite to her. Cyril Antonakos was not known for choosing the most intelligent of female companions, and unless his father had changed dramatically in the past five years, then tonight’s dinner when he was to meet the brand-new Antonakos bride-to-be was going to be a long endurance test.

All the more so because his mind would be anywhere but here on Helikos.

From the moment that he had woken to find the space in the bed beside him cold, the room empty, he hadn’t been able to get the mysterious Skye out of his thoughts. He had spent the last week hunting for traces of the woman who had shared that one amazing night with him, but, with so little to go on, he had had a frustrating lack of success. He would do better, he knew, to forget the whole thing and put her out of his mind.

But in one brief night she had got completely under his skin and he couldn’t forget about her. Even when he slept, his dreams were filled with hot, erotic images of the night they had spent together. He would dream that he held her close, her slender, smooth-skinned limbs entangled with his, her Titian hair spread across the pillows, over his face, her perfume driving him wild.

And then he’d wake with his heart racing, his breath coming in raw, uneven gasps, his body slicked with sweat as if he had actually been making love to her in reality and not just in his mind. But of course none of it was real—none of it except the burning ache in his groin, the throb of unappeased hunger through every nerve.

If he could, he would have made some excuse and not come here. But the division between him and his father had gone on quite long enough. If Cyril was prepared to offer an olive branch, however half-hearted, then he, Theo, would meet him more than part way.

The house was just as he remembered it. High on a cliff above the sea, the huge white building sprawled over a large plot of land on two levels, each with its own vast veranda giving an amazing view of the ocean. A wide arched gateway to one side led to a stone-flagged patio, the oval swimming pool, and a small pool house that doubled as a guest house.

As Theo approached the door was pulled open and a small, plump, dark-haired figure hurried towards him.

‘Master Theo! Welcome! It’s wonderful to have you back!’

‘Amalthea…’

Theo submitted to the exuberant embrace of the tiny woman who had been his nurse as he grew up, and, because his mother had died when he was small, the closest person to a mother he had ever known.

‘Where am I staying? Have you put me in my old room?’

Amalthea’s dark eyes clouded as she shook her greying head.

‘Your father told me to put you in the pool house.’

So the olive branch was not quite as definite as he had thought, Theo told himself with a twist of sardonic resignation. His father was a hard man to like—a difficult man to love. He took offence easily and held onto grudges for a long, long time. It seemed that being invited here for the old man’s wedding was only the start of things. There wasn’t any sign of the fatted calf being prepared for the return of the prodigal son.

‘Who’s in my room?’

Surely the guests hadn’t started to arrive just yet? The wedding wasn’t taking place until the end of the month.

‘The new Kyria Antonakos.’

‘My father’s fiancée?’

So his father and the bride-to-be didn’t share a room already. That was a surprise.

‘What’s she like?’

Amalthea rolled her eyes in an expression of disapproval that she could only get away with in front of Theo.

‘Not at all his usual sort. But she is very beautiful.’

‘They’re always beautiful,’ Theo commented cynically. ‘That’s why he chooses them. Is my father at home now?’

‘He had to go to the village,’ Amalthea told him. ‘But he’ll be back this evening in time for dinner. His fiancée is at home. Would you want to—’

‘Oh, no,’ Theo put in swiftly, before she could even form the suggestion. ‘Dinner time will be soon enough.’

That way he could get both awkward encounters over and done with in the same time. Perhaps making polite small talk with The Fiancée would be easier than trying to carry on any sort of a conversation with his parent.

‘My bags will have been taken to the pool house. I’ll unpack and settle in—maybe have a swim.’

He stretched slowly, easing muscles cramped tight after the journey from London.

‘It’s good to be home.’

So this was to be home.

Skye turned away from the window with its panoramic view of the sea and sank back down onto the bed with a sigh, digging her teeth into her lower lip in an attempt to force back the tears that were threatening.

She was always on the edge of tears these days. Always only just managing to subdue the panic that gripped her when she contemplated what lay ahead of her. She still couldn’t quite take it all in. Still couldn’t believe that this was to be her future.

But sitting here brooding wasn’t going to change that. She really ought to come out of the bedroom at some point soon, and get to know the rest of the house better. She was going to live here, after all.

That thought only added to her sense of desolate unreality. This house, beautiful as it was, just didn’t seem anything like the home she had left in the damp and green countryside of Suffolk, the small village where she had grown up.

She supposed she would get used to it in time. She had to get used to it; she had no choice.

Skye rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away the tears. When she’d phoned home earlier, her father had told her that her mother had been taken into hospital again. Claire Marston needed yet another operation, and soon. And her doctors had said that it was vital she was kept quiet. Any stress at all could be fatal.

It was a terrible, bitter irony, one that brought a taste like the burn of acid into her mouth, to think that she had always dreamed of visiting Greece, of seeing the cluster of the Sporades Islands, perhaps holidaying there. She had dreamed of the sunshine, the sea, the white houses she had seen in photographs. And now she had achieved her dream, but it had turned into a terrible nightmare; one from which even waking wouldn’t mean that she could escape.

Now she had the sun. It had been shining all day. And, there, beyond her window, was the sea, an almost unbelievable bright and sparkling turquoise in colour. She lived in one of the white houses—a huge white house. And she hated it.

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