Irresistible Greeks: Red-Hot and Rich: His Reputation Precedes Him / An Offer She Can't Refuse / Pretender to the Throne

‘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…

CHAPTER NINE

MARKOS slowly lowered Eva’s feet to the carpeted floor before untying the silk belt about her waist and sliding the robe off her shoulders to allow it to pool at her feet. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at her lusciously naked body: slender shoulders, full and sloping breasts, narrow waist, lush hips covered by that single scrap of black silk and lace, legs long and shapely…

His heated gaze returned to her face, eyes narrowing as he saw a return of that uncertainty in her expression. Her shoulders had tensed, as if she was waiting for a blow to fall.

‘You are beautiful, Eva,’ Markos assured her huskily. ‘And anyone who has told you otherwise is nothing but a fool!’ he added harshly, having no intention of saying Jack Cabot Grey’s name and allowing the other man to intrude into their intimacy, while at the same time well aware that the other man had to be the reason for Eva’s insecurities about her body. ‘An idiot and a fool,’ he repeated firmly. ‘And I intend to worship every delicious inch of you!’

Eva glowed, feeling beautiful under Markos’s admiring gaze. ‘Can I finish undressing you now…?’

Markos seemed to cease breathing for several seconds before nodding abruptly. ‘Please…’ He stepped back.

Eva had never thought of herself as a femme fatale—how could she when she’d only ever made love with one man in her life, and even that had become more of a chore than enjoyment?—but there was something deliciously wicked about slowly unbuckling the belt at Markos’s lean waist. The bulge pressed against the zip as she slowly lowered it to reveal black boxers beneath. Eva sank down onto her knees in front of him as he stepped out of his trousers.

‘Eva!’ Markos reached out to tightly grip her shoulders. ‘I am not sure—’

‘Oh, my…!’ She had now stripped off those black boxers to reveal the heavy weight of his jutting arousal, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue before her head slowly lowered.

Markos gave a strangled gasp, his knees threatening to buckle as he felt the moist rasp of her tongue run the length of his shaft before slowly taking him fully into her mouth.

It was torture. Agony. Of the most exquisite kind!

An exquisite ecstasy that Markos enjoyed for as long as he could without releasing.

‘Next time, Eva!’ he groaned between gritted teeth as he reluctantly pulled away from her. ‘Right now I need to be inside you, before I go quietly and completely insane!’

He reached down to lift her before placing her against the covers and following her down onto the bed, his thigh draped across hers as he claimed those wickedly sensual lips with his own.

Markos claimed her mouth again and again as he cupped and caressed her breasts. Their passion was raised to fever-pitch, their pleasure even more so, before he pulled his lips from hers and once again claimed her nipples with his mouth, kissing and biting as Eva gasped her own pleasure.

Her skin felt like velvet as his hand caressed the curve of her hips, slipping beneath the silk material of her panties. His fingers sought and found her sensitive spot, and Eva’s response was instantaneous as he caressed that throbbing clitoris, before dipping one finger into the moistness of her channel and trailing that moisture over and around that fiercely pounding arousal in an ever-increasing rhythm.

He gave a low groan even as Eva purred deep in her throat, as she began to thrust her hips up and into that rhythm, her breathing becoming rapid and laboured as her pleasure rose.

Had Eva ever known such hot, mindless pleasure before? She didn’t think so. She felt truly beautiful in Markos’s arms as he had worshipped every inch of her, and her pleasure had spiralled out of control the moment she felt his mouth and tongue on her, her own movements instinctive as she rose up to meet those moist thrusts.

‘Oh, God, Markos…!’ She cried out her need as his hands moved up to cup her breasts, squeezing her nipples with just the right amount of pressure between pleasure and pain. The volcanic heat of her rapidly approaching climax was coursing through her like molten lava.

Markos looked down at her with hot and heavy eyes. ‘I want to taste you as you come…’ He slid down the length of her body until he lay between her parted and silken thighs, claiming her with his lips.

‘Markos!’ Eva cried out as her pleasure intensified to an unbearable degree. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, and she closed her eyes as she gasped and trembled, her fingers curled like talons into the sheet beneath her as Markos refused to release her from that plateau until he had extracted and given every last vestige of pleasure.

‘Dear Lord…!’ Eva collapsed back against the pillows, her smile dreamy as she held out her arms to him. ‘Come up here.’

Markos kissed his way slowly up her body. ‘Now I can say with full authority that you are truly beautiful all over,’ he assured her gruffly.

‘I want you inside me, Markos. I need you inside me,’ Eva invited huskily. ‘Please.’

Markos chuckled his satisfaction as he moved over her, his smile fading as Eva’s hand moved down between them and he felt her fingers close about him before she guided him in. He groaned as he slowly entered her, inch by pleasurable inch, until he was sheathed to the hilt.

Which was the moment when Markos’s already shaky control broke completely, and he captured her mouth with his as he began to thrust into her with long, claiming strokes, her tightness rippling and clenching about him as he drove into her fully again and again.

He wrenched his mouth away from hers and cried out as her hands caressed the length of his back. Her fingers suddenly dug into the flesh of his backside, and the intensifying ripples of her body told Markos that she was about to climax for a second time.

And Markos intended going with her this time.

He thrust harder, longer, allowing his control to slip completely, shooting hotly down the length of his shaft in a long and satisfying release that shook him to his very soul—and his pleasure was intensified by knowing he had taken Eva with him as her cries matched his own.

‘Wow.’

Eva gave a satiated chuckle at the understatement. Markos’s head lay pillowed against the fullness of her breasts, and both of them were breathing raggedly in the aftermath of their earth-shattering lovemaking.

It had certainly been earth-shattering for Eva, and Markos’s exclamation gave her every reason to believe he had been equally affected. ‘Was it worth suffering a sleepless night for?’ she teased.

‘Most definitely,’ Markos assured her with feeling, knowing there had been no ghosts from the past standing between them this morning—just the two of them making exquisite, perfect love. It had been a lovemaking of such tenderness of feeling, with an intensity of pleasure Markos had never experienced before…

Eva tensed in his arms. ‘Markos—’

‘I believe, if I wish us to spend the rest of the day in bed together, that it is time I fed you.’ He lightly interrupted the uncertainty of her tone, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed and standing up.

‘The rest of the day…?’ she repeated slowly.

Markos chuckled at the contrasting emotions of surprise and anticipation he could see in those expression golden eyes. ‘You did not think that I would allow you to leave after making love with you only once?’ He bent down to collect his black silk robe from the bedroom floor.

‘I haven’t been able to think at all for some time…’ Eva trailed off as she gazed up unabashedly at the nakedness of Markos’s back, ceasing to breathe as he stretched, the muscles in his back flexing and relaxing with the effortless ease of a jungle cat.

‘Good.’ He nodded with satisfaction as he turned, his gaze once again becoming hot and heavy as he saw the open hunger she knew must be in her expression. ‘Food first,’ he repeated firmly, and he laid the black silk robe down beside her before striding determinedly—still naked—from the bedroom.

Eva lay on the bed for several minutes longer, luxuriating in a feeling of total physical satisfaction as she stretched, feeling the pleasurable ache of muscles long left unused.

Making love with Markos had been unlike anything Eva had ever felt or known before. More erotic, more pleasurable than anything she had ever experienced with any man.

There was no point in not being honest with herself at this point in her life. The only other man she’d ever had sex with was Jack. And sex with him had been more centred on his pleasure than hers. Whereas Markos—

She mustn’t allow herself to blow this time with Markos out of all proportion.

Not unless she wanted to be left as heartsick as her cousin Donna when whatever this was with Markos came to an end…

She was an independent, sophisticated twenty-nine-year-old woman. They were the things that had attracted Markos to her. No matter how wonderful their lovemaking, he certainly wouldn’t want that independent, sophisticated twenty-nine-year-old woman making a fool of herself over him!

Accept this for what it is, Eva told herself firmly as she finally got out of bed to go into the bathroom and tidy herself: wonderful sex, teasing banter and a good time had by all. For her to expect anything else from Markos was totally unacceptable.

Having feelings for Markos certainly wasn’t an option…

‘So as a child you spent most of your summers on the family’s private island in the Aegean?’

Markos nodded, having returned to the bedroom long enough to pull on faded denims and a black T-shirt, totally relaxed as he and Eva sat at the breakfast bar eating warmed croissants with honey and drinking coffee. ‘Drakon and Gemini are there now—on their honeymoon.’

Eva gave a wistful sigh. ‘It sounds idyllic.’ Markos quirked one dark brow. ‘I believe you mentioned your own childhood was less so?’

She shrugged narrow shoulders, the movement instantly drawing Markos’s gaze to the way the firm swell of her breasts was revealed as the black silk of his robe parted slightly. ‘My parents should never have married each other, and they probably wouldn’t have done if my mother hadn’t been expecting me.’ She grimaced. ‘Needless to say they didn’t make that mistake again, which is why I’m an only child.’

Markos frowned. ‘But you have other family…?’

Eva lowered her gaze as she began to crumble a croissant on her plate. ‘An aunt and uncle…a couple of cousins. And we aren’t exactly big on family reunions; I haven’t been back to England once in the last seven years.’

Unlike the Lyonedes family. There had been over three hundred guests at Drakon and Gemini’s wedding the previous month, and almost all of them had been related to the Lyonedes family in some way.

‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like not to have a huge extended family,’ he said.

‘It isn’t so bad.’ Eva gave another shrug. ‘Not enough people to have a big family fallout, for one thing!’

‘The Lyonedes family can certainly be volatile,’ Markos acknowledged dryly.

She smiled. ‘Must be all that hot Mediterranean blood!’ Her cheeks coloured hotly as she seemed to realise what she had just said. ‘I meant—’

‘I know what you meant, Eva.’ Markos chuckled at she blushed. It was an endearing and unexpected quality in a woman in her late twenties who had been married and divorced, had lived in New York for the last seven years, and ran her own very successful interior design company. ‘And I believe you once implied that you thought Drakon cold when you met him?’

Eva was beginning to wish she had never continued this particular conversation! ‘You must have realised after last night that my judgement of a man’s character isn’t all that good—oh, good Lord!’ She winced as Markos raised one mocking brow. ‘I obviously wasn’t referring to you when I said that—what I was really trying to say was—’ She broke off with an irritated frown as Markos began to chuckle. ‘It isn’t funny!’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He was still smiling as he stood up slowly to move around the breakfast bar until he stood beside her. ‘Obviously I need to take you back to bed and refresh your memory as to how un-cold my own character is…’

He held out his hand, very dark and handsome with his dark hair still slightly ruffled, his jaw unshaven, and the tight-fitting black T-shirt outlining the muscles of his chest and flat abdomen.

‘So soon…?’ Her eyes were wide.

Markos eyed her quizzically. ‘You would rather not…?’

‘I didn’t say that!’ she protested instantly, her nipples having noticeably tightened beneath the black silk robe, and that moist warmth once again heating between her thighs. ‘I just—I’m just surprised that you—well, that—’

‘That I would, or could, want you again so soon?’ Markos finished huskily, his eyes dark with intent. ‘Come back to bed, Eva, and let me show you how much and in what ways I want you!’

Eva felt slightly shy as she placed her hand in Markos’s and stood up to accompany him to the bedroom. A ridiculous feeling after the intimacies the two of them had shared earlier.

The intimacies they were about to share again…

‘You may just succeed in killing me with pleasure, Eva!’ Markos groaned as she collapsed on top of him a long, long time later.

‘Not intentionally, I assure you.’ Eva chuckled weakly as she lay against the dampness of his hair-roughened chest, having totally lost count of the number of times and in how many ways Markos had brought her to climax—before she had gently pushed him back against the pillow and made love to him, first kissing his chest and the flatness of his stomach, before moving lower to take him into her mouth. Her fingers had encircled him as she’d licked that responsive length, until Markos had begged her to stop and she’d moved up to straddle his hips, taking him deep inside her, inch by pleasurable inch, before riding him—riding them both—to explosive pleasure.

His arms encircled her as he rolled to one side and took her with him. ‘What are your intentions towards me?’ he prompted gruffly.

Eva’s heart gave a leap even as she opened one wary lid to look up at him. ‘Entirely dishonourable, I assure you,’ she said softly.

Markos felt a sense of disappointment in Eva’s answer, even though he held her in his arms and had every intention of doing so for the rest of the day. And tomorrow…? Tomorrow, as he had already stated, was another day…

‘Markos?’

He gave a relaxed smile. ‘We will sleep now and talk later,’ he encouraged huskily, and he rested her tousled head more comfortably against his shoulder before settling back against the pillows.

‘Talk about what?’ she prompted, that earlier wariness now back in her voice too.

‘Whatever needs to be talked about,’ Markos dismissed lightly, and he closed his eyes, Eva still held firmly in his arms.

Eva lay awake for a long time after she knew by the soft and even tenor of Markos’s breathing that he had fallen into an exhausted sleep—hardly surprising when he’d confessed to having had no sleep the night before, and then embarked on two athletic bouts of exquisite lovemaking.

Amazingly wonderful lovemaking, during which Eva knew she had lost all and every inhibition she had ever had as Markos touched and kissed her in places she had never been touched or kissed before…

She felt…wonderful. Deliciously satiated. Every part of worshipped. And for once in her life Eva intended to let tomorrow take care of itself.

She had no idea whether it was day or night when she woke up, although the brightness of the sun shining through the bedroom window would seem to indicate it was probably late on Sunday afternoon.

Amazing.

She had never ever spent the whole day in bed with a man. And this was not just any man, but Markos Lyonedes.

She turned her head sideways on the pillow to look at him, smiling warmly as she saw that Markos was doing exactly the same thing. Those green eyes gleamed appreciatively, and the stubble was darker on his square chin, his hair tousled on his forehead, his muscled shoulders bare above the bedcovers.

‘Good afternoon,’ she greeted him huskily.

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he returned her smile. ‘Did you know that you purr in your sleep?’ he asked.

‘You’re making that up!’ Eva refuted indignantly, her cheeks warming as she turned fully to face him.

‘No, I’m not,’ he assured her indulgently as he reached out to touch the hair at her temple. ‘You sounded like a contented kitten.’

That was probably because she felt like a contented kitten: warm, intensely satisfied and safe.

Safe?

How could she possibly feel safe when she now knew that Markos was capable of breaching every barrier she had ever placed about her bruised emotions?

And yet that was exactly how Eva felt—safe, cared for, even cherished. So unwise when it came to this particular man! Eva knew better than most how ephemeral Markos’s relationships had been and always would be, and she had no intention of falling for a man who chose to fill a woman’s life before leaving it—and her—totally empty when he chose to walk away. She had already been burned so very badly once in her life. She certainly didn’t need—

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