Kidnapped by the Greek Billionaire (10 page)

“Take it all off, Andreas,” she pleaded softly, as she continued to stroke and tease him with a skill that was instinctive and designed to provoke him beyond further endurance.

Purposefully, Andreas produced a foil wrapper from his back pocket.

“Hold this for me,” he murmured.

As he slid the condom packet between her parted teeth, she smiled inwardly at the feel of its sharpness against her tongue, an unfamiliar object, an object that had everything to do with sex and nothing else. An object that would draw him inside her, hold him there, and take her to a place she had never been.

She felt her body soften and melt into the crisp sheets beneath them as his eyes roamed across her naked body. A pause, and then he was unleashed.

Kizzy sucked her breath in at the sight of him: hot, hard, and unashamedly impressive. Her heart lurched in her rib cage as he removed the condom from between her teeth and knelt between her thighs, lowering his head to kiss her most intimate part.

Slowly at first, he tested his warm, probing tongue over the moistness of her outer entrance, allowing its tip to slip inside her to taste the sweetness within. The wisps of his breath cooled against the moist heat of where their bodies barely joined and a tremor shot through her body as his thumb began to circle her clitoris, slowly, gently, and masterfully unrelenting.

The tension coiling at the root of her stomach and the pulsing within her vagina became too much to endure.

“No more, Andreas, no more,” she muttered, her hands running through his hair, coaxing him upward to her by stroking his neck and the powerful bunched muscles of his shoulders.

She pulled him closer, tighter, and felt the feather-light brush of his erection against her inner thigh.

“No more?” His eyes flashed with devilment. “I don’t think you mean that, do you?”

Even though she felt weak at the sight of his erection, wondering how it would be possible for her to take him inside, she craved the exquisite pain his entering her might cause.

“I want you,” Kizzy moaned. “I want all of you.”

“Then you shall have me, pethi mou
.
”

As he bent over to kiss her, his penis burned against her soft belly. He dealt with the foil packet that would allow them to move beyond the point of no return, and slickly stretched the protective sheath over his penis.

Kizzy mewed with need at the sight of him.

“Hush, soon, soon…”

A guttural breath left his body as he slipped one finger into the searing moisture of her vagina, slowly sliding in and then tantalizing her by withdrawing it again.

He was driving her insane with these caresses, she thought. He could do anything to her now and still she would beg him for more.

Could he not see how much she needed him?

“Are you sure about this, hara mou?” he asked throatily.

He lowered his head to draw with increasing urgency on her eager, kiss-swollen breast, and then suddenly withdrew again. The frustration was killing her. Andreas wasn’t immune to the tension between them. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, clawing her intensely feminine perfume deep into his lungs, and felt his arousal jerk with impatient agony.

“Because I don’t think I’ll be able to stop once I—once I am inside you. You understand that?”

Kizzy moaned her assent and reached between his legs to stroke his erection, lightly brushing the tip and encircling his tightness until he uttered a deep groan.

“I understand,” she whispered, “and I’m sure.”

She lifted her hips to brush provocatively against his swollen length, and slid her hands around his waist, dragging his hard body down between her thighs. She clawed desperately at his flesh as she felt the tip of his shaft nudge against her hot, moist entrance.

Kizzy guessed that he was resisting the urge to plunge fiercely into her, perhaps having sensed her inexperience. But she no longer cared about keeping control of the situation—her own need was too unbearable.

Andreas gave a muffled groan and shifted between her legs. Slowly, with infinite care, he began to ease himself in, inch by inch, backing out slightly before pushing himself in a little farther each time as he felt her tight inner muscles stretch and ease enough to receive him.

“Relax,
anasa mou
,” he muttered under his breath. His eyes were closed now, and he paused after each tense movement to kiss and tease open the moist heat of her lips. “Let me in.”

She arched her back in response, trying to relax.

Sensing her eagerness, Andreas eased her thighs even wider apart and pushed inside. He felt her inner muscles contract rhythmically around him, coaxing, squeezing, and pulling him farther and deeper inside the mysterious darkness of her body. His chest pressed against the full softness of her breasts, crushing her peaked nipples.

Kizzy’s breath was coming hot and furious against the smooth column of his neck, and the mingled heat of their bodies caused a sharp, intoxicating blade of lust to slice through her. She couldn’t wait much longer.

“I need you
now
,” she pleaded.

Gripping the hard muscles of his buttocks, she raised her thighs upward, reveling in the coarse rasp of the hair on his hard-muscled legs, and wrapped them tightly around his waist before tipping her pelvis and encouraging the full weight of his large frame to crush their bodies together.

She bit into the flesh of his shoulder to smother the slight gasp of shock that rocketed through her as she took his full, swollen length to the hilt. She felt an intense ache deep within as he began to thrust.

A low, threatening growl came from deep within his throat as his thrusts became more insistent, urgent, heated. She cried out with pleasure as his hands slipped beneath her bottom, dragging her against him, and he pushed himself faster and deeper inside her. Pinned to the bed and almost hallucinating with desire, she moaned as the air between them thickened and pulsed with every fevered movement. Every atom of her being craved and reached for climax. She clung to his undulating, sweat-slicked shoulders. Her lips met his frantically as he smothered her cries of ecstasy with hard, possessive kisses, pulling her to him urgently. She cried out incoherently, the tension in her body reaching intolerable heights

Silver sparks flashed over the darkness of her closed eyelids and she felt the powerful pulse of his body pounding his penis into her, his strength and fury leaving her in no doubt that he had mastered and possessed her, invading the soft, wanton abandon of her own flesh.

“That’s it,” he urged.

Her primitive groans inflamed his furious progress, and sensing the crescendo building, she eagerly rose and fell beneath and around him, willing him to lose control, to lose himself inside her body, but knowing she would be lost first.

“Take me in, let me fill you, let go—”

Her eyes flickered open briefly to find him watching her like a brooding volcano before she threw back her head, her fingers pulling at his raging body, and then heard a low, dark unmistakable female sound as her body shuddered and convulsed. Her eyes swam with stars behind closed lids and a voice cried out his name as she shattered beneath him in ecstasy.

“Now…” Andreas clasped her hips firmly, his thumbs pressed hard against the soft angle of her bones. He cursed in his own language as his eyes blazed over the trembling of her swollen breasts and the moist, parting of her mouth. “Yes…”

His eyes fluttered shut as Andreas groaned and shuddered his own release in a succession of hot, pulsating thrusts that seemed to fill her tightness, stretching her even further to increase their intoxicating pleasure, drawing out the very essence of him.

Kizzy writhed licentiously as she felt him come deep inside her, and both their cries filled the air as her body surrendered once again to wave upon wave of swirling, blinding, shocking orgasm.

Chapter Nine

“Dear God, why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

Andreas lay staring blankly at the ceiling, one arm crooked underneath his head, the other cradling Kizzy’s soft limbs in the heat-hazy silence of dusk. His heartbeat was returning to normal after the most incredible sex he had ever experienced, and his muscles were now beginning to relax. He closed his eyes briefly as he recalled how taut his body had become before he had entered her, and how the crushed-berry color of her lips and nipples had almost driven him to take her too quickly. Hard, fast, immediately.

Somehow he’d managed to hold back—control had never been a problem for him in the past, but something about this woman was bewitching him like no other. He had summoned all his strength to slow things down, to take his time, savor her tight, silken body, and reacquaint himself slowly with the pleasures of female flesh.

But he’d been so consumed with desire that he hadn’t even considered the possibility he might be her first lover.

Andreas was now uncharacteristically confused. And unnerved by the heavy silence that seemed to throb like a guilty pulse in the wake of their incendiary passion.

He turned on his side and stroked the warm satin of her shoulder.

“Well?”

“Was it
that
obvious?” Kizzy whispered, and squeezed her eyes shut.

“No,” he replied softly. He noted her discomfort, but couldn’t let this go. He had to know the truth. “I would never have guessed but—the sheet …”

Her fingers snatched up the pristine, white cotton to cover her breasts. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”

“So you are a virgin! Or
were
,” he persisted. “You should have warned me.”

“I did try but I couldn’t get a word in at the time.”

Jerkily, she eased herself up in the bed onto her elbows.

“Then you should have been more forceful—made me listen.”

“And just how embarrassing would that have been? It’s a bad enough admission as it is, without having to make my lack of experience an issue during foreplay.” She frowned and twiddled a crisp, white edge of bedding between her fingers. Her voice dropped to a murmur. “And besides, it would have spoiled the moment—it
was
what I wanted. I never imagined it could be like that, so overwhelming.”

“Did I hurt you?” A flash of anxiety shot through him at the thought that he might have caused her pain and then relief as she shook her head and shot him a shy smile. “But a virgin! I still can’t believe it—a
virgin
!”

“Yes, all right, there’s no need to try and humiliate me.”

“I’m not!” he replied indignantly and raked a hand quickly through his hair. “I’m shocked. But also very humbled. Your innocence was a beautiful gift but not something I will ever deserve.” He reached out and threaded his fingertips into her hair. “I can’t understand how it could be possible. You’re beautiful and clever—there must have been opportunities at college?”

“Of course there were, but I never met anyone who made me want to…and I had my studies to concentrate on.” She looked down awkwardly and chewed on her bottom lip. “And to be honest I was also scared—scared to death of what might happen.”

Andreas rubbed her earlobe and then pulled her closer in to him. “So now you see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t mean afraid about it physically—not the
act.
Mum made a point of making sure I knew how sex and falling in love destroyed her life and the beginning of mine. I don’t think she was bitter and twisted about what happened to her, but she didn’t want me to make the same mistakes. Not that it’s been difficult—I’ve seen for myself what can happen to a woman at the hands of a drunk and angry man. It’s enough to put anyone off sex.”

“You’re talking about the one that died?”

“My stepfather.”

Andreas sat upright and crossed his elbows on top of his folded knees, giving himself enough time to disguise the rage he could feel building at her words. “And where was your real father when all this was happening?”

“He died when I was a small baby. A freak accident—bleeding on the brain following a bare-knuckle fight at a horse fair.”

He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed with thought. “You’re Gypsy?”

Kizzy shot him a dark look. “Technically, I suppose, but I never really knew him or the traveler side of my family. Mum was forced out after the funeral. Nasty rumors about where I came from apparently—they’d never married.”

Andreas nodded silently before digging deeper. “And you said yesterday that both sides of the family rejected you?”

“Mum’s parents were exceedingly middle-class and told her that if she insisted on ‘running away with the fair’ she’d regret it until the day she died. So turning up on their doorstep with me was the last straw. A screaming, little illegitimate Romany child was more than their suburban respectability could tolerate.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember ever meeting them. They knew where we were, but never got in touch, not even when Mum died. I sent a telegram but they didn’t send a card back. So no great loss.”

“It would appear not,” Andreas replied quietly, trying to ignore the sickly fluttering in the region of his heart and the unpleasant ache in his throat.

Kizzy reached out a small hand and rested it briefly on the bronzed curve of his shoulder. “Can I ask you something, Andreas? Something that’s very important to me?”

He noticed that she was trembling; slowly he nodded.

“Theo and Ana—did they know
that I’d be out on the street when they sold? Was I just an inconvenient sitting tenant after all?” She swallowed and blinked away the tears that were beginning to well up. “Not that I would have blamed them, after all they’d put up with from me and Mum.”

“No!” Andreas sat upright. “No, they never lied to you. They wanted the best for you; there was no deception on their part. But I had no choice in what had to be done.”

“But none of it makes sense,” Kizzy replied. “All that money for a bankrupt business.”

“It was my mother’s dying wish.”

Kizzy’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “Your mother?”

Andreas sighed deeply. “The terms of her will were crystal clear. I was to buy Timi’s for five million pounds and then sell it to developers on the understanding that it would be demolished and the land used for housing or local community use.”

“They paid you five million pounds for it?”

“Of course not! There was a massive loss but, as was Mama’s plan, Theo and Ana were suddenly very wealthy without realizing that they’d been left a legacy in her will.” He shot her a wry look. “They would have viewed it as charity otherwise and given the whole lot away, but since they believed it to be a legitimate bit of good fortune on the property dealing front, they were delighted to sell to me.”

“You deceived them.”

“I had no choice. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have fulfilled my mother’s last wishes—she wanted to thank them in a practical way, had wanted to for years, but knew their foolish pride too well. Her will insisted the place be demolished so they didn’t get any stupid ideas about returning. She said they needed to spend their last years in the sun but never would if left to their own devices. They were never to know the truth about the transaction. So now they never have to worry about money again.”

“But you have to worry about keeping it all a secret.”

“Do I need to worry, Kizzy?” A sudden weariness washed over him. “It’s only us and her solicitor who know about all this.”

“No need.” She rubbed both hands up and down her arms as if she was cold. “I knew they wouldn’t have abandoned me. I knew
it.”

Andreas studied her small, hunched frame and realized that he had restored a little of Kizzy’s faith in the world. The Antonideses were the closest thing she had left to a family and even though they were many miles away, she at least had the comfort of knowing that she was still cared about. But his heart felt colder when he realized how inadequate that was for a woman whose unhappy early life experience had left her confidence in tatters.

“They can’t stop being Good Samaritans. They’ve always been that way—it’s how they met my mother and she could never forget their kindness.”

“What happened?”

“Mum was a very spoiled little rich girl—an heiress to a cosmetics empire with too much money for her own good. She got into a vicious fight over a man and needed a hiding place until all the media attention died down. The Antonideses were related to her parents’ housekeeper. They had a quiet little place in Chalcidice and took her in for a year or two to give her time for the scars on her face to heal. She could never thank them enough for that time—she said it saved her life.”

He shrugged and looked suddenly vacant. “Damn shame she spoiled it all by marrying my father.”

He then shifted his large body quickly to the edge of the bed and grabbed one of the enormous towels that had been hurled from the bed onto the floor in the heat of their passion.

“You must be hungry by now,” he said quickly and wrapped the towel around his hips without turning to look at her. “I’ll leave you to freshen up and see you on the terrace when you’re ready. No rush, take your time.”

Kizzy watched him march out of the room with dismay, a cold wave of confusion crashing over her before the leaden thud of rejection landed in the pit of her stomach.

For a small period of time she had been deluded enough to think there had been a meaningful connection between them. Those few moments of intense emotional revelation had been so heart-rending and difficult to bear, but he had listened and held her as she forced out the words and told him things that no one else alive had ever heard. Talking to him like that, naked and warm in the intimacy of the bed, and then listening to him giving his own secrets back had felt like peeling away layers of tissue paper to uncover something beautiful, a gift, a treasure…

Andreas Lazarides hadn’t been able to get out of her bedroom quickly enough. It was obvious now; the pillow talk was simply his way of being polite before making his escape, no doubt bothered both by her revelations and by her inexperience. He didn’t intend to spend the weekend with an inexperienced virgin from the wrong side of the tracks. This wasn’t what he’d bargained for.
She
wasn’t what he’d had in mind for his island retreat and now she was a problem.

Sickened and humiliated, Kizzy was hit by a blinding need to fight back, to restore some equilibrium and show she didn’t care.

She didn’t care what Andreas Lazarides thought of her and more importantly she didn’t care about him.

Just who was she kidding?

Acting on a need for self-preservation, she leaped off the bed and violently stripped it of its sullied linens, pulling, twisting, and wrenching them about until she was breathless with the effort. Finally throwing the sheets in the corner, she looked around for a cupboard or drawer; somewhere she would be able to find fresh bedding. If she put everything back in order, in its place, she would feel better. But every piece of furniture was as dark and hollow as Andreas’s heart.

There was no way she was going to crumple into a heap and let Andreas know how much his sudden departure from the bedroom had hurt, or how deeply she had grieved for the comfort of his arms around her or some other gesture of affection as he turned his back and walked away.

Freshen up and take your time.

His last words.

Well, she would do just that. She’d wash every trace of him from her body, keep him waiting, and then stroll coolly back into his orbit like the ice maiden she now had to be. It was abundantly clear that he was keen to keep an emotional distance, and so must she.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the physical pleasures his body had awakened within her, assuming of course that he hadn’t found her so wanting that he wouldn’t want to repeat the experience again.

Could that be a possibility?

She’d make damn sure he found her irresistible. She would even seduce him if necessary and get this physical craving for his body out of her system before he had a chance to tire of her. Then she would simply get on with the rest of her life—do all the things she had dreamed of doing now that she had no ties in England, now that she was free.

There would be other men—lots of them.

She tossed her dark curls defiantly as she strode purposefully toward the room’s private bathroom. She wasn’t going to let him fob her off and move on to the next female conquest that easily. He’d ignited a flame within her that wasn’t about to go out on its own.

No, Andreas Lazarides was not going to dismiss her that easily.

…

What had he done?

Andreas poked a metal tool roughly around in the glowing embers of the woodburning oven on the terrace and flinched as a hiss of fat from the roasting pig dripped and spattered on to his forearm.

“Damn!” he muttered, and then continued with a tirade of profanities in Greek. The burn stung unpleasantly, but that wasn’t the real reason for his outburst.

He was angry. Very angry.