The Enigmatic Greek (12 page)

Theo nodded gravely. ‘But you had to make sure.’

‘No choice, really,’ said Alex grimly. ‘I object to intruders on our island.’

‘Your island now,
kyrie.’

Alex shook his head. ‘Ours, Theo.’

The man smiled. ‘
Efcharisto
! If I can be of no more help I will go home.’

‘Right.’ Alex looked down at his clothes in distaste. ‘I must clean up. I’ll be glad when we’ve got the place in shape down there; it’s a damned difficult job looking for someone the way it is.’

‘But you came out unharmed, thank God.’ Theo touched his shoulder and said goodnight.

Alex went silently to the kitchen, taking care not to disturb Sofia and the boys as he collected fruit juice and mineral water for Eleanor. Who would probably take him up on his offer to sleep in his office, now there was no danger
lurking down below, or none that he’d found. Nevertheless he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling of unease as he left the lift to make for his bedroom. Even though there’d been no trace of anyone lurking down below, Eleanor’s account of her nightmare had been so detailed it was hard to dismiss it as nonsense. He shrugged. She’d probably seen a photograph or a painting somewhere on the Internet during her research. There’d been enough representations of the Minotaur by artists down the ages.

He knocked softly on his bedroom door. ‘Alex, Eleanor.’

She flung it open, her eyes luminous with relief. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Dirty and thirsty, but otherwise fine.’ He locked the door behind him. ‘There was no sign of anyone down there, but I’d rather you stayed here with me tonight.’

So would Eleanor. She smiled gratefully as Alex put the water and juice on his dressing chest. ‘You raided the kitchen, then.’

‘Very stealthily, to avoid waking Sofia and the boys. Now I need a shower. I will be quick.’

Alone in the bedroom, reaction suddenly hit Eleanor in a rush of tears and chattering teeth. The strain of worrying about Alex getting injured—or worse—by the monster suddenly caught up with her. She heaved in a few deep, calming breaths as she mopped her eyes, then drank some water and curled up in the leather chair beside the bed. She smiled brightly as Alex came out of the bathroom.

‘You’ve been crying,’ he accused.

‘Just a reaction. I was worried.’

He smoothed a hand over her hair. ‘You are exhausted. Come to bed.’

‘No thank you.’ Eleanor smiled politely. ‘I’ll sleep here in this comfortable chair.’

His lips curved. ‘I’m no threat to you tonight,
agape
mou.
You’ve had an exhausting day and need sleep. So do I. You may sleep undisturbed. Humour me, Eleanor.’ He yawned, shrugged out of his dressing gown and slid into bed. ‘I can’t rest with you sitting there.’

She turned out the lamp, then took off Talia’s robe and got into the near side of the bed, keeping to the edge to leave as much space as possible between them.

‘You’ll fall on the floor in the night if you try to sleep like that,’ he commented.

‘I’ll take the risk.’

There was silence for a while.

‘Eleanor.’

‘Yes?’

‘I found nothing down there, so it must have been a dream. Relax. You can sleep undisturbed by monsters or anything else—including me.’

‘Thank you. Goodnight, Alex.’ She turned away from him and burrowed her head in the pillows, suddenly so tired she wouldn’t have stirred if the creature in the bull mask had come to tuck her in.

At some point during the night Eleanor woke to find she was alone in the bed and light coming from the bathroom. Alex opened the door and stood looking at her.

‘I disturbed you.’ He switched off the bathroom light and got back into bed.

Eleanor flushed in the darkness. This enforced intimacy was hard to take. Tomorrow night she would sleep in Talia’s bed and sleep well with no danger of a monster lurking in her doorway. As there never had been. She felt hideously embarrassed about getting in such a state over a nightmare. Screaming her head off, sweating with fear and, top of the bill, fainting like a maiden in a Victorian novel.

‘You cannot sleep?’ said a drowsy voice.

‘Sorry to keep you awake.’ She gasped as a hard arm snaked round her waist and pulled her across the bed.

‘Lie still,’ Alex muttered, and settled her comfortably against him.

She obeyed, waiting motionless until he relaxed his grasp so she could escape. But Alex’s arm stayed firmly in place, holding her fast as he slept. Eleanor yawned, blinking hard. Heavens she was tired …

When she woke again, heart pounding, she was held close to Alex’s chest.

‘You were making little cries in your sleep,’ Alex told her in a tone that set all her alarm bells ringing. ‘Were you dreaming?’

‘Probably, but nothing scary this time. At least, not that I can remember.’ She stirred restlessly, but his hold tightened. He smoothed his cheek against hers, turning her face until their lips met in a kiss so gentle it disarmed her. As it was meant to, the still-functioning part of her brain warned her. His mouth caressed hers until her lips parted to his insistent tongue as he held her so tightly she could feel him hardening against her. She stifled a moan at the touch of seducing hands which ignited her into arousal, heightened by the emotions of the night. He smothered her half-hearted protest with kisses as he dispensed with her nightgown, and sent his mouth roving lower. She choked back a groan as his mouth closed over a hard, sensitive nipple while his fingers caressed its twin and sent fire streaking through her body right down to her toes, disposing of her resistance as his free hand slid between her thighs.

When his seeking fingers found the evidence of her response, she was suddenly a wild thing in his arms. He crushed his lips to hers as he moved over her and into her, then held her tight in pulsing possession for several glorious seconds before his body urged hers into a rhythm
which rapidly accelerated into a wild, gasping ascent towards a peak of pleasure he reached alone. He stiffened in the throes of his release as he left her stranded and breathless, the magnificent body heavy as lead on her bruised ribs when it collapsed on hers.

Eleanor pushed at his shoulders. ‘You’re squashing me,’ she hissed, and with a groan he heaved himself away to look down into her flushed, none-too-happy face.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, surprising her.

Her eyes glittered coldly. ‘If a man wakes up in the night with a woman in his arms—any woman—the result is inevitable. I should have gone back to the other room, but I was too scared.’

‘The apology,’ he informed her formally, ‘Was for my haste.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said airily. ‘The hassle of searching for the intruder obviously affected your performance.’ She searched for her nightgown, her face hot as she came in contact with a bare, muscular leg. ‘May I use your shower now, please?’

‘You need to ask?’

‘Yes!’

‘You’re angry.’

‘Yes to that, too.’

‘Because I was too rushed?’

‘No!’

‘Then because you feel I forced you, Eleanor?’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘You know perfectly well that you didn’t force me. You’re so skilled at the foreplay stuff I had no chance from the start. I’m angry with myself for giving in so easily.’ She pulled on the dressing gown and switched on the lamp to find Alex surveying her with narrowed, brooding eyes.

‘You need have no worries, Eleanor,’ he informed her.

‘Splendid. None for you, either. I use birth control, so there won’t be any embarrassing little outcome.’

‘It would not be embarrassing for me! If there was a child, I would care for it. I was reassuring you about my sexual health.’ He chuckled as she flushed. ‘You are a surprising lady, Eleanor. You discuss the possibility of an illegitimate child so calmly, yet on the subject of health pitfalls you blush.’

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I wasn’t blushing. I went hot because that was a risk I hadn’t thought of!’

‘You need think of it no longer.’

‘Splendid.’ She caught her breath as Alex leaned to seize her hand, and kissed each finger very deliberately.

‘Why so hostile?’

‘Stop trying to distract me,’ she snapped, eyes flashing like danger signals as he laughed.

‘So tell me, Eleanor Markham, if the man you lusted after had returned your feelings, would you have married him?’

‘Oh yes, like a shot—at the time. But that was years ago.’ She smiled brightly. ‘I was soon deeply grateful to him for marrying someone else. And now I’m going to shower, and then I’ll spend the rest of the night in that chair.’

Alex took over the bathroom after Eleanor emerged, and frowned when he came out at the sight of her curled up in the chair with a pillow.

‘Come back to bed, Eleanor. You need sleep, and so do I. And neither of us will achieve that if you sit up all night.’ He smiled persuasively. ‘I promise to let you sleep in peace.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll keep to the chair. Pretend I’m not here.’

‘As if I could possibly do that!’ His eyes were sombre
as he got into bed. ‘You will be leaving soon, but I think you are unlikely to forget your stay on Kyrkiros, Eleanor.’

‘You’re absolutely right. I actually achieved an interview with Alexei Drakos.’

He scowled. ‘Is that all you will remember?’

‘Of course not. I also had the great good fortune to meet your mother.’

‘And had so bad a nightmare you fainted,’ he reminded her, eyes darkening. ‘When I found you unconscious on the floor, my heart stopped.’

She shivered a little. ‘Then it’s high time you got some sleep to recover.’

‘In the morning I shall take you to see a little of my island,’ he said, and smiled. ‘I feel confident it’s no longer necessary to hide you away.’

‘I’ll enjoy that very much. Will you let me take photographs? Not for my column. I just want souvenirs of my time here, Alex.’

‘To remind you of me?’

She smiled sadly. ‘I doubt I’ll need reminders, Alexei.’ She closed her eyes very deliberately and turned her head into the pillow.

‘You can’t sleep like that and neither can I.’ He slid out of bed to sink to his knees in front of her. ‘Come back to bed. I shall stay here like this until you do.’

Eleanor stared into the glittering dark eyes locked on hers. ‘That’s blackmail.’

‘I know!’

‘Oh—very well.’ He was right, not that she was going to admit it. The chair was less comfortable than it looked.

Alex got up, holding out his hand, but Eleanor shook her head, picked up her pillow and resumed her former place on the edge. Without a word he turned out the light and got into bed on the far side, and then leaned back against his
pillows, so utterly still it was impossible for her to relax because she kept expecting that arm to reach out and draw her close again. She wanted it to, she realised, heart sinking. What a fool! In a couple of days she would be home again, back in the real world, in her humdrum life. And, back in his anything but humdrum life, Alexei Drakos would forget about her the moment her plane took off.

‘I shall miss you,’ he said as though he’d read her mind.

She blinked. ‘You haven’t known me long enough to miss me.’

‘Our acquaintance has not been long,’ he agreed and laughed softly. ‘But it has been so memorable I will never forget you, Eleanor.’

‘Good to know I made such an impression.’

‘While I have made a very bad impression on you.’

‘Only in the beginning. You made up for that with the interview.’

‘Could you forget the damned interview? I meant my love-making.’

Heat rushed, unseen, to Eleanor’s face. ‘Don’t talk about it any more. You should sleep.’

‘Hold my hand and I will.’

With a sigh Eleanor turned onto her back and stretched out her hand. He grasped it in his, then very slowly he drew her across the space between them and into his arms, holding her against his chest with her head on his shoulder.

‘This is good,
ne
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you sleep like this?’

‘No.’

‘You want to go back to the other side?’

‘No.’

His arms tightened. ‘You feel almost perfect in my arms, Eleanor.’

‘Almost?’

‘If I tell you how to make it perfect you will go back to that chair,’ he whispered into her hair.

‘No I won’t. You were right. I couldn’t have slept there.’

‘Why not?’

Oh, to hell with it
, she thought, suddenly reckless. ‘Because I want to be here with you.’

Alex tipped her face up to his and kissed her fiercely, and with a purring sound she kissed him back, running a caressing hand down his bare chest.

‘You have changed your mind?’ he said unevenly.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because life is short and this will never happen again.’ She smiled up into his taut face, glorying in the fact that his chest was rising and falling rapidly as she caressed it. ‘Now tell me how to make it perfect. Or perhaps I can guess.’ She sat up and took the nightgown over her head. ‘Is that what you had in mind?’

‘Exactly,’ he agreed, the look in his eyes as tactile as a caress.

‘Now you!’

He promptly threw his only garment away with such drama, Eleanor laughed.

‘You laugh at me?’ he demanded, crushing her to him.

‘Not at you—with you. I do so admire a grand gesture! ‘

He grinned, and then sobered, looking down at her in wonder.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,
glykia mou.
Everything is suddenly, wonderfully right.’ He kissed her, taking his time over it, nibbling at the bottom lip then licking around the edge of her lips before kissing them with a sigh which melted her completely.
He raised his head to smile at her. ‘I have made love to women before.’

‘Really bad time to mention it,’ she warned, eyes flashing.

He laughed, rubbing his cheek against hers, and then nipped at her lips with fierce, plucking kisses. ‘I mention it because with you it is different.’

‘I bet you say that to all the girls!’

‘
Ochi
! I do not. You are different because I can laugh with you—even though I want you so much it is hard to breathe.’