The Petrakos Bride

A pulse beating suffocatingly fast in her throat, she went through that door and found herself in a connecting hallway. With a frown, she looked to right and left.

‘Who is it?’ a familiar accented drawl enquired with impatience.

Taut with concern at the suspicion that she might once again be acting as an irritation, Maddie turned to the left to answer his query. ‘I’ve made you coffee, Mr Petrakos…’

One step through that door and Maddie appreciated her mistake, coming to a stricken halt as she realised she had entered some sort of dressing area lined with mirrored closets. Her dismayed gaze whipped over a unit on which a monogrammed silver clothesbrush had been abandoned She realised that a bathroom lay through the communicating door a mere instant before Giannis Petrakos himself strode into view, with his black hair still damp and spiky from the shower. His white shirt was hanging open to display a sleek muscular wedge of brown chest. His feet were bare beneath the hems of his immaculately tailored trousers. Obviously she had interrupted him while he was getting dressed.

‘Oh…oh, my goodness. I’m so s-sorry!’ Maddie stammered in intense mortification.

Taken aback by her appearance, because his bodyguards were highly efficient at protecting his privacy, Giannis surveyed her. He was astonished that she could have bypassed his security team. But, as appreciation of her beauty flamed through him and unleashed an instantaneous sexual response, his aggressive hunting instincts took over. He decided that only fate could have set up such an opportunity. After all, she had entered his private quarters without invitation, and they were alone where no one would dare to disturb him.

‘I thought this was another office…I had no idea.’ Too embarrassed to look directly at him, Maddie was engaged in swiftly backing out again. ‘Please excuse my intrusion.’

‘But you brought coffee? For me? ‘ Giannis treated her to a stunning smile and stretched out a lean brown hand to signify a welcome. ‘How very kind.’

The megawatt impact of that unexpected smile curving his wide sculpted mouth dazzled Maddie. Her tummy executed a back-flip without warning, and all the oxygen in her lungs seemed to vanish. She would not let her attention dip below the level of his angular jaw. She knew she had stuff to say to him, but her memory had suddenly become one giant horrendous blank.

‘Mr Petrakos…excuse me,’ she managed breathlessly.

‘No.’ Giannis was studying her, and discovering that her emerald-green eyes had a breathtaking clarity. He found the contrast between her white skin and copper hair exotic and unusual. Every time he saw her he registered something new to savour.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Maddie was amazingly aware of the appraisal of those intense gilded bronze eyes. While it made her feel self-conscious, she very much liked that visual attention. In fact a whole host of alien sensations were striking her all at once. The most basic was that that lean dark countenance of his had a fatal fascination for her. She stared, and she couldn’t help staring, taking in every individual feature with a fervour she couldn’t deny. The sleek tawny planes of his high, hard cheekbones accentuated the dramatic dark brilliance of his gaze, while his arrogant nose and the rougher shadowed skin round his wilful passionate mouth lent a tough, masculine edge to a face at risk of being hauntingly beautiful.

‘I said no—you are not excused,’ Giannis extended lazily, as he eased the cup and saucer from her paralysed grip and set it down on a polished cabinet. ‘I want you to stay and talk to me.’

‘Talk?’ Maddie echoed in confusion, striving valiantly to recover her concentration. ‘Of course, you want to know what I’m doing in here—’

‘Possibly I’ve already worked that one out,’ Giannis murmured, with the husky amusement of a male accustomed to frequent feminine overtures.

Disconcerted by that reply, Maddie blinked and then coloured. ‘I’m sure you appreciate that it was entirely my fault that the presentation couldn’t be held. I wasn’t looking where I was going—’

Giannis closed a hand over hers, unlacing her taut fingers and spreading them within the hold of his in a calming gesture. ‘You’re very nervous.’

Something like a flock of butterflies had broken loose in Maddie’s tummy. The warmth of his hand on hers, the smooth brush of his fingertips against the sensitive inner skin of her wrist, was making her tingle all over. While surprised by the ease with which he touched her, she was warmed by it as well. Even believing that he meant nothing by that minor intimacy, she found it a challenge to catch her breath. ‘That’s why I tripped yesterday—’

Uninterested in the topic she was striving to follow, and single-minded as always, Giannis shrugged back the cuff of his shirt to reveal his Swiss platinum watch. ‘In ten minutes you will no longer be in my employ,’ he spelt out. ‘Do I have to wait that long to kiss you?’

Her green eyes opened to their widest extent. She was utterly silenced by that question.

‘I would never trouble an employee with unwelcome attention,’ Giannis completed softly.

With a handful of words, spoken with the utmost calm and cool, he had plunged her into shock. Do I have to wait that long to kiss you? He was telling her that he found her attractive, and she was astonished by that concept. He felt the same way she did? A sense of joy followed on that thought, and blew away her usual caution.

‘Madeleine…?’ Giannis prompted, registering his own level of ardour with a faint stab of unease.

Even the way he said her name sent a delicious frisson travelling down Maddie’s taut spinal cord. She was so tense her muscles literally ached. ‘It’s…it’s not unwelcome,’ she heard herself tell him unevenly.

‘I did not think it would be, glikia mou.’

Giannis approached her with the skill of a very experienced male, but beneath the surface he was aware of a pulse of desire that ran much hotter and stronger than he was accustomed to. Off-balance at that suspicion, he saw there was the faintest tremor in the long brown fingers he curved to her narrow shoulder to draw her to him. It was a struggle to master the fierce passion that prompted him to crush her hungrily to his lean, powerful frame. He liked the telling dilation of her pupils and the slight audible catch of breath in her throat when he lifted his hand to undo the clasp at the nape of her neck.

‘My hair…’ she said in surprise as he let the clasp fall. She scarcely knew what she was saying, for she was at such a height of expectation she could barely formulate a single thought, never mind a sensible sentence.

Giannis tugged the silky tangle of long hair round her triangular face, rejoicing in the freedom to do so. The sensual contrast between the wine-red strands and the pearlised perfection of her skin delighted him. ‘It’s magnificent…you should always wear it loose.’

‘It would get in my way,’ she muttered with a nervous laugh.

‘But I want it to get in mine.’ Giannis laced brown fingers into the bright strands and lowered his proud dark head.

Maddie could barely wait for him to kiss her, and her keenness embarrassed her. It did not seem quite nice for her to be so eager, but she couldn’t help it. Deep in her pelvis there was a hard, tight knot of anticipation, and it was a challenge to keep her feet still. Heart racing inside her chest, and barely breathing, she leant almost imperceptibly forward.

When the tip of his tongue traced the full, sultry curve of her lips she shivered. He delved between with a dark, demanding eroticism that flamed through her slim body as efficiently as an arrow hitting a bullseye. Her head swimming, she fought to contain her response. Her slim fingers clenched in on themselves. Her body went rigid even while she was achingly conscious of the stinging heat pinching her nipples tight, of the scratchy and delicious awareness prickling over her entire skin surface. She wanted to grab him but she wouldn’t let herself.

‘I could devour you,’ Giannis growled, his dark golden gaze ablaze as he laced one powerful hand into her tumbling copper hair to tug her head back.

Adrenalin was pounding through her veins like an electric charge. Meeting his eyes, she felt a kind of elation fill her, linked with the charged sense of readiness holding her fast. He buried his hungry, masculine mouth against the delicate skin of her throat, probing and nipping the tender spots with a sure and sensual skill that made her gasp. With his other hand he pressed her into closer connection with his lithe, rock-hard frame. By the time he claimed her ripe pink lips she was on fire for that kiss, craving it. The great wild whoosh of excitement engulfed her like a bonfire.

‘You’re amazing,’ he told her thickly

‘So are you…’ Green eyes bright as stars, Maddie looked up at him, acknowledging the astounding sense of connection she was feeling. It made no sense, but it was there, and her every nerve-ending seemed to be jumping up and down and staging a celebration. She needed his support because she was dizzy, and her legs felt as weak and insubstantial as twigs. Momentarily she recalled the other men who had kissed her. She had never felt anything more than the mildest satisfaction, and more often than not it had been an endurance test in embarrassment.

‘I knew you would be,’ Giannis swore, bending down to push an arm below her hips and haul her up into his arms without any noticeable effort.

Maddie vented her astonishment in a gasp.

When he kissed her again she speared her fingers into his luxuriant black hair and opened her lips to the erotic plunge of his tongue. The world spun in a multi-coloured haze of excitement behind her lowered eyelids. She shivered violently, and his arms tightened round her before he brought her down on a cushioned surface. The surprise of that move made her lashes lift, and she focused in bewilderment on the unfamiliar room and on the bed upon which she lay. Uncertainty and a slight hint of panic made her tense.

Giannis rested fluid tanned fingers along her delicate jawbone to turn her attention to the compelling force of his dark golden gaze instead. ‘I want you, glikia mou.’

‘Yes…’ Although that truth struck her as the most extraordinary thing since time began, she believed him absolutely, and it made her feel incredibly happy and blessed. The hunger etched in every angle of his lean, extravagantly handsome face thrilled her. It unlocked something inside her, blurred all ability to reason, and she acted on instinct when she stretched up and found his beautifully shaped mouth again for herself.

He raised her up and removed her shirt without her even having been aware that it had been unbuttoned. Before she could take fright he locked his urgent mouth to hers again, and unhooked her bra. Unremarked, the garment fell away. An almost inaudible moan was wrenched from low in her throat as the swollen buds of her distended nipples were grazed by the hair-roughened expanse of his hard, muscular chest. With a groan of satisfaction he curved his hands to the voluptuous creamy curves of her breasts.

‘I love your body, glikia mou,’ he growled against her reddened lips.

While she sucked in a panting breath, assailed by a sense of disbelief that such intimacy could possibly be taking place, he cupped the ripe, honey-soft swells and kneaded the lush rose-pink nipples already pouting for his attention. She quivered and gasped in helpless response, her breath rasping in her throat. A pulse of sweet, seductive pleasure began to beat at the heart of her. Such consuming sensuality had never touched her before, and she had no resistance whatsoever.

Giannis looked down into her lovely face with intense appreciation. He liked her lack of guile and affectation. She made sex so simple he was enthralled. Her bemusement, her unhidden surprise at what she was feeling, made him suspect that she might not be anything like as experienced as his usual partners. Unexpectedly he found that conviction the hottest turn-on he’d had in years. He kicked out the little voice at the back of his mind that suggested he should be more circumspect. He had not felt so fiercely aroused since he was a teenager. And she had come to him freely. What harm could there possibly be in taking his pleasure?

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he told her huskily, easing her narrow skirt down below her hips, then casting it aside.

So are you, she longed to tell him, and her face warmed. She trembled, lost in her wondering admiration of him and yet incredibly shy as well. But he brushed her hand away when she made a sudden fumbling attempt to cover the brazen bareness of her breasts. Lest she had any thought of repeating that attempt, he lowered his tousled black head to skilfully entrap a pouting rosy crest between his lips. With a whisk of his tongue he teased the tormented peak to a rigid point of aching need.

Maddie didn’t know what had hit her. Her spine arched up off the bed. Her hips discovered a sinuous beat in tune with the swollen dampness between her legs. He sat up to discard his shirt, and in the midst of the exercise he kissed her fiercely. She was electrified by the erotic feel of his erection against her lower thigh. The barrier of his clothes could not conceal his bold masculine arousal.

‘Feel what you have done to me,’ he rasped, taking her hand and curving her fingers to the blatant bulge of his manhood. ‘I ache for you…’

Surprise and excitement engulfed her as he pushed against her hand with an earthy need that shocked her. But it was a shock that she found insidiously attractive. ‘Giannis…’