The Secret Behind The Greek’s Return by Michelle Smart

CHAPTER EIGHT

ITWASLATEwhen Nikos carefully opened the nursery door and tiptoed to the cot. Staring down at the innocent sleeping form, he lightly stroked his son’s soft cheek as his mind ran through the myriad ways Marisa could keep them parted if she so chose. It was all he’d thought about since his grandfather had vocalised the unease that had been steadily building inside him about Marisa’s power.

She did have the money and the means to make life as difficult as she wanted it to be for him to see his son. She loved their son in a way his mother had never loved him, and if his own mother could turn her back on him, what was there to stop Marisa from doing the same? Her wealth didn’t compare to his but when coupled with her protectiveness of their son and the imperious majesty she could turn on like a tap, it would make her a formidable opponent if she chose to fight him.

Nikos had never backed down from a fight in his life but those fights had never had a flesh and blood child at its centre. His own childhood had been wrecked by neglectful, warring parents and, though this situation was very different, he would do everything in his power to stop his son going through anything remotely the same.

However much the concept of marriage turned his stomach, it would give him greater authority and legal protection, and make the custody issue smoother when they eventually divorced. More civilised.

He bent over and kissed his son’s forehead. ‘Sleep well,’ he whispered.

Niki had been a part of his life for such a short time but already he knew that, for his child, he would do anything. Even marry his mother. And in the process stop her ever having the opportunity to take his son from him.

Now all he had to do was convince Marisa, and as he closed the nursery door behind him, his lips curved into a smile and his skin prickled with arousal as he imagined the most effective way of getting her agreement.

Marisa sat back on the plush heart-shaped seat in the corner of her balcony and took a deep breath to calm herself. Her heart had leapt into her mouth when the baby monitor’s green light had flashed to indicate movement in the nursery. She’d been on the verge of charging into the room when Nikos’s whispered voice had sounded through the monitor.

The cartel was defeated but the paranoia that had dogged her the last year lived on.

The semblance of peace she’d found on the balcony was further disturbed moments later when the door at the far end slid open and a shadow fell over the moonlit marble flooring.

Heart immediately striding into a canter, she hugged the satin robe she’d slipped over her short silk pyjamas tighter around herself and strove for nonchalance at Nikos’s approach. The canter became a ragged thrum when she spotted the bottle of white wine and two glasses in his hands.

‘I thought you were tired.’ A smile played on his handsome face. A smile that made her belly turn to goo.

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘This should help you.’ He pulled up a chair by the table, positioned it close to her, opened the bottle and poured them both a glass. Gaze holding hers, he held one out to her. ‘Here.’

She shouldn’t. Definitely not. What she should do is wish him goodnight—again—and go back to her room and lock the door behind her.

They hadn’t been alone together, not properly, not just the two of them, since the night of his return.

She absolutely should not allow herself to be alone with him under the moonlight.

She took the glass from him with murmured thanks and put it to her lips. It was crisp and delicious. Much like the man her eyes were locked on.

He gave another stomach melting smile and relaxed into his chair. He was sitting so close to her his knees were inches from her feet. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Nothing important.’ Seeing his eyebrow rise lazily at her obvious lie, she added, ‘We share this balcony?’

‘Yes. My room’s next to yours.’

‘Oh.’

‘But you had already guessed that,’ he said knowingly. ‘You were waiting for me.’

The rush of heat to her cheeks was so excruciating she couldn’t find the words to deny it.

Because his words were the truth.

She’d hurried away from his end of the balcony back to hers and sat on this very seat with a cocktail of emotions racing through her blood. The strongest had been anticipation. She just hadn’t realised it until Nikos had vocalised it.

‘Don’t be embarrassed, agapi mou.’ He put his glass on the table and leaned forward to take her bare foot in his hand and gently pull it onto his lap. ‘I know it will be impossible for me to sleep knowing only a wall separates me from you.’

‘I...’ She tried to breathe. Tried to find the will to pull her foot away and drag her stare from his face.

Ever since Nikos had returned she’d done everything in her power to avoid his gaze. And this was why. Once caught in the depths of his light brown eyes there was no escape.

His fingers made feather-light circular motions over her toes.

Why wasn’t she resisting?

‘There’s no shame in wanting someone,’ he whispered. His circling movements reached her ankle. Flaming shivers licked her skin. ‘Or shame in admitting defeat.’

She tried to snatch air in.

‘We have both tried to fight the inevitable,’ he continued with that same sensual huskiness in his voice. A finger slowly traced up the inside swell of her calf. ‘It is like the tide fighting the moon.’

She wanted to deny it. Loudly. Scream that he was wrong.

But that would be her wounded pride screaming. Nikos had broken her heart then stamped on the shattered pieces for good measure. There was nothing left of her heart for him to damage.

Nikos saw the emotions play out over Marisa’s face. He noticed every pulse in her eyes, every ragged movement of her chest. He saw the flush of colour on her cheeks and the way her breasts strained towards him and the outline of her nipples pressed against the fabric of her nightwear. And he saw the fight she was waging against herself.

His fingers crept to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. ‘Do you still have feelings for me?’

Her throat moved but still she didn’t speak.

He inched his seat a little closer, nudging her thighs apart with his knees as he swirled his fingers even higher. ‘I still have feelings for you.’ His fingers reached the hem of her silk pyjama shorts. ‘I try to forget you but there has been no one since you.’

Her breaths were coming in short, ragged bursts. When he slowly slipped a finger under the fabric of her shorts, her body trembled. He could feel the heat coming from the heart of her femininity and inched his thumb closer to the core.

She jolted, eyes widening.

‘I’ve imagined us together so many times,’ he whispered. He could see her trying to bring herself back into focus, and ran his thumb up the lips of her pleasure until he reached her swollen nub. Her back arched, breaths now coming in pants.

‘I remember your scent.’

Keeping the pressure on her nub, he slid a finger inside her. Her head fell back. A soft moan escaped her lips.

‘I remember your taste. I remember how good we were together.’

With a trembling hand she pulled the sash of her robe apart and then unbuttoned her pyjama top, exposing the breasts he’d once carelessly thought had been designed especially for him.

Then, breasts swaying with the motion, using her elbows as support, she lifted herself upright until she had a hand clutching the collar of his shirt and her molten brown eyes met his.

‘Nikos...?’ His name sounded like it had been dragged out from deep inside her.

Nikos was so turned on that now he was the one struggling to speak. ‘Yes, agapi mou?’

She pressed her pelvis tighter against his hand and covered his free hand, lifting it and placing it on her breast. ‘Stop talking and take me to bed.’

And then, still holding tightly to his shirt, her head fell back and she shuddered violently.

The tattoo of Marisa’s heart drummed loudly in her ears as she fought for breath.

Her hand clutched Nikos’s shirt like a vice. The strength of the orgasm that had just erupted within her should have drained the arousal from her but the ache in her core still throbbed.

Leaning closer to her, he moved his hand out from under her shorts and slowly wound it around her back.

She met the hooded stare with a frankness she had denied them both these past weeks. His lips were tightly set, nostrils flaring as he breathed in and out. His body had gone rigid.

She inched her face closer to his until she felt the heat of his skin against her own and the musky scent of his skin and the faint scent of his cologne soaked into her senses. She rubbed her nose against his cheekbone and breathed him in some more, releasing his shirt to bury her fingers into the soft dark hair and dig the tips into the back of his skull.

The fight was over. She had lost.

But she had won too. The incredible feelings ravaging her were proof of that.

For the first time since Nikos’s death, she felt like Marisa again. A woman with desires and needs, not just a mother, a daughter, a sister.

The sensual side of her nature—a side only Nikos had seen—had been locked in hibernation since the day of his death and now he’d awoken it, unleashing the burn that had once seen her beg for his touch.

He couldn’t hurt her again. She knew that now. The damage he’d caused was irreparable.

But he could give her pleasure. Pleasure like nothing else on this earth.

Nikos stared into the molten eyes still pulsing with the effects of her climax. Her body still trembled, her sweet breaths still ragged.

Arousal bit him so fiercely that the scrape of Marisa’s nails against his skull was as effective as if she’d taken his excitement in her hand. It was a struggle to draw in the air he needed to temper it, a task made harder when every inhalation drew her scent into his lungs.

He needed to get hold of himself before he...

He sucked in a sharp breath as she pressed her cheek to his and dragged the hand not kneading his skull down to his hand and placed it back against her breast. The shallowness of her breaths whispering against his skin was as erotic as the feel of the plump weightiness in the palm of his hand.

Theos...

He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes against the deep throbbing in his loins.

Nineteen months of celibacy and the effect was to make him feel like an overly excited teenager about to bed a woman for the first time.

He hadn’t felt such desire even then. The closest he’d come to feeling like that was the first time with Marisa. It had been the headiest, most erotic moment of his life. Her virginity and the length of time she’d forced him to wait for consummation had heightened the effects. That’s what he’d thought. But it had only got better. And better. And better.

Nineteen months of celibacy but his body remembered. Every cell in his body pulsated in anticipation.

Eyes wide open and burning into his, her lips dragged slowly to his mouth and hovered, lips parted but only a whisper of connection between them. The sweet taste of her breath danced onto his tongue. Her fingers dug deeper into his skull.

The last thread holding him to the earth snapped and with a groan he had no control over, Nikos captured her beautiful lips in a kiss of pure, hedonistic savagery.

Tongues entwined, teeth grazed, fingers bit into flesh. There was little comprehension that she’d shifted her body until she was straddling his lap and their bodies were crushed together.

Clasping her bottom, he rose to his feet, lifting her with him. Her legs wound around his waist as he carried her through the open door to the turned-down bed.

In seconds he was lying on top of her, kissing and nipping, their hands working together in a frenzy to strip away the barrier of clothing. Shrugging his shirt off, he covered a breast with his mouth and greedily sucked and licked, hands wrenching at the silk shorts she’d dragged down to her hips, then worshipped her other breast as he worked the shorts to her knees. She kicked them off while her hands tugged at his unbuttoned trousers, sitting up to get a better grip before she yanked them down with his underwear until they were kneeling before each other, naked and panting with lust. For no more than a second they stared into each other’s eyes. Nikos’s arousal reached boiling point to see the unashamed desire in hers and the colour slashing her face.

He pounced. She pounced.

Their mouths locked together as he fell back on top of her.

Marisa’s thighs parted with no thought from her brain. There were no thoughts. Only sensation. Such glorious, heavenly, mind-blowing sensations. The weight of Nikos on her, the feel of his skin against hers, his taste and scent on her tongue and infused in all her other senses...

The heat burning between her legs was almost too much to bear and when she felt the heavy weight of his erection right where she needed it to be, she moaned, ‘Please, Nikos. Please. Now.’

He drove inside her in one long, hard thrust.

The relief was so great that she cried out.

Arms wrapped tightly around his neck, legs hooked around his waist, mouth buried in his shoulder, Marisa closed her eyes and fell into the saturating pleasure.

Deeply he thrust into her, in and out, a fusion of heat and flesh driving each other on until she felt the thickening between her legs and clung even tighter as the pulsating ripples broke free and carried her to a peak that left her limp and boneless.

A breeze came through the opened door. Nikos closed his eyes and welcomed its cooling touch. Marisa lay on her back beside him, the sheets pulled up to her shoulders. When he’d rolled off her she’d wriggled away from him. She’d made no effort to touch him since.

They hadn’t exchanged a word since their explosion of lust. He didn’t know about her but the thumps of his heart had been impossible to speak through. It was yet to settle back into a normal beat.

It had never beat normally around her...

He took a deep breath. That kind of thought was what had made him glad to end their relationship. Too many strange thoughts in the minutes and hours after making love.

In the aftermath of lovemaking back then, Marisa would always cuddle up to him. She would put her ear to his chest and, though it had gone unspoken, he’d known she’d been listening to his heartbeat. It had been the strangest feeling, unsettling and yet somehow comforting, the way she’d taken such pleasure from the beating of a heart. His heart. She would stroke his skin too. Nuzzle her nose against his chest. Stretch against him and tilt her head to smile at him. Whisper that she loved him. He’d never believed those words but to hear them had always filled his chest with so much emotion it had hurt his heart to breathe through it.

Now she might as well be a corpse for all the life he detected from her.

But she was awake. Marisa was too deep a sleeper to fake it. When sleep came for her, she rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. He’d always hated the loss of her warmth when she did that. Often he would wake and find he’d curled into her as if his sleeping body had subconsciously sought her out. He’d never done that with anyone else either.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

There was a long period of silence before she answered. ‘Why?’

‘It’s not like you to lie quietly after sex.’

‘It’s been a long time since we shared a bed, Nikos.’ She sighed and turned her face to his. ‘Shouldn’t you go back to your own room?’

‘Do you want me to?’

She looked back to the ceiling. ‘I think it’s best.’

‘Why?’

‘Sometimes Niki wakes early. I bring him back to bed with me.’

‘Can’t you do that with me here?’

‘It would only confuse him.’

‘Why?’

‘It just would. I don’t want him to think you and I are like other mamas and papas.’

‘Isn’t he too young to think like that?’

‘I don’t know what he thinks. He might have lots of fully formed thoughts in his head.’

‘He might,’ Nikos conceded. ‘And one of those thoughts might be a wish for his mama and papa to live together.’

‘Don’t speak like that.’ She rolled to the edge of the bed and slipped her robe on.

‘Why not?’ he challenged. ‘Is that not a normal wish for a child?’

She tightened the sash and got to her feet. ‘Nobody’s normal is the same as anyone else’s.’ She stepped out onto the balcony. A moment later, the outside light was turned off and she came back in, closing the door behind her.

Using the dim light of the moon and stars to illuminate the way, she carried the baby monitor to her bedside table and sat on the bed with her back to him. ‘I mean it, Nikos. I don’t want to confuse him.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘Good.’

‘I only want to do what’s best for him, as I know you do.’

Her head dipped forward.

‘Which is why I think we should consider marrying.’

The stiffening of her back, the slow turn of her body to face him, the wide eyes and open mouth were almost comical but the situation was too serious for him to find amusement in it. Now that the idea of marriage had rooted in his head, he knew he had an uphill battle to get Marisa’s agreement but was confident he would succeed. All he had to do was pull the right strings.

As difficult as the task would be, there was already relief that the decision had been made. Nikos’s feelings for his son grew by the day. He wanted to be a real father to him, with autonomy, not someone for Niki to visit a few times a year. He wanted the security of knowing his son could never be taken from him.

He could manage a year of marriage and then separate from Marisa knowing he had the right of being a father in the law’s eyes on his side. Sure, she’d named him as the father on Niki’s birth certificate but marriage gave him much greater protection. She wouldn’t be able to deny his demand for equal access.

A year of marriage also meant a year of having Marisa in his bed and that brought relief of a different hue. Such a short time since they’d made love but already fresh awareness was coiling through him.

It had been like this before. His desire for her had intoxicated him. Almost driven him to madness.

A year of marriage would be long enough to spend his passion for her and allow them to reach the natural end his fake death had denied them.

Now all he needed to do was persuade Marisa to say yes.