The Holiday Escapes Collection. Sandra Marton

got on with it, tears stinging her eyes as she hobbled clumsily towards the connecting door he had already opened for her benefit.

      Acheron groaned something in Greek and carefully scooped her up into his arms to carry her into the bathroom and gently settle her down on the stool by the vanity unit. ‘Pain’s always worse in the middle of the night. You’ll feel better tomorrow,’ he predicted. ‘Shout when you’re ready to go back to bed.’

      Reckoning that there would be two blue moons in the sky before she willingly asked for his help, Tabby studied her tousled reflection in the mirror in cringing horror. She was still wearing the make-up she had put on for dinner the night before and she had panda eyes, sleep creases on her cheek and hideously messy hair. How come he looked gorgeous in the middle of the night but she looked like the Bride of Dracula?

      She glanced down and fingered the skimpy nightdress she now wore and swallowed back a groan. Acheron must’ve undressed her. So what? He had already seen her naked, she reminded herself doggedly, so he had seen nothing new and it was very silly to be embarrassed about it. Levering herself upright, she took care of necessities and then made use of the facilities to clean herself up as best she could. Feeling considerably fresher but pale and stiff with the amount of pain her every movement had made her suffer, Tabby hobbled back out of the bathroom.

      Acheron was waiting to scoop her up and deposit her back on the bed.

      ‘I still don’t understand what you’re doing here with me,’ she said weakly, perspiration breaking out on her brow.

      ‘There’re only three bedrooms in the main house. I knew you wouldn’t want Amber staying away from you in the staff quarters and Melinda needed the third room,’ Acheron explained drily.

      ‘There’s only three bedrooms?’ Tabby remarked in amazement. ‘You really didn’t plan this move very well, did you?’

      Acheron dealt her a fulminating appraisal in seething silence. ‘It’s three in the morning...let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

      Tabby watched him move back towards the sofa and released her breath on a reluctant sigh. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, share the bed... It’s as big as a football pitch. I’m sure we can manage to avoid each other.’

      Acheron swung round, his surprise unfeigned, but he said nothing. He switched out the light, and she lay very still in the darkness, listening to the sound of his jeans coming off and trying very hard not to picture what he looked like without them. The sheet moved, the mattress depressed and she forced herself to relax. She was safe as houses with him, she told herself wryly. Acheron was powered by reason, not emotion, not passion. He knew they were a match made in hell.

      It was dawn by the time Tabby woke again. Soreness and stiffness assailed her with her first involuntary movement, and she screwed up her face in silent complaint. She turned her head only for her breath to hitch at the sight of Acheron lying asleep only inches away from her. His hair, rumpled into ebony curls, stood out in stark contrast to the white pillow case, his black lashes luxuriant fans that rimmed his strong cheekbones, his wilful passionate mouth full and relaxed. She couldn’t stop staring at him. The sheet was wrapped round his hips, the corrugated musculature of his bronzed chest and abdomen exposed as well as a long, powerful, hair-roughened thigh. The pure haunting beauty of his perfectly sculpted body grabbed her by the throat and shook her inside out while heat pooled in her pelvis. She wanted to touch him; she wanted to touch him so badly it hurt to be denied.

      His lashes swept up and he stretched slowly and languorously, long, taut muscles defined like ropes below his smooth brown skin. ‘Kalimera, yineka mou.’

      Tabby arched a brow. ‘Which means...?’

      ‘Good morning, wife of mine,’ Acheron translated with rich amusement lightening his dark eyes.

      ‘I’m not yours,’ Tabby hissed back faster than a striking rattler.

      A lean brown hand lifted and wound slowly and carefully into the tumbled fall of her blonde hair, his glittering dark golden eyes hot as boiling honey on her skin. ‘How else would you describe yourself? You married me and then you accepted my body into yours. Don’t you appreciate that that means that we legally consummated our union?’

      Seized by chagrin and confusion, Tabby stiffened. ‘I...I...’

      He covered her mouth with his, lingering to nibble teasingly at her full lower lip before moving on to taste her with explosive eroticism. A chemical reaction took place inside her, her body jerking in response while within seconds a giant mushroom of heated hunger and longing surged up inside her, blowing her best intentions to hell. Helpless in the grip of that sensual offensive, she kissed him back and his tongue drove deep between her lips with a raw sexual charge that roared through her like a rocket attack.

      ‘Ash?’ she mumbled when he freed her long enough to breathe again.

      He stared down at her with lancing impatience, every line of him rigid with tension. ‘To hell with your rules,’ he growled in a tone of decision, his broad chest vibrating against her swollen breasts. ‘I only play by my own.’

      Those words were still ringing in her ears when he slid his hands underneath her and lifted her slowly onto her side. ‘What are you doing?’ she gasped.

      ‘I’m making what we both need possible,’ Acheron rasped in her ear, his warm breath fanning her neck as he buried his mouth in the sensitive slope between neck and shoulder while his hands slid up from her waist to cup her achingly tender breasts. ‘As you’re in no condition to run away, shout loud if you want to say no.’

      In stark disconcertion her violet eyes opened to their fullest extent and locked onto the sofa he had occupied the night before. She had invited him into the bed in the first place. Had he assumed her body was included in the offer? Or was he just as entrapped as she was by the chemistry between them? Naturally that latter interpretation pleased her more but, in the midst of her pondering, long fingers plucked at the straining peaks of her breasts and actual thought became too much of a challenge.

      Acheron tasted the soft white skin of her throat and the sweet scent of her enclosed him, heightening his arousal to an almost unbearable extent. In need of release he pressed his throbbing erection against her bottom, and she gasped and leant back into him while he lifted her nightdress to caress the swollen bounty of her small, taut breasts, paying special attention to her plump pink nipples. ‘I love your breasts,’ he told her thickly. ‘They fit perfectly into my hands, moli mou.’

      Every tiny muscle straining as she trembled, Tabby looked down at the fingers, so dark against her paler skin, expertly caressing her. Sharp biting arrows of need were spearing down between her legs where her indescribably sensitive flesh was tingling. She shifted and a faint sound of discomfort was wrenched from her as she accidentally moved her ankle.

      ‘Lie still,’ Acheron urged. ‘You don’t need to do anything. Let me do all the work.’

      Her desire was already so strong that she wanted to scream, wanted to tell him what to do and to do it quickly. The shock of the thought and a vision of his reaction cooled her teeming thoughts. But she hadn’t known, hadn’t ever dreamt that a kiss and a little intimate touching could send her temperature shooting from zero to overload and she knew that she was finally understanding the very basic reason why he had become her first lover. He burned her up like a lightning strike, awakened a craving that overwhelmed her defences.

      His hand shimmied down over her thigh, flirting, teasing more intimate areas without delivering on the promise. She ached, she actually ached deep down inside where she felt hollow and desperate, her entire being locked to the playful passage of that provocative hand. Fingertips traced her hidden core, stroking nerve endings that were impossibly delicate. She dragged in a sustaining breath while he nibbled an enervating path down the side of her extended throat. ‘In a minute I’m going to kill you,’ she swore shakily.

      ‘No, you’re going to ask me to do it again.’

      ‘You really don’t suffer from low self-esteem,’ she noted even more unevenly, her breath catching in