Irresistible Greeks: Defiance and Desire. Кэрол Мортимер

turned sharply to face Drakon, instantly noting how the width of his shoulders almost filled the doorway leading out to the stairs of her apartment. Immediately she was reminded of just how tautly muscled his chest and shoulders had felt beneath her hands…

      Not a good memory to have when she was still debating whether or not it would be sensible, even sane on her part, to spend another evening with him!

      ‘Just tidying up,’ she said lightly. ‘Are you ready to leave now?’ she added hopefully.

      Drakon looked across at her speculatively. The blinds that had been pulled down over the windows shrouded the shop in half-light, making it impossible for him to see her clearly—although he thought he could make out two bright wings of heated colour in those ivory cheeks. She also seemed slightly nervous and she avoided meeting his gaze.

      ‘You are not recovered enough to go out to dinner this evening,’ he said slowly.

      ‘I—’

      ‘Perhaps you would prefer it if we were to remain here and I prepared something for us to eat?’ Drakon suggested swiftly when he sensed she was about to use her earlier indisposition as a way of refusing to have dinner with him. A refusal he had no intention of accepting…

      Her eyes widened as she gave a disbelieving huff of laughter. ‘You can cook, too?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Of course he could cook, Gemini chided herself derisively; he was a man who gave the impression that he could do absolutely anything he chose to. ‘Well?’ she asked in a reminder of the conversation they’d had the previous week when she’d asked if he played the piano in his apartment.

      ‘Passably.’ His mouth curved into a wry smile in acknowledgement of that conversation.

      Gemini laughed. ‘In that case you can certainly cook for me some time.’

      He quirked dark brows. ‘But not this evening?’

      She shrugged. ‘I really don’t see that there would be any point. Angela is—well, Angela.’ She grimaced. ‘And whatever bee she currently has in her bonnet over me will no doubt pass when she gets some other multibillionaire in her matrimonial sights.’

      Drakon frowned. ‘Did you really believe earlier that I was involved with her in a personal way?’

      Yes, briefly, she had once again believed that. How could she have thought anything else when the other woman had appeared here like an avenging angel and accused Gemini of trying to seduce Drakon?

      Gemini shrugged again. ‘It really doesn’t matter what I do or don’t believe on that subject, does it?’

      ‘Oh, but it does,’ Drakon murmured as he stepped further into the shadows. ‘To me it matters very much.’

      Gemini swallowed hard as she watched him approach with lithe, purposeful strides, only coming to a halt when he stood mere inches away from her. ‘I—it’s all been sorted out now, so no real harm done,’ she dismissed nervously.

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely that is for me to say, and not you?’

      She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Stop making such a big thing out of it, Drakon.’

      ‘But it is a big thing to have one’s word doubted, is it not?’ he pressed softly.

      Gemini gave him an irritated frown. ‘You want me to apologise for ever having doubted you? Is that it?’

      Those sculptured lips curved in a smile. ‘That would certainly be a start, yes.’

      ‘A start?’ she repeated warily, not sure she was comfortable with the way Drakon stood so overpoweringly close to her. Or with the direction this conversation appeared to be going in.

      ‘A start,’ he echoed huskily as he closed the small distance between them, his hands moving up to lightly grasp the tops of her arms as his head began to lower towards hers.

      Yes, their conversation was going in exactly the direction Gemini had thought it might!

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      SHE swallowed hard. ‘Drakon—’

      ‘Gemini…’ he murmured throatily, his breath a warm caress across her lips.

      She felt trapped, very like a rabbit caught in the glare of the headlights of a car, as she continued to stare up at him in the semi-darkness and felt the unmistakable pull of physical attraction. ‘This isn’t a good idea at all.’

      Those dark eyes glittered. ‘I disagree.’

      Gemini blinked. ‘You do?’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ Drakon muttered, and her nearness, the heady seduction of her perfume, took over all of his senses as he finally claimed her lips with his own.

      He had thought often of doing this again, he realised as her lips parted, yielded to his, and he drew her fully into his arms to deepen the kiss. Taking. Possessing. His hands moved restlessly, searchingly over the sweet curves of her back and the smooth roundness of her bottom, pulling her into him and making her fully aware of the hard pulse of his arousal.

      Yes, he had thought of this many times these past four days. Yearned for this. Ached for it.

      There was no room for other thoughts now except to indulge those senses. No time for gentleness as his tongue plundered the sweetness of her mouth until he knew every warm and delicious inch. The warm swell of her breasts was crushed against the hardness of his chest, her thighs were hot against him, and the air filled with the raggedness of their breathing and their low moans of pleasure.

      To Gemini it was as if no time at all had passed since Drakon had last made love to her. The passion was instant—the need, the aching pleasure even more so. She gasped as his fingers touched her skin beneath her blouse seconds before his hand cupped the lace of her bra, groaning in her throat as her nipple rubbed against the heat of his palm.

      He moved back slightly to unbutton her blouse and reveal those lace-cupped breasts to his glittering black gaze before he expertly removed the skimpy item of lingerie and let it fall on the floor, along with her blouse.

      Gemini slid the jacket from his shoulders and down his arms before dropping it onto the floor to join her discarded clothing, allowing the briefest moment of humour as she imagined the horror of Drakon’s tailor at her cavalier treatment of a jacket that she was sure had cost thousands of dollars.

      But it was only the briefest of thoughts before Gemini released the knot of his tie and tossed it aside, unfastening the buttons of the white silk shirt and revealing the muscled perfection of his olive-skinned chest. The shirt met the same fate as his jacket, and her breath caught in her throat as she was finally able to touch the glorious contours of his bared flesh.

      Steel encased in velvet…

      Gemini could feel the play of muscles beneath that velvet warmth as Drakon’s mouth once again claimed hers, and she moved her arms about his waist to caress the long length of his naked back, down over the tautness of his fabric-covered buttocks and then up along the length of his spine.

      He dragged his lips from hers to taste the delicate skin of her throat, the top swell of her breasts, before moving lower, capturing the hard nub of her nipple and drawing it into the heat of his mouth.

      She gasped, her bare back against the brick wall as Drakon curled his fingers about her thighs and lifted her up and into him until her legs were about his waist. Her fingers became entangled in the darkness of his hair and pleasure coursed through her as she felt the hard throb of his arousal against her core.

      That pleasure pooled between her thighs in a warm rush of moisture as he began to move slowly against her. At the same time his hand moved to cup her other breast, sliding a rhythmic thumb again and again over that second