Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife. Julia James

‘I would like, before I do so, to do one thing. This—’

      He stepped forward. In a single fluid movement, before she could back away or realise what he was going to do, he slid his hands around the frame of her jaw, slid his fingers into the silken mass of her hair, cupping her head, tilting it to him, and then, closing up to her, he lowered his mouth down to hers.

      She was as soft as honey, as warm and sweet. He parted her lips to taste the sweeter appeal within.

      She made no resistance to him. None. With a tiny sigh, deep in her throat, she parted for him, letting him taste her, letting his tongue glide into her mouth, deepening his kiss so that as the tender swell of her breasts brushed against him he could feel, with a deep, sensual satisfaction, their tips harden.

      Ruthlessly, he increased the sensuality of his kiss, one hand slipping from her jaw to glide with sensuous leisure down the supple length of her spine, drawing her yet closer against him. Curving down over the rounded swell of her bottom so barely covered by the enticing tightness of her skirt.

      As he drew her against him, his stance altering instinctively to accommodate her body against the cradle of his hips, he felt her give a soft gasp. It aroused him yet further, and he let his hand edge further down, seeking the hemline of her skirt and ruching it upwards, so that his hand splayed over only the barest, sheerest material between it and her naked flesh.

      God, but she was lovely to kiss, to caress. Her sweet, enticing body yielding to his, moulding to his, her tender mouth open to his to taste at will—

      Desire speared in him—strong, aroused. Insistent.

      He dragged his mouth from hers, still holding her against him. From somewhere, somewhere that required all his strength, he found his voice.

      ‘Do you still want to leave, Carrie?’

      She was staring at him blindly, her pupils huge, lips parted. He could see the hectic pulse at her throat, feel the agitation of her heart against his chest, the peaked tips of her breasts.

      She made no answer.

      With triumph surging through him, he lowered his mouth to hers again.

      Carrie lay, curled back against Alexeis’s strong, hard body. Her mind felt overwhelmed, her body still glowing, pulsing, with what she had experienced.

      Which had been something even the most fervid imagination could never, never have imagined!

      Oh, God, it had been incredible—amazing! Unbelievable!

      Disbelief, wonder, seared through her.

       I never knew it could be like that! Never!

      She had not stood a chance, she knew—not a single chance of changing her mind. Not from the moment when, filled with the sudden inescapable realisation of why she had come here, she had suddenly felt that she was far, far out of her depth. All the temptation of the evening had suddenly coalesced into reality. The reality of what she was allowing to happen.

      Why not? The voice had said to her again.

      But at that fateful moment last night, looking down at the superb, lounging figure of the man who had simply knocked the breath from her body the first time she’d set eyes on him, the only words in her mind had been quite, quite different.

       Oh, my God—what am I doing—what am I doing?

      But she had known—known absolutely—what she was doing. Had known it all evening and had gone with it. Gone with the voice that had tempted her.

      And she had known in that moment of standing there, at the end of the evening, that the moment of decision had come. She had known why she was there—known exactly why. There had been only one decision to be made—did she want to stay? To accept what was going to happen? To succumb to the temptation that had been beckoning her all evening?

      She stared ahead of her, out over the dimness of the bedroom. What might she have answered had Alexeis not kissed her?

      She didn’t know. Because he had kissed her, and in that very first moment, when his cool, long fingers had slid into her hair and his mouth had come down on hers, there had been only one decision—and it had already been made.

      And she could not—did not—regret it! Not now, as she lay there, scooped back against the fantastic body that had done things to hers that she had never known were possible! How could she possibly regret it?

      It had been a feast of sensuality—a banquet! His touch on her had melted through her like lava, drawing from her a response she had not thought possible. Touch after touch, each more arousing than the last, each more devastatingly intimate, until at last the sensations in her body, so incredible, so exquisite, had fused into an endless stream, intensifying until she was molten. Helpless in his arms, her head threshing from side to side, her body had been incandescent, burning like a flame that consumed all sense, all knowledge, all consciousness, making the whole world only what she was feeling, as if the whole universe were inside her head and nothing else existed!

      Only the man making her feel that way. Only the one she’d clung to, cried out to, clutched with her hands, lifted her body to, to catch more, yet more, of that incredible, incredible experience—

      She felt the afterglow still infusing through her, in her flesh. Her eyes were heavy, lids sinking. Her lashes fluttered. Around her waist she could feel, like a band, his strong arm pinioning her to him. Holding her where he wanted her to be.

      In his arms. His bed.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CARRIE sat in the wide leather seat in the first-class compartment of the aeroplane, overcome with wonder and disbelief.

       What on earth am I doing? What on earth am I doing?

      The words circled slowly in her brain. It was hard to think coherently, rationally. Hard to think at all. She didn’t want to, she knew. She wanted very much not to think. To simply—accept. Accept that something had happened that had never happened to her in her life before and never would again. She had spent the night—the most amazing, incredible, breathtaking night of her life!—with a man who had been a stranger twenty-four hours ago. And now, even more unbelievably, she was flying to New York with him!

      It was like some kind of fantasy—the kind you dreamt up when life looked grim and you needed something rose-tinted and impossibly wonderful to think about. The mental equivalent of eating a cream cake or pigging out on a box of Belgian chocolates.

      Her head turned to look at the most incredible man in the world, sitting beside her—an entire tray of cream cakes, a kilo of Belgian chocolates all in his own right!

      She gazed helplessly, disbelievingly, at his profile. His attention was focussed on the screen of his laptop, resting on the table provided by the airline seat, his long legs extended.

      Her heart swelled. God, he was so gorgeous to look at! She could gaze at him non-stop, like an idiot, just drinking him in. Everything about him was incredible—from the strong nape of his neck, the dark satin sheen of his superbly cut hair to the strong line of his jaw, the sweep of lashes around those eyes that could melt, melt, melt her into mush just by glancing at her…

      A thrill went through her like a huge bubble of champagne, lifting her from her seat.

      I’m with him—I’m really with him! He’s taking me to New York and I can go on being with him all that time!

      That was the thought she wanted to go on thinking—feeling—like champagne in her veins, intoxicating her. But the other thought—the one that was trying to circle slowly—was also there.

       What am I doing here?

      The only answer she could give was the wonder, disbelief and delight that was intoxicating her. That was all the answer there was.

      I’m here because I couldn’t be otherwise! I couldn’t turn it down—couldn’t