Marriage Of Convenience: The Andreou Marriage Arrangement / The Replacement Wife. HELEN BIANCHIN

that sent the blood sizzling through her veins, flooding her inner core with a piercing sweetness until she became lost…wanting, needing on some subliminal level to superimpose a different image from the cruel taunts she’d received beneath Seth’s hands.

      It would be so easy to close her eyes and let whatever happen…happen.

      She felt him reach for the zip fastening on her gown, sensed the slow slide as the silk slithered down her body. All she wore was a satin thong brief, and the breath hitched in her throat as he cupped her breasts and began exploring their contours, stroking each tender peak until she became powerless against the pleasurable sigh emerging from her lips.

      His mouth possessed her own…persuasive, evocative, as his hand shaped her waist, then slid low to seek her swollen clitoris.

      Unbidden, she arched against him, unaware of the sensual sound she made as he skilfully brought her to climax, held her there, then he probed her silken heat in readiness for his possession.

      It was the intrusion that brought her to a shuddering halt, and she froze, catapulted into a stark reality where past and present images merged and became one.

      Panic born from fear lent her strength as she wrenched her mouth from his own, before she railed her fists against his shoulders in a bid to be free of him.

      The air in her lungs escaped in tortuous gasps as he released her, and she could only look at him in shocked dismay.

      Her lips parted, but no sound emerged, and she hugged her arms together, emotionally bereft and unable to control the way her body began to shake.

      Dear God. She wanted to run and hide, except escape wasn’t the answer. Hell…what could she say?

      Any explanation would take her to a place she didn’t want to go. Yet how could she not?

      Her eyes widened as Loukas lifted a hand, and she instinctively took a protective backward step…a reaction that brought his narrowed gaze.

      He caught the stark fear evident before she successfully masked it, and he fought against a silent rage as he reached for his discarded jacket and placed it carefully round her shoulders.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper as she instinctively caught the edges and hugged them close, barely registering the jacket was way too large on her slender frame.

      Not nearly as regretful as he felt, Loukas perceived. For more reasons than the one she presumably referred to. The ache in his groin would subside…eventually. Her issue with intimacy was something else.

      It placed a different emphasis on her previous short marriage, and he silently damned the man who’d clearly mistreated her.

      ‘I should have—’ she began, only to have him place a gentle finger over her lips to still anything further she might have uttered. Warned you, she finished silently, stricken with a host of ambivalent emotions, the overriding one being a mix of guilt and shame.

      ‘Don’t,’ he said quietly.

      She wanted to escape into the en suite, don nightwear, then slip beneath the bedcovers and summon sleep. Except her feet refused to obey the command of her brain.

      ‘I’ll go sleep in another room,’ Alesha offered, and felt the light brush of his fingers over her lips.

      ‘No.’

      How much would it take to lie in a bed barely a few metres from his own, and not be vividly aware of how close she’d come to the sexual act?

      To recall in intimate detail the touch of his mouth on her own, the trail of his hands, and how he’d aroused her emotions to fever pitch.

      Until she’d freaked out.

      Oh, dear God.

      How could she have come so close…only to freeze like a frightened virgin?

      She almost wished he’d overridden her physical protest and consummated the marriage. Then she’d have got past the dread, the fear…hell, the stark memory of that last night beneath Seth’s vicious hands.

      At the very least, she owed Loukas an explanation…

      Oh, please, she derided silently. Like he wouldn’t already have reached the right conclusion?

      Hadn’t she consulted therapists and talked the talk until she knew every angle? Every possible scenario?

      She’d thought she’d conquered her fear of intimacy after Seth…but then she’d never tested it. Preferring to lead a celibate life, and refusing to date.

      Tonight was the closest she’d allowed any man to come…and look how that had ended? Disaster plus.

      Even thinking about it filled her with shame…and guilt.

      Move forward.

      Sure, like that would happen any time soon given her reaction just now?

      She shivered beneath the warmth of his jacket, and she lifted one hand, then dropped it back to her side with an awkward gesture. ‘I need to—’ Escape. Move away from him and the almost electric tension filling the room before—what? She said something foolish? Trite?

      Go, a silent voice bade. And she did, heading into her en suite without a backward glance.

      She took care to close the door carefully, then she removed the jacket and laid it over a chair before crossing to the vanity.

      Studiously avoiding the mirror, she removed her make-up, brushed her teeth a little too vigorously, then she pulled on sleepwear, took a deep calming breath…and re-entered the bedroom.

      And found it empty.

      There was a sense of relief as she crossed to the bed she’d occupied the previous night, and she slid between the sheets, dimmed the lights, then closed her eyes.

      To sleep, hopefully.

      Except images filled her head, past and present, merging into a scrambled mix that entered her subconscious with tortured clarity, rendering her helpless as the mental reel spun out.

       Chapter Six

      LOUKAS dragged a hand through his damp hair and reached for a towel.

      A shower had eased some of the muscular tension, but not the slow-burning anger existent, for there was a part of him that wanted to physically harm the man whose mistreatment had seeded fear in the woman he’d married.

      There was a word for it. And legal redress.

      The question was whether Alesha had pressed charges.

      Possibly not, in a bid to avoid publicity.

      His eyes narrowed as he pulled on boxers…nightwear he rarely donned. The women he’d bedded were comfortable with their nudity, as well as his own.

      What in hell had Alesha’s ex done to turn a confident outgoing young woman into someone who had serious issues with intimacy?

      Rape…physical abuse? Both?

      His hands clenched into tight fists at the thought of her being subjected to either.

      And paused momentarily to wonder why it affected him to this degree.

      Had Dimitri known of his daughter’s mistreatment?

      Subdued lighting greeted him as he re-entered the bedroom, and his gaze swept to the slender form beneath the covers of the bed adjacent his own.

      Was she asleep…or merely contriving to give that impression?

      Loukas slid between the covers of his own bed, closed the lights, then lay quietly as he reflected on his every move since their arrival home from the fundraiser.

      She