The Antonakos Marriage. Kate Walker

uncoiled way down low in her body and set up a heavy, honeyed pounding between her thighs.

      The sounds and the lights of the street became nothing but a blur in the back of her mind as the strength of his hold lifted her up onto her toes, almost off her feet. Powerful hands thrust into the fall of hair, sweeping it back from around her face as hard fingers dug into her skull. The rain came down harder, colder, but she was lost and oblivious to it, adrift in a heated world where nothing else could reach her.

      In the distance someone wolf-whistled, and slowly, reluctantly, they drew apart, breath coming heavily, eyes wide, expressions slightly dazed as they met each other’s gaze and acknowledged the primitive fires they had lit between them.

      ‘I…’ Skye began, but her voice broke in the middle, failing her completely as the reality of what had happened to her hit home like a savage blow to her head.

      This was what it was all about. This was what male-female relationships really meant. What those words like desire and passion and hunger had had hidden behind them, unrecognised by her until now.

      Now.

      The single word sounded like a knell inside her head, deadening her thoughts and bringing the cruel sting of tears to her eyes.

      Now, when it was too late. When a malevolent fate had stepped in and decided her future for her.

      When she knew that these delights, this sort of happiness, were to be denied to her for ever. She had learned the truth too late, only to have it snatched away from her in the same moment that she discovered it. And with no chance of anything more.

      Except for tonight, a tiny voice whispered in her mind, bringing with it dreams and hopes of the sort that she had never allowed into her thoughts before. Dreams that made her shiver just to contemplate them.

      Dreams that were here, now, within her reach, and all she had to do was to stretch out a hand and grasp them, make them hers, for tonight; for one night only.

      ‘Skye?’ the man called Anton questioned softly, making her realise how long she had been standing there, silent, distant, locked in the shadowed, ominous darkness of her thoughts.

      The heat of his body still enclosed her, His hold had loosened, but she still pressed up against the powerful length of his body, feeling the hard ridge against her stomach that spoke of the desire that had been in his kiss. The same desire that had been in hers. That still throbbed along every nerve pathway, pulsed in her blood.

      He had wanted her every bit as she had wanted him—he still did.

      But she had only met him tonight.

      ‘I won’t hurt you.’ His voice was low and husky with need. So low and husky that it shocked her to think that she could ever have such an effect on any man—least of all this man. This tall, darkly imposing, devastating man.

      ‘I promise you, you’ll be safe with me. I swear…’

      Her heart slammed against the wall of her ribcage, jerky and uneven, coming close to panic at just the thought of what she was considering. But the ache of need still suffused her own body and wouldn’t let her go.

      If only this had happened sooner. If only she had met this Anton before…

      But no. That was to wish for the impossible. Her fate had been sealed and she had no alternative but to go down the path that had been chosen for her. The path she had agreed to.

      The path she had had no choice but to agree to.

      From tomorrow, everything would change. From tomorrow her life would no longer be her own.

      Skye’s teeth dug down hard into the softness of her bottom lip, scoring sharp little crescents into the delicate pink flesh.

      Tomorrow.

      Last week she had prayed that she could run away. She had dreamed of it, longed for it, hoped for a chance. But there was no chance. Too many people depended on her. If she had had any doubts about that, then the latest news only this week of how dangerous her mother’s heart condition really was had destroyed them for ever. She couldn’t run away and leave them all in the lurch.

      But there was tonight.

      Tonight she could run away—at least temporarily—from everything that was weighing her down. She could escape into a world of fantasy and sensual delight. A world that was so unreal she couldn’t really believe it was happening to her. A world in which, for once in her life—for the one and only time—just for a few short hours, she could experience the full heights of passion and the fierce sensuality that she had tasted so briefly just a few moments before.

      One of the hardest things to accept about this marriage to Cyril Antonakos was the fact that her unwanted wedding night would be her first experience of sex. She was still a virgin and had never known any man who could make her feel enough to want to change that situation.

      Until now.

      Now she couldn’t bear the thought that a man nearing sixty would be her first, her only lover—when there was this man who only had to touch her and she felt as if she were going up in flames.

      She could have tonight.

      I promise you, you’ll be safe with me. I swear…

      He didn’t even have to know her name. And tomorrow, as in some modern-day Cinderella story, reality would close in around her once again.

      But she would have had tonight.

      If only she could bring herself to answer him. If only she could find the courage to say…

      ‘Skye?’

      Her name was rough on his tongue now, raw impatience and that devastating accent turning it into something new and strange. A sound she didn’t recognise as the name she heard every day.

      ‘Are you ever going to answer me?’

      Skye tried. Swallowing hard to ease the dryness of her throat, she fought for the control, the strength she needed.

      But then his long-fingered hand came under her chin, lifting it so that her face came up to meet his, her grey eyes meeting and locking with the deep, deep blackness of his. Drowning in their darkness.

      He bent his head slowly and his mouth took hers. This time his kiss had none of the fierce, wild passion of moments before; instead it was soft and slow and heartbreakingly tender. It seemed to draw her soul out of her body, melt her bones, so that she was trembling against him, needing the potent strength of his body to support her so that she didn’t fall to the ground.

      ‘So tell me, my beauty,’ he whispered in a voice that was as dark and rich as the black velvet night sky above them. ‘Will you go or will you stay?’

      My beauty, Skye thought hazily.

      No one, not even her mother, had ever called her beautiful. Or made her feel it the way his kiss made her feel right now, here in this cold, rain-spattered street.

      And suddenly there was only one answer to give him. Only one answer she could give him.

      She had to have tonight. She might regret it in the morning, when reality hit her in the face. But the one thing she was sure of was that she could never regret it as much as she would bitterly regret saying no.

      And so she lifted her head and kissed him back, putting her answer into the caress, but knowing she had to speak it too.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed softly, confidently. ‘Yes, of course I’ll stay. But on one condition…’

      CHAPTER THREE

      THEO flicked on the light and surveyed the room before him with a critical eye, frowning as he did so.

      ‘Are you sure that this is what you want?’

      He supposed that the room was all right, as hotel rooms went. It was at least clean and reasonably sized, with a comfortable-looking bed, and the usual furniture and fittings.