Greek Bachelors: In Need Of A Wife. Julia James

him on her knees. He laced both hands into her tumbled hair, palms framing her cheekbones, and kissed her again, sliding his tongue between her lips, skating it over the sensitive roof of her mouth until she quivered and her hands curved over his arms again to support herself.

      She couldn’t think, could barely breathe and could hardly believe that that single kiss had sent the heat surging again like a gushing river of liquid fire in her belly. Satiation was washed away by a renewed tingling and prickling of potent awareness that covered her entire skin surface with heat. He pulled her down, rearranging her legs to cradle him, pinning her beneath the weight and bulk of his lean, muscular body.

      ‘I’m not done yet, hara mou,’ he confessed thickly, luxuriant black lashes low over scorching emerald eyes, lean, strong face taut, cheekbones flushed.

      Her hand rose of its own volition and she ran her fingertips along the mobile line of his often hard-set mouth. It had a softer, more flexible cast now. She thought of him bringing Gizmo home and she gazed up at him, curiously at peace with what had happened, her heart full to overflowing. After all, she never had been able to second-guess Nik’s next move and she guessed she never would have that power because he was very much a law unto himself.

      He shifted against her, lithe and dynamic as a jungle cat, and she felt him hard and ready again against her stomach. ‘Don’t ask me to stop,’ he groaned.

      ‘Take off your shirt,’ she whispered, amazingly relaxed in his arms, marvelling at how right it felt to be there again although even in that instant, in a part of her brain, she wouldn’t acknowledge she knew she would never be able to justify what she had done.

      He levered back from her and hauled roughly at the garment. A couple of buttons went flying and a long, brown, mouth-watering wedge of a six-pack male torso appeared between the parted edges. Her mouth ran dry, tiny little slivers of excitement sparking again. She arched up against him, revelling in the skin-to-skin contact she had never thought she would feel again with him. With a hungry sound in the back of his throat he kissed her again, sliding between her slender thighs, hitching her skirt with impatient hands.

      ‘This time...slow,’ he framed in raw promise.

      ‘Am I the hare or the tortoise?’ she teased.

      ‘Something about you turns me into the hare every time.’

      Betsy laughed. ‘Is this us again?’ she mumbled wonderingly.

      ‘This is now, only now,’ Nik contradicted with innate precision, covering her mouth again with his to silence her and stop the questions and then lingering to savour her.

      He sank into her again as slowly as he had promised. The taste of him was still on her lips and she was achingly sensitive to his every movement. A long, breathy sigh was extracted from her.

      ‘Too much?’ he prompted, staring down at her.

      ‘Not enough,’ she said daringly. ‘I’m not made of glass... I won’t break!’

      Her heart and her body jumped in concert when he twisted his lithe hips and added a more dominant flavour to his possession, sensation winging through her in slow, delicious waves. She closed her eyes to contain her feelings, the excitement catching at her again and flaring bright as a falling star, making every nerve ending strain in longing for the ultimate peak. He quickened his pace and delicious friction intensified the electrifying pleasure. She moaned and her voice rose against her volition into a cry of shocked release, her whole body shaking with the soul-deep force of it as he emitted a raw groan of pleasure.

      Nik eased back from her, righting his clothing, reaching down to scoop her up into his arms.

      ‘What are you doing?’ she framed limply, eyes flying open.

      ‘Taking you to bed, where we should have gone in the first place,’ Nik informed her, striding across the hall towards the heavily carved staircase.

      ‘What we did was more exciting,’ Betsy mumbled, thinking of how very long it had been since they had done anything this instantaneous or uninhibited. For the first time she recognised how much her campaign to fall pregnant had cost them in terms of intimacy. Nothing had been the same once that process had started.

      Nik carried her into the room they had once shared and froze by the side of the bed, scanning the unfamiliar surroundings. The décor had changed and even the furniture was new. His mouth quirked. The reality jolted him, pushing him in the direction of thoughts he was determined not to think just then. He settled her down on the wide, low bed and undressed her with cool efficiency, tugging off the sweater, unzipping her skirt and slipping off her shoes before pulling the duvet over her.

      ‘I need a shower,’ he admitted. ‘Is there still one in the bathroom? Or have you got rid of that as well?’

      Betsy almost laughed. ‘Of course the shower’s still in there.’

      She lay watching him strip, a sight she had never thought to see again, and the experience felt utterly unreal. He strode naked into the bathroom, yet she had recognised his unease with his surroundings. He didn’t like change; he never had. The new colour scheme and furniture had made him tense and uncomfortable. Well, what had he expected? That she would continue to live with the bed they had once shared, allowing her home to inflict constant wounding with memories of what they had once shared together and lost? No, at least Belle had helped Betsy to make that much of a fresh start.

      Nik emerged from the bathroom still towelling dry his black hair. She was startled to notice that he was still fully aroused. Nik had assumed that Betsy would fall asleep, but she was awake, wide, evocative azure eyes pinned to him. She was snuggled down under the duvet, hair as pale as a young child’s trailing across the pillow in tousled disarray. Would he simply have got dressed and left had she been conveniently asleep? He honestly didn’t know the answer to that question. What he did know as he looked at her was that he wasn’t yet ready to leave, and without hesitation he tossed back the duvet and climbed in beside her.

      ‘It’s the middle of the day,’ she reminded him, colour heating her face.

      ‘Are you only remembering that now?’ Nik traded sardonically, and she might have snapped back had he not closed his arms round her and tugged her reassuringly close. ‘What does it matter what time it is?’

      ‘It doesn’t,’ she conceded and then said in a different tone altogether, ‘Nik?’

      ‘Shush,’ he breathed, fearful of what she might say, curving her up against his still taut and aroused length with an exhilarating sense of extraordinarily intense satisfaction.

      ‘You’re still—’ she began.

      ‘I am,’ Nik agreed, draping her tiny body over top of him with care. ‘Do you think you could do anything about that?’

      ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ Betsy knew he wasn’t joking because she could feel him hard as an iron bar beneath her.

      ‘Evidently you make me insatiable, hara mou.’

      Her palms curved to his broad shoulders. Nik had enormous reserves of charm when he chose to utilise them but it was a very long time since he had bothered to show her that side of him. As a result, the slashing charismatic smile that lit up his lean dark features literally mesmerised her, leaving her defenceless. He lifted his head and tasted her parted lips with an intensity that set up a chain reaction of response that slivered through her bloodstream and sprang a sneak attack on her. He tasted so good and his lean hands were stroking up and down her slender spine, finding spots that felt erogenous even though she knew they were not. Even sealed to the heat and hard muscularity of him, she shivered, her heart hammering again, astounded by events and yet covertly flattered by his unquenchable hunger for her.

      ‘One more time and then you can sleep,’ Nik husked, rolling her back against the pillows and leaning over her, his devastatingly dark and masculine attraction enhanced by the shadow of stubble beginning to roughen his lower cheekbones and jawline.

      ‘Time off for good behaviour?’ she teased.

      Claiming