One Night: Blissful Seduction. Heidi Betts

took that to mean that he had not installed a more malleable woman in her place and when a sense of relief filtered through her she gulped more of her wine and tried hard to direct her thoughts to safer topics. It was no longer her business to wonder who he slept with. Once he had married Calisto the question had become academic. Billie had been replaced in every way. Calisto had been chosen to sit at the other end of the dining table in his probably very beautiful Greek home, which Billie had naturally never visited. Gio would have socialised with Calisto because they were a real couple and obviously he had planned to make Calisto the mother of his children...

CHAPTER THREE

      AS THE PAIN of that never-to-be-forgotten reality pierced Billie, she suddenly reached the limits of her tolerance. Her attempt to be civilised for the sake of appearances was shattered and, forced cruelly out of her comfort zone, she thrust her hands down on the edge of the table and suddenly stood up. ‘I can’t do this!’ she told Gio with ragged abruptness. ‘I want to go home right now!’

      Taken aback, Gio sprang upright, a frown line drawing his ebony brows together, his lustrous dark eyes locked to her flushed and unhappy face with wary, searching curiosity. ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Only you would ask that in this set-up!’ Billie exclaimed helplessly. ‘I didn’t want to see you ever again. I don’t want to be reminded of the past!’

      ‘Billie...’ Gio murmured, closing strong hands over her shaking shoulders while his keen gaze collided with her translucent green eyes. ‘Calm down...’

      ‘I can’t...I’m not like you...I never was. I’m no good at avoiding the obvious and pretending!’ She gasped strickenly, tears clogging up her throat and terrifying her because in the past she had always contrived to hide her emotional breakdowns from Gio and she was proud of the restraint she had demonstrated in spite of the provocation and the pain he had put her through. ‘You really shouldn’t be here...you should’ve left me alone in my new life.’

      Gio trailed a blunt forefinger along the lower line of her lush bottom lip. ‘I would if I could. I had to see you again.’

      ‘Why?’ Billie demanded baldly.

      ‘Because we weren’t done when you walked away.’

      A great scream of agonising hurt and frustration was rising up inside Billie. ‘Of course we were done—you were getting married!’ she reminded him doggedly.

      ‘I had to see you again to find out if I still wanted you.’ Long brown fingers rose to cup her cheekbones. ‘And the answer to that is that I do still want you.’

      In a sudden rage at his nerve in admitting that, Billie jerked her head back out of reach to detach his fingers. ‘That means nothing.’

      ‘It means a hell of a lot more to me than you seem to appreciate!’ Gio growled, patience splintering, because he was well aware that he was fighting blind in the sort of emotional confrontation he had absolutely no experience of dealing with.

      ‘Not enough to make a difference!’ Billie snapped back, a kind of madness in the strong emotions powering her while she fought a humiliatingly defensive urge to just race out of the door and run away like a scared kid.

      Gio imprisoned her in the strong circle of his arms in an unforewarned movement that jolted her. Brilliant dark eyes blazed pure gold fire down at her. ‘There’s more than enough for both of us,’ he spelt out, marvelling that she was still fighting him when it was more normal for him to be fighting off the women who ceaselessly pursued him with flirtation and flattery.

      ‘Let me go!’ she told him shakily.

      ‘No.’ Gio studied her with smouldering determination. ‘You’ll only run away again. I can feel it in you and I won’t let you do something that stupid again.’

      ‘You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to—’

      ‘But what about what you want to do?’ Gio savoured the comeback, bending his handsome dark head to run his tongue along the seam of her closed lips.

      Taken by surprise, Billie jerked, her blood running heavily and slowly through her veins as if time itself had slowed down to give her the chance to catch up. His breath fanned her cheek and his lips connected with hers in a heart-stopping collision that tripped her ability to breathe. His lips were smooth and unusually gentle and soft and somehow she couldn’t prevent herself from turning up her chin to ask for more of the same.

      Gio smiled against her lush mouth, hunger beating through him like a jackhammer. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything or anybody in his life and he was all fired up to fight hard for what he wanted because he knew she would restore the oasis of peace he needed in his private life. Long fingers smoothed over her back, his other hand curving to her waist. He nipped at her soft lower lip and then glided his sensual mouth over hers in a move that swallowed her tiny cry of surprise. His hand moved up to tangle in her mane of curls and the pressure of his mouth increased until her head tilted back, allowing him greater access.

      Her breasts crushed against the solid wall of his broad chest, Billie was struggling to breathe and being bombarded by sensations she had forced herself to forget. She had forgotten how gentle he could be and how inventive and her heartbeat was racing like an express train because it had been too long since she had been touched, too long since she had allowed herself to be the passionate woman that she was.

      His tongue darted between her teeth, searching out the moist welcome beyond and then tasting her deep and slow with a rough sensuality that lit a string of firecrackers low in her pelvis. She squirmed as the heat of his mouth on hers grew and the hunger she had tried to deny leapt up inside her in explosive response. The rhythmic plunge of his tongue was matched by the small rocking motions of his hips against hers and her body went nuclear on memories she had suppressed for two years. The barrier of their clothing could not conceal the fact that Gio was erect and ready for her.

      Billie felt him lift her but she was so drunk on the taste and texture of his passionate kisses she ignored the fact. He was more intoxicating than wine and her head swam while powerful pulses of reaction were coiling up from the tight knot forming at the heart of her body. Her back connected with a soft yielding surface and he lifted his proud, dark head, black cropped hair ruffled by her seeking fingers, burnished dark golden eyes holding hers in an exchange so familiar it shook her to her very depths.

      ‘My tie’s choking me,’ he confided huskily, yanking at the offending item, ripping loose the collar of his shirt and, in his impatience, sending the button flying.

      That comment was typical of Gio: an emotional moment instinctively avoided. When she looked at him, though, everything else melted away for her. It was a desire so all-encompassing it thrummed through Billie like a sensual drugging pulse. He shrugged out of his jacket, used his feet to push off her shoes.

      ‘I can’t let you go again, pouli mou.’

      ‘You have to...we can’t do this,’ Billie whispered unevenly, her awareness returning to encompass the giant bed and the elegant furnishings of what was obviously the bedroom of his suite. She was stunned, still dimly wondering how she had got there.

      ‘Open your mouth for me,’ Gio urged with stubborn single-minded zeal. ‘Theos, I love your mouth—’

      Just one more kiss, she bargained with herself frantically, her body coming alive in the most fatally seductive fashion because with the life came the cravings she had successfully shut down. And he tasted like heaven, a banquet for the starving, a delicious drink for the terminally thirsty. Her hands kneaded his bulging biceps and, brushing aside his collar, she pushed her mouth against the corded strength of his neck, licking the salt from his skin. His big body shifted in a jerk against hers, sealing every line of his muscled mass to hers, and the awesomely familiar weight of him and the scent of his skin plunged her back into the past.

      Gio rolled onto his side to drag off her