NIK'S VOICE, talking Greek...but she was in bed. Her feathery lashes shot up, revealing startled sapphire-blue eyes. Her arrested attention fell on Nik. He had his back turned to her. He was standing at the window, one lean hand occupied by a mobile phone. Shock rolled over her in a debilitating wave. A Technicolor replay of the events of the night before sizzled through her brain, not a single X-rated second deleted.
And she couldn't explain how it had happened. That was the most appalling discovery of all. One minute she had been screaming at him in fury, the next...? As she stiffened below the crumpled sheet, unfamiliar muscles complained and a faint ache intimately reminded her of the explosive passion which had flared up between them.
Hot color burnished her cheeks. Had Nik not still been physically present, she would have believed it was all a dream...a nightmare, she amended with a shudder. She rubbed at her temples, vaguely conscious that her head was sore, her throat slightly raw.
Join the bimbo fraternity, she told herself with sudden fury. But join at the bottom of the class.
The average bimbo had a certain native cunning, knew where she was going and how. Leah had fallen at the first major hurdle. She had finally got up the courage to leave Nik, had felt good about that decision, indeed had felt empowered by it...and then he had brought her down on this bed and kissed her and inexplicably the balance of power had swung violently back to the enemy; for he was the enemy. Anyone capable of reducing her to this level was definitely the enemy. As she moved her head on the pillow, it swam.
Her tortured gaze rested on him, on the angle of his well-shaped dark head, the breadth of his shoulders beneath the fine cloth of his jacket, the jut of his narrow hips as he dug a lean hand into the pocket of his tailored trousers and splayed his long lugs. And she was shattered by just how much she liked looking at him, how familiar every gesture was every fluid change of stance. Pain traversed her tight features. She knew then how it had happened, She had blocked out Nik's attraction, blocked out the hunger, blocked out every thought of him. Self-preservation had taught her to do that. But all along that attraction had still been there, a sexual craving denied and buried and made all the more dangerous by that suppression. It was that same craving which had escaped and betrayed her in Nik's arms. Given the opportunity, she had grabbed him...just as he had always said she would.
Hot moisture lashed the back of her eyelids but she wouldn't let the tears fall. She really didn't feel well but that was no good reason to give way to such weakness.
Nik turned and strolled across to the bed. He was too much of a predator not to smile, his sensual mouth curving with self-satisfaction as he looked down at her. He couldn't even hide it. He settled down on the edge of the mattress, lustrous dark eyes tracking over her intently. 'It's a beautiful morning.’
She could hear the wind lashing the rain against the windows.
'In Athens,' he added softly, lifting a hand and skating a finger along the taut line of her lower lip. 'And if you tell me you're not coming— No, don't you dare tell me that.' he warned as her lips began to part. 'Not after last night.'
'That was just sex.' Leah bit out, a heady flush staining her skin.
His smile merely grew in brilliance as he lowered his dark head. 'Never just sex,' he reproved huskily. 'Fabulous, wonderful, incredible sex. If the jet wasn't on stand-by, I'd still be in bed.'
Her teeth gritted. 'Yesterday, I left you—'
'Theos mou, and today we are closer than we have ever been. Life is so unpredictable,' Nik pointed out with immovable self-assurance. 'Think of this as the first day of our marriage.'
