When he went to Athens occasionally for work, he barely saw anyone from his old life. Not his friends, not her family. No one who might look at him and try to make him ‘feel better’. He wasn’t interested in that. When Theo came to the island, they shook hands, then set about the business of managing Nikos’s extensive financial interests. For all that Nikos had taken himself to the edges of earth, he still oversaw the most critical investments and opportunities, using Theo as a trusted right hand, the manager he relied on as a conduit to his old life. He was the one person Nikos allowed behind the veil, to see him, his life, to understand his headspace.
Besides Theo, he was almost completely isolated, and up until about twenty minutes earlier he would have said, without hesitation, that he wasn’t interested in ever seeing or touching another woman again. Certainly not in being intimate with one.
He now knew that to be a lie.
There was no other explanation for the blood that was pounding in his ears, the way his cock was growing hard beneath his shorts, the way fingers that were treating her wounds fairlyachedto wrap around her calf and hold her there, before tugging gently to part her legs, so he could move his fingers higher, to brush against the sweetness of her sex. Her breasts were right in front of him, though hidden by the towel, and he wanted to take his other hand and pull the fabric away, revealing her to his hungry gaze, before his mouth tasted every single inch of her.
The betrayal of his late wife, Isabella, was like a blade in the gut, but it did nothing to stem his awareness of this woman—Genevieve. Nothing to curtail his desire and the white-hot burst of need overtaking his body, one cell at a time. Besides, desire was simply that: his body’s involuntary response and recognition of another. It didn’t mean anything, except that he’d been celibate way too long. Solitary and alone, not missing the touch of another, nor the contact and companionship of people. But that wasn’t to say he was made of stone, and he would have needed to be not to notice the softness of her skin, the supple, athletic tone of her legs, the light caramel tan to her skin.
Once upon a time, in almost another universe, he would have found her attractive. More than attractive, he’d have said she was beautiful. From her raven-dark hair to wide-set, pale blue eyes, straight nose with a little ski jump at the tip of it, and soft, pouty pink lips that were currently held apart, showing surprise. Awareness.
Yes, he felt it, not as a man might when stirred in a void, but rather, when the same fires of need were burning in his opposition. He felt them spark off each other, rather than simply beneath his own skin.
And then, he did let his fingers trail higher, over her smooth flesh, towards the deep cut in her leg.
‘This should have stitches,’ he muttered, pleased he still sounded disapproving, despite the torrent of need that was flooding him every bit as quickly as the skies had opened up this afternoon.
Her throat shifted as she swallowed, and he imagined pressing his mouth there and tasting her, sucking until her skin darkened and he left a little mark of his own on that flawless neck. She shivered, perhaps in response to the intensity of his gaze, yet he didn’t look away. His finger traced around the cut as he forced his eyes to return to their inspection. Goosebumps lifted over her legs, and his lips shifted in a mocking half-smile.
‘Cold?’ he asked, though he knew the answer to that. The fire was raging, and they were close enough to be almost too hot. Her goosebumps could be for one reason only.
‘What do you think?’ was her spirited reply, so he stood and turned his back to conceal something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. An actual smile. It was quick. A flash on his lips, before he managed to capture it and smother it away again. After all, what right did Nikos have to feel amusement, particularly at the hands of a beautiful woman?
‘I think you would be better off just about anywhere but here,’ he muttered as he opened the medical kit again and removed the Steri-Strips. When he turned to face her, she was staring at him not with fear, so much as undisguised curiosity.
‘Who are you?’ She repeated an earlier question, one he’d instinctively shied away from.
This was his bolt-hole, and it remained that way because very few people knew he lived here. The ‘reclusive billionaire’ was an apt moniker, in many ways, though it made it sound as though he had a choice in his reclusiveness. When the truth was, he was simply living the life he had earned. The life he deserved. He had caused his wife’s death, after subjecting her to years of abject loneliness.
His fate was to share in hers.
He knew the speculation that went on about his life. In business circles, certainly, but even, from time to time, in the society pages. Particularly if he happened to be spotted back in Athens or further afield for any period of time. He had no interest in giving this woman any more information than was necessary.
Then again, she too had stuck to her first name, so he heard himself offer, ‘Nikos.’
‘Nikos,’ she repeated, and something like a shiver ran the length of his spine at the way she turned the two simple syllables into warmed honey. Her American accent disappeared on the Greek word, so he itched to teach her some others. ‘And you live here?’
She’d asked him that earlier, too.
He nodded once as he strode back across the room and stood before her, aware that his cock was at her eye height, and that he was growing harder by the minute. So what? Let her see what was happening to him, let her know that she should keep her distance. He was a lit fuse, apparently, and the last thing he wanted was to act on it.
Yet with the slightest invitation from her, he wondered if he’d be helpless to ignore his body’s deep, carnal cravings. Though he’d been celibate since Isabella’s death, it was less about a sense of betraying Isabella and more about his single-minded determination to deny himself even that pleasure. Never again would he look at another woman in a romantic sense; never again would he allow a woman to care for him, love him, or marry him. He didn’t deserve any of that. And up until this moment, he’d never once been tempted.
He heard her sharp intake of breath and knew she’d noticed. Dropping his head to hide whatever expression his features twisted into, he crouched down and lightly touched her injured leg. ‘Does it hurt?’ His voice was gruff.
‘I—’
When he looked up it was to see shock on her face. Confusion, too. Not fear. Not even uncertainty so much as wonder. Slowly, she reached out, her brows quirking closer together as she let her finger hover in the air a little to the right of his cheek and then, with another quick intake of breath, to glance over his jaw. So softly it was feather-light, so he leaned into her hand. He didn’t want her tentative touch. If anything were to happen between them, it should be fast and rushed, born purely of need. Not gentle. Not inquisitive. Not a precursor to anything other than wild, animalistic sex, as desperate as the storm raging around the cabin.
‘Nikos,’ she said, frown deepening, as though his name held some secret, or explanation, to what she was feeling. He unfastened the Steri-Strips and gently pressed them over her wound until it stitched closed. Then he reached for the bandage and began to wrap it around her leg, his fingers brushing the backs of her thighs, then the front, needlessly touching her bare skin, until the gash was covered, and he sealed the end of the bandage to keep it in place.
Her finger stayed on his jaw, her frown in place, as he worked, and when he was finished he looked up at her. He had denied himself every pleasure for a long time, but, God help him, this woman who’d stormed into his cabin was like a vixen, drawing him in, making him want something he’d easily resisted for years.
‘If you keep touching me like that, Genevieve, I will want to take you to bed. Is that what you want?’
Her breath exploded from her lips on something like an anguished cry, and her eyes fled to the double bed in the room.
It was a form of madness. What else explained the way he was suggesting sex to a woman who’d blown in with the wild Etesian winds, not an hour earlier?
