‘I don’t even know you,’ she said, taking a huge gulp of her coffee. He hadn’t realised she was still holding the mug with her other hand. He reached for it, and now she didn’t have time to delicately arrange her fingers so they were out of his way. He curved his hand over hers—so much larger, it was the only choice.
‘That’s not an answer.’ And he knelt then, dangerously close to the middle of her legs, so their eyes were almost level. Still, he looked down on her, because of his height, and when she glanced up at him, the towel that had been held in place only through the hand that also held her coffee fell down a little, revealing a hint of her creamy, naked shoulder.
‘Genevieve.’ His voice was a command, a demanding, insistent plea. He needed her to put an end to it. He was too far gone to listen to common sense, but if she said a single word to dissuade him, if she offered even a hint of opposition, then he would stand and walk away—right out into the storm, if need be.
Growing up as large as he was, Nikos had learned the truth of his strength from a young age. He could easily overpower almost anyone—man or woman—and he had never once used that strength to his advantage. Not in a fight with a man, and never, ever in sex with a woman. The idea repulsed him.
It was always a woman’s choice, a woman’s pleasure, a woman’s needs.
But it was with the greatest willpower in the world that he held himself still, in a kind of sexual purgatory, waiting for her to say something, to give him some indication of what she wanted, even when he knew he should deny himself Genevieve, no matter what.
Except, heknewwhat she wanted. He could see it in the tremble of her body and feel it in the finger that was still tracing the line of his jaw—it was whether or not she was ready to admit that, to either of them.
‘I will not touch you unless you ask it of me,’ he said, the words dragged from him as he pushed past the final barrier of his internal struggle. ‘You do not need to be afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, but her eyes dropped lower, and her hand pulled away. ‘Thank you for taking care of me.’
Her voice was suddenly meek and, despite her words, it seemed almost that she was scared. He stood, and, true to his inner monologue, strode towards the door, pausing only to retrieve a handgun he kept on his bedside table, before making his way out of the house and into the storm. Suddenly, it seemed like the most imperative thing in the world to get Genevieve off his island, to hell with anything else. His helicopter was the beginning and end of that, and, even though he knew he could not take off until the storm cleared, he needed to sight the damned thing, like a talisman. Only then could he take comfort from the certainty that she would be out of his hair just as soon as the storm passed. That he could let her go without succumbing to temptation. Without giving into a pleasure he didn’t deserve to ever feel again.
Genevieve’s clothes were saturated, so she’d tentatively sifted through his clothing—not that there was much of it—and removed a long-sleeved shirt and pulled it on. She couldn’t just sit around half naked: not when her whole body was suddenly a livewire of sexual need. God, but this man was smouldering!
And all this time, she’d thought herself totally asexual. That was an easy thing to believe, when her husband’s touch had left her cold. At first, she’d thought pleasure would develop from intimacy, and then she’d at least hoped that some kind of emotional satisfaction would follow sex. But it was never a solution, never anything other than an act she came to loathe. Particularly once she knew he was sleeping with other women. Women who were beautiful and confident, and no doubt vampy in the bedroom, who could be everything he wanted.
She had no idea if she’d always been like this. A slavish dedication to her journalism degree had meant she’d never really dated before meeting James, and then he’d overwhelmed her with his attention, flattered her and seduced her with promises of the life they’d lead, so that the struggle she’d known since her father’s death had suddenly seemed like a distant dream.
Throughout their marriage, she’d come to accept that it was just her. She’d even come to pity her husband, to be glad that he’d cheated. At first, he’d kept the affairs private, and she’d pretended to turn the other cheek. But when the headlines had started, and the media had begun to reach out to her for quotes, she’d had to face his infidelity head-on.
Genevieve was midway through making another coffee when the door blew in and, with it, Nikos—whatever his last name was—all wild and wet, just as she’d been when she’d first arrived. His clothes were plastered to his body and her eyes fell to the gun in his hand. She couldn’t look away as he stalked across the room, replacing the gun on the bedside table and saying to her, without looking in her direction, ‘It is only in case of wild animals.’
Of course it was. And it was a wise precaution, going by the noises she’d heard as she’d climbed through the forest.
Then he turned to face her and, without looking away, without offering an excuse, began to peel his wet shirt from his body, leaving him standing there in just a pair of shorts. Her eyes were as plastered to him as his clothes had been a moment earlier, and her mouth was suddenly bone dry.
‘The way off the island has been damaged by the storm.’
Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened. Getting off the island hadn’t even really occurred to her. That was to say, it hadn’t occurred to her that it wouldn’t be as easy as clicking her fingers and calling some kind of water taxi.
‘Oh, but there must be a way—’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Of course.’
‘Okay, good.’
‘When the storm clears, I’ll arrange it.’
‘But can’t I call someone now?’
He raised his brows. ‘There is no point. No one can reach the island until this clears.’ He gestured to the window.
‘How long have you been here?’ she asked, looking around before her eyes jerked, of their own volition, back to his body.
‘Three years.’
She gasped. ‘How on earth can you live like this? You must be crazy.’
Yet, he didn’t seem crazy, so much as…broken, like some kind of Greek Heathcliff, all tortured and seeking solitude as a result of that torture. She couldn’t say why she felt that, only that the image was set in her mind and couldn’t be loosened.
He looked around. ‘Is there a problem?’
