“Floaty.”
“Yes. That was what you said. I phoned the doctor when I realized what was happening. He said you’d be fine as soon as you slept it off.”
“I remember now. The nurse gave me some pills…I only took codeine once, when I was a little girl. I took a tumble—”
“—and broke your leg after Billy Riley dared you to use a rope swing over the river.” Demetrios smiled. “I know.”
“You know?” Sam stared at him. “I told you about that?”
He shrugged. “As you say, you were—”
“Floaty,” she said quickly. “Exactly. I don’t remember anything after you took me to the hospital.”
“There isn’t much to remember.”
His voice was a little rough and she could sense a tension in him. Something had happened; something had changed. If only she could remember…
“I brought you home. To my house.”
“Your house.” Her voice shook and she cleared her throat. “And—and to your room?”
“My room. And my bed.” He put his cup on the tray, then took hers and put it there, too. “Samantha. I want you to remember last night. I want you to remember all of it.”
“Demetrios—”
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say my name?” He moved closer to her, framed her face with his hands. “I see more questions in your eyes, gataki. Ask them. You want to know why I put you here and not in one of the other bedrooms. You want to know who put you to bed and who took care of you.” A muscle knotted in his jaw. “Ask, and I will give you the answers—or are you afraid to hear them? Would you prefer we went on with this silly pretense?”
“What pretense? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He nodded. He’d expected that she would choose not to know what had happened. What she felt. What she wanted. Why would he want her to? It was foolish to pursue a woman who preferred a lie to the truth when there were so many others who were eager to acknowledge desire. The world was filled with women who could be easily seduced.
Except, he didn’t want any of them. He wanted this one, who was afraid to admit her need for him. He didn’t fully understand her fear but he was willing to confront it because, in the grayness of early morning, he’d admitted a truth of his own.
He was afraid, too.
After he’d left her, he’d gone to his library, watched the sun feather the sky with pink and fuchsia while he drank bad coffee he’d made himself because not even the cook had been awake at that hour. Alone, he’d contemplated the sunrise as if he’d never seen it before. It had been in the way of a lesson, reminding him that the sun would rise tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, even if neither he or she acknowledged what had happened in that bedroom.
Every instinct had warned him to do the sensible thing, greet Samantha politely when she awakened and pretend the way she’d sighed in his arms was nothing but a dream. They’d struck sparks against each other from the beginning but he’d lived long enough to know that sparks could as easily sputter and die as they could blaze into a conflagration.
Yes, he’d decided, forgetting what had gone on in that bedroom was the best solution.
He’d poured himself another cup of coffee—drinkable, this time, because the cook had made it. He’d climbed the stairs, prepared to smile and say the right thing…and saw Samantha, sitting up in his bed, wearing his robe, and he’d wondered how he could have imagined letting her leave him until they’d faced what they felt and saw it through to its inevitable end. Even as he’d thought it, she’d tossed back the covers, lurched to her feet, that damnable independence of hers driving her to risk her injured ankle…
“I never would have imagined you to be a coward,” he said huskily.
“You’re wasting your time.” Her voice was strong but she hadn’t tried to move away. She was trembling under his hands. “Do you really think you can trick me into another silly challenge? Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether I woke up in your bed or—”
“I brought you into my house because you needed someone to watch over you. Cosimia suggested I put you in one of the guest suites. She offered to sleep in the room with you.” Demetrios took a deep breath. “I said no. Do you know why?”
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “You said ‘no’ because you can’t imagine not being in charge of everything and everyone. You have to control the world, Demetrios, and I don’t like men who—”
He covered her mouth with his, silencing her with his kiss.
“Please,” she whispered, even as she raised her hands and curled them into his shirt, “I beg you. Don’t do this. Don’t say any more.”
“I wanted to be with you, to be the one you turned to in the night.” He lifted her face and forced her to meet his eyes. “I undressed you, gataki. I put you to bed. And I held you in my arms most of the night, after you begged me not to leave you.”
Sam drew an unsteady breath. She’d known it. Sensed it. Recalled it all happening, if not as a memory than as something burned into her very soul.
“No more lies, matyá mou, not for either of us.” He slid his hands down her back, then gathered her to him. “We made a bad bargain that day in New York. We thought the challenge of working together would be enough to quench the fire of what we felt but it isn’t. I want you more than ever, now that I know you. And you want me.”
“We agreed—”
“Yes. We did.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “If you tell me, I will walk out of this room and never mention any of this again.”
She said nothing. He waited, hearing the beat of his own heart, seeing the blurring in her eyes. He could make her admit the truth; he knew that as surely as he’d seen the sun rise this morning. All it would take would be a caress. A kiss. He could breach all her defenses with a touch but he wanted more than that. He needed her to come to him. To reach for him.
She made a little sound, closed her eyes, caught her lip between her teeth. He could feel his resolve slipping. To hold her in his arms, to feel her warmth and not make love to her, was rapidly becoming impossible. He reminded himself, once again, that he was a man and not a saint…but if he spent many more moments like this, he might yet become one.
Enough, he thought, and let go of her.
“I release you from our contract,” he said softly. “I will pay you the full amount we agreed upon, gataki. You may leave for the States as soon as your ankle is healed.”
“Demetrios—”
“No. It’s all right.” He rose from the bed and walked to the door, a man destined for sainthood and already damning himself for it.
“Please. Don’t go.”
Her voice was soft but it stopped his heart. He turned and looked at her, saw her lips curve in a smile so intimate, so filled with promise, it almost brought him to his knees. Slowly, so slowly that it seemed to take forever, she opened the robe. The edges parted; he saw the rounded curves of her breasts and the gentle rise of her belly.
“Come to me,” she whispered.
Sam held out her arms. Demetrios turned the lock and went to claim the woman who had surely been his from the very beginning of time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE WAS beautiful.
Sam had never imagined using that word to describe a man but as Demetrios stripped off his shirt, she knew it was the only word that suited him.
His shoulders were wide, his arms powerfully muscled. An inverted vee of dark, silky hair stretched over his chest and arrowed down to his navel. Clothed, he’d looked like a man of civility and power but she’d always sensed the darker, more primitive side of him.
Now, as he came towards her, bare-chested, the top button of his jeans undone, his eyes dark and fixed on hers, she knew that this was the real Demetrios Karas. He was a man who took what he wanted—and what he wanted was her.
The realization was more exciting than anything she’d ever known. She could feel her body readying itself for his. Her nipples were tight with desi
re, her breasts almost aching with it. A heaviness seemed to settle low in her belly.
“Demetrios,” she whispered, as he reached her.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I know. We’ve waited a long time for this.”
She trembled as he slid the robe from her shoulders, moaned when he dipped his head and pressed his lips to her throat. Could he feel the hammer of her pulse against his mouth? He was whispering to her in Greek. She didn’t understand all the words. She didn’t have to. The brush of his hands, the way he clasped her shoulders, was an eloquent language all its own.