A Greek Escape - By Elizabeth Power Page 0,40

stupid!’ she snapped, trying to sit up and failing when he kept her anchored to his side. She didn’t feel it was necessary to add that she was taking the pill. She had tried to come off it after her break-up with Craig, but her periods had gone so haywire that her doctor had suggested it might be best for her to keep taking it until her emotions were on a more even keel.

‘So what happens now?’ Leonidas asked, his breath seeming to shiver through his lungs.

‘What do you mean?’ Blue eyes searched the midnight-darkness of his for some sign of tenderness—the tenderness that had been stirred in her by seeing him so vulnerable while she had been making love to him—but there was none.

‘We’ve just become lovers and you don’t even know who I am.’ Something he was going to have to rectify—and as soon as possible, he realised, floundering. It was a feeling that was alien to Leonidas Vassalio.

‘Yes, I do. Or as much as I need to,’ she murmured, feeling his powerful body tense as she applied a trail of butterfly kisses over the slick warmth of his heavily contoured chest.

‘I’m trying to be serious, Kayla.’

‘Why?’ she breathed against the velvety texture of his skin, delighting in the way his breathing was growing more and more ragged from her kisses.

But as her fingers trailed teasingly along the inside of one powerful thigh his hand suddenly clamped down on hers, resisting the temptation to let it wander.

‘Because I don’t believe you’re the type of girl who does this without knowing what sort of man she’s getting herself involved with and without demanding some degree of emotional commitment.’

And he wasn’t offering any. She couldn’t understand why telling herself that caused her spirits to plummet the way they did.

‘I’m not demanding anything,’ she uttered, knowing that the only way to save face was to get the hell out of there. ‘And I’m sorry if I offended you!’

Scrambling out of bed, managing to shrug off the hand that tried to restrain her, she heard his urgent, ‘Kayla! Kayla, come back here!’

She didn’t, though. Her wounded pride propelled her into the adjoining bathroom, her mind focussed only on tidying herself up and getting out.

Stung with regret for upsetting her, momentarily Leonidas flopped back against the pillows. He hadn’t intended her to take what he had said in the way she had. He had been trying to explain, in a roundabout way, what he should have told her long before, but procrastinating had only made an awkward situation far more difficult. After what had just happened he didn’t know how or where to begin. He only knew that he couldn’t let it happen again before he told her the truth—and all he’d managed to do was let her believe she’d offended him…

Offended him! He couldn’t stop a lazy smile from touching his mouth.

She’d blown his mind, he thought, when she’d woken him up from a deep, deep sleep and dragged him straight into a cauldron of sizzling pleasure. He hadn’t had time to catch his breath—let alone think! And he wouldn’t have been caught so off-guard, still in bed, if he hadn’t been up practically all night trying to get round one last hitch with those amended plans…

The plans!

He shot up in bed just as Kayla was emerging from the bathroom.

He’d left all his paperwork spread out over the kitchen table with his laptop—incriminating evidence of who he was! It had been late, and he’d obviously crashed out on the bed after he’d come up here and showered!

‘Kayla, come here!’

The authority in his voice would have stopped a lesser mortal, but she ignored it as she moved around the bed, frowning, tugging at the draping folds of the bedlinen.

‘Are you looking for something?’ he asked, knowing he had to act quickly.

Kayla made a grab for the red briefs he was holding up, which only succeeded in bringing her across the bed and against his disturbingly masculine body as he withheld them, effectively securing what he wanted.

‘You haven’t offended me. You were wonderful,’ he murmured, his warm breath a delicious sensuality against her hairline. ‘Now, come back to bed. I want to talk to you,’ he said, and just as an incentive slipped his hand under the tantalising little skirt and let his fingers play along the outer curve of one taut, silky buttock.

Kayla groaned, weakening beneath his mind-boggling powers of persuasion. She felt vulnerable and incredibly sexy with no panties on, but she