‘If you do that I won’t last.’
Ella reared up and pushed him flat. ‘Oh, stop with the threats, Mr Drakos!’ she told him, laughing down at him.
Nikolai could never remember laughter along with sex but he liked it. He liked it even more when he pulled her back down again and reinstated supremacy because there was no way he would allow her to call the shots in bed. He felt strange, almost giddy, and he wanted to smile and he wondered what was wrong with him. His little hummingbird of a bride was changing him and he knew as he looked down into her hectically flushed, laughing face that there was no way he was ever going to willingly hand her over to another man.
‘I want this night to last for ever,’ she murmured against his chest, drunk on the smell of his skin.
‘For ever is a big challenge,’ he husked, rocking his hips against hers, letting her feel the hardness of him, sending a wanton thrill of naked hunger shooting through her veins.
‘It wasn’t a challenge,’ she protested as he touched her where she most needed to be touched and she jerked and whimpered, defenceless against the surge of need controlling her.
He eased over her, rearranged her to his satisfaction, slowly surged in and she shut her eyes tight, every nerve screaming for the satisfaction only he could give. Inch by agonising inch he entered her and when he was finally fully seated she loosed a sound of pleasure she couldn’t hold back. She could feel how damp, how ready she was and his sheer strength as he lifted her up to him, muscles bulging in his forearms, left her weak with longing. He slid back and then plunged, his speed picking up. Excitement detonated inside her and she wrapped her legs round him. As she bucked he pinned her to the mattress and thrust into her fiercely with a primal grunt of pleasure. It went on and on and on until she was sobbing with excitement and the band of tension at the centre of her body was tightening and tightening. Release came in a rush of feral fire, lighting up every nerve and skin cell, and she cried out, her nails raking down his back in an ecstasy of pleasure.
She was dizzy with lingering joy when she recovered enough to be aware of her surroundings again.
‘I’m flattening you.’ He dropped a gentle kiss on her brow and released her from his weight to turn over.
Flatten away, she almost told him, until her attention was grabbed by the tattoo on his shoulder. Yes, it was a winged goddess, but incongruously a tiny rainbow and the head of a unicorn peeked out from below one wing. ‘A rainbow and a unicorn?’ she queried, tracing the design with a curious fingertip.
Nikolai went rigid and flipped back to face her, dark eyes grim in his lean, strong face. ‘To remember my sister...the fairy-tale things she liked,’ he confided with a reluctance she could feel.
‘That’s sweet...when did she...?’
‘Five years ago.’ His rich, dark drawl had gone all gravelly. ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’
‘OK,’ Ella said lightly, although it wasn’t OK in any way and his reserve hurt.
Did you really think being married to Nikolai was going to be all rainbows and unicorns? she asked herself irritably. He wasn’t going to have a personality transplant overnight and suddenly begin sharing his every innermost thought and feeling. Obviously he still felt the loss of his sister deeply and he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. That was all right. She didn’t have to blunder in where angels feared to tread, did she? She didn’t have to know everything about him...did she?
Love was a hard taskmaster, she conceded then, running a tender fingertip over the hard line of his tense mouth before giving up on that approach and rolling away from him to climb off the bed. ‘I’m still wearing my boots,’ she noted in wonderment.
‘I like them,’ Nikolai told her in a driven undertone.
‘I knew you would...but my feet are hurting now,’ she admitted, sitting down by the table with the flowers to take the boots off and noticing the envelope sitting there unopened. ‘Oh, you haven’t opened this yet. It must be from whoever sent the flowers.’
Sitting up in the bed, Nikolai tensed again as she dug out the card. ‘Dido and Dorkas Drakos...the flowers are from your great-aunts!’ Ella exclaimed with satisfaction. ‘You’ll have to go and look them up now.’
‘I hate to rain on your parade but I met them years ago when I was having this place renovated,’ Nikolai admitted abruptly.
‘You didn’t mention that,’ she said in surprise. ‘Were they friendly?’
‘Very...but it seemed a bit too late in the day to get sucked into the family circle when I had spent most of my life alone,’ he admitted stiffly.
‘When did they first find out that you existed?’ she pressed.
‘When I inherited from my grandfather.’
‘Then you can’t blame them for not being around when you were younger,’ Ella pointed out squarely. ‘We should go and visit...see how it goes.’
Nikolai rolled his eyes and said nothing. Meeting his relatives would make her happy and it would cost him nothing. He knew she was keen to give him family roots on Crete. She couldn’t grasp that he had lived most of his life without such ties and that they meant a great deal less to him than they did to her. He had learned a lot in his first ten years at the hands of totally detached parents.
A little hurt by his discouraging silence, Ella went for a shower. As she stepped out of the cubicle, however, he stepped in.
‘Do you want some supper?’ Nikolai enquired when he wandered back into the bedroom clad in the twin of the dark towelling robe she had found hanging in the bathroom.
‘Is there anything available?’ Ella asked, knowing that he wasn’t much better at cooking than she was. At home she had looked after her father when he’d needed care and had generally taken over his jobs, keeping the garden and lighting the fire, while Gramma had presided over the kitchen. There had never been any need for Ella to learn how to cook.
Nikolai gave her an amused appraisal. ‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.’
Ella was bemused when she heard dogs barking somewhere nearby. Nikolai opened the bedroom door and Rory and Butch charged in to careen round his feet. He moved the vase of flowers to allow Max to settle a laden tray down on the table.
‘This was my surprise,’ Nikolai told her wryly.
‘I thought it was the pearls.’
‘No, Max and the dogs flew out the day before yesterday to ensure our comfort while we’re here. They’re staying in the guest cottage down the lane.’
As the dogs romped around her, deliriously excited at the reunion , Ella could not have been more pleased by Nikolai’s surprise. Although she had already been aware that Max was to continue working for them, the older man was a fabulous cook and organiser as well as being wonderfully pet friendly. His presence on the domestic front meant that Ella could totally relax.
* * *
Nikolai eyed the level in the wine glass and watched Ella reach for her water bottle. He knew the main reason why women usually stopped drinking and it sent a chill of dismay down his spine. But how could Ella possibly be pregnant? One of the qualities he most admired about Ella was her unflinching honesty and in his world that was rare indeed. Had she been pregnant he knew she would have told him immediately.
‘Why have you stopped drinking?’ Nikolai asked lazily.
Ella had been almost drugged by the sun-drenched scene before her. They were lying on a rug in the shade of a giant chestnut tree only a few yards from a deserted cove where unbelievably blue and clear water washed a pale sand shore. Weeks of relaxation on Crete had brought down most of Ella’s defences and she only stiffened a little in receipt of that awkward question, relieved that she had an answer already prepared.
‘I had a ghastly hangover a couple of months back and I just lost my taste for alcohol.’
‘But why pretend to still drink?’ Nikolai broke in.
Her tension soared up the scale. ‘It can make people uncomfortable when you say you don’t drink.’
‘It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.’
‘Then I won’t pretend any more,’ she told him glibly but she was shocked at herself. She was actually lying to Nikolai and it was wrong. When had wrong begun to seem right? She had had three perfect weeks with Nikolai, without a doubt the happiest three weeks she had ever enjoyed. Even flying back to the UK to attend the funeral of the bar manager who had died in the hotel fire had not doused that happiness. Nikolai had said that she didn’t need to accompany him but she had wanted to give him her support and she knew he had appreciated her presence. She had not accompanied him though when he had had yet another interview with the police, but had shared his relief when the police had intimated that, although they were as yet nowhere near charging anyone for arson, they did have leads to follow.
Back on the island Nikolai and Ella had continued to make memories. They had visited fabled ancient Minoan sites, including the archaeological dig that was currently taking place on land Nikolai owned nearby. They had explored Chania after dark on several evenings, eating at lively tavernas, shopping for gifts and visiting clubs in the old harbour area. Ella preferred the seafront bars to the clubs once she saw how blatantly Nikolai was besieged by predatory women drawn by his looks and wealth. Returning from the cloakroom to find him surrounded had been unnerving and had ramped up her insecurity.