“Moro mou.” His baby. He kissed the center of her distended tummy. “Yineka mou.” His woman. Both his hands covered her skin in possessive declaration.
She was so lost in her sensual daze that she almost did not catch the significance of the words whispered against the taut wall of her stomach, but when they penetrated her brain she felt emotion course through her. Earlier he had called her his baby, but now he was acknowledging their son. And her, but in a very different way. He’d claimed her with an endearment he’d never used with her before. Words that both connoted her place in his life as his woman, but also laid claim to her as his wife.
“I will never let you go again.”
She could not respond. What could she say? He acted as if her leaving his life had been voluntary and also that it had hurt him. She didn’t know if she could believe him, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. His lips were traveling down her stomach until they found her most secret place. He kissed her there, a soft salute and then exerted pressure on the outside of her thighs to bring her legs together.
She was unprepared for the penetration of his tongue. He did not pull her legs apart again, but let his tongue slide between her slick folds of femininity. He stroked her sweetest spot with the tip of his tongue, going back and forth and then in circles, all the time keeping her legs together. She couldn’t believe how incredible it felt to have her inner thighs touching and the swollen flesh of her womanhood pressed together and around the wet stimulation of his tongue.
She felt the sensations of pleasure begin to build to ecstasy once again. Tears ran down her cheeks to mix with the water on her skin from the still pulsing showerheads as she said his name over and over. His hands moved from their hold on her outer thighs to cupping the underside of her bottom and she pressed herself against his marauding mouth, unable to stop the wanton movement.
Then one of his fingers penetrated where she had not been touched in over four long months and she came apart, sobbing out her pleasure and his name. He didn’t stop and she bucked against him, convulsing over and over again until she went limp and the impenetrable darkness was no longer responsible for the blackness before her eyes.
She came to on the king-size bed in Dimitri’s room. He was toweling her dry with gentle movements. The bedside lamp was on, casting a gentle glow over his bronzed features.
He smiled down at her. “So you have decided to wake up.”
“I fainted.” She couldn’t believe it.
“It happens sometimes, when the feelings are very, very intense.”
A surge of purely possessive jealousy coursed through her and she stiffened, glaring up at him. “I suppose you’ve had lots of lovers faint in your arms.”
He shook his head, all trace of smile gone. “Never, yineka mou. Only you. Only now.”
“But…” How had he known?
He shrugged as if she’d asked the question aloud. “I am a man. It is something I have heard.”
“Thank you.” He had given her pleasure she’d never dreamed of, not even in his arms.
His blue eyes, the color of the midnight sky, bored into her. “It is I who thanks you. I have never experienced anything like the fire you give me when I touch you.”
He laid the towel across her torso, giving the illusion of modesty and straightened to stand beside the bed.
“Dimitri?”
“I will leave you to sleep in privacy if that is your wish.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest. “Don’t you want me?”
He laughed and flicked a self-deprecating hand in the direction of his shaft. It stood proud and pulsatingly erect out from his body. “I want you more than my next breath, but I will not take what you do not wish to give.”
She would have expected him to shore up his victory in the shower with a complete seduction. In fact, she was almost sure that had been his plan. She did not know what changed his mind, but only that it touched her deeply he had. He was giving her a choice, not trying to coerce her with their physical compatibility.
And in giving her that choice, he robbed her of her resolve. She wanted him, so much. The pleasure he had given her in the shower was beautiful, something she would never forget, but she needed to feel the connection of their bodies for it to be complete.
She tugged the towel from her body and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.
His face looked hewn from stone while a wild hope burned in his indigo eyes. “Alexandra?”
She put out her arms. “I want you.”
He came to her in a rush of masculine possession, covering her body completely with his own and entering her all in one incredible move. Then he went still. “This for me is a taste of Heaven on Earth.”
Alexandra strove to breathe in the face of an indescribable pleasure she’d thought never to know again. His size was such that she was stretched and filled to capacity, but her earlier pleasure had made his swift penetration easy and smooth.
She too felt a need for stillness. She wanted to savor a sensation she thought lost to her. It felt different and at first she didn’t understand why, but then she remembered. He hadn’t donned a condom. He hadn’t needed to. She was already pregnant with his baby. She loved the feel of naked flesh against naked flesh in such an intimate way.
She tipped her head and met his gaze.
He smiled. “In this, we are in one accord.”
She couldn’t help returning his smile. “Yes.”
Then he started to move, sliding almost completely out before entering her again with torturing slowness. “We will not hurt our son?”
She shook her head vehemently. Her obstetrician had informed her she could continue conjugal relations right up until her son’s birth as long as it remained comfortable for her. She hadn’t appreciated the information at the time.
She groaned as he slid in again.
“Are you certain of this?”
She forced her mind to focus so she could tell him what the doctor had said. His look of shock was so funny, she came out of her passion glazed daze enough to tease him. “You are a man. This is something you are supposed to know.”
Red scorched his well defined cheekbones. “This we do not discuss.”
She giggled. “I bet you didn’t know that there’s a chemical in your fluid that helps me go into labor when the time comes, either.” That had been another helpful tidbit she’d wanted to yell at her obstetrician for sharing. She’d thought she would be spending her pregnancy alone and the prospect of getting Dimitri’s help in this way an impossible one.
The surprised expression turned to a smug one. “A Petronides knows his duty. I will be certain to provide you all the chemicals you need at the time.”
She laughed, refusing to ruin the moment by reminding either of them that she was still unsure whether or not she wanted to be in a position to allow that. Both her laughter and her disturbing thoughts melted away as he began to move more aggressively. He rocked her body with his hands while he plunged in and out of her with passionate fervor.
Incredibly she felt a tightening sensation in her lower belly, telling her that her body was preparing for another explosion of pleasure. She grabbed his shoulders, holding on so tight with her fingers that her nails dug into his skin while their bodies rocked together toward a crescendo of satisfaction.
Just as she felt herself contracting around his hardened flesh, he went absolutely stiff above her and shouted out his release. For the first time in their relationship, she was allowed to feel every pulse as his warmth flooded her and she could not believe how that impacted her emotions. It felt more intimate than anything they had ever done.
It was as if he’d always held part of himself back from her, but now he willingly gave her that which had accidentally brought about the new life in her womb. She wanted to thank him again, but the moment was too profound for words.
Whatever became of their future, she would always have this moment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DIMITRI rolled off her, but pulled her body close to his side as if he were afraid she was going to make a break for it.
She was almost too tired to breathe. She wasn’t going anywhere. “I locked the door,” she murmured on a yawn against the warmth of his chest.
“Yes.”
“How did you get in?”
“Do you think I only know how to make money? I can pick a lock. My grandfather’s security chief taught me when I was sixteen. He said every man should have the ability. I confess it has never been of use until now.”
She laughed softly, picturing a younger Dimitri learning such a questionable skill. “Did your grandfather know?”
“It was his idea.”
“You’re having me on.”
“No. Grandfather believes a man should be able to do things for himself, even if he has the money to pay someone else to do them.”
She snuggled in closer. It felt so good. “No wonder you never balked at helping me with dinner. I always thought you were surprisingly domesticated for such a traditional Greek man, not to mention such a rich one.”
“I enjoyed the simplicity of our life in Paris.”
“Right. You threw a fit when I told you I didn’t want a live-in housekeeper, cook and maid.”
“It surprised me.” He defended himself. “Most women who worked as hard as you did would have been happy to leave the domestic chores to someone else.”