tumbling her down on the sand. What was the matter with her? Scarlet-cheeked, she lifted her
eyes to his, and caught her breath at the flash of fire she glimpsed before his lashes fell and hid
his expression. But she had seen the desire in his gaze, and despite her inexperience she had
recognised his need and found that it evoked an answering ache inside her.
She shivered again, and this time her whole body trembled—with reaction to Nikos rather than
cold. She saw him tense, saw his eyes narrow, and knew that the wildfire awareness between
them was terrifyingly real. Incredible though it seemed, Nikos Angelaki—playboy and serial
womaniser—found her attractive. For the first time ever in her twenty-six years she felt as
though she was a desirable woman, and she wanted to savour the moment—certain that any
second now he would blink and realise that she was too short, too plump and too plain to hold his
attention for long.
‘You had better wait in the cave, you’ll be warmer there,’ he said, suddenly breaking the silence.
His voice sounded so harsh that Kitty wondered what had angered him. He turned and strode
away, and Kitty hesitated, her heart hammering, before she stepped from behind her rock and
hurried up the beach. Almost instantly he reappeared at her side and caught hold of her arm to
swing her round to him. ‘I assume you need these,’ he murmured as he unfolded her glasses and
placed them on her nose.
‘Thank you.’ Kitty stared transfixed at his features, which were now sharply defined rather than
blurred. Moonbeams highlighted the angles and planes of his incredible bone-structure, and she
could not tear her eyes from the firm line of his mouth.
She heard him draw a sharp breath, and she gasped when he slid his hand beneath her chin and
tilted her face to his. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s dangerous to swim in the sea alone?’ he
demanded impatiently. ‘You could have got into trouble in the current, and no one would have
known.’ His eyes dropped to her small frame enveloped by his jacket, and he tried
unsuccessfully to dismiss the image of her running naked across the sand. ‘Tell me, do you often
swim naked in the moonlight?’
‘No, of course not,’ Kitty replied quickly, squirming. It was not entirely the truth, she
acknowledged silently. She loathed the sight of her body in a bikini and often came to swim
alone in the dark when no one would see her. ‘I know this is a private beach, and I thought I
would be undisturbed here,’ she said pointedly. ‘Like you, I came down for some fresh air, but
the sea looked so inviting that I was overcome with a mad impulse to…strip off and dive in.’
‘Is that so?’ Nikos’s voice was no longer harsh, but velvet soft, stroking over Kitty’s skin so that each tiny hair on her body stood on end. The chemistry that had been simmering between them
since he had appeared on the beach was at combustion point, and her head spun with a dizzying
mixture of trepidation and breathless excitement.
‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled when he removed her glasses and put them back in his
jacket pocket.
‘Following my own mad impulse,’ he growled, ignoring her shocked gasp when he suddenly
jerked her up against his chest. ‘The same impulse we both felt in the banqueting hall. Don’t
deny it, Rina,’ he warned silkily when she frantically shook her head from side to side. ‘I saw
what was in your mind.’
Recalling her shamefully erotic fantasy, which had involved him sliding his hand beneath her
skirt, and touching her where no man had ever touched her before, Kitty prayed he hadn’t. But
Nikos was lowering his head towards her, and it seemed to her shell-shocked brain as if
everything were happening in slow motion. She tensed, torn between wanting to pull out of his
arms and race back to the palace, and another, shocking need to stay and allow him to fulfil the
determined intent in his dark gaze.
She moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue—and, watching her, Nikos felt
his stomach muscles clench. This had been building since she had stood up to him earlier in the
evening. He hadn’t felt such a searing sexual attraction to a woman for a long time, and he
dipped his head slowly, savouring the anticipation, and exploring the shape of her lips with his
tongue before he claimed her mouth with a hunger he could no longer control.
Until the split second before Nikos slanted his mouth over hers, Kitty hadn’t really believed he
would kiss her, but her little gasp of shock was smothered beneath the pressure of his lips firmly
coaxing hers apart. He was totally in control and he let her know it with the determined sweep of