a heartbeat and then said quietly, ‘Watching you slowly reveal your body was the most erotic
experience I’ve ever had.’
In a corner of her mind Kitty registered that the teasing note had disappeared from his voice, and
the undisguised sensuality in his deep tone sent a quiver of reaction down her spine. But the idea
that she had unwittingly revealed her curvy figure, which she so despised, to him, made her want
to weep with shame. ‘You are disgusting!’ she choked. ‘I can just about swallow the line that
you didn’t want to scare me, but if you were a gentleman you’d have shut your eyes.’
Nikos’s rich laughter swirled around the empty beach. ‘Ah, but I have never professed to be a
gentleman, Rina. I am a pirate, an opportunist who answers to no one, and I do what I please.’
His voice lowered to a sexy growl, ‘And I promise you, agape , you pleased me very much.’
Kitty did not know how to react to that startling statement, and she hugged her arms around
herself and peeped warily over the top of the rock.
She was as tempting as a siren from Greek mythology, Nikos owned as he stared at bare
shoulders and her mass of dark hair that fell in damp tendrils down her back. But he was not
about to admit that he’d been so turned on when he had watched her remove her clothes that he’d
almost embarrassed himself.
When he had first seen her, he had assumed that she must have come down to the beach for an
assignation with a lover. But no one else had appeared, and if he was honest he’d been so
stunned by the sight of her stepping out of her dress and running down to the sea that he had
been struck dumb.
Before his eyes Rina had emerged from her cocoon of drab clothes, and he had been riveted by
her beauty. Pale fingers of moonlight had illuminated every dip and curve of her body, and tinted
her satiny skin with silver brushstrokes. He had held his breath when she’d released her hair and
it had tumbled down her back like a river of pure silk, and exhaled sharply when she had
unfastened her bra and bared the creamy mounds of her full breasts to his hungry gaze.
His arousal had been instant and uncomfortably hard and his urgency to pillow himself between
her soft thighs was still so acute that he was glad of the all concealing dark. It didn’t seem to
matter how much he tried to rationalise his reaction to her or remind himself that he liked slim,
graceful blondes—and preferably the comfort of a large bed when he made love.
Rina had intrigued him in the banqueting hall earlier, when he had recognised the sizzling
chemistry between them. Now, he desired her with a stark, primitive hunger that sent his blood
thundering through his veins. He wanted to make love to her here on the sand, beneath the stars,
and with a passion that was as wild and elemental as the untamed beach.
CHAPTER THREE
DESPITEthe warmth of the night air Kitty was shivering—as much from the shock of Nikos’s
sudden appearance on the beach as from her swim. Her hair was hanging in wet coils and her
skin was covered in goose-bumps but she reassured herself that her nipples had hardened into
tight, tingling peaks because she was cold, not because of her overwhelming awareness of the sexiest man she had ever met.
She gritted her teeth to prevent them from chattering, and wished he would go back to the
palace. Her dress was somewhere on the other side of the beach, but she would rather stay
behind her rock all night and risk hypothermia than parade naked in front of him. She had
already done so once, she acknowledged, blushing furiously again at the memory, but she had
been unaware of his presence in the cave. No way was she going to make an exhibition of herself
again.
‘Here, put this on while I go and find your clothes.’ Nikos stepped closer and dropped his jacket
over the rock, and Kitty seized it gratefully and slipped it on. It was immense on her; the arms#p#分页标题#e#
were several inches too long and to her relief the hem of the jacket reached to her mid-thighs.
The silk lining felt deliciously sensuous against her skin; still warm from the heat of Nikos’s
body and carrying the faint musk of his aftershave. She burrowed deeper into the folds and
inhaled deeply. She had been short-sighted for most of her life, but, as if to compensate for her
poor vision, her other senses were particularly acute and she could detect his clean, male scent.
Molten heat stole through her veins as she imagined him wrapping his arms around her rather
than his jacket. She remembered the fantasy she’d had earlier of him making love to her on the
banqueting table, and pictured with shocking clarity him stripping out of his own clothes and