Wedding Night with a Stranger (11 page)

But he said quietly, ‘Yeah, I guess. So…is there anything wrong over there with your family? Anything worrying you?’

As if she could tell him any of that.
Theos,
he’d done the trading deal with her uncle. They were probably in daily communication. Sure, Sebastian Nikosto looked reassuringly strong, and right now sympathetic and sincere, but he was the last person on the planet she could trust. No, the third last.
No, no,
she reflected with a dreary sigh. She’d been forgetting Demetri. Fourth last.

‘Wasn’t there something you wanted to tell me?’

She crashed back to earth. ‘Oh, right. Well. I—I think we need to discuss…I think you know…You—you
should
know…’ His fingers traced a soft searing trail down the side of her neck. Should she have stopped him? Though
he
might not have been conscious of it, she was. But it was only a caress, barely that. A harmless, friendly caress. It wasn’t as if it were anything sexual.

‘You do know this is just a marriage of convenience.’ She swallowed. ‘In fact…I—I’m not sure we’re properly married at all.’ She couldn’t help closing her eyes briefly to savour the ongoing sensation. Her breath grew short and made her voice huskier than usual, her words disjointed. ‘You must see…see that…in the eyes of the church, we…we haven’t been properly joined.’

The smile gleamed in his eyes. ‘That can very easily be fixed. We can be joined just as soon as you like.’

‘
Oh.
You know what I mean. I’m not sure that we should—sleep together.’

He said very firmly, ‘Yes, we should.’

‘No, well…I’m a very light sleeper.’ She searched his face in an attempt to gauge his reaction. ‘I think I’ll feel better if I sleep here on the sofa.’

‘I don’t think so.’

He stopped stroking her cheek, leaving her skin feeling bereft and yearning.
Aching
for him to start it again, she edged her
cheek a little closer to him. With a grave expression, this time he stroked some hair back from her ear, then circled her ear with his fingertips.

Her entire being melted into swoon as thrills shivered through her scalp and down her spine.

‘I think I can promise you’ll feel much better if you sleep in the bed.’ There was a suave, confident finality in his tone.

‘No, what I’m trying to say is—that I’m not sure I feel married enough to—you know.’

‘Make love?’ he supplied, lifting his black brows and smiling like the very devil.

She gave a nod. ‘Without the blessing of the church.’

‘Oh, but…’ his expression grew solemn ‘…what could be a holier place to wed than a garden? I have to say I felt
very
blessed.’ He made an expansive gesture. ‘There we were, at one with the earth, the sea and the sky, kissed by the rays of the setting sun.’

‘Oh, well,
perhaps…
’ Had there been some special deeper inflection in the way he said ‘kissed’, or had her hypersensitivity to the hot, strong current she sensed emanating from him made her imagine it? ‘It was lovely, I know, but…’ she had to give her conscience a proper hearing ‘…just because we’re married doesn’t mean we
should
.’

He pinned her with his compelling glance and said softly, and very definitely, ‘No, my sweet wife, we
should
because I want you and you want me.’

She met his hot dark gaze and all her arguments dried on her tongue while her heart slithered into emergency pounding.

Suddenly he bent his head and planted a soft little kiss at the base of her throat. It was so thrilling and unexpected, she couldn’t restrain a gasp. Then he trailed more kisses down her chest, all the way to the valley between her breasts. She felt them surge with warmth under the lapels of her jacket.

If only he would push her lapel aside and kiss her
there.
Imagining it sent a hot helpless rush to her nipples.

He smelled so attractively male, and his hot hungry lips on her skin ignited such arousing little fires, her breathing grew increasingly shallow. Still, she struggled to retain some control.

‘All right, fine,’ she panted after a second. Despite what Thea had said, she was quite willing to compromise. ‘Perhaps…I
could
feel okay about a kiss.’

He drew back from her, leaving the skin he’d recently aroused ablaze with yearning for more.

‘A kiss?’ He considered it, scanning her face with a narrowed gaze. Then he nodded. ‘Hmm. A kiss is fairly harmless. That shouldn’t disturb your conscience too much.’ He continued his meditative scrutiny for a while, then grinned, so wickedly her insides turned over and a hot hungry flame flared low in her abdomen. ‘Anyway, since we’ve already kissed once, I guess that genie is out of the bottle now.’

‘
Twice
.’
She gazed at him from under her lashes. ‘Remember? We’ve kissed—twice.’

His voice was darker than a cavern. ‘I remember.’

The gleam in his eyes grew so piercingly sensual, she held her breath in suspense, her heart madly pounding. Then he brought his mouth firmly down on hers.

At first it was a fantastic collision of lips, until he took first her upper, then lower lip between his, sliding each one gently through his teeth as if for the maximum knowing of them.

Theos,
it was
so
slow and sexy.

A heavy, voluptuous heat beat to her breasts, and she felt her nipples and other erogenous zones rouse to a moist yearning. Then his tongue slid into her mouth, tickling the delicate tissues inside and igniting little snakes of fire there that somehow wound their way through her bloodstream, inflaming her longing to be thoroughly stroked
everywhere.

She found herself clinging to him. He deepened his possession of her mouth, his hot, wine-flavoured breath mingling with hers in intoxicating intimacy. Then she felt his hand slide under
her lapel, and she felt him squeeze then gently caress her breast through the lace of her bra. Thrills shivered through her.

She was seized by the most urgent need to be rid of the bra, to allow her breasts to be free and bare to his clever, devouring hands. And all the while, down below between her legs, a wilder urgency burned.

Just when she felt all hot and afire, he broke the kiss and drew away from her. She dragged in some air, her skin tingling and crazy to be touched.

‘There,’ he said, his voice deeper than a growl. ‘One kiss. How do you feel now?’ His eyes were hot and slumberous, with a dark sexual flame that somehow exacerbated the hunger in her blood.

His shirt collar was unbuttoned, opening to a triangle of bronzed skin at the base of his strong neck. Her mouth watered with a sudden insane need.

‘Fine. Just fine. Only…Who said it had to be just one?’ Her voice was smokier than a Naxos taverna.

It was only a kiss, after all. Giving him little chance to protest, she placed her hands on his shoulders, and leaned forward to press her lips to that bare triangle. A tremor passed through him, delivering her a thrilled satisfaction. His skin had a faintly salty, masculine taste that was distinctly moreish to her hungry lips. With her breasts rising and falling in the upheaval of a new and heady exhilaration, she slipped undone the next couple of buttons of his shirt, revealing a deeper expanse of masculine chest.

A sultry pang roiled through her as her glance fastened on his alluring whorls of black chest hair, just begging to be explored. She bent her lips to his hot satin skin, then almost of its own volition her tongue licked a trail all the way to his neck. She felt another satisfying shudder rock him.

He grabbed her upper arms then and held her a little away from him, but her hunger wasn’t appeased. In fact it intensified. Her avid gaze flicked to his mouth, and it was as though she couldn’t help herself. She just
had
to.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, feeling his thrilling leap of response, tasting and savouring and exploring with her tongue until she felt so hotly aroused with pleasure, she was aflame. Then he took charge of the clinch, his hands suddenly becoming rough and urgent to explore her willing curves. Her hands were infected with the same mad thirst. They couldn’t keep from roaming, craving to feel his shoulders and powerful chest, sliding under his shirt to explore the lean hard contours of muscle and bone.

Somehow she found herself lying down, ablaze, her head on the cushions against the armrest, with Sebastian’s long lean frame half lying on top of her. But it was still only kissing. Somehow they each adjusted their bodies, his so lean and angular, hers softer, more yielding, to find a way to kiss on the limited space without interrupting the steamy progress.

To her sinful delight, Sebastian was an expert at creating pleasure with his hands. She wasn’t sure when her jacket became unbuttoned, but the kiss grew even hotter and sexier as his clever fingers stroked her yearning breasts and sent tingles resounding through her body.

Far too soon though, he broke from her. She waited, her momentary disappointment quickly changed by his scorching gaze to a limbo of thrilled suspense. What next? With a searing glance, he bent his lips to her breasts, and to her shock deliberately sucked each yearning nipple through the lace of her bra.

Ah-h-h,
bliss.
The gentle friction of the cloth and his mouth on her sensitive peaks was so arousing, her desire blazed to an inferno. Her convulsive fingers mauled his shoulders, kneaded his arms, tangled in his hair as she gasped and cried out in pleasure. Then just when she was ready to melt into a molten puddle, he drew away from her and sat up.

Panting, she eyed him hungrily. Far from being satisfied, her appetite to taste his kisses seemed to have escalated to an evil obsession.

‘Come here,’ she rasped throatily, surprised by her own boldness, half sitting in the attempt to grab him and pull him back to her.

But he placed a light but firm hand on her chest. ‘Stay there.’ His dark drawl rippled down her spine like the devil’s breath. For a second he sat very still, the gleam in his eyes darker and more seductive than she’d yet observed.

Her blood seethed with the most delicious anticipation.

He made sure she was comfortable, arranging her cushions securely against the arm of the sofa, lifting her feet to rest on his thighs. A wild and pleasurable suspense fluttered inside her.

He caressed her feet absently for a moment, watching her face, then traced a lean hand along her leg to her knee. ‘Ah, these gorgeous legs,’ he growled, bending to kiss her knee.

It was so flattering. She bent her knees up to make it easier for him if he felt like kissing them again. And he did. Though next time, he kissed her
above
the knee, on the inside of her thigh.

Her excitement intensified.

He stroked her legs with increasingly long and sensual sweeps, his fingertips rousing fire wherever they connected with her willing flesh. How far would he dare to go? Then his caressing fingers slipped under her skirt and travelled softly, gently, all the way up to the silken skin at the top of her inner thigh. Close, so scintillatingly close, to the holy of holies.

It was explosively dangerous, it was hardly a kiss, but the sensations were so thrilling, what else could she do but give herself up to voluptuous enjoyment?

And all the time, while rivulets of sheer pleasure radiated through her flesh, a very short distance away, covered only by the delicate cotton of her pants, her most intimate, secret parts burned to be included in the orgy. In truth,
Theos
pardon her weakness, the closer his questing fingers roamed to the strictly forbidden zone, the more she ached for him to caress her there.

While he gazed at her, his hot, slumberous eyes as dark as Lucifer’s, she looked back at him, knowing her own eyes must reflect the pleasure she was feeling, at the same time hoping he’d somehow read her desperate yearning.

Then all at once his traversing hand moved a little further afield. She tensed in anticipation. A low, throaty moan escaped her as with the most thrilling pleasure she felt his fingertips softly glide across the flimsy fabric of her pants.

Ah-h-h.

He caressed her, so lightly, so tenderly it was the purest chocolate, the sheerest rapture, it was the darkest, most sinful black magic.

She was gasping, moaning, hardly able to keep herself from writhing out of control, when all at once he nipped down her pants, leaving her utterly exposed.

For a second she stared at him in complete shock. He gazed on her naked triangle of dusky curls with a riveted gleam in his eyes, then with a bold, determined smile he changed position, unhesitatingly parting her thighs to expose her nakedness even further. Then he bent his dark head right there between her legs.

Theos,
it was so
erotic.
Having laid her completely bare, he stroked his divine tongue across the sensitive, most secret yearning folds of her body, with exquisite artistry connecting with her sweet spot and sucking.

‘Oh-h-h.’ How could he have known? She shuddered in ecstasy as wave after wave of liquid pleasure roiled through her with every delicious, forbidden touch.

But that wasn’t all. Strangely, while the rapture was whitehot and intense, somehow her hunger grew and grew, until she reached some kind of pitch of maddened erotic need. Just when she thought she must scream, he thrust his heavenly tongue inside her and flicked it around the tenderest, most yearning tissues of all. Her wild pleasure escalated to a dizzy, suspenseful pitch, then crashed into shards of exquisite relief.

It took her some seconds to recover. Sebastian waited, his eyes so wicked and aroused, his brows lifted in amused query for her comment.

‘Oh,’ she said, when her breathing had slowed enough for her to speak, her voice hoarse and deeper than the Katherine Gorge. ‘
That
kind of a kiss.’

Ignoring the scruples she’d already thrown to the wind, she contemplated him with enthralled appreciation, speculating on what other pleasures she’d read of that he might be equally expert in delivering.

‘You know, Sebastian,’ she panted, ‘it’s cramped here on this sofa. I might—sleep better in the bed.’

S
EBASTIAN
contemplated his bride with satisfaction. Her passionate writhings on the sofa cushions had mussed her blonde hair into an enticing state of disarray, and her already full mouth was so plump and voluptuous from kissing, it was as much as he could do not to flatten her to the bed and devour her at once.

But unless he was mistaken, he had an instinct, unchanged by his initial lustful exploration of her honeyed flesh, that his proud bride was a virgin, a condition it would be his fiercest pleasure to correct, though tenderly, as befitted a princess on her wedding night.

She stood before him on the rug, eyeing the arrangement of the pillows on his bed. ‘You know, Sebastian,’ she said, with an uncertain laugh, ‘I know I seem incredibly cool and casual about all this…negotiating this deal to marry you, then doing it all in a hurry, going through with the wedding and kissing you so…so…
often.
But the truth is…’

There was the faintest tremor in her voice, and he stilled in the act of tearing off his shirt. ‘I can assure you,’ he said, ‘the linen’s clean. It only came back from the Holy Cross Laundry this morning. Agnes was making the bed as I left.’

‘Was she?’ Ariadne frowned slightly. At least Agnes performed some part of her duties with passion. ‘Where does Agnes sleep?’

‘At her place,’ he said, smiling.

She was about to question him further when she caught sight of the uninterrupted expanse of his gorgeous chest. Her mouth dried at the impressive proportions of his hard pectorals, his muscled arms.

‘Goodness, you’re very athletic,’ she exclaimed. ‘I hadn’t realised quite how big you are.’

Startled into a grin, Sebastian let his shirt drop. Surprisingly, she’d rebuttoned her suit jacket after he’d carried her back in and deposited her on the rug, suggesting a back-pedalling in the momentum he’d so artfully established. Was his bride losing her nerve?

‘Now,’ he murmured, taking her arms and drawing her to him. ‘Forget Agnes. You were saying something about the truth…?’

She closed her eyes. ‘I—I think you understand that I won’t be staying here long…’

Her brow was creased in worry, and he had a sudden inkling of the most immediate cause of her concern. He felt a rush of tenderness for her as she went on, ‘You weren’t hoping for a wife with the beautiful dark eyes, were you? Because, I truly think…’

He tilted up her face. ‘Just relax,’ he murmured. ‘No need to think. Leave it all to me. Tonight is a night to feel.’

‘But…’ Ariadne was about to try again with her confession, when he took her mouth in a hotly demanding kiss. As his intoxicating flavour again invaded her senses, her overactive brainwaves, stressed by the rapid flow of events, calmed to a low, sultry purr.

She linked her arms around his neck and responded in kind, locked in like an electrocution victim to his high-voltage sexual power.

As she opened to him and she felt the virile length of his erection push against her abdomen, some primitive instinct tempted her to writhe her pelvis against him in sensual encouragement.
The effect must have been potent, because the kiss intensified to a sizzling firestorm.

Drowning in tastes and sensations, compelled by the ironhard demands of his big, masculine body, she clung to him, excited by his bronzed bare chest, his hot, roving hands, and wired to the thrilling beat of his big powerful heart against her breasts.

At last the kiss broke, leaving her panting and breathless, and hungry, oh, so hungry for more of him. His eyes were black, with a golden shimmer of lust tingeing the dark flame in their irises.

He set her a little away from him, watching her face as he undid her buttons one by one. Anxious now for skin contact, she wriggled out of the jacket and turned her back to allow him to unfasten her bra.

Slowly, gently, Sebastian traced the ridge of her spine with his thumb, feeling the electric quiver of response under her skin. His heart clenched at the beauty of her slim pale back. He located her skirt zip and drew it down, hardening in anticipation for the moment when she would be totally nude.

Ah. As smooth and delicately shaped as a violin.

His underwear tightened beyond endurance.

The skirt fell to the floor. She gave a small gasp, as if she’d forgotten she’d already lost her pants in the first round. The fierce blood beat a torrid path to his groin as his lustful gaze took in the graceful curves of her neck and waist, the delicious flare of her hips and smooth, satin bottom. He ached to plunge his burning length into her then and there, but with iron self-restraint merely bent to kiss the alluring dent in the small of her back, then turned her to face him.

Ariadne burned under his scorching regard of her nude body. Adrenaline, or desire, had dulled her anxiety. She felt bathed in a feminine glow, a primeval woman facing her mate.

He pushed her onto the bed, and she stretched out in the middle while he stripped off the rest of his clothes.

He was so beautifully made, a lean, bronzed, hairy symphony of muscle, sinew and masculine power, but when her eyes took in the massive extent of his thickly erect penis, her nerve jumped and she could almost feel herself shrink.

‘I think I should tell you,’ she quavered without further delay, ‘I’m a virgin.’

‘Yeah?’ he said, smiling as he came down beside her with such tender warmth she felt her heart lurch. ‘Who’d have guessed?’

Sebastian gazed down at his bride, her hair wild on the pillow, her luscious breasts with their raspberry-pink peaks straining for his attention, and his grin faded as he was seized with a solidsteel conviction that he wouldn’t be letting her go any time soon.

‘You’re such a beautiful woman I can’t believe some guy hasn’t snapped you up,’ he said, his voice so deep it was a primal growl from the earth’s core. A shadow, so fleeting he might have imagined it, crossed her face, and he thought of what she’d told him about her past suitors. Someone had hurt her along the way.

She lowered her lashes, then smiled at herself with such shame and self-doubt he felt a sharp tug in his chest. ‘It’s me. I always choose the wrong ones.’

‘Not this time,’ he said with a fierce, tender certainty. ‘This time you’ve chosen the right one.’

Ariadne felt shaken by the warmth and sincerity in his eyes, then as she continued to scrutinise him they flamed and all she could read in them was sizzling hot lust.

He bent his head, then softly, lightly ran his tongue-tip over her lips in a sexy little tease. Then he crushed her mouth in a fiery kiss, compelling her with the force of his passion to leave everything else behind, summoning her to this one moment in time and space.

Their hot breath rushed and mingled. As she lay in his powerful arms his chest hairs grazed her tender naked breasts, setting her skin alight with tingling little explosions of pleasure.
Possessed by his demanding lips, his hair-covered legs brushing her smooth skin, his rock-hard rod tickling her sex, she felt her veins flow with fire.

He broke the kiss first, in the nick of time to save her from drowning in sensation. But her body had sprung back to life with a primitive thirst that couldn’t be ignored.

When he bent his head to her breast and took her nipple in his mouth, she mewled with pleasure. Then he explored her with his hands and lips until she was mindless and wild, a moaning, writhing creature incandescent with desire, a willing, wanton prey to a mutual, insatiable passion.

As the sensational storm raged she burned with a potent yearning. She tried not to obsess, but his arousal was so straight and strong and masculine, and in some way so
right,
springing from those crisp, little black curls, every fibre in her body was on edge.

At last Sebastian paused to take a foil packet from the bedside table. He tore it open, and she watched him slide the sheath onto his rosy, throbbing length, hoping against hope she would stretch half as well as the condom had. At the very thought she felt a tingling rush of moisture between her legs.

‘Now,’ he said, passion in his dark eyes. He parted her thighs, and traced the delicate folds until they felt as plump and full as a peach and she was reduced to a quivering, burning mess. Her need for release reached a desperate pitch.

‘Sebastian,’ she breathed shudderingly, arching up to him. ‘I’m on fire here.’

With intense satisfaction in his hot eyes he slid a finger inside her. ‘And you’re tight,’ he murmured, gently stretching the entrance to her moist channel, his voice like thick husky gravel. ‘So fabulously tight.’

She wrinkled her brow. ‘That’s a good thing?’

‘It’s a
great
thing,’ he said, then positioned himself between her legs and firmly pushed inside her. She felt filled to bursting point.

‘
Theos,
’ she cried, digging her fingers into his hard, muscled arms. ‘
Sebastian
.’

He withdrew at once, soothing her with his voice, ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart,’ he crooned, stroking her hair. ‘It might be uncomfortable the first time. But it’ll get better. Trust me.’

Trust him? He looked supremely confident, but there was a concerned little frown between his eyes. She had a vague realisation that he’d already given her one fabulous moment of blissful release. What about his? And did she really want to draw back after going this far down the road to losing her virginity?

She knew what to expect, after all. Her girlfriends had told her in graphic detail, and she’d read enough about how it would hurt. Clamping her eyes shut, she steeled herself to the agony. ‘Go on, then. Get it over with.’

He bent to kiss her lips, then when she was least expecting it gave an almighty thrust, and she felt a raw little pinch that tore a pained gasp from her.

He froze all action, then withdrew from her, his face taut with concern. ‘Are you okay?’

The smarting eased almost at once. ‘Well,
now.
’ She made a check of her bodily sensations, but could find no lingering pain. ‘Is that it?’ she said tensely. ‘Just that?’

His anxious expression lightened and he smiled, while the dark flame smouldering in the depths of his eyes reached deep into her womb. ‘That’s just the beginning. Now it’s the good part. Just relax.’

He eased into her again, and this time the sensation didn’t feel quite so strange.

‘See how we go, Ariadne Giorgias.’ He watched her face, a sexy little smile edging up the corners of his mouth as he started to move his lean hips, stroking inside her with seductive, sinuous little movements that weren’t as uncomfortable as she’d expected.

‘How does that feel?’ he said huskily, his eyes tender and
warm and desirous. ‘I’m inside you, and you’re opening to me…’ He eased her into a gentle rhythm. ‘Like a glove. A beautiful tight, hot, velvet…’ His scorching hot eyes flared and he increased the rhythm. At first it just felt athletic and very intimate, but then every so often, amazingly, she felt his hard rod touch some spot inside her that ignited like a sunburst, sending streaks of the most intense and fabulous pleasure throughout her entire body.

‘Go on,’ she urged, wanting more of them. ‘Go
on.
’

He rocked her even faster, then she could tell by his increasingly concentrated expression that he’d become locked in a rapture of his own. She let go of her fears and gave herself up to the rhythm entirely, each stroke igniting more and more pleasure points inside her until she was a river of blissful sensations.

She wrapped her legs around him, relishing all the physical sensations of his hard, lean masculinity, the intimacy and warmth of the amazing connection.

Feeling his hard, sensitised flesh swell with unbelievable bliss inside her slickly tight sheath, Sebastian gritted his teeth with the sublime pleasure.

Locked in his arms, Ariadne strove faster and faster, harder and higher, until before she knew it he was once again zooming her up that wild, hot, delicious incline to an even higher, more glorious summit than before. She hung there in a desperate trembling suspense, then her moment came and she dissolved into waves of ecstatic, rapturous pleasure.

‘Oh,
Theos,
’ she gasped as the ripples subsided.

Sebastian reached a climax of his own, then collapsed upon her, his lean bronzed body sheened with sweat. After a few seconds he lifted himself off her and rested quietly with his eyes closed. Then he hauled himself up and went into his bathroom. She lay bathed in a slumberous glow, her body purring in relaxation while she listened to the flow of the taps.

Soon he came back and stretched out beside her with his eyes
shut. She’d started to think he’d fallen asleep, when he rolled on his side to face her. He smiled down at her, his warm gaze a mixture of triumph and tenderness, reaching out to trail a gentle finger over her shoulder and along the line of her body.

‘I’d have thought you might have at least said, “Oh,
Sebastian.
’”

She gave a low throaty laugh. ‘Sorry. You
were
good.’

‘Thank you,’ he said modestly.

She smiled into his eyes. ‘My aunt told me you were a genius.’

His deep laugh rumbled, then he planted a little kiss on her breast. ‘From this point on, we only get better.’

‘With practice, you mean?’ She fluttered her lashes at him. ‘How much practice?’

‘Plenty,’ he growled. Then he grinned and pulled her into his arms. ‘Aren’t you glad we got married?’

After a while, in which she floated in a sort of dreamy glow, relaxed and intimate in the soft dark, he said, ‘So what happened with that guy? The one who broke your heart?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘As good as.’

Had she, though? She thought back to the night before. She’d said so many things at that restaurant. She must have been out of her head. Still, here and now in the most intimate and blissful cocoon she’d ever been wrapped in, honesty had never felt safer. ‘Demetri Spiros,’ she said after a while. ‘I was engaged to him.’

‘
Engaged
?’ He sounded astonished.

‘Well, it was one of those things. I met him on this cruise on Thio’s yacht. You know how it can happen.
My
family wanted it,
his
family wanted it. He seemed really cool. Anyway, I found out he had a girlfriend in Athens. This older woman.’