literally everything she wanted in a man wrapped up in one fantastic package. Even though Andreas hated roughing it, he took her on picnics because he knew she loved them. Sightseeing bored him to death but he had flown her out to Paris, Rome and a host of other fabulous cities so that she could explore her passion for history in his company. Whenever she had been scared, discouraged or in need of support, he had been there for her. She loved him with her whole heart and soul for a host of very understandable reasons. On the debit side…? No, no, she wasn't going there, she was determined not to allow foolish negativity to creep in and wreak havoc with her happiness.
Andreas called her from the airport.
'I'm counting the minutes,' she told him truthfully. He called her from the limo when it got stuck in city traffic.
'I can't bear it… ' she gasped strickenly.
'Have you any idea how much I've missed you?' Andreas finally broke through his cool to demand in his final call made as he stepped into the lift to come up to the apartment.
By that stage, Hope was in a heady fever of anticipation. The front door opened, she saw him and all intelligent thought ceased. Her knees felt weak. She leant back against the wall to steady herself. Everything about Andreas thrilled her to death. From the stubborn angle of his proud dark head to the lithe, leashed power and grace of his hard, muscular frame, he was spectacularly male. Lamplight burnished his cropped black hair and cast his lean, bronzed features into tantalising angles of light and shade. He was breathtakingly handsome and he still only had to walk through the door to make her heart threaten cardiac arrest.
Andreas kicked the door shut behind him and powered on across the hall to haul her into his arms. For an endless moment of bliss she was lost in the glorious touch and feel of him. Her nostrils flared on the familiar male scent of his skin overlaid with a faint tang of designer lotion and her responses went into overdrive. 'Andreas…' she breathed unsteadily.
'If you could travel with me, we would have more time together.' Brilliant dark golden eyes entrapped her misty gaze, his accented drawl husky and reasonable in tone, for he chose his moments with care. 'Think about that. You could let your artistic endeavours take a back seat for a while.'
And lose her independence, which was quite out of the question, Hope acknowledged while she agonised with guilty longing over the seductive idea of being able to see more of Andreas. 'I couldn't…'
His hands closing over her smaller ones, and content to have planted yet another seed, Andreas pinned her back against the wall with all the single-minded purpose of a male guided by lustful intent. She succumbed to the allure of his hard, sensual mouth with the same fervour she would have employed in a life or death situation. He tasted like heaven, like something addictive she could not do without, and she clung. The tight knot of excitement in her belly fired her every nerve ending into an eager blaze of expectation. He dropped her hands to curve possessive fingers to the full, feminine swell of her hips and lift her into stirring connection with his bold erection.
'Oh… ' she moaned, melting like honey in sunlight while the wicked throb of helpless hunger shimmied down into her pelvis and made her ache. Plastered to every line of his big, powerful frame, she dragged her mouth free to snatch in a necessary gulp of oxygen while dimly her mind prompted her to recall an important ritual that she could not afford to overlook 'Your mobile…' she gasped.
Andreas tensed.
'It's me or the phone,' Hope reminded him reluctantly.
One-handed, Andreas wrenched the phone from his jacket, switched it off and tossed it down on the hall stand. He returned to plundering her mouth with devouring hunger and then wrenched himself back from her, dark colour scoring his aristocratic cheekbones. 'For once, we are going to be cool and make it out of the hall.'
Dazed by passion, Hope slowly nodded. With determination Andreas angled her away from the wall and backed her towards the bedroom. 'If I surrender my phone, you have to make it worth my while,
'Oh…' Hope gazed back at him, soft mouth pink and tingling from the heat of his, her legs unsteady supports. The blaze of sexual challenge in his eyes imprisoned her as surely as a chain. A blinding wave of excitement sizzled through her. Andreas surveyed her with scorching satisfaction. He ran down the zip on her turquoise dress and shimmied it down over her hips to expose the pink lace bra and panties that moulded her ripe curves. He vented a husky masculine sound of appreciation. 'You're superb…'
Self-conscious colour flushed her cheeks and even burnished the slope of her full breasts. Scooping her up, he deposited her on the bed, his rare charismatic smile flashing across his lean dark features, and her heart leapt as though it had a life of its own.
'Don't move,' he told her with urgency.
'I'm not going anywhere,' she whispered, her attention locked to him like a magnet as he peeled off the tailored jacket of his business suit.
He looked sensational. Lithe, dark and arrestingly handsome, he emanated the prowling, lethal sexiness of a predator. Butterflies were fluttering in her tummy and she was on a helpless high of anticipation. But on another level, she suddenly discovered that she was fighting off a sense of shame that she should be lying on a bed in her underwear for his benefit. She had not been raised in a liberal home and when Andreas had come into her life she had not just thrown away the rulebook, she had virtually burned it. Did she mean anything to him? Or was what they had just a casual thing on his terms?
'Do you think about me when you're away?' Hope blurted out.
His shirt hanging loose on his bronzed muscular chest, Andreas came down on the bed and laughed out loud. 'After two weeks without sex?' he teased in his dark deep drawl. 'By this week, I was thinkiing about you at least once a minute!'
Hope flushed to the roots of her pale hair, hurt and disappointment scything through her that he should be so literal. 'That wasn't what I meant.'
Andreas hauled her up against him with strong hands, and golden eyes ablaze with arrogant confidence assailed hers. 'Don't ask a Greek trick questions,' he warned her. 'You're my lover. Of course I think about you.'
Without hesitation, he plundered her mouth and her uneasy thoughts blurred. Fire sparked low in her belly and a wave of tormenting hunger consumed her. Two weeks without Andreas felt like half a lifetime. Even as she doubted his commitment, she could not resist her need to take refuge in his passion. Her body was taut with sensitivity, begging for sensation. The expert caress of his hands on her breasts made her moan. The rosy buds crowning her tender flesh tingled and when he utilised his teeth and his tongue on those inflamed peaks, she writhed, control slipping from her as steadily as any form of rational awareness.
Her heart was racing, the breath catching in her dry throat. He was pure bronzed elemental male and he knew exactly what inflamed her. He found the hot, swollen secret at the heart of her and clever fingers drove her to ever more desperate heights of longing. The passion took over, roaring through her twisting, turning length like an explosive fireball.
'This is how I like to picture you,' Andreas rasped with raw satisfaction. 'Out of your mind with the pleasure I give you.'
He sank into her with ravishing force and her body leapt and clenched. The frenzy of excitement mastered her with terrifying immediacy. Delirious with desire, she was way beyond any hope of mastering the tempestuous surge of her responses. Her need for Andreas was almost painfully intense. His passion pushed her to a wild peak of unbearable pleasure and then she fell down and down and down into a state of turbulence that bore no resemblance to her usual languorous sense of peace and happiness. Her body was satisfied but her emotions were raw. Tears lashed her eyes and overflowed before she even knew what was happening to her.
Andreas rolled over onto his back. In the act of rearranging her on top of him, he pushed her hair gently off her face and his fingers lingered on her damp cheekbone. 'What's wrong?' he demanded.
'Nothing's wrong.' Hope gulped. 'I don't know why I'm crying. It's silly.'
Foreboding nudged at Andreas, who excelled at second-guessing those who surrounded him. She buried her head in his shoulder. He smoothed her hair. Handsome mouth taut, he closed his arms round her. If he were patient she would tell him what was wrong. She was quite incapable of keeping anything important from him. Her confiding habits were engrained, he reminded himself.
'I'm sorry…I suppose I've just come over all emotional thinking about our anniversary,' Hope mumbled in a muffled voice.
Lush black lashes lifted on guarded dark golden eyes. 'Anniversary?'
