The Greek’s Chosen Wife

‘Enough…’

‘Spoilsport…’ Prudence gave him a languorous glance and slowly she smiled, her own body tingling with sensual awareness. The next time she would fine-tune her technique, she reflected with newly learnt confidence.

Sheer bewilderment gripped Nik. She was lounging back against the pillows like a sex goddess, natural sexuality emanating from her every pore. Out of nowhere came a fierce flash of jealousy that slivered through him like a knife. Had he just taught her, or had she just taught him? Was his wife-until very recently a virgin-actually a woman with excessive experience in the foreplay department? And if she was, how could he possibly complain? After all, who was he to moralise? Why were his thoughts even running on such a theme? He was not a jealous or possessive guy. He was not one of those sad, inadequate men who questioned their partners about their previous lovers. Of course he wasn’t.

‘You’ve done that before,’ Nik heard himself say.

Prudence laughed. ‘No, I haven’t-’

‘You must’ve done-you’ve got incredible aptitude…That’s OK, I’m cool with it,’ Nik framed with a tense smile.

Prudence shimmied across the divide that separated them and nuzzled into connection with his lean, bronzed torso and a long, hard, hair-roughened thigh. ‘I just like touching you-’

‘I want you.’ Sexual heat pulsing through him like a rocket charge, Nik found concentration overborne by his instinctive response to her and he flattened her to the pillows again and kissed her breathless.

The burst of passion he ignited extracted a muted gasp from her. In the space of an instant she went from languor to hunger, wildly conscious of the moist, throbbing heat at the heart of her. His wicked mouth and expert fingers teased at her swollen nipples, releasing a shower of sensual sparks inside her responsive body. A burning sense of tightness began to build low in her pelvis and it made her squirm helplessly beneath him and angle up her hips.

‘You don’t control the pace any more,’ Nik told her thickly, surveying her with smouldering golden eyes. ‘I will-’

‘Partnership?’

‘No…I’m an old-fashioned guy. This is the wedding night we missed out on. Just lie there and allow me to drive you out of your mind with pleasure.’

‘Hmm…’ Prudence ran her full mouth in a gentle foray over his strong brown throat and liked the contact and the taste of him so much that she repeated it with the tip of her tongue and the occasional nip of her teeth.

Shuddering in reaction beneath that artless onslaught of encouragement, Nik groaned. ‘You’re driving me wild.’

‘It’s my wedding night, too,’ she whispered, skimming her toes down over the backs of his calves, full of leaping sexual energy.

Nik closed both hands over hers and held her captive while he gazed down at her with shimmering dark golden eyes. She looked at him with dark dilated pupils and let the tip of her tongue sneak out to wet her full lower lip.

‘You’re a witch.’ Nik claimed her inviting lips with savage urgency, before spreading her beneath him and working his erotic passage down over her squirming body to ensure that her response to him more than equalled his to her.

When he finally traced the delicate folds at the heart of her body, she shivered violently with the hot, sweet pleasure of his caresses. The tightness deep within her became a taut, spiralling knot of desire. Her entire being, her every breath, seemed to ride on his slightest touch. Her heartbeat raced and she writhed and moaned, all control vanquished by the fierce need that made her ache. She wanted him, and she wanted and she wanted until the wanting was a frantic and ferocious craving that hurt.

Only then did he plunge into her with a single thrust of possession that jolted her with intense erotic sensation. That very intensity overwhelmed her. His hands closed to her thighs to raise her so that he could sink deeper into her tight passage. Hot, drugging pleasure engulfed her and it went on and on and on. Wild sobs of excitement escaped her. Her unbearably tense body craved release from the passionate torment of his driving rhythm. The tension built and built and then finally spilt over. With a broken cry she jerked and shivered at a peak of ecstasy that surpassed her every hope. The sweet, drowning pleasure hit her in wave after wave of joyful, quivering relief.

In the delirious aftermath she studied the strong, hard planes of his darkly handsome face and glowed inside and out with love and happiness. She held him close, smiling as he brushed his lips over her brow and returned her embrace. Such happy contentment was new to her. Wary thoughts and misgivings threatened in the back of her mind but she fought them off, determined to make the most of her bliss. For now, Nik was hers, her husband, her lover, hers alone. What did it matter if it was to prove to be just one stolen moment in time? Did she want to turn into a dreary, bitter woman who always expected the worst to happen?

‘That was…astonishing, pethi mou,’ Nik muttered raggedly, distinctly disconcerted by that truth and his own inability to explain just why sex had never been so good before. He struggled to comprehend that mystery. She was hot-blooded and so was he. She was also his wife. Was it possible that that knowledge had added some strange extra dimension? His frown line deepened, distinct unease developing, for such introspection was not a habit of his.

Prudence smiled as he crushed her to him with almost clumsy affection. He was amazingly appealing, she reflected, running loving fingers gently through his tousled black hair.

‘You’re so passionate.’ Nik stretched lazily, enjoying the confident way she touched him. ‘Yet so tranquil. We are going to have a fantastic honeymoon, Mrs Angelis.’

Prudence tensed. ‘A honeymoon? You never mentioned that-’

‘It’s a surprise. Why do you think I’ve been so busy the last few weeks?’ Nik continued to indolently wind a long chestnut strand of her hair round his forefinger. ‘I had to clear a space for us to spend time together-’

Prudence was startled by the rush of anger that the mere mention of that word ‘honeymoon’ induced in her; she had never forgotten Cassia’s cruel crack about that lack on her wedding day. Her pride stung as much as though he had slapped her and she shook her hair free of his hand. ‘I can’t possibly leave the sanctuary-’

‘Of course you can. Why do you think I insisted that you take on a competent employee?’

Her temper flared at that arrogant assertion. ‘You can say what you like, but I’m not leaving my animals to go off on some stupid honeymoon!’

‘Oh, yes, you are,’ Nik delivered. ‘Had we had the same opportunity eight years ago, we would have been forced to sort out the misunderstandings and we would have had a viable marriage by the end of it. This time around we’re doing everything by the book-’

‘I’m sorry, but you can’t rearrange my life that way. Sometimes being a responsible person entails making unselfish choices.’

Nik groaned out loud at that lofty declaration.

‘And you know it does. Why else did you marry me eight years ago? Why else did I marry you?’

‘Isn’t it time we dispensed with the polite fiction that you had as little choice in that event as I had?’ Nik enquired with lethal cool.

Prudence sat up, clutching the sheet to her full breasts. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘You married me because you were hot for me…Let’s not pretend that marrying me was any great sacrifice for you at the time!’

Prudence blinked and then lifted her lashes on shattered blue eyes. ‘You are so full of yourself. That’s not fair and you know it. I didn’t have a choice. My grandfather refused to help my mother unless I married you.’

His winged ebony brows snapped together. ‘Theo was to help your mother? How?’ he queried. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You always behave as though you gave up more than me. But I only agreed to marry you because my mother was an alcoholic in serious debt. She was drinking herself to death and rehab was her only hope-’

Thrusting back the bedding with a measured hand, Nik sprang out of bed and studied her with frowning intensity. ‘Start at the beginning of the story…you said that Theo refused to help Trixie.’

‘As you should know, something for nothing is not his style. He said he couldn’t care less whether my mother lived or died. Unfortunately we needed his money to pay off her debts and put her into rehab. The price he