Not just any man. But Constantine Skalas, who had long been a shadow over her life whether she admitted it or not.
She tried to tell herself that there was nothing particularly worthy of her notice here. It was another gig, that was all. And luckily enough, she was more than used to finding herself in states of undress with very little privacy. If she’d been at all prudish about her body, she wouldn’t have lasted a month in the fashion industry. Much less a decade.
Constantine took the tube of sunscreen from her, and Molly told herself to pay no mind to the fact that she was now standing between his outstretched legs. He took a long, lazy survey of her body, and she supposed she ought to have been grateful that he’d chosen to seat himself at the fanciful table she’d been enamored of when she’d been here the first time. This particular table was basically a shelf that ran around the trunk of a large shade tree, making it possible to sit out on this particular terrace in the high heat of a Greek summer day and enjoy the cool breeze from the sea without broiling.
It made her wonder exactly how calculating Constantine really was. But even as she thought that, she had her answer, didn’t she? For here he sat in the shade, demanding her nudity, a convenient tube of sunscreen at the ready.
Molly really ought to have been ashamed that even now, when she had returned to Greece to trade her body for money—dress it up or down as she pleased, that was what was happening, and not, for a change, in the name of high fashion—even in the midst of yet another terrible thing he was doing to her, she wanted to excuse him. To give him some other reason for doing what he did.
When she should know better. The man was pure evil. More, he was proud of it.
He finally raised his gaze to hers again, sensual and heavy-lidded and, as ever, richly intense. She did her best not to react and her reward was the hint of a knowing smile in one corner of his mouth. He lifted an idle hand, then circled one finger in the air before him, telling her without words to turn around.
Molly complied, executing a sharp, crisp turn that would have made art directors sigh with pleasure in at least five languages. She presented him with her back and then she stood still—another skill that the average person assumed anyone could do. When, in fact, real stillness for more than a moment was significantly more difficult than most lay people imagined.
Constantine was also still, and she resented that about him. That he could simply do things it took others a lifetime to learn. Much less execute on a whim.
After a while she had the sense of some kind of movement somewhere behind her and braced herself, but she heard nothing that sounded like Constantine about to strike. There was the sound of the sea in the distance and the waters of the cove against the shore. She could hear the breeze through the trees. She was aware of bees buzzing, birds conducting their officious business, and wind chimes, somewhere near.
All of it seemed entirely too bucolic and sweet when she’d woken up in a gray and wet London morning. Especially when Lucifer himself was here with her. She should have been able to smell the sulfur.
She waited, but nothing happened. Time stretched out. She held her breath, but still, nothing.
The Greek sun she would have sworn she hated filtered down through the branches of the tree above her, yet because it provided her with a canopy, it felt like nothing so much as a kiss. And slowly, against her will, she began to feel the inherent sensuality of what she was doing. Standing there, letting the breeze caress her while the sunshine licked all over her, soft and sweet. There was salt in the air, and the scent of something sweet that she assumed must be flowers, and she was sorely tempted to close her eyes and drift off...
But it was as if he knew. As if he could tell. Because the very moment she contemplated surrendering to this unusual moment she found herself in, he touched her.
It was torture in an instant. An exquisite, glorious torture.
And Molly had no idea why he’d turned her around so he couldn’t monitor her expressions, because she was sure he would have seen far too much if he had. She felt her mouth drop open. Her eyes went wide. It took everything she had to keep her hands at her side, instead of letting them rise to cover her mouth. Her face. To do something.
Because Constantine was doing something so prosaic it should hardly have registered.
And yet.
His hands were big, faintly calloused from she knew not what, and slick with sunscreen lotion.
And it turned out that the most debauched and pointless man in the history of Greece was very, very detail oriented when it suited him.
He started at her hips, smoothing his hands to the small of her back, then all over her bottom, making sure to cover each curve. Then he slicked his way, ever so carefully, over her exposed inner thighs, down the backs of her legs, all the way along her calves to her feet, then up again.
Constantine said nothing while he did this. When he needed more sunscreen, his hands disappeared but always returned. The lotion was cool against her skin, but his hands were hot. Or she was hot. It was all too hot.
At some point he stood, and it took everything Molly had to keep from collapsing into a too-warm, coconut-scented puddle at his feet. Or even to keep her eyes open, because they drooped to half-mast as he rubbed lotion up the length of her spine. Then over each of her shoulder blades,
