The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Princess
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
August 21, 2009
ISBN: 0263874206
Harlequin Presents
November 1, 2009
ISBN: 0373128673
One jewel divided two islands, one jewel will reunite them! The King of Aristo is dead, and the Rose Diamond is missing. Without the precious jewel, no heir can be crowned. The search for the princes begins...But the rival island of Calista, a powerful Sheikhdom, wants the jewel. Two halves of the infamous whole will give them absolute power...and whether by seduction, power, money or marriage, the jewel must be theirs.Two families torn apart by power and passion, bitterly reunited in a search for their most precious jewel - a diamond that will rule them all..
... ‘I assume you need these,’ he murmured, as he unfolded her glasses and placed them on her nose.
‘Thank you.’ Kitty stared transfixed at his features, which were now sharply defined rather that blurred. Moonbeams highlighted the angles and planes of his incredible bone-structure, and she could not tear her eyes from the firm line of his mouth.
She heard him draw a sharp breath, and she gasped when he slid his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face to his. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s dangerous to swim in the sea alone?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘You could have got into trouble in the current, and no one would have known.’ His eyes dropped to her small frame enveloped by his jacket, and he tried unsuccessfully to dismiss the image of her running naked across the sand. ‘Tell me, do you often swim naked in the moonlight?’
‘No, of course not,’ Kitty replied quickly, squirming. It was not entirely the truth, she acknowledged silently. She loathed the sight of her body in a bikini and often came to swim alone in the dark when no one would see her. ‘I knew this is a private beach, and I thought I would be undisturbed here,’ she said pointedly. ‘Like you, I came down for some fresh air, but the sea looked so inviting that I was overcome with a mad impulse to…strip off and dive in.’
‘Is that so?’ Nikos’s voice was no longer harsh, but velvet soft, stroking over Kitty’s skin so that each tiny hair on her body stood on end. The chemistry that had been simmering between them since he had appeared on the beach was at combustion point, and her head spun with a dizzying mixture of trepidation and breathless excitement.
‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled when he removed her glasses and put them back in his jacket pocket.
‘Following my own mad impulse,’ he growled, ignoring her shocked gasp when he suddenly jerked her up against his chest. ‘The same impulse we both felt in the banqueting hall. Don’t deny it, Rina,’ he warned silkily when she frantically shook her head from side to side. ‘I saw what was in your mind.’
Recalling her shamefully erotic fantasy, which had involved him sliding his hand beneath her skirt, and touching her where no man had ever touched her before, Kitty prayed he hadn’t. But Nikos was lowering his head towards her, and it seemed to her shell-shocked brain as if everything was happening in slow-motion. She tensed, torn between wanting to pull out of his arms and race back to the palace, and another, shocking need to stay and allow him to fulfil the determined intent in his dark gaze.
She moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue – and, watching her, Nikos felt his stomach muscles clench. This had been building since she had stood up to him earlier in the evening. He hadn’t felt such a searing sexual attraction for a woman for a long time, and he dipped his head slowly, savouring the anticipation, and exploring the shape of her lips with his tongue before he claimed her mouth with a hunger he could no longer control.
Until the split second before Nikos slanted his mouth over hers, Kitty hadn’t really believed he would kiss her, but her little gasp of shock was smothered beneath the pressure of his lips firmly coaxing hers apart. He was totally in control and he let her know it with the determined sweep of his tongue as he probed between her lips, demanding access to the moistness within. And she was powerless to stop him; lost from the moment he’d first touched her and caught up in a maelstrom of emotions as she felt the piercing sweetness of intense sexual desire for the first time in her life.
Nikos slid his hand round to Kitty’s nape, tangled his fingers in her hair and tugged gently, angling her head so that he could deepen the kiss. Her response was instant and had a devastating affect on his libido so that he closed his other arm around her waist and dragged her hard up against the solid length of his arousal straining urgently beneath his trousers.
Rina was small and soft, and through his jacket he could feel the outline of her ripe curves that had proved such an unbearable temptation when she had stripped in the moonlight. She smelled of the sea; tasted of it too, he noted when he moved his mouth to her throat and stroked his tongue along her collar bone. He was used to women who wore designer clothes and drenched their skin in expensive perfumes, but there was something earthy, almost pagan, about this woman that struck a chord deep inside him. She was naturally sensual and totally in tune with her femininity, and instinct told him she would be a generous and adventurous lover.
His eyes were drawn to the deep valley of her cleavage and with a tortured groan he claimed her mouth once more, crushing her soft lips beneath his while he slid his hand into the front of his jacket and stroked his fingers lightly over one of her full, firm breasts.
He must have startled her because her whole body jerked with reaction, and sensing her hesitation he withdrew his hand, feeling a sharp tug of regret that he was denied the pleasure of caressing the erect point of her nipple. Theos, she was a sorceress; a sea-witch enticing him to forget everything but his desperation to sink his swollen shaft deep within her and possess her, but he could feel the sudden tension that gripped her, and calling on all his will-power he tore his mouth from hers and stared down at her, fighting for breath. ‘This is madness,’ he grated harshly. ‘If either of us had any sense we should return to the palace. But my sanity seems to have deserted me, Rina, so the choice is yours. Will you end this now and go back? Or stay and drink champagne with me in the moonlight?’
It felt like a defining moment in her life, but Nikos had only asked her to drink champagne with him, Kitty reassured herself as she snatched oxygen into her lungs and tried to control the frantic thudding of her heart. He was watching her intently, waiting for her answer, and she gave a little shiver. No man had ever asked her to drink champagne on a beach in the moonlight; no man had ever kissed her the way Nikos had, or stirred the passion that had been locked deep inside her for so long.
After a life spent adhering to duty and protocol Nikos Angelaki was like a breath of fresh air. He was dark and sexy and dangerous to know, but he made her feel daring - and the heat in his eyes made her feel desirable for the first time in her life.
She swallowed and forced herself to meet his gaze, feeling as though she was about to cast herself over the edge of a precipice. ‘I love champagne,’ she whispered shyly, shocked by her temerity.
He made no reply, and for a few agonising seconds she thought he had changed his mind and was going to send her away. But then he relaxed, and his slow smile stole her breath.
‘Come then,’ he said, holding out his hand. His fingers closed around hers and even that tiny gesture was wonderfully new. She was twenty-six and she had never walked along a beach hand in hand with a lover, she thought despairingly. She didn’t know where the years had gone, but it seemed as though one minute she had been a child and suddenly she was a grown woman who had been so absorbed with her studies and her work for the museum that romance and boyfriends had bypassed her.
She had taken on her share of royal commitments uncomplainingly because that was how she had been brought up: dutiful, obedient, always conscious of her position and grateful for the privileges that came with being a member of the royal family. But Nikos did not know she was a princess; he thought she was a waitress called Rina, and for a few hours she could be normal – just a woman who had met a man and was free to respond to the chemistry that smouldered between them.
The cave was illuminated by a lamp that he must have brought from the garden. The pale beam of light that spilled from it highlighted the sculpted beauty of his face, and Kitty felt a fluttering sensation in her chest as her eyes focused on the sensual curve of his mouth. She hovered uncertainly while he dropped down onto the dry sand, the common sense for which she was famed telling her to go – now - before she did something she would later regret. But her feet seemed to be melded to the floor of the cave, and when he patted the sand next to him, she walked slowly forwards.
He held out a bottle of champagne. ‘Here, have some. You’re shivering again. It’s a pity it isn’t brandy, but I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with vintage Bollinger.’ He stretched out so that his lean, hard body was spread temptingly before her. His white silk shirt was open at the throat revealing the tanned column of his throat and a mass of dark body hair that she’d noticed also covered his forearms. He was so male, so overwhelmingly virile, Kitty thought shakily as she sank onto her knees beside him and took the bottle.
‘It doesn’t seem right to swig champagne from the bottle,’ she murmured. ‘It’s very…decadent.’
‘Decadent?’ Nikos’s low rumble of laughter echoed around the cave. ‘What a curious mix of contradictions you are, Rina. You sound as prim as a Victorian governess, and yet you’re happy to go skinny-dipping in the moonlight. Do I need to remind you that you are naked beneath my jacket?’
He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a woman blush, Nikos mused idly. The sexually confident women he dated were sophisticated game players long past the first flush of virginal innocence. The thought caused him to frown as he watched Kitty take a sip of champagne. She seemed to be a curious mixture: shy one minute and eagerly responsive to him the next. When he had first kissed her he’d gained the impression that it was a new experience for her, but after her initial hesitation she had parted her mouth beneath his and kissed him back with such fiery passion that he had dismissed the idea.
He didn’t need to remind himself that she was wearing nothing, he acknowledged grimly when she handed him the champagne bottle and he took a long draught. The dinner jacket was far too big for her and fastened so low that he could see the rounded contours of her breasts. He did not know what crazy impulse had made him ask her to stay, and he was already regretting it. He never made rash decisions. Even when he gambled he carefully weighed up the odds before he threw the dice. But for some reason Rina disturbed his cool, logical brain – and disturbed other areas of his body too. He wanted to kiss her again and never stop, but instead he forced himself to relax and tried to ignore the temptation of tasting champagne from her lips.