Page 6 of The Nicolaides Baby

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said with a frown as the porter walked away. “I would’ve tipped him.”

He smiled down at her. “Call it a parting gift.”

Rowan took a deep breath and looked up at him. “So…”

“Yes.”

“I guess this is goodbye. Well, at least until I see you at Christmas—hopefully.” She shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to him. “Thanks for the use of this.”

He glanced at his outstretched jacket and then at her. He should turn away. Leave. But God help him, he couldn’t. He reached out but bypassed the jacket and cupped her cheek to run his thumb over her soft skin. Funny, he had thought he might be able to feel the freckles dotting her face, but her skin was smooth. She closed her eyes when his thumb moved over her parted lips, and his breath and heartbeat quickened when she gave it the barest of kisses.

She opened her eyes—their green depths filled with longing. “Leo, I—”

“Shhh…”

When he pulled her into his arms, it felt right. And then even more right when he finally—gloriously—pressed his mouth to hers and tasted something he’d never known he was craving. She pressed closer into him, her softness cradling every hardening plane of his body as her slight hum vibrated against him. And then it was almost his undoing when she lifted her mouth from his and her warm breath whispered across his lips. “I know we shouldn’t be doing this, but—”

Leo took her mouth again. It was the best way he knew to cut off her likely quite valid argument for why this was a mistake, but he didn’t want to hear what he already knew deep down. He passed the keycard over her door lock. The mechanism turning filled the silence that had only been broken by her soft sighs and his own groans of pleasure. They mutually parted enough to look into each other’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what Rowan saw when she searched his gaze, but whatever it was, she reached out her hand and opened the door to her room. She then grabbed his hand and led him inside, letting the door shut behind them.

3

“Okay, class, settle down.”Rowan smiled over the sweaty faces of her twenty-three students as they took their seats after recess and a bathroom break. They always seemed to play a little harder on Fridays. “Heads on your tables.” She went to sit behind her desk. “No talking… Uh-uh. That means no whispering either, Charis.” The curly headed little girl grinned up at her before settling her head on her crossed arms. “Ten minutes rest and then we’ll have story time.”

What she wouldn’t give for a few minutes to lay her head on her own desk, she thought as she sat down, especially after the late-night FaceTime call from averypregnant Sierra. The woman never considered the time difference. Her sister had kept her on the phone almost three hours complaining about her husband’s pre-delivery antics, and swollen feet, sore breasts, and excessive gas she just couldn’t get rid of. Well, shecouldget rid of it, but Andreas wasn’t happy aboutwhenandhow.

Rowan grinned over that one. God, she missed Sierra, and the need to be with her had been growing stronger with each passing week of her sister’s pregnancy.

Summer break was close, and with little Lukas due the third week of June, she and her daughter, Mara, could fly over and be there in time for the birth. She’d even started checking flight details. Besides, it had been more than four years since she’d set foot in Greece, and it was well past time she’d returned.

She shook off the shiver coursing through her body. And even with everything between them, surely she could handle seeinghimagain.

Rowan hid a yawn with the back of her hand and willed herself to stay awake. Because regardless of how tired she was, she couldn’t risk dozing off. She’d found out the hard way her first year of teaching, a napping teacher and a roomful of unattended seven-year-olds wasn’t a good mix. Besides, their quiet time meant she had a few minutes to grade the last of the papers from the morning’s spelling test.

Overall, they’d done well, with an exception here and there. She circled an extra letter in one of the words on Tyler’s paper with her red pencil and then started to write out the correct spelling. Her hand paused when an image of Leo unexpectedly flooded her mind, his jaw clenching and narrowed blue eyes filled with anger.

Not now.

Why, after all this time, couldn’t she shake her one last fleeting glance of him before she’d walked out the hotel room door? It wasn’t her most pleasant memory of their time together. In fact, it was the only part of that night she wished she could forget. Unfortunately for her, it managed to creep up on her when she least expected it—usually at the most inopportune times.

Like now while she sat at her desk in front of a classroom of overly observant second-graders. That was all she needed.Ms. Stallings, why is your face so red?

She pushed the thought away and concentrated on finishing out the word before putting a grade at the top of the page and flipping it over to the next student’s test. No, Ariel, not DIFFRENT. She circled the word and—

There it was again—his intense blue gaze—but this time filled with heat as his eyes had traced over her face as she stood within the circle of his arms. She’d licked her kiss-swollen lips and taken her first good breath after they’d been shut inside her hotel room.

She shivered remembering his groan and how he had grabbed her waist and then turned her around before pulling her backside to his front, muttering, “God, you’re tempting me.”

Her slight laugh had ended on a moan when he’d pressed her against the nearest wall and kissed the nape of her neck. His hands had roamed over her breasts before tracing them down to her hips. Her moan had deepened as she’d found herself softening—everywhere—when he’d blanketed himself over her back. Every hard inch of him had settled against her body, with the solid length of his cock pressing into her ass as his hands left a trail of need over her body.

She still couldn’t believe she’d actually whimpered when he’d stepped back. Then her “No…” had died on her lips when she’d helplessly glanced over her shoulder at his reddened cheeks and blazing eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he’d said, while lowering her zipper. “I’m far from done.”

And he hadn’t been.

Her body still tingled with the way he’d kissed down her spine as her zipper went lower, and then how his lips had lingered at the strap of her bra as he’d unhooked it. She grinned remembering his slight chuckle as she’d quickly grabbed the falling cups and held them tightly to her breasts. “Yes, hold them just like that,” he’d said. “Don’t ruin my surprise.”

She’d let out a breathless laugh as his hands had spanned her waist before he’d gone to his knees behind her. “Your surprise?” She’d closed her eyes and swallowed at the warm glide of his tongue over the dimples at the base of her back and along the band of her panties before he’d slid the silky material down her legs.

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