Page 67 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

Only when they reached his room and he put her down in his bed did she stretch her arms above her head and smile. “Are you going to sleep with me now?” She murmured, and her words were both husky with invitation and slurred by alcohol.

He deserved a God-damned medal, Thaddeus thought with a low growl. How easy it would have been to push the ridiculously frothy dress up around her waist, slip aside her underwear and plunge inside of her.

But he would loathe himself for indulging that weakness. She was in no fit state to have any idea what she was asking for. Instead, he slipped her shoes from her feet and placed them at the foot of the bed.

“Soon,” he promised, running a hand over her dark hair. “Very soon.”

CHAPTER TWO

The sun was her enemy. It burned through her eyes making her corneas sting. Her mouth was thick with fur and tasted of dirty socks. When she sat up and pushed her hair from her face, her brain gave an unparalleled screech of complaint.

“Ugh,” she moaned, blinking one eye shut as she scanned the room and tried to remember what the hell had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

And then, piece by piece, it began to hammer into her consciousness. Anita and Jordan. Her beautiful best friend and her stunning husband making love in Saphire’s picture-perfect room, destroying her picture-perfect, no-good marriage.

Then what? She’d got a cab to the airport and decided to come to … to come to … Greece! It had been the first flight she could get onto. A first class ticket had been available on a plane bound for Athens that had been leaving almost immediately and she had been desperate to get as far away from her staid life in Notting Hill as possible.

And then?

Mr Konstanides, her brain taunted, and she lifted a hand to her breast to feel the nipple that he’d tormented on the flight. It drifted higher, to her lips. He’d kissed them until she’d thought she might pass out from the strength of sensation.

Mr Konstanides.

She looked down at her body. She was still wearing the black dress. Which meant they hadn’t slept together after all, didn’t it?

His side of the bed was unrumpled. In fact, her shoes and her body were the only signs of life in this incredibly luxurious hotel suite. She stood up gingerly.

No.

They hadn’t slept together.

Saphire could tell that having sex with a man like Mr Konstanides would have been an invasion of all of her senses. It would be life-altering, yet she felt very much as she had yesterday, except for the throbbing headache. And as that was self-inflicted, she refused to allow that to cower her back to bed.

No, her body had only ever known one lover, and he had, she was beginning to suspect, treated her with kid gloves. Why? Had she bored him? Had she given him some silent, unknowing impression that she couldn’t handle being treated like a red-blooded, adult woman?

Flashes of their calm, missionary sex-life made her face pale now. She pushed them aside.

Possibly the sexiest man Saphire had ever met had wanted to sleep with her. And even if she couldn’t go through with it in broad daylight, his interest still meant something.

Hell, she could never go through with it, broad daylight or not. She’d be a huge disappointment to someone like him. He might have thought she was ready to jump into any willing man’s bed, but the truth was, she had no damned idea what to do when she got there.

Enormous windows behind her framed a stunning view of the beach. Saphire squinted past her pain to give it a slow appraisal. Despite the pounding headache, she couldn’t help but marvel at the pristine ocean and crisp white shore. The sand stretched for about the same distance in both directions, forming a sweeping cove. There were pale-cultured rocks at the cliff-face, and spiky green plants bursting from them. There was no sign of other guests, though far, far in the distance she could make out the stately silhouette of an enormous cruise ship.

Where the heck in Athens was she? She tried to remember where they’d gone after the airport but it was mostly a blank. She had a brief impression of a stunning hotel. A boat? No. Surely not. It must have been a fast car. And she remembered being cradled against his broad, strong chest; almost asleep but awake enough to register how capable he was, and how safe she felt.

She lifted her forefingers to her temples and pressed against them, willing her head to stop bleating noisily at her.

“How do you feel?”

She startled and spun around far faster than was wise for someone in her fragile state.

Mr Kostanides was reclined with easy relaxation against the door jamb. He wasn’t wearing anything except a pair of black underpants. Saphire’s heart was pounding hard into her rib cage. He was so much better in the flesh than she’d dared to dream. His cinnamon-coloured tan was all-over. The previous evening his body had been concealed by a corporate shirt and pants. Now? Everything was on display. From the broad shoulders, to the rippling chest and strong, masculine legs. But most importantly, a certain part of his anatomy that she was trying her hardest not to stare at. Yet it was there and her cheeks flushed with a school-girl coyness.

“Oh, God,” she said softly and gripped the wall behind her. How had she ended up here?

“Just what I was thinking,” he murmured, his eyes doing an appraisal of their own.

Saphire shook her head, ignoring the sharp pain behind her eyes. “You’re hardly wearing anything.”

---