Lynne Graham: The Stephanides Pregnancy

He tilted her back and shifted over her to ease into her tight, moist entrance degree by degree. Her eyes opened wide in wonderment. Where she had ached he filled her to the hilt. The sudden stark flash of pain as he powered through the barrier of her resisting flesh took her by surprise and then he thrust into her some more.

Cristos looked down at her with hot golden eyes. 'You feel awesome.'

He eased his hands beneath her hips, arched her up to him and sank even deeper into her with a groan of very male satisfaction. She had no time to catch her breath. With slow, provocative deliberation, he set a sensual rhythm that made her heart pound like mad against her breastbone. He ground down into her and wild excitement seized her. The pace quickened. She moved against him with an abandon that became more and more frenzied. Any notion of control was long gone. She was reaching for the very zenith of pleasure when – without any warning he suddenly yanked himself back from her.

'Cristos… l' she yelped in disbelief and she stretched up and hauled him back to her before he could complete his withdrawal.

He slammed back into her willing body with welcome fervour. She hit the heights in an explosion of ecstasy. He bit out something raw in his own language. His magnificent body shuddered over her and she clung to him as the shattering pagan surge of pleasure rocked them both.

In the aftermath, she hugged him close, revelling in that new intimacy and feeling incredibly content.

'As withdrawals go, that was a disaster,' Cristos muttered breathlessly, surveying her nonetheless with scorching golden eyes of appreciation and smoothing back her tousled hair to drop a kiss on her brow.

'Oh…' Too late, Betsy realised what she had done and she blamed her own mindless excitement for her lack of awareness. 'My fault.'

'But as an experience… it was the ultimate. I do hope this isn't going to be a one-night stand,' Cristos murmured teasingly, flipping over onto his back and scooping her up to arrange her back on top of him.

In rather a daze at the new state of play between them, Betsy gazed down at him. Feeling quite unlike herself and insanely happy, she smiled.

The softened light in her clear eyes disturbed Cristos. 'A word of warning,' he murmured lightly. 'Don't go falling in love with me. I'm not into all that.' "

A deep inner chill banished her sunny mood. It took effort not to betray her disconcertion and her hurt. It took even more of an effort to produce an amused laugh. 'You don't need to worry,' she told him, affronted by the warning he had considered jt necessary to give her. 'I'm in love with someone else.'

Astonished by that careless statement, Cristos went very stilt He did not think about what he did next;-he went with his gut reaction. Clamping two hands to her waist, he scooped her off him again and dumped her

back on the bed beside him with a scant lack of ceremony. 'Then why did you go to bed with me?'

Taken aback by his flagrant anger, Betsy scrambled out of the bed. Only then did she recall that she was stark naked and an immediate need to drop to her knees in search of something to wear could not have been said to cool her temper. Below the bed she found the sarong she had discarded earlier and she dragged it round herself.

'I'm waiting for an answer… ' Cristos stressed. 'Well, I don't see what you have to get all worked up about.' Betsy's ire was up and she had gone on the defensive. 'When you felt the need to tell me not to go falling for you, you should be grateful to hear that

I'm in love with another man!'.

'Who is he?' Cristos growled, furious with her, aghast at her lack of shame. To think that he had fondly imagined that she was vulnerable, naive…

'None of your business.' Betsy tied the sarong in a knot over her breasts. Her hands were all fingers and thumbs. She was upset and she couldn't understand why she had had such a violent adverse response to what he had said to her.

'You made it mine when you got into bed with me,' Cristos framed in a raw undertone. 'Who is this guy? Your boyfriend?'

Her resistance gave in the surge of bitterness that that enquiry produced. 'He was once,' she admitted tightly. 'But now he lives with my sister and they have a child.'

At that admission, the savage edge to his anger blunted. The other guy was unavailable and not a rival. 'How long since you were with him?'

'Three years.'

Cristos treated her to a derisive appraisal. 'And you still haven't got over him?'

'You are one hateful, sarcastic bastard when you want to be!' Betsy yelled at him full throttle, high spots of colour burning over her cheeks.

A symphony of bronzed flesh and powerful masculinity, Cristos lounged back against the tumbled pillows, offensive in his studied relaxation. 'Three years after this guy shacks up with your sister, you're still in love with him… don't you think that's more than a little sad?'

Betsy was in such a rage she felt light-headed. 'You don't understand what you're talking about. Rory was my best friend, my soul mate-'

'But you never screwed him,' Cristos slotted in with a blunt lack of respect for such high-flown sentiments that sent her hot temper climbing even higher. 'So he must have been a non-starter between the sheets.'

'You're disgusting… you reduce everything to a sexual level!' Betsy slammed back at him.

'I'm also the guy you gave your virginity to.'

'So you've got sex appeal… just as well, you've got nothing else!' Betsy slung at him between gritted teeth. 'You're intensive, ignorant, vain-'

'Where the hell do you get off calling me vain?' Cristos roared at her.

Hands on her slender hips, Betsy treated him to an all-encompassing look ·of scorn such as he had never before received from a member of her sex 'Suggesting that I would be thick enough to fall in love with a guy like you! And you don't think that's vain?'

Golden eyes flaming with fierce pride, Cristos sprang off the bed like a panther about to pounce on prey. 'Why wouldn't you fall in love with me?'

'It's nothing personal but you're not Rory,' Betsy told him brittly, horrified to recognise the prickling sensation behind her eyes and taking hurried refuge in the bathroom before she let herself down a bucketful.

Seething with frustration, incapable of letting the issue drop, Cristos knocked on the door. She ignored it. He opened the door. Tear-tracks marking her cheeks, she was wiping her eyes. His anger vanished. He closed his arms round her. 'This is insane. I don't even know what we're arguing about-'

'Your conviction that you're an intensely lovable person and fatally attractive to virgins,' Betsy countered somewhat snidely in punishment for his having caught her crying.

'It's the tension we're living with here…it had to find a vent somewhere,' Cristos asserted, disregarding that facetious comment.

Her rigidity gave and she collapsed into the sheltering warmth of his lean, powerful body. She didn't know why she had got so angry and distressed. She didn't know why he had a magical ability to make her so angry she was ready to explode. She didn't even know why she was ruder to him than she had ever been to anyone else. All she recognised at that instant was that she was confused, afraid of the disturbing strength of her own emotions and in dire need of comfort. She had not acknowledged that they were both stressed out and striving to make the best of a frightening situation they could not control. Cristos was like her. He didn't whinge.

Pulling her close, he scooped her up and carried her back to bed. 'You have three choices,' he murmured, stunning dark golden eyes entrapping her with charismatic ease. 'One… I give you some space.'

Betsy considered that and finally wrinkled her nose. 'Two… 1 give you your first swimming lesson.' Betsy made a rather vulgar gagging sound, which made him grin with startled appreciation.