Lynne Graham: The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Mistress

'Would you like some chocolate?' she asked, rooting round in her capacious bag and emerging with a giant bar and only then seeing that smile and riveted by it. He had buckets of charisma and she was entrapped.

'Yes… before you melt it,' Andreas laughed, hunkering down to reach for the bar, which she was holding perilously close to the fire. He broke off a piece and let his brilliant gaze sweep from her clear bright eyes and the fascination she couldn't hide to the ripe curve of her lips. He remembered the intoxicating taste of her and the laughter left him to be replaced by a disturbingly strong desire to haul her back into his arms. He put the square of chocolate he had intended for himself into her mouth instead.

'Oh…' Hope gasped in surprise and closed her eyes in slow, blissful appreciation as the cold chocolate began melting against her tongue.

Andreas was transfixed by the expression she wore. He could not take his attention from her. He wondered if she would react like that to him in bed. He tried to kill the thought. He tried to suppress the powerful tide of hunger she ignited in him, but his usually disciplined libido was behaving like a runaway train.

Her lashes lifted. 'I would do just about anything for chocolate…'

Her voice faded away and her mouth ran dry on the glittering blaze she met in his intent golden eyes. On a level of understanding she had not even known she possessed she recognised his hunger and she leant forward without even thinking about what she was doing and sought his hard, sensual mouth again for herself. With a hungry growl, Andreas came down on his knees and kissed her until the blood drummed at an insane rate through her veins and her head swam.

'I'll buy you chocolate every day,' Andreas promised huskily.

'You know… I wasn't meaning anything provocative,' Hope warned him anxiously.

'I know.' Long fingers framed her cheekbones while his eyes devoured her. 'I find that straightforward streak of yours very refreshing.'

'Other people call me blunt-'

'Whatever, I don't meet with much of it,' Andreas admitted thickly, his hands not quite steady on her. 'I also want you so much it hurts to deny myself. That's a first for me.'

Hope felt utterly unlike herself. It was as though at that first kiss she had become an alien inside her own once familiar skin. She felt wild and greedy and joyous and as tempting as Cleopatra. All the years of stoically repressed regret at the manner in which life was passing her by, all the wistful longings and fanciful dreams that crowded out the fertile imagination she hid behind a front of no-nonsense practicality finally got to break free. Andreas was the embodiment of her every fantasy.

'A first for me too,' she confided breathlessly.

He unbuttoned the coat and then froze, a rare glint of confusion in the wondering appraisal he gave her. He had no grasp of quite how the situation had developed but he couldn't make himself let go of her. 'We have to be out of our minds.'

Hope closed her fingers into the lapels of his suit jacket. 'Shush… don't spoil it,' she whispered pleadingly. Andreas spread her back against his coat and let his mouth glide down the length of her throat. 'Tell me when to stop…'

With no intention of calling a halt at any point, Hope shivered with delicious tension and lay there. She booted the misgivings struggling to be heard out of her mind and slammed shut the door on them for good measure. For twenty-eight years she had been good and just once, and for the space of one stolen, secret night, she was going to be bad and what was more she was going to enjoy it. He unsnapped the lace bra and groaned out loud at the creamy swell of her pouting breasts in the firelight. 'You have a body to die for.'

Hot with a mix of self-consciousness and helpless longing, she opened her eyes to see if he was teasing, his appreciation spoke for him. With reverent hands he toyed with the tender pink peaks already straining into thrusting points. Deep down inside she felt as if she were burning and her hips shifted in a pointless effort to contain the feeling. Within very little time the whole world centred on him and what he was doing to her. He employed his knowing mouth on the stiff crests that crowned her breasts and the inner thrum of her body's response became so powerful she could not stay still. Her entire skin surface felt unbearably sensitive but more than anything she was aware of the damp ache at the swollen heart of her.

'Andreas…' She sounded his name in a throaty, pleading purr and at last he touched her where she most needed to be touched.

Sensation electrified her and took her to a place she had never been before, where all that mattered was the sensual glory of his touch and the wildness that was being born within her. She writhed, wrapped herself round him, lost in the hot, male scent of his skin and hair and the enervating roughness of his hard, muscular body against her.

'I can't wait…' Andreas confessed rawly, passion breaking through his formidable control at a level of excitement he had never known before.

The sheer overload of physical pleasure had driven her to a tortured peak and she was helpless in the hold of the powerful craving that controlled her. He pulled her under him and she was with him every step of the way. With an earthy groan he sank into the slick, hot heat of her and met with unexpected resistance.

'You're a virgin?' he breathed in stark shock. 'Don't stop…' she gasped, reaching up to lock imprisoning arms round him. He yielded and swept her through the sharp little pain into a fast, frantic rhythm as primal as the overpowering sensations that had taken her over. Intolerable excitement pushed her into ecstasy and a cocoon of pleasure. In the aftermath, she felt amazingly silly and happy and buoyant.

Andreas gazed at Hope with wondering golden eyes and then he gathered her very carefully back into the warmth of his coat and tugged her into his arms. He kissed her brow. 'You're very sweet, but you should have told me I'd be the first.'

'It was my business,' Hope muttered, burying her face into his shoulder, fighting off the shock of what she had just done.

'But now's it mine,' Andreas asserted, determined fingers tipping her chin up so that he could look at her again in the flickering light cast by the burning logs. 'I think that in the very near future you will decide to move to London and I will be your lover.'

'Why would I do that?' Hope dared to ask although sparkles of joy were running through her like precious gold dust. His hard, sensual mouth slashed into a sudden smile of breathtaking assurance. 'Because I will ask you to and you won't be able to resist.' Her heart was bouncing like a rubber ball inside her chest and she smiled up at him with all the natural warmth that was the very core of her character.

ALMOST two years later, Hope sat in a fashionable London cafe waiting for her friend Vanessa's arrival. Her thoughts were miles away and centred entirely on Andreas. She was dreamily wondering how she could best celebrate the second anniversary of that first eventful meeting. By seeking out a snow-bound barn? That would not be a good idea, she conceded with a grin. Andreas disliked inconvenience, cold and, indeed, had a very low tolerance threshold for any form of discomfort.

'Sorry I'm late.' A slim redhead with sharp but attractive features and bright brown eyes sank down into the seat opposite and settled a heavy camera case down. 'If that hair of yours grows any longer,' she remarked, surveying the pale blonde hair Hope wore secured at her nape but which reached halfway to her waist, 'people are going to start wondering if you've got Rapunzel fantasies.'

Hope blinked. 'I beg your pardon?'

'You know… the lady in the fairy tale who got locked up in the tower and let her long hair down to be used as a ladder to rescue her,' Vanessa clarified. 'Only unfortunately for her, it wasn't the handsome prince who climbed up, it was the witch. Be warned.'