Michelle Smart - The Greek's Pregnant Cinderella

Every cell in her body had come to life and strained towards him.

‘May I have a towel, please?’ she asked when done.

‘Let me,’ he murmured, taking her injured hand back into his own.

Tabitha held her breath, suddenly aware of her heart hammering so hard its beats were thudding in her throat.

He’d removed his mask. The features she found so captivating were right there before her, the closest they had ever been, unadorned.

Head bowed in concentration, a lock of his dark brown hair fell over his eye. He dislodged it with a quick flick of his head. ‘You can move your hand without problem?’

She cleared her throat and whispered, ‘Yes.’

His movements unhurried, he wrapped a small grey hand-towel around her hand and gently pressed it to her palm.

Palm dry, he removed the towel. Fresh droplets of blood seeped from the cut, although noticeably less heavy than before. ‘I should have a bandage for that.’ He placed the towel back on the palm, took Tabitha’s other hand and pressed it on it. ‘Keep the pressure on.’

He unzipped what she’d assumed to be a washbag but was in fact stuffed with bandages and other first-aid equipment.

‘Are you a secret doctor?’ she asked, again striving for lightness of tone and failing dismally. His spicy scent was filling her senses again and she struggled to even open her vocal cords.

Clear blue eyes briefly met hers, creasing at the corners, before he pulled out a large padded plaster in a protective packet. ‘A habit from my university days. My mother insisted I take a medical kit with me.’

Using his teeth, he ripped the packaging, the tendons on his olive throat straining.

The blood running through her heated a little more and she had to fight the fog in her brain to think of something to say. ‘Was your mother over-protective?’

He gave a grunt-like laugh. ‘She was sensible. I was rather wild and reckless in my younger years. Hold your hand flat but curve your fingers a little for me.’

She complied then held her breath again as he carefully fixed the plaster to her hand, smoothing it down at the sides.

‘There,’ he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and placing a kiss to the plaster. ‘All done.’

Her belly flipped over so hard the effect rippled through the rest of her. ‘Thank you.’ But her vocal cords had now knotted themselves so tightly the words hardly formed.

He was so close. The cells in her body were no longer merely straining towards him; they were trying to fly out of her skin to him, abetted by the violent beats of her heart.

Giannis studied the delicate palm spread out on his hand and traced his fingers over her elegant ones, surprised to find the tips hardened and calloused.

About to ask how this could be, he met her cornflower-blue gaze and his throat closed up.

He’d tended to Tabitha’s wounded hand with the best of intentions, promising himself they would clean it up and bandage it then go back outside to watch the fireworks together.

He hadn’t considered that his attraction to her would burn even brighter when they were alone in the confines of his apartment or that he would be so aware of her every movement and every breath.

He hadn’t considered that he would tend to her hand and have to stop himself from running his tongue over it.

Since Anastasia’s death he had hardly lived like a monk. He’d been with a considerable number of women, both before his marriage and after he was widowed.

Not one of them had made his loins ache and his chest tighten with one shy smile.

Not one of them had captivated him like Tabitha had, and he still hadn’t seen her face...

Suddenly he found himself needing to see it, to see the whole face of this woman who had enchanted him so much that he couldn’t determine if it was her or the champagne he’d drunk inducing it.

He released his hold on her hand and brought his fingers to her face.

Not a breath of sound could be heard between them as he slowly lifted the mask up and over the honey-blonde hair.

Heart pounding, he stared at a flawless face far more beautiful than he had suspected.

Truly, ethereally beautiful.

He rubbed the back of his fingers down high, rounded cheekbones in wonder, that wonder growing at the sudden pulse he saw in the cornflower eyes.

She gave a sharp inhalation before her own hand reached for his face and tentatively touched his jaw.

A bolt of electricity charged through him, strong enough to knock a weaker man off his feet.

The light delicacy of her floral perfume whirled into his senses.

Everything about this woman was delicate and faultless. Were it not for the warmth of her soft skin and the slight trembles he saw vibrating through her, he could have believed she was made from porcelain.

He traced his fingers across her oval jawline then dragged them down the elegant neck, lingering at the pulse throbbing at the spot before he reached her collarbone and took the one step needed to do what he had spent the entire evening hungering to do.

He brought his face down and captured her heart-shaped lips in his.

Another bolt of electricity rocketed through him, far stronger than the first, crashing hot through his veins and skin with a buzz that must have seeped through him, for Tabitha jolted too.

Pulling back slightly so their lips were barely touching, he opened his eyes and found hers fixed on him, a dazed expression shining at him. The fingers resting on his jaw had frozen.

The walls around him began to spin, heat flowing through him so fast and so thick he wondered if he had drunk more than he’d thought.

He found he didn’t care.

Champagne, desire or a combination of both, at that moment he wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything.

Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him and moulded his mouth to hers, exploring the plump softness of her lips, then parting them to dart his tongue inside and explore the hot champagne-scented depths.

Tabitha succumbed to her very first kiss feeling like she’d fallen into a dream.

The whole night had been a dream.

But this...

It was mesmerising.

She met the strokes of his tongue tentatively at first but the heat bubbling inside her being fed by his heavenly kisses grew at a ferocious pace and smothered any inhibitions she should have had.

Grabbing at the soft leather of his swallowtail jacket to keep her suddenly boneless legs upright, she arched into the hard contours of his body and moved the hand clutched at his cheek to hook tightly around his neck.

She felt intoxicated, could feel the blood pumping in the veins of her mouth and moving relentlessly through the rest of her, heating wherever his firm hands swept over her.

She only realised he’d unpinned her hair when it spilled down over them.

He broke the kiss to turn his face into her hair and breathed it in deeply before bringing both hands to her face and smoothing the hair back.

His eyes had darkened, his hunger for her so stark that her stomach contracted.

Never had she imagined that this man would look at her with such desire in his eyes.

Before this night she hadn’t imagined Giannis would ever look at her.

When his mouth found hers again, the kiss harder and hungrier, fresh heat assailed her, threading through the very fabric of her being, and she tightened her hold around him, suddenly aching for him to rip the beautiful but constricting dress from her burning, sensitised skin.

As if his mind was aligned with her own, Giannis lifted her effortlessly into his arms, the motion making her belly swoop.

The world’s biggest rollercoaster could not have had a greater effect. Or felt a fraction as heady.