LYNNE GRAHAM: The Petrakos Bride

‘Oh…oh, my goodness. I’m so s-sorry!’ Maddie stammered in intense mortification.

Taken aback by her appearance, because his bodyguards were highly efficient at protecting his privacy, Giannis surveyed her. He was astonished that she could have bypassed his security team. But, as appreciation of her beauty flamed through him and unleashed an instantaneous sexual response, his aggressive hunting instincts took over. He decided that only fate could have set up such an opportunity. After all, she had entered his private quarters without invitation, and they were alone where no one would dare to disturb him.

‘I thought this was another office…I had no idea.’ Too embarrassed to look directly at him, Maddie was engaged in swiftly backing out again. ‘Please excuse my intrusion.’

‘But you brought coffee? For me? ‘ Giannis treated her to a stunning smile and stretched out a lean brown hand to signify a welcome. ‘How very kind.’

The megawatt impact of that unexpected smile curving his wide sculpted mouth dazzled Maddie. Her tummy executed a back-flip without warning, and all the oxygen in her lungs seemed to vanish. She would not let her attention dip below the level of his angular jaw. She knew she had stuff to say to him, but her memory had suddenly become one giant horrendous blank.

‘Mr Petrakos…excuse me,’ she managed breathlessly.

‘No.’ Giannis was studying her, and discovering that her emerald-green eyes had a breathtaking clarity. He found the contrast between her white skin and copper hair exotic and unusual. Every time he saw her he registered something new to savour.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Maddie was amazingly aware of the appraisal of those intense gilded bronze eyes. While it made her feel self-conscious, she very much liked that visual attention. In fact a whole host of alien sensations were striking her all at once. The most basic was that that lean dark countenance of his had a fatal fascination for her. She stared, and she couldn’t help staring, taking in every individual feature with a fervour she couldn’t deny. The sleek tawny planes of his high, hard cheekbones accentuated the dramatic dark brilliance of his gaze, while his arrogant nose and the rougher shadowed skin round his wilful passionate mouth lent a tough, masculine edge to a face at risk of being hauntingly beautiful.

‘I said no—you are not excused,’ Giannis extended lazily, as he eased the cup and saucer from her paralysed grip and set it down on a polished cabinet. ‘I want you to stay and talk to me.’

‘Talk?’ Maddie echoed in confusion, striving valiantly to recover her concentration. ‘Of course, you want to know what I’m doing in here—’

‘Possibly I’ve already worked that one out,’ Giannis murmured, with the husky amusement of a male accustomed to frequent feminine overtures.

Disconcerted by that reply, Maddie blinked and then coloured. ‘I’m sure you appreciate that it was entirely my fault that the presentation couldn’t be held. I wasn’t looking where I was going—’

Giannis closed a hand over hers, unlacing her taut fingers and spreading them within the hold of his in a calming gesture. ‘You’re very nervous.’

Something like a flock of butterflies had broken loose in Maddie’s tummy. The warmth of his hand on hers, the smooth brush of his fingertips against the sensitive inner skin of her wrist, was making her tingle all over. While surprised by the ease with which he touched her, she was warmed by it as well. Even believing that he meant nothing by that minor intimacy, she found it a challenge to catch her breath. ‘That’s why I tripped yesterday—’

Uninterested in the topic she was striving to follow, and single-minded as always, Giannis shrugged back the cuff of his shirt to reveal his Swiss platinum watch. ‘In ten minutes you will no longer be in my employ,’ he spelt out. ‘Do I have to wait that long to kiss you?’

Her green eyes opened to their widest extent. She was utterly silenced by that question.

‘I would never trouble an employee with unwelcome attention,’ Giannis completed softly.

With a handful of words, spoken with the utmost calm and cool, he had plunged her into shock. Do I have to wait that long to kiss you? He was telling her that he found her attractive, and she was astonished by that concept. He felt the same way she did? A sense of joy followed on that thought, and blew away her usual caution.

‘Madeleine…?’ Giannis prompted, registering his own level of ardour with a faint stab of unease.

Even the way he said her name sent a delicious frisson travelling down Maddie’s taut spinal cord. She was so tense her muscles literally ached. ‘It’s…it’s not unwelcome,’ she heard herself tell him unevenly.

‘I did not think it would be, glikia mou.’

Giannis approached her with the skill of a very experienced male, but beneath the surface he was aware of a pulse of desire that ran much hotter and stronger than he was accustomed to. Off-balance at that suspicion, he saw there was the faintest tremor in the long brown fingers he curved to her narrow shoulder to draw her to him. It was a struggle to master the fierce passion that prompted him to crush her hungrily to his lean, powerful frame. He liked the telling dilation of her pupils and the slight audible catch of breath in her throat when he lifted his hand to undo the clasp at the nape of her neck.

‘My hair…’ she said in surprise as he let the clasp fall. She scarcely knew what she was saying, for she was at such a height of expectation she could barely formulate a single thought, never mind a sensible sentence.

Giannis tugged the silky tangle of long hair round her triangular face, rejoicing in the freedom to do so. The sensual contrast between the wine-red strands and the pearlised perfection of her skin delighted him. ‘It’s magnificent…you should always wear it loose.’

‘It would get in my way,’ she muttered with a nervous laugh.

‘But I want it to get in mine.’ Giannis laced brown fingers into the bright strands and lowered his proud dark head.

Maddie could barely wait for him to kiss her, and her keenness embarrassed her. It did not seem quite nice for her to be so eager, but she couldn’t help it. Deep in her pelvis there was a hard, tight knot of anticipation, and it was a challenge to keep her feet still. Heart racing inside her chest, and barely breathing, she leant almost imperceptibly forward.

When the tip of his tongue traced the full, sultry curve of her lips she shivered. He delved between with a dark, demanding eroticism that flamed through her slim body as efficiently as an arrow hitting a bullseye. Her head swimming, she fought to contain her response. Her slim fingers clenched in on themselves. Her body went rigid even while she was achingly conscious of the stinging heat pinching her nipples tight, of the scratchy and delicious awareness prickling over her entire skin surface. She wanted to grab him but she wouldn’t let herself.

‘I could devour you,’ Giannis growled, his dark golden gaze ablaze as he laced one powerful hand into her tumbling copper hair to tug her head back.

Adrenalin was pounding through her veins like an electric charge. Meeting his eyes, she felt a kind of elation fill her, linked with the charged sense of readiness holding her fast. He buried his hungry, masculine mouth against the delicate skin of her throat, probing and nipping the tender spots with a sure and sensual skill that made her gasp. With his other hand he pressed her into closer connection with his lithe, rock-hard frame. By the time he claimed her ripe pink lips she was on fire for that kiss, craving it. The great wild whoosh of excitement engulfed her like a bonfire.

‘You’re amazing,’ he told her thickly