She flashed him a smile and turned back to see where they were heading, when a shimmer off the port side made her gasp. She pointed and slid back along the bow of the boat until she stood next to him, grabbing his arm to make him look. “Dolphins!”
He flipped a switch to put the boat on autopilot and wrapped his arm around her waist as he obediently looked at the three dolphins who streaked alongside and in front of the boat.
“They’re riding our bow wave,” he yelled.
“I’ve never seen one in person!” She clung to the metal railing and leaned out to watch them, laughing as one broke the surface and leaped just a few yards from the boat. The sight of them filled her with so much joy that tears stung her eyes.
“Do not lean out too far, or you’ll fall in,” he warned.
She turned back to share the joy with him, suddenly caught up in the heat of his gaze. Without thinking, she moved into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist, just standing there with her body pressed against his, his mouth gently caressing her forehead while her hair whipped around them. She was content to simply be with him while she experienced this magical world of sun and sea and a man who was fast taking her heart.
An hour later, she stood at the base of stone and earth that jutted up out of the crystal blue water, the brownish red landscape dotted with patches of green, and brilliant white stone buildings clinging with impossible ease to the cliffside.
Iakovos must have called ahead, because a jeep was waiting for him when he pulled the boat up at a small dock. A couple of larger ships were anchored offshore, including one yacht, but Harry paid them no mind as Iakovos told her about the area.
“Saffron is the most valuable asset this region has, but we are here at the wrong time to see the crocus fields. Perhaps another time you will be able to see how it is processed, but for now, you have your choice of lunch, sightseeing, or I can get us a room at the hotel so that you can seduce me.”
She looked around the town that rose in steps, dense green scrub balancing out the crisp white buildings with red tile roofs. The air smelled of sea and warm earth, and warmer man. She wanted to bury her face in his neck and just breathe in his scent, but since he’d gone to all the trouble of bringing her out here, she figured she’d better enjoy the opportunity.
“How about a little sightseeing, and then lunch, and then we’ll see where we are on the whole idea of me having my womanly way with you.”
“I know exactly where I am on that subject, but it shall be as you desire.” With his hand warm on her back through the thin gauze of her sundress, he guided her around the town to see what sights there were.
“What is that?” she asked, her hand shading her eyes as she pointed to a mass of white buildings spilling over the hillside.
He glanced at them, then steered her in another direction. “Holiday villas. Come, we will see the older part of town.”
They took in a pretty little white church, strolled along the main street, viewed the peculiar but beautiful square tower that was really a dovecote, and finally settled in a taverna on the fringes of the town, sitting high on the hill so it looked down on the water below.
“You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you?” Harry asked as she sat in the shade of an old olive tree.
“For feeding you, or for the things I was thinking I’d like to be doing to you? Definitely not for the former, but quite possibly for the latter.”
“Oh, now I’m definitely going to want seduction time,” she laughed, highly aware of his leg casually pressed against hers as they sat along the narrow edge of the taverna’s patio area. “I meant just taking off and leaving your guests. As much as I’ve enjoyed the day, I can’t help but feel guilty about taking you away from your responsibilities.”
“Perhaps,” he said, giving her a slow smile that made her melt into a puddle of desire, “I’ve made you my responsibility for the day.”
“One more like that, and you’re going to be in big trouble,” she warned him.
“Really?” He gave her a considering look. “How so?”
She leaned forward, her breast brushing his arm, and traced a finger down his cheek. “You’d have to explain to everyone why you came in with a woman and left with a boneless, mindless blob of goo.”
Before he could answer—and she could see that he was going to answer in kind—the taverna owner trotted over to see what they wanted.
“Do you have any preference?” Iakovos asked after consulting with the man.
“Not really, although I should warn you, I’m allergic to shellfish.”
He looked scandalized. “That’s tantamount to heresy in Greece.”
“In Seattle, too. It’s the bane of my existence.”
He spoke again with the owner, who gave her a wink before going off to bring their food. “He thinks you’re lucky.”
“Me?” She opened her eyes wide. “Because I’m with one of the top ten world’s most sexy bachelors?”
“Hardly. Because the dolphins welcomed you to Krokos,” he answered, pouring her a glass of beer. “You’ve really never seen them before?”
“No. Do you mind if I touch you?”
It was his turn to look surprised, one side of his mouth twitching a little. “I don’t mind, but you run the risk of shocking the taverna owner.”
“Not that sort of touching, Mr. Smutty Mind. I just want to touch you, and I didn’t know if you would consider that out of line or not.”
“I can honestly say that you have my full approval to touch me however and whenever you like,” he said, taking a big swig of beer. “Does that put your mind at ease?”
“Yes, thank you.” She put her hand on his thigh, enjoying the sensation of the hard muscle beneath her fingers and the warmth that seeped through the material of his pants. “Why do you speak English with a British accent?”
“I was educated in England. Are we playing Twenty Questions? Why has a woman as beautiful as you had only one lover?”
“Men,” she said with a sigh that turned into a little shiver when he casually draped his hand over the back of her chair, his fingers gently stroking the back of her neck, “are intimidated by me. Either I’m taller than they are, which makes them all squirrely, or I’m too . . . too . . .”
“Untamed?” he asked, his fingers dipping beneath her sundress to stroke the flesh of her back.
“Unconventional. The ones who aren’t intimidated are . . . I don’t know . . . just not my type. They don’t have a sense of humor, or they are into stuff that doesn’t interest me.”
“What sort of stuff?” he asked, his fingers building up a burn in a lower, much more private place. “Sports? Politics?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s more the way their minds work, I guess. They just don’t have that . . . spark that fascinates me and makes me want to be with them.”
He was silent for a moment. “Do I have that spark?”
“You,” she said, leaning close enough that her lips brushed his when she spoke, “have way too much spark for my peace of mind.”
CHAPTER 5
They didn’t make it back to the island before Iakovos gave in to the need that had burned so deep inside him ever since she poked him in his chest. He wanted to blame the light, sea green sundress she was wearing, since it not only caressed her flesh the way he wanted to caress her, but also showed off the lovely long line of her legs, of her smooth arms, of her breasts, which he knew were made just for his mouth.
As they headed back to his house, the sun starting to set, he managed to believe, for a whole three minutes, that what he felt for Harry was only a temporary infatuation, pure, honest lust and nothing more.
That lasted until he watched her being his own personal figurehead, posed at the front of the boat, the wind whipping the material of her dress around, allowing tantalizing glimpses of thigh and flashes of underwear.
It was suddenly too much for him. He had to take control of the situation, or risk being lost for g
ood. He throttled the engine way back and put it on cruise, calling for Harry to join him for a glass of the champagne that was cooling in the cabin below.
She sat on the rear bank of seats, her face aglow with pleasure as she watched the shore sliding past them, but it was when she looked at him that her eyes came alive. He liked that; he liked the way she was so honest about her emotions, not trying to hide what she thought or felt.
“How did you become a writer?” he asked, determined to get through the next hour it would take to get back home without losing control of himself in her heat.
“I used to work for a software developer, writing parts of their manuals. One day, I thought it would be fun to add a little touch of humor to the manual. The director of the program didn’t agree with me. I lost my job, and I decided right then and there that I was going to write fiction, where I could make up my own worlds, and people them with characters I liked, and ones I wanted to exact a little revenge on. I sold a couple of books, and things just kind of took off from there. Is it my turn?”
He ached to have her. Maybe talking would distract him from the overwhelming need to possess her. “Yes, it’s your turn. Do you want to ask how I became a . . . what did you call me?”
“Gazillionaire? Yes, that’s actually what I was going to ask you. Were you born into it, or did you make it?”
He gave her a long look. “Does it matter?”
“Absolutely,” she said without a second’s hesitation.
He watched her, fascinated by the play of light in her eyes. She must have thought she’d insulted him because she hurried to explain. “I’m not interested in how much you have, you know. I make a nice wad of money myself, and there’s just me to take care of, so I’m not looking for a sugar daddy or anything like that.”
To his surprise, he didn’t question that statement at all. Normally he had a very good sense of when people wanted something from him, but she didn’t trigger any of those warnings in his mind.
“But there’s a big difference between having something handed to you and earning it yourself,” she said, hesitating.
“Do you think I inherited my money, or made it?” he asked her, curious to see how she would analyze him.
“I think . . .” Her gaze searched his face. “You’re very comfortable with yourself, which makes me think you were born to affluence, and never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from. But at the same time, you strike me as a man who’s made his own way, one who isn’t afraid of working for a goal. So I’m going to go with you’re a self-made gazillionaire.”
“‘Billionaire,’ I believe, is the correct term,” he said, struck by how well she’d done. “As it happens, I was born into comfortable circumstances, but my father lost his fortune shortly after that. When I came of age, I decided that I would restore what was lost, and I worked for twenty years to do that.”
“But you went to school in England.”
“And worked evenings and weekends to pay my way. My mother died at my birth, and my father grieved for almost fifteen years, until he met Elena and Theo’s mother.”
She looked at him with sympathy. “That must have been difficult for both you and your father. Are you close to him?”
“I was, until he died eight years ago. How about you—you said you were alone? You have no family?”
“Only child of divorced parents. They’re both still alive, but I haven’t seen my father since I was about two, and my mother has her own life and her own interests. She lives in Arizona; I live in Seattle. . . . We call each other once a month.”
“No friends?” he asked, unable to keep from stroking his thumb over the velvety soft smoothness of her sun-warmed cheek.
“Of course I have friends. I’m not a hermit,” she said, leaning into his hand. “What about you? How does a man as successful as you weed out the people who just want something from you from the true friends?”
His eyes widened at her perspicacity.
She smiled at the look. “You forget, you’re talking to someone who gets e-mails from everyone who thinks they want to be a writer. Usually most of them just want advice, but some of them want to use me. I figured if it was that way for me, it must be a hundred times worse for you.”
“I have a couple of close friends,” he said slowly, wondering at the level of comfort he had with this child of the sea. It was almost as if he’d known her for a very long time. “And there’re Theo and Elena. Harry?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not going to be able to last all the way back to the island.”
“Oh, thank god,” she said, her shoulders slumping with relief. “I didn’t want to just pounce on you in case you thought all I was interested in was your body, when really it’s your mind that’s so incredibly sexy, not that I don’t absolutely love your body, because I’d have to be dead a couple of years not to, but still, I didn’t want you to think that I looked at you as nothing more than an orgasm machine.”
He stared at her, and the calm that he now realized came before the storm ended with a whoosh of his breath as he stood up, swung her into his arms, and carried her down to the cabin.
He didn’t waste any time, either, Harry thought to herself, as with quick efficiency he stripped her of her clothes, then removed his own, laying her down on one of the two bunks that lined either side of the cabin.
“I don’t think you’re going to fit,” she told him, looking up at where he stood bent over so as to avoid hitting the ceiling. “Look—I fill the whole thing. My head and feet are both touching the walls.”
He snarled something in Greek that she was willing to bet wasn’t at all nice. His gaze darted here and there, his fingers twitching spasmodically until he suddenly snatched the mattress off the other bunk, and threw it onto the floor of the cabin, along with the blankets.
“Up,” he said, gesturing to her.
She got up. He pulled her mattress off, nudged it alongside the first, then flung the blankets over the top of both.
“Down,” he ordered.
She slid him a look, amused by the fact that he had found a solution to the problem. Surely such problem solving deserved reward. She knelt before him, taking his erection in her hands. “Now, I’m not a big expert on doing this, so if I do something that you don’t like, or do it wrong, or even if you have suggestions on how to improve the whole experience, I’m more than willing to hear you out.”
He looked down at her with dawning hope in his eyes. “I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said gratefully. “Most men never talk when it comes to this, you know. They just lie there twitching and moaning, and then they go to sleep. Or at least my boyfriend did, and really, I don’t know how one is supposed to improve when one doesn’t have any feedback. It’s just like writing, if you think about it. My goal with each book is to become a better writer, so since I’m kind of a novice at this, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you could provide constructive criticism once we’re done.”
He stared down at her in what appeared to be utter disbelief. “You want me to criticize the manner you use to pleasure me?”
“Well . . . I’ve always been a big believer in critique groups,” she said, taking his testicles in one hand while the other explored the length—and there was certainly a lot of it to be explored—of his penis. “Not that I think group involvement is appropriate here, but let’s think of this as you being my critique partner, OK?”
“Harry,” he said, his voice taking on a gravelly tone.
“Yes?”
“We’re going to be in Turkey if you don’t stop talking and let me make love to you. Or, alternately, you can do what you’re poised to do.”
She rubbed his shaft. “Not unless you promise to tell me what I can do to improve the experience for you.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep, deep breath. “I promise.”
“Thank you. OK, here we go, then!” He tasted hot; that was her f
irst thought. Hot and slightly salty, and as she found a rhythm that had him clutching the doorframe, his eyes rolled back in his head, his beautiful chest heaving as his hips moved along with her, she figured that perhaps stopping to ask for his opinion wasn’t the best option. Then again, one never knew unless one asked, and she was a big believer in communication.
“So,” she said, with a slight pop as she released the head of his penis. “Thoughts?”
He looked down at her with wild eyes. “‘Thoughts’? Is that what you said? You said ‘thoughts’?”
“Yes. I know it’s probably not the thing to stop in the middle of it, but really, I’d like to take this opportunity as a learning experience, so if you have some feedback to share, I want to hear it.”
“Feedback,” he said, as if he couldn’t understand the word.
“Yes, you know, feedback. Was I too fast? Too slow? Not enough tongue swirls under the very tip? Were you go or no go on the gropage of your balls while I did it?”
He stared down at her for another few seconds, and then his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I think the best feedback I can give you is going to be tactile.”
“Tactile in what way?” she asked, looking at his penis. Although she normally was not at all attracted by men who had a lot of body hair, Iakovos’ was anything but off-putting. “As an aside, can we talk about your hair?”
“Why not?” he said, making a gesture for her to proceed. “Do you mind if I lie down for this?”
“No, go right ahead. It’s easier on my knees anyway.” She scooted over so he could have the bulk of the mattresses.
He lay down, his hands behind his head, his penis pointing straight up. “You wish to discuss my body hair, I assume? I’m sorry if it offends you, but Greek men, as you may be aware—”
“Oh, it doesn’t offend me at all,” she interrupted, stroking his chest. “Just the opposite. Your chest hair, for example, is so, so soft, I just want to bury my face in it.”