Mediterranean Seduction

CHAPTER NINE

‘SHOULDN’T you put some clothes on?’

‘Complaining?’ Iannis demanded, carrying a tray of fruit juice over to the bed.

‘Certainly not,’ Charlotte assured him. ‘Should this be called service with a smile?’ she murmured, gazing up at him.

The more she came to know him, the more confidence she had using colloquial phrases. After all, his command of English was almost as good as her own, Charlotte reflected, drinking in every desirable inch of him as he settled the tray on the bedside table.

‘There’s no point in wearing clothes when I’m coming back to bed,’ he pointed out with unarguable logic.

Surely no man could have such stamina, Charlotte mused. She was barely able to move with exhaustion, but Iannis seemed unaffected by constant lovemaking. Maybe he was one of the mythical gods, fallen from a cloud—her good luck, she thought, holding his gaze as he held the beaker for her to drink. In that moment she would have done anything for him if it meant he would come back to bed.

‘So, what are you waiting for? Come back to me, Iannis. I need you.’

‘Again?’ he murmured, taking the juice away from her.

‘Yes, again. And don’t keep me waiting,’ Charlotte teased, rolling onto her back. Kicking down the covers, she spread her limbs across the silken sheets.

‘What if I said you have exhausted me?’ Iannis murmured, stretching out beside her.

‘I would call you a liar,’ Charlotte countered, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. ‘And, fortunately for me, you cannot pretend not to be aroused.’

‘Why should I wish to pretend—?’ He broke off, and there was a silence.

The moment’s tension was just that—an instant, a subtle change of vibration in the air between them, which was gone again almost immediately.

‘No reason,’ Charlotte said. ‘Because you know you can’t get away with it,’ she added, smiling provocatively as she moved languorously beside him. ‘Not with an erection like this. And, as you’ve shown no signs of tiring yet, I have every confidence in you. After all, we began last night in the shower…’

‘I do not need reminding,’ Iannis assured her, smiling again as he seized back control and removed her hand.

Charlotte stole a look at her wristwatch on the bedside table. ‘And it’s almost—’

‘Dawn?’ Iannis supplied softly, bringing her back into his arms. Kissing the top of her head, he added, ‘We won’t watch the time, Charlotte, or look at the clock again. Time is an irrelevance for us.’

He remained silent as he brushed some wayward strands of hair from her face, and then he smiled a little and gazed into the middle distance to a point where she couldn’t join him. ‘Or at least we will hold it at bay for a few hours,’ he mused softly. ‘We will not allow it to crack into furious flower, or let reality intrude before we are ready.’

His kisses wiped her mind clean, and he kissed her deeply until all she wanted was to wind her limbs around him and rejoice in his strength. And then he took her again, with one sure stroke, and she was truly lost.

Around midday Iannis left. He was so matter-of-fact about going that Charlotte hardly realised what was happening until it was too late. One minute he was taking a shower, while she dozed contentedly in the blissful aftermath of lovemaking, and the next minute the villa was completely silent and she was alone again.

She tried sleeping the afternoon away—curling up and pretending everything was fine. Of course he had to go—he had work to do. The lobster pots wouldn’t empty themselves. Wasn’t that what she loved about him—his dedication to his work, his contentment with his lot? Was she going to steal that away from him?

Was there anything to steal?

Having seen the cottage Iannis was living in, Charlotte wasn’t sure of anything…including whether he was even a fisherman. It seemed more likely that he chose to get away to relax. Whatever the truth, she couldn’t keep him close just to service her sexual needs.

Why not? Charlotte mused wickedly, pressing her face into the satin pillows to hide her smile.

Because that was just a daydream, her sensible side insisted. Even if Iannis had said that time shouldn’t exist for them, it did—for her, at least.

Frowning, Charlotte racked her brain in an attempt to recover the exact words he had used in relation to time. The way he put it had stirred some vague memory—something about time flowering. ‘Time cracks into furious flower’—that was it! She sat upright in bed in shock as it came to her. She knew that poem—Gwendolyn Brooks. Iannis Kiriakos, quoting American poetry? Some fisherman!

Charlotte slipped out of bed. She needed a cold shower. She needed to get her brain in gear. She needed to do it right away—now.

Standing under the icy water, jumping up and down and shivering, Charlotte knew she had asked Iannis none of the right questions. And, worse, she had made assumptions based on nothing more than her own preconceived ideas and prejudices. Her ‘fisherman’ was like a book, waiting to be opened, and she hadn’t tried to get past the first page.

Not that they had done much talking, she remembered, exclaiming with impatience as she grabbed a towel. Snapping to a halt in front of the mirror, Charlotte saw that her eyes were bright and her cheeks still flushed from hours of lovemaking—but her determination showed clearly too. She had to discover everything there was to know about Iannis Kiriakos—and she had left herself hardly any time to do it!

What had she imagined? Charlotte asked herself impatiently as she hurried back to the bedroom. That Iannis would reveal his soul to her on the basis of one night of lovemaking? She had given more of herself than she would ever have believed possible, but why should Iannis feel the same?

The doubt left Charlotte feeling vulnerable and increasingly restless as she hurriedly put on her clothes. Iannis wasn’t exactly forthcoming. In fact if she hadn’t been so busy making allowances for the language barrier she would have said he weighed every word before he spoke to her. And what language barrier was that, exactly? Charlotte swiped a brush through her hair, remembering he had barely the trace of an accent. Why, of all the fishermen on Iskos, did she have to get herself entangled with a mystery man who might not even be one of them?

Maybe he was running away from something…someone. She quelled that thought instantly. It was impossible to imagine Iannis Kiriakos running away from anything.

But if she was right…

Charlotte levelled a stare at her reflection as she developed her theory. If there was more to Iannis Kiriakos, then he had made love to her under false pretences. She knew already that he loved to tease and joke—was she just a game to him too? Sleeping together was more than that, surely? It should have changed everything between them, she reasoned angrily. How could Iannis make love to her if he was only play-acting? It just wasn’t possible.

Really? her reflection observed cynically. You did…

Dropping the hairbrush onto the chest with a clatter, Charlotte straightened up. The article she was writing would stand or fall on its central focus—and that was Iannis Kiriakos, the fisherman of Iskos who found fulfilment living close to nature. But the conclusions she had jumped to where the real man was concerned were full of flaws. Iannis was definitely not what he seemed—and the only certain knowledge she had of him wasn’t printable. The central focus of her article had to be a man her readers could believe in…therefore she would not write about the real Iannis, but about the man her imagination had conjured up!

The solution was so simple that Charlotte exclaimed out loud, but then she frowned again. Simple, maybe, but it didn’t resolve any of her personal issues. Work-wise, she could easily rejig the first draft of her article and send it off for comment. But she would still have to investigate Iannis the man for the sake of her own sanity, and find out who he really was…

The front door to the waterfront cottage was open. It seemed Iannis was at home. Charlotte’s heart began to race. She had no idea how he would react when he saw her, and sucked in a few deep breaths to try and steady herself.

It gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach just remembering how it had felt to wake and find him gone. No note, no small token—her imagination had conjured up a bunch of wildflowers, a few scribbled words, even in Greek, or better still a few words in English to reassure her, to tell her where and when they might meet next—even a sardine in the fridge, damn it!

It was beginning to look as if she should put the whole episode with Iannis Kiriakos down to bitter experience. Except she couldn’t do that, Charlotte realised. She would never forget him.

She tensed, hearing his voice, and peered cautiously in through one of the ground-floor windows. She saw he was talking on a mobile phone. It was pressed to his ear as he paced up and down the room. The expression on his face was intent and serious. He looked as if he was drawing up plans while he was listening.

A great yearning washed over her as she watched him. Did he think of her at all—or had she just been a night’s pleasure, easily forgotten? She flattened her palms against the rough stone as regret flooded through her. He looked amazing in jeans. His naked feet were slipped into simple thonged sandals of a type many people wore on the island, but that was his only nod towards island fashion. The shirt was undoubtedly pure linen, and his gold wristwatch too slim to be a fake.

Charlotte lurched back guiltily as he turned around to stare at her. Along with his other accomplishments he was incredibly intuitive—frighteningly so, she realised, pinning a smile to her face. But, far from returning her smile, his face was set into an angry mask.

She must have surprised him, Charlotte reasoned, raising her hand in greeting.

Cutting the line, he tossed the phone onto a low coffee table and crossed the room at a speed that suggested he intended to cut her off at the front door. Charlotte felt her stomach churn with apprehension. This was worse than she had imagined. He really didn’t want to see her.

When Iannis appeared, framed by the door, it was hard to believe this was the same man who only a few short hours before had held her in his arms and told her she was the most desirable woman on earth.

‘Charlotte.’

His voice was curt as he leaned one arm against the architrave, as if to bar her way. His eyes were cold and hard. Nothing about him suggested that she was welcome. And it wasn’t just his manner that had changed, Charlotte realised. He looked different.

Could it be just because his hair was tamed and he was wearing fresh clothes? He was certainly impeccably groomed, and that gave him more presence than ever. Then she realised that the man barring her way could have moved comfortably in any company in the world—it was she who felt out of place. She had thought herself suitably dressed for the visit, in a casual sundress with a cotton cardigan tied around her shoulders, but right now she felt downright unsophisticated, as well as totally unsure of herself.

‘Why have you come here, Charlotte?’

‘I had to speak to you.’ Why? Was it worth this much humiliation?

Iannis’s eyes registered nothing…no emotion, no warmth. Even anger would have been better than this. Again Charlotte was overcome by the sensation of sheer power that flowed from him. But it had nothing to do with physical strength—it was his will, she recognised, staring up at him.

His hair was swept back severely and curled around his powerful neck in luxuriant waves. Even now desire licked through her as she remembered touching, stroking, kissing and tasting that same bronzed flesh, moving on to lavish more kisses on the wide sweep of his shoulders and then, at his encouragement, going on to explore the whole of his daunting frame with her lips and her teeth and her tongue. Had that really been just a few short hours ago? It seemed impossible now. His expression was so guarded, almost hostile towards her.

‘How did you find me?’

His voice matched the expression in his eyes—cold, speculative, unforgiving.

Charlotte ran through a selection of excuses in her mind. It felt tawdry to admit to following him. ‘I asked,’ she said, shrugging aside the question in his eyes.

‘I said,’ Iannis repeated icily, ‘how did you find me?’ He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with precision, as if to emphasise the fact that he would only be satisfied with the truth. And when she remained silent he said coldly, ‘Do you need me to rephrase the question, Charlotte?’

‘No!’ Anger flared through her. It was obvious she had been used. The irony of the situation made Charlotte want to laugh out loud. Instead she dug her nails into her palms until the pain ordered her thoughts, and then admitted quietly, ‘I followed you.’

Her candour seemed to surprise him. Iannis brought his arm down and shifted position. It was only then she realised how tense he was.

Last night was to have been the end of it, Iannis reminded himself grimly. Yet here she was, making the call he had just received redundant. But why? Because deep down he knew that whatever wrong she did to him he still wanted her? He would always want her? More than that, he actually resented those words of condemnation coming from the lips of someone who had never met her. How could they know anything?

As his anger rose in Charlotte’s defence Iannis had to confess to a grudging admiration for the woman staring steadily at him now. Most people would have gone scurrying back down the path in the face of his anger, but she didn’t even flinch. She just stared straight back at him with that extraordinary emerald gaze, throwing off waves of defiance and disrespect. In spite of all the promises he had made to himself, desire tugged mercilessly at the edges of his control. It was an irresistible force. Countries had been lost for the sake of women as beautiful as Charlotte Clare.

Iannis smiled inwardly, knowing he should rejoice, because all he had at stake was his pride.

‘You’d better come in,’ he said coolly, standing aside. It was all he could do to keep his hands off her as she edged past him, and, hearing her sharp intake of breath, he knew she felt the same. Was it by chance that her magnificent breasts had brushed against his arm?

Charlotte had to remind herself that this was the man in whose arms she had slept all night. Could this really be the same man who had put her pleasure before his own and made her feel safe every step of the way? He seemed so cold, so distant. She had given him so much of herself—too much, she could see now—and it appeared that she would pay for her lack of judgement. Iannis had only taken what she had freely offered.

‘Marianna!’ Charlotte’s troubled thoughts were replaced by shock as the very last person she expected to see huffed down the internal staircase in a flurry of skirts. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I live next door. I take care of the cottage—and Iannis,’ Marianna explained, rolling her eyes to the heavens as she heaved a tolerant sigh.

Fresh flowers, clean shirts, pots in herbs. ‘I should have realised.’

‘Why should you?’ Marianna said, hurrying to reassure Charlotte with a pat on the arm. ‘You can’t be expected to know everything about Iskos. You have only been on the island five minutes.’