Consequence Of The Greek's Revenge

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She’d been operating in a vacuum ever since.

Numb. Emotionless.

But Alexios had awakened something deep inside her and it unfurled and blossomed like a flower that had been buried under a winter snow. It was so good to feel again.

And now, all she wanted to do was feel.

Her feet went from underneath her, as he swept her up into his arms, his lips still on hers. He turned and kicked open a door, before spinning around and kicking it shut behind them. She had an impression of space, of high ceiling and billowing curtains on windows opening to the caldera, before she felt softness at her back as he laid her down in a bed hung with silken drapes of red and gold, the colours of the sunset.

Then he drew back, one knee on the bed, and looked at her in the half-light. ‘So beautiful,’ he said, and his words gave her hope that her life had turned a corner, and that the bleakness of the last few weeks might be at an end.

He tugged at the buttons on his shirt, pulled it from his shoulders and sent it fluttering to the floor. Her eyes drank him in. Wide shoulders. Sculpted chest and abdomen and arms where muscles rippled with every movement. Arms whose hands were working at his waistband, sliding down the zipper, before they too joined his shirt on the floor.

And all the while, his dark eyes didn’t leave hers, their intensity leaving her breathless and giddy, making way for one brief moment of indecision, a sudden bubble of nerves that this was happening too fast. A sudden bubble of rational thought that sprang up unbidden.

As if sensing her momentary panic, he surprised her by reaching down to kiss her again, soothing her, and already it seemed too long that he’d been away, while his hand slid beneath her to ease down the zipper at her back. With every parted tooth she felt her desire intensify and coalesce, until need was at the very essence of her. He was still kissing her as he eased the shoulder straps down her arms, still kissing her as she eased up her hips and let him peel her sundress away, until she was lying on the bed with nothing but a few scraps of lace to shield her from his view, and never, it seemed, had she felt more vulnerable.

Only then did his lips leave hers, leaving her breathless and wanting, as he drew himself back on his heels. ‘Magnificent,’ he said, and she let go a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, before he returned to her, running his strong hands up the outside of her legs, her hips, her waist and shoulders and her breathing ratcheted up another notch as he came closer, scooping her into his arms and rolling her against him.

Skin against skin. His legs tangling with hers, rough versus smooth, corded muscles against toned flesh. His abdomen against hers. Locked from head to toe. An electric connection only heightened by the places still hidden, the places still to be revealed, the places that now ached with potent need.

His hand cupped one breast and she whimpered, arching her back into his touch, while her hands roamed the glory of his sculpted back, muscles shifting with every movement, fascinating and thrilling her in equal measure, her hands drinking in the perfection of his skin-scape.

And then the lace covering her breasts was gone and she wanted to cry with relief, but when he dipped his head to take one peaked nipple into his mouth, it was a cry of ecstasy she gave as spears of pleasure shot straight to her aching core.

She was already burning up when he turned his attention to her other breast, his seeking hand now free to roam downwards, his fingertips toying with the lace edging of her underwear before inching slowly beneath the lace to cup her mound, before venturing closer to that place where her need pooled and coalesced into a living beast, demanding to be sated. She was breathing hard now, alight with the passion he’d unfurled in her, perspiration beading on her skin as, stoked by his every touch, the flames built up inside.

She was already teetering on the edge, anticipation acting like accelerant on a fire, so when his fingers parted her, finding her slick with want, her nerve endings all but screaming for his touch, she was already primed.

One gliding caress, one gentle pass by no more than a fingertip, and she climaxed against his hand. Hard. The shudders reverberating through her, wave after wave of pleasure rocking her world, until it felt as if he were the only thing anchoring her to the earth.

He kissed her as she came down, raining kisses on her mouth, on her eyes, on her sweat-slickened breasts. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, suddenly embarrassed and feeling gauche, her inexperience clearly on display.

‘Shh...’ he soothed. ‘Don’t be.’

‘But...’

‘We are just getting started.’

She blinked up at him, still catching her breath, to see him sliding down the band of black underwear at his hips. Her eyes widened in appreciation. Even bigger than she’d imagined when she’d felt the hard press of him against her belly. Even more magnificent. And despite just climaxing, despite thinking she was spent, she felt desire curl upwards inside her like tendrils of fragrance from a scented candle.

He reached across into a drawer beside the bed, ripping open the foil without taking his eyes from hers, rolling the condom down his long length, his eyes daring hers to watch his progress. ‘You see what you do to me, mikro peristeri? You see how much I burn for you?’

The endearment was sweet, but... ‘Why do you call me your little dove?’

‘Because since we met,’ he said, positioning himself between her legs, leaning on one elbow to slowly sweep the other hand from her hair to her shoulder, over one breast and her belly, and lower, his fingers curving between her thighs, ‘you are always on edge. Always looking to fly away.’

She swallowed. It was hard to hold a conversation when a man had his hand—there. ‘I’m not flying away now.’

‘No,’ he said with a smile, his fingers traversing her still-sensitive flesh, gently exploring, caressing, circling her tender core. ‘You are a gift straight from the gods. How blessed am I that I should have stumbled into your orbit?’

Why he was still trying to pleasure her with his touch and his words, she didn’t know. She would enjoy the sex, she had no doubt, but there was no point him wasting his time. She would never climax again, not after having her mind blown so completely and utterly already.

And yet he seemed in no hurry, taking his time, dipping his head again to take each nipple in turn into his hot mouth before returning to her mouth, still intent on pleasuring her. That was when she felt it, felt one long finger slide inside her. Her muscles squeezed in response at the intimate intrusion, and he growled, low in his throat, as he followed it with a second, working in concert with the pad of his thumb, their dance on her tender flesh generating sparks of sensation where she thought there would be none.

But it was impossible.

There was no way.

Except her body had other ideas. Her senses stirred, he seemed to know how much pressure, how much teasing was enough to leave her breathless and wanting more.

And then his fingers slid away, replaced with a new, heated pressure, and for a moment she felt a sense of panic, that perhaps she was being too greedy and wanting it all. ‘You are beautiful,’ he said, resting on his elbows either side of her, his hands weaving their way into her hair, holding her captive to his kiss.

And as his hot mouth told her that he’d meant what he’d said, she relaxed, her hips angling, tilting to welcome him. He seemed to sense the moment she was ready, for he chose that exact moment to lunge, driving himself deep inside her.

She cried out, not in pain, but in the completion, a delicious feeling of fullness suffusing her flesh while nerve endings lit up like sparks under her skin. And that was before he started to move.

‘Oh,’ she said, as he slowly withdrew, wanting to cling on, already missing him. But he was back, and then again, slowly accelerating, building the rhythm faster, until their ragged breathing became their accompaniment. And sparks born in the smouldering ruins of her latest climax flared into flame and flickered and danced under her skin, until with one final thrust from Alexios, accompanied by one triumphant cry, her world shook apart again, this time with his name on her lips.

It took longer to find her way back this time, her breathing ragged, her mind blanked from everything but the sudden realisation that all the stuff she’d ever believed about sex and how many times you could achieve orgasm in a night had been incinerated in the heat of their coming together, the ashes scattering to the waters of the bottomless caldera far below.

* * *

He stood at the window, looking out over the sleeping crater, a ribbon of silvery light bisecting the inky darkness and lighting a path direct to his room. Lights twinkled on the island across the water, likewise on the yacht, anchored in a bay, while all else was dark.

He looked back at the bed, at the woman lying there in the beam of silver, her hair tangled across her pillow, her lips plump and parted, deeply asleep. She’d fallen into his bed as easily as she’d fallen for his ruse, just as he’d anticipated, but she’d been so much more than he’d expected too. So much more. She’d gone off like fireworks in his bed, responsive, explosive. And then she’d climaxed again, and again, and, by the wondrous look on her face, the last time had surprised her the most.

And he half wished Stavros Nikolides were still alive, so he could witness this moment. So Alexios could bodily drag him in here to see his precious daughter naked and supremely satisfied in the bed of his nemesis, the son of the man he had so badly wronged.

For that would surely kill him all over again.

Moonlight on the blackened caldera waters winked back at him, telling him his logic was flawed. Because if Stavros had been alive, he would have enacted his original plan, and Athena would never have been in his bed, and that would have been a travesty. Revenge this way was so much more satisfying.

There was more than one way for a father to pay, and make him pay he would.

The sins of the father...

He would make Stavros pay dearly.

He curled his hand into a fist, all the injustice he’d felt congealing into concrete within, and thumped it hard against the wall.

She stirred behind him. ‘Alexios?’ Her voice was husky with sleep. Surprisingly sexy. As she herself had been throughout the night whenever he had reached for her. ‘What are you doing? Can’t you sleep?’

‘I was thinking,’ he said.

‘About what?’

He flexed his fingers. ‘Tomorrow,’ he lied. ‘I was thinking about what we should do tomorrow.’

‘But... Don’t you have business to attend to?’

‘It can wait.’ He paused, arching an eyebrow. ‘Unless you don’t want to see me again? Are you going to fly away again, mikro peristeri?’

She kept him waiting, her teeth troubling her bottom lip, as if weighing it up. Before she said, ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

And he smiled as he collected her in his arms and tumbled her back down onto the pillows. ‘Perfect.’

* * *

The sails had filled out in the warm breeze, the boat propelled across the bottomless waters of the caldera until they were far away from the newly arrived cruise ships and the well-worn tourist trails. Athena lay on the deck alongside Alexios, content to lie on her back and soak up the sun after a swim in the bottomless waters of the caldera.

From here the walls of the islands rose steeply around them, seemingly insurmountable, the jagged path up the cliff from the port seeming to defy the laws of nature and science. It was different to see the ring of islands that made up the crater’s edges from this aspect, the layers of pumice and ash that had spewed more than three thousand years ago from the erupting volcano so clearly visible in the distinctly coloured bands in the cliffs surrounding them.

‘What are you staring at?’ he asked beside her, rolled onto his side and following her gaze.

She nodded towards the soaring cliffs, thinking of the force of the eruption that had all but resulted in the destruction of the island as it then existed, all but obliterating the civilisation that had once called it home. ‘Sorry. I just never cease to be awed by this place. It’s hard to believe we’re sitting in the middle of a live volcano.’

Especially when the sun turned the surface of the sea to diamonds and the water lapped gently at the sides of the boat. Right now an eruption seemed impossible. Incomprehensible. But there was the evidence, all around them.

‘It must have been terrifying when it erupted,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine what it was like being here.’

‘Most people were long gone,’ she said, sitting up. ‘There were earthquakes, bad ones, over many years. Some people stayed, but many abandoned their homes here and took their families in their ships and fled to Anatolia and to Crete. The lucky ones went early and much further afield.’

‘Why lucky?’

‘Because it wasn’t a simple eruption. That would have been bad enough, but when the sea water rushed into the empty lava chamber, it triggered a tidal wave that travelled for hundreds of miles. The northern coast of Crete, with the fleets of the Minoan traders, they were all destroyed. It wasn’t just Santorini, or Thera, as it was known then, that was destroyed. A dark ash cloud encircled the earth, blotting out the sun and wiping out the crops for many years. Even escape to somewhere like Crete proved no escape, just a deferral of the end. It signalled the end of the Minoan civilisation.’

He sat up alongside her, a frown tugging his dark brows together.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘In real life I’m an archaeologist and the Minoan civilisation, in particular, is a passion of mine. I studied it at university and I tend to get a bit carried away about it.’

He curled his hand around hers, lifted it to his lips. ‘You don’t have to be sorry for being passionate. I was never good at history. I was never a good student. Tell me more.’

She smiled, warming to her topic. ‘You know some believe the legend of Atlantis started right here, more than three thousand years ago. A fabulously wealthy and cultured civilisation, drowned under the sea and lost for ever.’

He propped himself up on his elbows. ‘Do you believe that?’

‘I do. It accords with the ancient Egyptian records, and the writings of Plato. The Egyptians traded with the Minoans until their world was suddenly blotted out, and why would that have happened unless some terrible fate had overcome them? Besides,’ she added with a smile, ‘it makes much more sense than the theory about some mythical island somewhere in the Atlantic that disappeared without trace or explanation, don’t you think? Whereas a beautiful island, an advanced civilisation, as good as wiped from the face of the earth—what better candidate than the Minoan civilisation right here in the centre of the then known world?’

He was staring at her face, his dark eyes lit with pleasure and the flames of something much hotter.

‘Do you have any idea how animated you look when you talk like this? Your whole face is alight, even the flecks in your eyes sparkle like golden chips in the light.’

She looked down, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I warned you. I get a bit carried away.’

His fingers took hold of her chin, turning it back towards him. ‘No, don’t be embarrassed about being passionate. You make your passion contagious. In fact, I think I know exactly how that volcano felt before it blew.’

And he drew her chin closer at the same time he dipped his head and his mouth met hers.

Something fluttered in her heart as she gave her mouth to his. Something small and indefinable, but like the brush of butterfly wings against her eyelashes. Something insignificant and yet of such import that it seemed her whole world had subtly shifted in a way that had nothing to do with the currents beneath their vessel.

His lips toyed with hers, gentling, caressing, warm breath intermingled, overlaced with the salty scent of the sea, before, slowly, he pulled gently away.

‘Happy?’ he asked, smiling down at her.

And Athena blinked as she looked into his beautiful face. Not because of his question, but because of the answer bubbling up inside her. Because she was happy, honestly truly happy for the first time in what seemed for ever. Because she felt as if she was truly alive. ‘I am.’

‘You sound surprised.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe just a little.’ She gave a blissful sigh. It was the island, she told herself, for Santorini had once again proved to be her refuge and her saviour. There was a reason she loved this place.

His hand took hers and she felt that zing of excitement, that thrill of connection, she felt every time he touched her, before he lifted it to his lips, and turned it and kissed her palm, his hot tongue stroking it, his dark eyes filled with the promise of dark deeds, sending a delicious thrill coursing through her.

‘I like your bikini,’ he said, his eyes scanning the length of her body without his head shifting, his voice low and thick and vibrating with so much desire it was impossible not to feel aroused. ‘I’m going to enjoy peeling it off.’

Her nipples peaked and hardened as his eyes lingered at her breasts even while his fingers toyed with the tie at her hips, the electric touch of his fingertips setting sparks beneath her skin while his lips came down to meet hers, their heat enough to melt any thought of resistance away. The white bikini had been an impulse decision when he’d suggested sailing today and she’d told him she hadn’t brought a swimsuit. A good one as it turned out. He’d taken her to a boutique and she’d been rifling through the racks of one-pieces when he’d offered her a clutch of bikinis. She’d almost said no outright—she hadn’t worn a two-piece since she’d been that cocksure teen A-lister baring almost everything she had to bare on the Amalfi Coast—but something in his eyes had made her reconsider and agree to try them on.

And that very first one, the white one—she’d seen the heat and hunger as his eyes had roamed her exposed flesh, a hunger that had made her insides tremble with the promise of the forbidden. Not some spoilt son of a newspaper tycoon or shipping magnate looking at her with an overactive libido and clumsy technique, but a man, looking at a woman, and wanting her.

As he wanted her now.

He broke away from the kiss, the curled hairs of his sun-warmed chest kissing her bare skin as it rose and fell with his ragged breathing. ‘We should take this downstairs,’ he said, his heated breath on her face, like an invitation. And in the flutter of her answering heart, she knew it wasn’t just the island that made her so happy. It was this man beside her and the way he made her feel. As if she was special.

As if she deserved to be happy.

And after the despair of the last few weeks, of the shock of learning her estranged father had died, and the remorse she felt for a relationship gone badly wrong, and then the guilt on learning he’d forgiven her without ever letting her know, this man made her feel things might have changed, that her life was on the up.

She went willingly as he tugged her to her feet. Went willingly down through the hatch to the freshly made bed in the spacious cabin lined with glossy timbers with brass fittings. And here he finished what he’d started, tugging at the tie between her breasts, brushing the thin straps over her shoulders and letting her bikini top fall to the floor, before his hands moved to her thighs, untying the bows at her sides until that scrap of material similarly fell to the floor.