Blackmailed By The Greek's Vows. Tara Pammi

chest grazed his, as his hand descended to her hip to keep her steady, everything changed.

      Nine months of deprivation came pouring out. Desire rose—swift and spiraling.

      Heat and pleasure radiated from where their lips grazed and pressed. Air left her lungs. Her knees wobbled and she clutched his arm. A whimper fell from her mouth when he licked the seam of her lips.

      He cursed against her lips and Tina instantly opened up. The masterful glide of his tongue against hers made her moan and press harder into his hard body. Her hands crawled to the nape of his neck, her fingers pushing into his rough hair.

      The world around them dissolved. Colors burned behind her eyelids, desire making her blood heavy. She could feel the defined contours of his body digging into hers. Images and sensations from memory drowned the little thread of her will: the cradle of his hard hips bearing her down into the mattress; his rock-hard thighs pushing against the soft flesh of hers; the utterly masculine grunt at the back of his throat when she dug her nails into his back.

      Heat bloomed low in her belly as he swept over every inch of her mouth with glorious, knowing strokes. No tenderness. No holding back.

      Purely carnal, he thrust in and out of her mouth with his tongue.

      Pockets of heat erupted all over her, her clothes caging the sensations against her hot skin.

      One hand around her neck and one encircling her hip, he held her the way he needed for his onslaught, only letting her come up for air briefly before he claimed her mouth again. He bit her lower lip with such aggressive possession that she moaned. Pleasure and pain wound around her senses.

      Instantly he gentled the kiss, laving the hurt with his tongue.

      Softer and slower. Ache upon ache built in her lower belly, spinning and spiraling. Tina whimpered against his mouth, craving release. Craving this closeness with him.

      “Enough, Kairos! Introduce us to your little plaything.”

      The venom in that voice, hidden beneath a vein of sweet playfulness, was ice water over Tina’s head. She pulled away, heart thundering a million miles an hour in her ears. Her lips stung, her entire body thrummed with need.

      “Helena, please be...polite,” came another soft voice.

      His fingertips trailing lazily against her jawline, his chest rising and falling, Kairos let out a soft growl that reverberated along her trembling body. Tina sensed his shock as her own senses began to clear.

      “Nine months...” he whispered against her mouth, his forehead touching hers in uncharacteristic affection. “Even if I hadn’t needed you here for this day, pethi mou... You and I are not through.”

      The words were feral. Possessive. And not meant for their audience.

      Tina licked her lips and tasted him there. But all he meant was for sex, she reminded her sinking senses. She frowned. “It is just one kiss.”

      Masculine arrogance etched into every line of his face. “You will come to me, pethi mou. I simply shall not allow it to be otherwise.” He rubbed her lips with the pad of his thumb. “I might, however, decide not to give you what you want. As a punishment.”

      She saw it now. He meant to use these months to work her out of his system. He didn’t like it that he still wanted her so much. And then, he would walk away.

      And if the kiss had been any indication, he was right. She hadn’t even mustered a token protest. “This is a game to you, isn’t it? Like who will blink first, or who will draw first and shoot the other person?”

      * * *

      “You’re the one who always plays games.”

      Anger and frustration pulsed through her. “No more,” she said, tilting her head toward the woman waiting. She rubbed at a piece of nonexistent lint on his shirt, felt the thundering of his heart under her palm. “My days of fighting for you are over, Kairos. That woman and you are welcome to each other.”

      “I have never loved you, Valentina. When we were married, I could barely stand your theatrics and tantrums. But believe me when I say the only woman I have desired since I met you, the only woman that drives me insane with lust, is you. I want only you, glykia mou.”

      The truth of his declaration reverberated through Tina, leaving her shaking. His own disbelief that he still wanted her, his frustration at his inability to understand it, much less control it, saturated his words.

      She barely processed it—four sentences about what he felt or didn’t feel from Kairos was like a long speech from any other man—before she felt the younger woman right behind them. Her subtle floral perfume carried to them on the air.

      His shoulders tensing, Kairos moved them toward the couple who had come down the stairs but who waited at a discreet distance. His arm remained at her waist in a possessive grip.

      “Valentina, this is Theseus Markos and his wife Maria. They are—” his Adam’s Apple bobbed as he hesitated “—friends of mine.” Tension built in the older couple’s faces at his label. Jaw tight, he nodded to the younger woman. “And this is their daughter Helena. My wife, Valentina Constantinou.” Possession was imbued in the softly spoken words.

      He addressed the greeting mainly to the man.

      With a head full of thick gray hair, Theseus looked to be in his sixties. He had a heavy, beefy build but even in the afternoon sun there was an unhealthy pallor to his skin. As if he had spent the last few months away from it.

      Tina shook his hand, which was warm beneath her fingers. “We have been very curious about you, Valentina,” he said genuinely, the wariness melting from his gaze. Unlike Kairos, his accent was thick. “Welcome to our home. We hope you are not angry with us for taking your husband away from you for so long. Kairos has been an immense help here.”