Pete looked amused but neither did he.
They were back at the little whitewashed cottage on the hillside by a quarter to ten. Serena waited in silence as Pete paid the taxi driver and, stepping back, looked towards her front door. ‘No sharks,’ he said. ‘There’s a surprise.’
‘Nico’s pretty easygoing,’ she said dryly. ‘I can’t see him objecting too much to our having dinner up at Theo’s.’
‘Can’t you?’ There was that soul-stealing smile again. ‘I can.’
Nico had left the outside light on for them, but before she could decide how to end the evening, whether to invite him in, cut and run, or try and figure out something in between, the door opened and Nico stood there glaring at them both.
‘You’re still awake,’ she said, surprised. Nico usually bedded down far earlier than this. All that getting-up-before-dawn business.
‘Have you any idea how many phone calls I’ve had about you tonight?’ he demanded.
‘Er … more than you wanted?’
‘One was more than I wanted. I’ve had four. Four! Two from Theo, one from Marianne Papadopoulos, and one from your mother! And don’t ask me how she knew you were out on a date, because I have no idea. Anyone would think you were making love on the tabletop.’ He eyed them narrowly. ‘Were you?’
‘No!’ Serena’s hands went to her hips and her temper slid up a notch. ‘We were trying to have a meal, and a restricted one at that. When was the last time you went out to dinner and Theo refused you oysters and alcohol?’
Nico’s lips twitched.
Serena narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t you dare laugh.’
‘Not laughing,’ he said, and then spoiled it by grinning hugely as he turned away and stalked back down the hall. ‘This isn’t Australia,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It isn’t even Athens. What did you expect?’ He spared a lightning glance for Pete. ‘You’ve got five minutes. I need my sleep. Anything happens to Sam on board that boat tomorrow and Chloe’ll skewer me with a fish-hook. Anything happens to Serena in the next five minutes that’s not entirely circumspect and I’ll skewer you. That’s the way it works around here. Welcome to Sathi.’
‘All right,’ she said with a sigh as she closed the door on Nico’s retreating form and turning to study the man at her side. ‘So I could have been slightly wrong about Nico not worrying about our dinner together—although, to be scrupulously fair, he probably wasn’t the one doing the worrying. Others did it for him. How do you feel? Alarmed? Afraid? Threatened?’
‘Nah.’ Far from looking worried, Superman looked to be thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘He gave me five minutes. He likes me.’
She liked him. And that was proving more of a problem than she’d thought it would be. ‘Walk with me, Pete Bennett. I’ll show you my favourite place in the garden.’ She clasped her arms around her waist and walked around the side of the cottage, to the edge of the garden to stare out over the moonlit sea. She did some of her best thinking just sitting there staring out to sea.
She needed to do some very serious thinking about what she wanted from this man right about now.
She’d looked at him a few days back and seen a pleasant diversion. A charming playmate with no strings attached. She looked at him now and saw something far more dangerous. A man with a generous heart, and a guarded one. A man with the potential to captivate her as well as charm her, and she didn’t want that. No, she couldn’t have that.
Not when for the first time in her life she could see a time up ahead with no commitments and no family ties. Her time. Time for chasing long-held dreams for a career she could be proud of.
‘I’ve enjoyed your company,’ Serena said at last.
Nothing but the truth in that statement. ‘I’d like to enjoy it some more. But we’re going to need some rules.’
‘I love rules,’ he said. ‘What kind of rules?’
‘We keep this light-hearted,’ she said firmly. ‘No falling in love.’
‘Check.’
‘And brief. We’ll both be leaving here soon enough. We should make that the end of it. Clean break. Happy memories.’
‘Mature of us,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
‘I know we’re talking a brief and in no way serious relationship here, but I’m thinking exclusivity is a must.’
‘You’d better be,’ he said curtly.
‘There is one more thing.’
‘You’re pushing your luck, Serena.’
He looked tough, forbidding, and Serena wondered afresh whether she was insane to think she could handle this man. He walked his own path, made his own rules. But this last rule was important. ‘We need to be discreet.’ Otherwise it would reflect badly on her family, and she didn’t want that. ‘It’s this place … ‘she said with more than a little frustration.
Pete laughed at that, and the rich dark sound of it slid along her skin like water.
‘You’re right,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll be discreet.’And then his lips were on hers, hard and seeking, and all her carefully thought out rules shattered beneath the weight of her desire.
Pete’s body betrayed him the moment he reached for her. He’d known it would. The searing heat. The outrageous, all-consuming need to possess that which he held and, in doing so, offer up a part of himself. She was all luscious curves, made for a man’s hands, his hands, as he curled his fingers around her buttocks and brought their lower bodies into languid and intimate contact. He could be discreet. If that was what she wanted. He’d do it. He would.
Soon.
Just as soon as he’d finished feasting on her mouth.
She dug her hands in his hair and her lips turned ravenous, but he was ready for the staggering hunger of her kisses this time and he ate them up, spun them round, and served them straight back at her.
Serena had thought she was prepared for the passion this man brought to lovemaking, but she wasn’t prepared for this. It was like a meeting of souls, locked in a kiss, and she feared it … heaven help her she feared it … even as she gloried in it. Whatever she wanted, however she wanted it, he had it in him to give. And she wanted it all.
Shuddering at the sensations threatening to overwhelm her, she dragged her lips free of his kiss and set trembling fingers to his mouth instead. A barrier, a slowdown, only her fingers had a mind of their own, exploring his upper lip, the strong shapely curve of it, before dragging the sensitive pad of her forefinger across the sculpted fullness of the rest.
Serena watched as those perfect lips curved into a smile; a smile for her attempts to regain control maybe; and then she was urging his mouth open and replacing fingertips with lips and with tongue for a kiss so staggeringly potent she clear forgot to breathe.
Whatever she wanted, she thought helplessly as his tongue duelled delicately with hers. Just the way she wanted it, as his fingers tightened on her butt and he surged against her, and with a ragged groan spun them into the maelstrom again.
His eyes were black, as black as sin and deep enough to drown in, when finally, finally, they stood apart.
‘Discreet.’ He ran a hand around the back of his neck. ‘We might have to work on that one,’ he said raggedly. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
NICO scowled at her