LITMIR.BIZ

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breast, swallowed her cry as the silk-covered nipple rose against his palm, curved his hand around her hip.

      “Matya mou,” he said thickly, turning so that their positions were reversed and it was she who leaned against the gazebo. He moved into the vee of her legs and she arched against him, moved against him, and he knew he was as close to losing himself as he had ever been in all the years since he’d left boyhood behind.

      “Wait,” he whispered, but she was touching him, sliding her hands under his jacket, tearing at his shirt so that the studs popped free and fell to the ground. He caught his breath at the feel of her cool fingers against his skin, and he clasped her wrists in one hand while he stepped back and tried to regain his sanity, but she gave a little whimper of distress that fueled his hunger. He understood her need. It was the same for him, the urgency to touch and taste that was almost pain, but he would not permit himself such a total loss of control. He could wait. He would take her where there was privacy, where there was a bed, a place to be alone.

      He brushed a light kiss on her swollen mouth and wound his fingers through hers.

      “My room,” he said, but she shook her head wildly.

      “No. Not in the house. I can’t—I don’t—”

      She didn’t want to run the risk of seeing people. God knew, neither did he. “The stables,” he said, and before she could reply, he led her from the gazebo towards the outbuildings.

      “Wait,” she said, just as he had moments before, and he thought she had changed her mind, thought what he would do if she had, but she stopped only long enough to kick off her shoes. He scooped them up and they ran through the damp grass side by side. She was laughing softly, and he stopped, swung her into his arms and kissed her.

      A cloud hid the moon, leaving the sky touched only with the fire of the stars, but Demetrios knew his way. There was a small office just off the stables. He and Rafe had sealed a deal in it. It was not elaborate. A desk. A chair. A couch. An old leather couch. Not big, but big enough for a man and a woman to make love.

      He would take her there, undress her, sink into the lushness of her mouth, into the heat of her body. With the first frantic hunger eased, he would hold her in his arms, caress her. The crowd would thin, the party would end, and they would go to the house then, to his room, lose themselves in each other through the long, hot Brazilian night.

      The stable was dark and pleasantly scented with horse and leather. An animal snorted as the door swung shut behind them.

      Demetrios drew Samantha towards the office at the rear of the building.

      “Demetrios?” she whispered.

      “Yes,” he said thickly. She knew his name? He didn’t know hers. He thought of asking, but what did it matter at this moment? Instead, he took her hand, brought it to his erection. “Feel what you do to me, o kalóz mou.” He heard her breath catch as her fingers curled over his hardness.

      “Feel what you do to me,” she said, and she lifted his hand to her breast.

      Her silk-covered nipple, hard as a pearl, pressed against his palm. He groaned, kissed her deeply, savoring the sweetness of her mouth while he drew her down onto the couch and gathered her into his arms. She moaned, pressed fevered kisses to his jaw, wound her arms around his neck and, for a heartbeat, the frenzy within him eased. He felt a sudden need to hold her, just hold her, to learn the sweet secrets of her body before slaking his desire.

      “Tell me your name,” he said softly. “I want to know—”

      Impatiently, she moved against him, moved again, and he was lost. He slid his hand along the warm, exposed flesh between her breasts and her navel, eased his hand under the waistband of her trousers, down and down, groaning at the first brush of silken curls, capturing her mouth with his when she cried out…

      Lights blazed on in the stable. The woman in his arms froze. “Oh, God,” she said in a frantic whisper, and her sinuous movements turned to frenzied attempts to push him away. “Get off me! Don’t you see the lights? Someone is—”

      “Shh.” He put his lips to her ear. “Don’t talk. Whoever it is will leave.”

      Leave? Sam squeezed her eyes shut. Please, yes. They had to leave…

      “…delighted you are prepared to make up your mind about the colt, Nick,” Rafe Alvares said, and chuckled. “I have had an offer. An excellent one, and I’m tempted to accept it.”

      “The hell you will,” Nicholas al Rashid replied, with lazy humor. “Doesn’t being your brother-in-law count for anything?”

      Both men laughed. Their footsteps sounded on the planked floor. Sam buried her face in Demetrios’s throat.

      “There he is. A fine animal. As handsome as ever.”

      Nick sighed. “More handsome than ever. All right. It’s a deal. Ship him to my farm in Greenwich.”

      “As soon as I can make the arrangements.”

      “They’ll go now,” Demetrios whispered—and followed it with an oath. He was wrong. The men weren’t leaving. The footsteps were drawing closer. Closer…

      He sat up quickly, whipped off his jacket and draped it around Sam’s shoulders. Then he shot to his feet and stood in front of her, blocking her from view.

      The light in the little office came on. “Let’s celebrate,” Rafe said, “with a brandy. Or would you prefer…Demetrios?”

      “Demetrios?” Nick said, his voice a puzzled echo of Rafe’s. There was a moment’s silence, and then he cleared his throat. “Oh.”

      Oh, indeed, Sam thought, and wished, with all her heart, that she were dead.

      “Have we, uh, have we interrupted something?”

      She squeezed her eyes shut in an old parody of the children’s game. If she couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see her. They really couldn’t, she told herself frantically. Demetrios hadn’t moved. He was a protective wall, and she was huddled deep in his jacket with her knees drawn up, her face buried against them, but she had never felt more exposed in her life.

      “Let’s step outside,” he said. There was a shuffle of feet, the creak of the door half closing, then the sound of Demetrios’s voice saying calmly, almost lazily, “Actually, you have interrupted something,” as if were all some sort of joke.

      Sam curled her hands into fists.

      “Damn,” Nick murmured. “Sorry, Karas.”

      Sam’s heart pounded like a drum. Go away. Go away. Go away!

      Rafe cleared his throat. “I had no idea that you—that you were…” He cleared his throat again. “Well. I can see why you didn’t want to meet my wife’s sis…Damn! Never mind.”

      “Right,” Nick said quickly, “never mind. We’ll see you later, Demetrios. Rafe? Let’s go.”

      Sam held her breath until she heard the footsteps recede. The lights went off, the door banged shut and she scrambled to her feet just as Demetrios hurried towards her.

      “Kalóz mou,” he said, reaching for her…

      She slammed a fist against his chest. “Don’t—don’t ‘kalóz mou’ me! And don’t touch me, either!”

      “Sweetheart. I am sorry. I regret that we were interrupted, but—”

      “Yes. I’ll just bet you do.”

      She glared at him, her blood hot with rage. He was talking in a soft, soothing voice, trying to talk her back onto that couch, but that wasn’t going to happen. How could she have done this? She’d almost slept with a stranger—a stranger who hadn’t wanted to meet her. Wasn’t that what Rafe had just said? That Demetrios hadn’t wanted to meet his wife’s sister?

      The man who’d almost bedded her hadn’t

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