Part 17 (2/2)

'I have dreamed about this, about you,' he said huskily, his hand behind her head, holding her to him. 'But always before I was in control. s.e.x was just a game to be played, and I played it like everybody else.' He gave a groan. 'No longer.' His fingers slid beneath her sweater, splaying across her back. 'Now I cannot think of life without you. How controlling is that?'

Joanna drew a quivering breath. 'I can't believe this.'

'What?' He rolled over with her so that now she was crushed beneath him, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest. 'What part of this do you not believe? The fact that I have been nearly out of my head because I could not get away from Athens any sooner?

Or that I am in love with you; have been in love with you, I think, since your first morning at the villa. You came out onto the terrace and I watched you from the pool. Oh, yes.' This as her eyes went wide with surprise, 'I watched you for quite some time before I chose to make my presence known.'

'Your nude presence,' murmured Joanna daringly, and was rewarded with a rueful smile.

'My nude presence,' he conceded. 'You noticed.'

'How could I not?' she countered, her courage growing. 'You were-well, you know what you were better than me.'

'Aroused.' he admitted huskily. 'You do that to me.' He took one of her hands and drew it down between their bod ies. 'Like this, hmm?'

Joanna's cheeks went pink. 'Demetri, I-'

'Do not say anything,' he advised her gently. 'And you need not be alarmed. I do not intend to do anything to frighten you.'

Joanna brought her hands up to his face. 'You don't frighten me, darling,' she whispered, her thumbs brus.h.i.+ng his lips now. 'I love you.' She paused. 'But I think you know that already. Isn't that why you're here?'

'I am here because I want to ask you to marry me,' de clared Demetri fiercely, pus.h.i.+ng himself up and looking down at her with impa.s.sioned eyes, 'I do not want a mis tress, Joanna. I want a wife. But not just any wife. You. Only you.'

EPILOGUE.

'My father knew about us,' Demetri murmured some time later, drawing Joanna's naked body into the curve of his. Although he had already made love to her he was still half aroused, and she s.h.i.+fted in unknowing provocation as his erection nudged the sensual cleft of her b.u.t.tocks.

'I know,' she breathed softly, but he sensed a certain am- bivalence in the words and wondered if she still doubted the sincerity of his actions.

But surely she believed that he loved her. Theos, he couldn't imagine life without her. Hearing that she loved him had been like having a great weight lifted from him. When he'd carried her into her bedroom and stripped the bulky jeans and sweater from her he'd been sure that noth ing and no one could harm them. Yet now he could feel an unsettling barrier between them.

But why?

'He told you?' he ventured now, praying it wasn't his father who was his rival. A living man he could deal with. A ghost?

That was something else.

'Mmm.' she conceded, heartening him somewhat when she turned her lips against the arm that was cradling her head. 'Philip came to see him. But I suppose you know that?'

'I did hear something about it,' he admitted wryly. 'I would like to say he gave us his blessing, but I would not go as far as that.'

He sensed rather than saw her smile. 'Do you mean Philip or your father?'

'My father,' Demetri a.s.sured her firmly. 'He warned me not to hurt you.'

She tensed then. He felt it. And, needing to see her face, he moved so that she rolled onto her back beside him. In the lamplight she was so beautiful, he thought achingly. Her lips bruised from his kisses, her cheeks pink with a mixture of shyness and-what? Apprehension? Surely not.

'He loved you, you know,' he added huskily, needing to rea.s.sure her. 'But I am sure you know that.' His hand sought the swollen fullness of her breast that was tantalisingly close to his chest, his thumb ma.s.saging the taut nipple. 'He swore he would come back to haunt me if I let you down.'

'And is that why you're here?' she asked abruptly, star tling him by the sudden catch in her tone, and he blew out a defensive breath.

'Say what?'

She s.h.i.+fted again, and his hand, which had slipped ca ressingly over her abdomen, halted at the triangle of moist curls between her legs, 'I asked-' Her eyes were wide and troubled, 'I asked, is that why you're here? Because of what your father said? Because he gave you the impression that I needed-someone.'

Demetri propped himself up on his elbow now, staring down at her with dark, disbelieving eyes, 'Is that what you think?' He made an expressive gesture, 'Is that why you're acting like you wished this had never happened?'

Joanna's face was indignant now. 'I'm not acting like that,' she protested. 'But-but I don't want you to feel that you're responsible for me.'

'Khristo!' Demetri swore. ' Theos, Joanna, I thought we knew one another better than that.'

She looked a little less anxious now. 'Do you mean that?'

'Of course I mean it.' He bent to bestow a sensuous kiss on the curve of her shoulder, 'I love you, Joanna. Me. Not my father. I am crazy about you. How could you even imag ine that anything my father said could influence my feel ings?'

She shook her head, but one hand came to stroke his cheek.

'I didn't want you to think-oh, you know what I'm trying to say.

What with Constantine making me a benefi ciary in his will and all-'

'Hey, I had forgotten that,' murmured Demetri teasingly. 'But it does prove my point. Why should I feel responsible for a woman who is prepared to turn down a yearly legacy of-?'

'Shh.' She put her fingers over his lips and he opened his mouth to bite them instead. 'Don't say any more,' she ex claimed.

'I believe you.'

'In any case, if anyone has a complaint here, it is I,' Demetri continued drily, smiling as his probing fingers caused her to catch her breath. She was wet and he was instantly aware of his own hard response, 'I have tried to contact you numerous times since you left the island, but you have persistently ignored my calls.'

Joanna drew her upper lip between her teeth. 'Actually,' she said carefully, 'you didn't try to contact me for several weeks.

You may have rung me in the last three weeks, but in the beginning you left contacting me to your father's solicitor.'

Demetri sighed. 'All right. I admit that in the days- weeks-following my father's funeral I had little time for myself.

Nonetheless, if you had contacted me, a.s.suredly I would have returned your call.'

'Would you?'

'Do you doubt it?'

'N-o.'

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