GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 26

Edward LAID HER down on a wide bed. 'I want you to know that I didn't bring you here for this,' he breathed rawly. 'I didn't plan it.'

His lean, darkly handsome features were taut with hungry frustration and the strangest hint of vulnerability, and for a split second Bella almost raised her fingers to trace the compressed line of his lips. Instead, she got a grip on herself and let her hand fall back from his shoulder to lie by her side. Her body was singing a very different message, all revved up like a racing car at the starting line. She was startlingly aware of every erogenous zone she possessed and its pronounced effect on her. Her boobs felt swollen while a hollow ache throbbed at the very centre of her. It was sexual needs, plain sexual need, she repeated carefully to herself, as if by acknowledging that she could minimise the effects and suppress them.

'I intended for us to sit down over a civilised dinner and talk,' Edward grated impatiently, stepping back from the bed as if he didn't trust himself that close to her. 'But I can't keep my hands off you!'

He made Bella feel totally irresistible and she marvelled at the sensation and the new buoyancy it gave to her sadly depleted ego, battered by her aunt's abuse, her cousin's scorn and Matt's heartfelt and apologetic, 'How could you be so stupid?' There Edward stood, breathtakingly beautiful, rich and charismatic and he still wanted her when she was sure he had to have many more lovely and laid-back female options.

'I think it cuts both ways,' she admitted not quite steadily, just looking at him and wanting him so much it almost hurt while telling herself that was entirely and unforgivably superficial.

Edward came down on one knee on the edge of the bed. 'You...think?'

'Know,' she conceded breathlessly, stinging arousal ailing her as she collided with his spectacular dark golden eyes. She thought she would die if he didn't touch her, and told herself that she deserved to die if she let him, but she couldn't lie about the overwhelming surge of hunger that lit her up like a firework.

'I want you so much it's driving me insane,' Edward husked, coming down to her in one driven movement to seal her to the mattress with his weight. 'I don't like the feeling that I'm not in control...'

Bella didn't like it either and was taken aback that they could be so similar in outlook. Her fingers lifted involuntarily and laced through the blue-black hair falling across his brow. Rain lashed the window across the room and a smouldering silence fell indoors. Her heart was racing and against her, she could feel the quickened thump of his. Dense black lashes lifted on his stunning eyes and she forgot to breathe, registering that somewhere along the way, and without ever pausing to think it through, she had begun developing feelings for Edwards Zikos that went way beyond what she had once envisaged.

For a split second fear grabbed her, fear of being hurt, humiliated and rejected, but she pushed the reactions away and buried them deep. Just for a few hours, she promised herself, she would live only for the moment in a little safe pool of non-judgemental peace because soon enough she would be forced to deal with the consequences of her accidental pregnancy.

Edward smoothed a stray strand of red hair behind her ear, noting how small her ear was and that at their last encounter he had miscounted the freckles on her nose. There were five, not four, tiny brown speckles that only accentuated the clarity of her luminous porcelain skin. He sank his hands beneath her, lifting her up to peel off her sweater. She was pregnant, he reminded himself in a daze, for that awareness was still so new to him that it felt unreal. He would have to be careful and that would be a challenge when his raw need for her was threatening to explode out of restraint.

'Is it all right for us to do this?' he murmured a tad awkwardly.

'Good grief, Edward, I'm as healthy as a carthorse!' Bella countered, reddening hotly as his appreciative gaze dropped down to the bountiful swell of her boobs in a lace-cupped bra.

'But infinitely more beautiful and sensual,' Edward purred, fighting an impractical urge to stay welded to her and finally sliding off the bed to strip off his suit. 'So delicate...and yet voluptuous.'