Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 65

ANDREAS was lazing out on the sun deck beneath the shade of a huge umbrella, with his three-month-old daughter lying curled up and fast asleep on his chest. The strong-muscled arm he had curving around that fragile little body went so perfectly with the contented expression on his handsome face.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Louisa asked the small male version she had cradled in her arms. ‘Do we wake them up or leave them to it?'

‘I am awake,’ Andreas’s sleepily husky voice murmured. ‘Where have you been all of this time?'

‘I’ve been answering a million phone calls from family,’ she answered drily.

He was slow to open his eyes and the cynical look she saw glinting in them made Louisa grimace. ‘So they are all falling over themselves to make their peace?'

‘Better that than letting you line them up to shoot them,’ she responded.

‘I have no wish to shoot them any more,’ he denied. ‘I just did not want them intruding on our lives again, that’s all.'

‘Well, they’re all coming to celebrate the twins’ name-day,’ Louisa said firmly, ‘and you are going to behave yourself.'

Scooping his daughter into the crook of his arm, Andreas dropped a gentle kiss on her tiny button nose then sat up, bronzed muscles rippling in a way that shot a familiar injection of heat into Louisa’s too susceptible abdomen.

‘That depends on the incentives on offer,’ he drawled.

‘Good food,’ she said, ‘a packed chapel and a great party afterwards?'

‘Not enough.’ Coming to his feet wearing only a pair of sexy shorts, he stepped over to her to look down at his peacefully sleeping son, made that tiny nose twitch when he dropped a kiss on it too, then looked up straight into Louisa’s eyes.

‘You want an afternoon of rampant sex while these two sleep,’ she read in that look.

Andreas gave a shake of his head. ‘I get that by demand without having to put up with family.'

‘Then what do you want?’

‘Another set of these,’ he answered coolly.

Louisa let loose with a choked laugh that disturbed both sleeping babies. ‘You must be joking! I’ve only just got over having Tabatha and Leon!'

‘But it took a whole year to conceive them,’ Andreas pointed out. ‘So the way I see it, if we start now, by the time their next name-day comes along I might not even need an incentive to put up with family …'

Two years and he still had not come to forgive them for messing with their lives. Two years, two babies … Louisa sighed as she walked into the house so beautifully finished now with a soft, warm homeliness about it she just loved.

They each bent over a white cot to place a baby down. Then like homing pigeons they both straightened and walked over to the cedar-wood dresser on which stood the framed picture of Nikos, surrounded by a collection of little toy cars.

‘Nikos would love us to have a large family,’ Andreas said as a set of his long fingers reached out to gently straighten the cars.

‘That was such a low-down, blatant attempt to tug at my heartstrings,’ Louisa complained as she kissed her fingertips then placed them on her eldest son’s smiling cherub mouth.

Andreas just shrugged and followed her as she walked out of the nursery. ‘Don’t forget we are still playing five years of catch-up.'

‘Not with my body, we’re not.’

His hands arrived at her hips to draw her against him as they entered their bedroom. ‘Just think,’ he said softly, ‘of all those afternoons and nights of wild sex with no protection.'

The contraceptive pill didn’t suit her, which meant that Andreas had to use something. Both of them hated it.

As he moved his fingers to the clasp of her shorts, his teeth arrived at her nape. ‘I’ll let you crawl all over me to your heart’s content and I won’t even complain when you make me beg.'

A long-fingered hand slipped into her loosened shorts and that fabulous sting of anticipation filtered like a magic potion through Louisa’s blood. She quivered as he touched her. He growled out a sound of satisfaction because he could bring her alive with nothing much.

‘And if you happen to be one-hit potent this time?’ she managed to gasp out. ‘I’ll be pregnant and fat with a baby stuck on each hip. Where is the incentive for me in being put through that?'

‘I will throw in a houseful of nannies.’ He caught her shivered gasp in his mouth as his stroking touch went more intimate. ‘I will cut down my travelling—give it all to Alex.'

‘You already do that,’ she quivered out.

‘He’s surprisingly good at it.’ The rueful tone accompanied the complete removal of her shorts as they dropped to her feet.

One day she would pay attention as to how he managed to strip himself naked while toying with her like this but for now … she turned to look at him, all heavy-eyed, sensual woman hungry for her man.

‘This was supposed to be a discussion about your objection to family, not about me giving you more babies,’ she reminded him.

He caught hold of the edges of her T-shirt and stripped it off over her head. ‘I adore my family,’ he murmured as his hand caught the swing of her breasts and his mouth captured her lips. ‘This family,’ he added, edging her backwards towards the bed. ‘I might learn to tolerate the others if you give me what I want.'

‘Lots of sex with no protection?’ Louisa asked for confirmation as he tumbled her onto the bed.

‘I am Greek, we love big families. We love our wives pregnant and fat. And just think of all that loving from your man with no protection to spoil it,’ he urged as he came to lie over her. ‘I can make you feel so wonderful you will never want to get out of this bed …’

He was not short on arrogance or conceit, Louisa mused hazily as he took her away and right out of herself. In the two years since the big scene in their apartment in Athens, she had come to know the two sides of Andreas Markonos, and both were sensationally irresistible. The guy in the sharp suit with his tycoon head on could take her breath away with just a fleeting glance. The guy wearing shorts was the one she’d met ten years ago and he still had the power to turn her inside out.

She loved them both. She adored them both. When his name appeared in the media these days she swelled with pride at whatever big deal he had managed to pull off against all the odds, and couldn’t wait for him to come home so she could take his tycoon clothes off. When they went out together she adored the way he kept her at his side—joined at the hip, as he liked to describe it. She loved the hungry, possessive way he looked at her when she was all dressed up and the way he glowered when she sparkled for other men.

And she absolutely totally and forever loved it when he did this to her. By the time it was over and as usual, she had lost the will to even breathe.

‘You did that without my say-so,’ she complained but without any substance to give it punch.

‘You loved it,’ he assured arrogantly as he lay heavy on her.

‘Mm,’ she agreed then opened her eyes to look at him. ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t ever stop loving me and wanting me like this.'

‘As if,’ he smiled and started kissing her again.