Greek’s Shotgun Wedding (The Diamandis Heirs #1)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

J ACE WRAPPED HER in towels like an Egyptian mummy and swept her off her feet to carry her on to the launch when it arrived to collect them all.

‘I must look ridiculous covered up like this!’ She hissed the complaint in his ear as the launch approached the yacht. ‘Put me down...’

‘I’m preserving your privacy.’ Jace was fiercely determined that he alone would be lusting after that glorious face and body of hers. The crew and his protection team were mostly male and men would be men: they would look, wonder, fantasise. Only, he had deprived them of that opportunity because in the present and, naturally, for a limited time, the only man who would be picturing Gigi naked would be him .

‘Put me down, for goodness’ sake!’

‘The towels would fall off,’ Jace overruled, manoeuvring the two of them safely off the launch and heading straight for the lift to hit a button with his elbow.

‘I don’t like domineering men—’

‘Of course not,’ Jace murmured levelly. ‘Given the chance, you’d be doing the domineering.’

‘That’s not true,’ Gigi insisted, one arm round his neck to keep herself steady while her nostrils flared on the wonderful smell of his skin. Salt water, fresh air, cedarwood laced with something that was just intrinsically him.

Ought she to tell him that he would be her first lover? Why should she care if he thought that was a bit strange? After all, with Jace Diamandis in the starring role, there was nothing surer than the reality that this would be a one-night stand. That was how the cookie crumbled. She needed to keep that in mind from the outset. Jace might be a playboy but at least he was an honest one. He hadn’t fed her a single line or pretended to be something he was not. Somewhere deep down inside her she was conscious of a sharp little pang of regret that she would not see him again because she liked him, honestly liked him and that was why she had decided to go to bed with him. That tempting and rare combination of liking and dynamite chemistry might never come her way again, she reasoned.

Jace set her down in a huge room and she wouldn’t have known she was on a yacht if she hadn’t seen, beyond sliding glass doors, the stretch of a furnished deck terrace looking out to sea. She turned uncertainly, letting one of the towels swirled around her fall to the floor. Her attention fell on a simply vast bed and her mouth ran dry.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Gigi spun round. ‘Some water, please.’

‘You’re very tense,’ Jace breathed, ebony brows pleating. ‘Maybe you need more time to consider this—’

‘I didn’t expect to have to talk about it,’ Gigi protested, gulping down her water as though she would never see water again, feeling the hot colour climbing below her skin and knowing there was nothing she could do about it.

Amusement lightened the tension on Jace’s lean dark face. ‘You assumed I would throw you on the bed like some caveman and get down to it without a word exchanged? Even I am not that crass.’

‘You’re embarrassing me. I haven’t done this before,’ Gigi admitted half under her breath. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it but you made me nervous.’

His brow creased, intense green eyes narrowing. ‘Haven’t done it before? Sex? That’s not possible—’

Gigi lifted her head high, cornflower-blue eyes unflinching. ‘It’s possible because here I am.’

Troubled more than he wished to admit by her admission, Jace dragged in a slightly ragged breath. ‘I haven’t been with a virgin before, but I’ll be very careful,’ he murmured huskily. ‘But stop right now if you’re not sure. I definitely don’t want to be the guy you regret.’

And even as he told her that, he wanted to laugh at himself. Since when had he cared that much about a woman’s finer feelings? Yet he definitely knew that he didn’t wish to be Gig’s bad memory. And even as he then began to wish that he would not be her first lover, he knew it would be a lie. It was absolutely an honour that he wanted for himself. In some strictly temporary way she felt special and he felt a strong need to make everything special for her.

While Jace agonised over whatever he was agonising about, Gigi flopped down on the side of the bed and kicked off her shoes. ‘I need a shower. I’m covered in salt.’

Emerging from his fugue, exasperated by his inability to concentrate, wondering if he could lay that rare affliction at the door of overwhelming sexual hunger and relieved by that explanation, Jace strode across the room and thrust open a door.

The washing facilities were to die for, sheer glass and black marble that shimmered with metallic golden streaks. Stripping off her wet bikini, she stepped into the shower, wishing she had thought to ask for her bag, although, frankly, it hadn’t occurred to her that she might decide to stay the night with Jace, so her bag didn’t contain so much as a toothbrush. But the shelving contained everything that a woman might want, she discovered, wrinkling her nose at the obvious thought that Jace regularly had women in his shower. What business was that of hers?

‘There are no fairy-tale princes out there,’ her mother had told her sharply when she was fourteen, ripping down a pin-up poster of a boyband member from her daughter’s wall and scrunching it before tossing it in the bin. ‘Get used to that idea now and you’ll be the happier for it. Take your pleasure from men if you wish but don’t expect anything else from them. They’re only good for that one thing.’

Suppressing that unpleasant recollection of her mother’s cynical distrust of the entire male sex, Gigi dried her hair and freshened up, unsurprised to find a still wrapped toothbrush in a drawer full of them. And she thought the half-brothers closest to her age were man whores? She shut her eyes tight, reminded herself that if she was using Jace, he was using her and that there was nothing wrong with that physical exchange. Even her cold-natured mother would have agreed that point. The same woman had insisted she went on the contraceptive pill at fourteen, saying that she didn’t want any ‘little mistakes’. Gigi had guessed right then that she had not been born the child of a planned pregnancy.

Even the effect of a cold-shower finish did nothing to lessen Jace’s arousal. He was thoroughly fed up with his misbehaving body and the lack of adult control he was displaying. This was not him because he had never been desperate for a woman in his life.

A towel looped round her like a sarong, Gigi emerged from the bathroom, so nervous and awkward that her teeth were almost chattering together. The break between leaving the beach and arriving in Jace’s bedroom had stretched too long for her relaxation to last.

Jace stretched back against the headboard, the sheet dropping to his waist, a vision of unashamed masculinity, revealing wide smooth brown shoulders and his muscular torso. He took in one glance of Gigi, blondish brown hair waving round her shoulders, blue eyes bluer than the sky, shapely curves safely covered in towelling, and he was off the bed faster than the speed of light without even thinking of moving. He scooped her up into his arms and then froze, struggling to think about what he was doing and why he was continually acting on some sort of subconscious inner voice that prompted him into weird behaviour around her.

Gigi let her head fall back against his arm, long silky hair brushing his thigh, blue eyes bright with laughter. ‘I think I could get used to being carried around like a princess without your habit killing my domineering tendencies.’

‘It takes one to know one,’ Jace quipped.

And then just as she was thinking that she enjoyed his more sensitive side, which he had shown her when he earlier gave her the choice to step back from intimacy again, he kissed her. The whoosh of explosive hunger he could depth-charge through one kiss annihilated every logical thought. Her fingers crept up into his curly hair and held him to her, rejoicing in that shiny luxuriance and the smell of him that close. She felt as though every kiss she had had when she was younger had merely been a dress rehearsal for Jace and a complete waste of time. He dallied and he teased when he kissed, stroked her lips, nibbled a little, explored. It was so sensual, so sexy it should’ve been forbidden.

Slowly, gently, he began unwrapping the towel and sure fingers cupped the warm weight of a small breast, his thumb rubbing back and forth across the diamond-hard tip, sending little spears of desire hurtling through her. She quivered as he found the other, unexpected heat stabbing through her as the caress grew a little rougher and then he bent his head and took the throbbing peak into his mouth and sucked hard and pleasure engulfed her in a floodtide of response.

From that point on, it was a little like a dreamworld for Gigi because nothing happened as she had dimly expected it would. He shifted her down on to the bed and discarded the towel. He surveyed her as though she were a work of art and, later, she couldn’t credit that she had lain there and simply let him look at her naked, but, in that moment, his rapt expression truly made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

He came down to her, naked as she was but bronzed, muscular and beautiful, and suddenly she was as enthralled with him as he appeared to be with her. He kissed her again, skated a hand along one slender thigh while his mouth sought her breasts again and the surge of dampness she felt at the heart of her mortified her for a split second until she reminded herself that it was normal.

His fingers played between her thighs. He was very subtle, evidently gauging by her response what kind of touch she enjoyed. She appreciated how precise he was, the care he was giving to their encounter and she had no sooner thought that than she told him.

Jace lifted his tousled head to look down at her transfixed. ‘Are you rating me?’

Gigi laughed. ‘Well, you’ve got my vote—’

A smile chased the tension from his lean, dark face, lighting up his incandescent green eyes. ‘You’re very different from other women—’

‘No, don’t tell me that. I know I’m a bit off the wall. I don’t need you to confirm it—’

‘Even if I like it?’ An ebony brow elevated.

‘I shouldn’t have interrupted you.’ Gigi dealt him a teasingly pious glance and he laughed then.

As if they had all the time in the world, he worked his sensual path down her slender body and the little quivers of arousal began to build in strength. He settled his hands on the curve of her hips and lowered his head to the tender pink flesh between her thighs. She wasn’t sure if she wanted something that intimate and then she reminded herself that essentially she was experimenting with Jace and exploring possibilities, so why not explore them all ?

What she also wasn’t expecting was how very fast his expertise drove her totally out of control. Hunger was a drumbeat in her pelvis that made her writhe and gasp and moan. Intense sensation gripped her in a steely hold and before she knew where she was she was reaching an unfamiliar plateau of pleasure that lit her up like a thousand fireworks inside and out.

‘Are you on birth control?’

Gigi winced. ‘No. Used to be, not any more—’

‘Why did you stop?’ Jace asked curiously, not noticeably bothered by her negative response.

‘My mother insisted I went on it at fourteen. I wasn’t sexually active and I very much resented it. I stopped taking it about a year afterwards...it was my first rebellion against her expectations—’

‘What was the next?’ he could not resist asking.

‘I suppose it has to be dropping out of medicine and choosing veterinary surgery instead. My mother wanted me to be a doctor but it wasn’t for me. I’m better with animals than people,’ she said quietly.

‘I think you’d have been a winner with people as well if you’d had the right support to believe that,’ Jace countered.

‘My mother never forgave me for my change of heart. Once I reached eighteen, she stopped her financial support, which of course was her right...hence my student loans, but I’ve never regretted the decision.’

‘I wouldn’t have met you if you hadn’t been a vet.’ Jace tensed, not liking that idea but so irritated by that awareness that he immediately tugged Gigi back into his arms. ‘We’re losing focus here—’

‘Don’t you talk in bed?’

‘Never,’ Jace admitted, his sensual mouth compressing before he nipped at the edge of her shoulder and kissed a deeply sensual path across it to her throat, where he dallied at her pulse points, smiling again into that kiss as he saw the pulse at her delicate collarbone go crazy and her pupils dilate again.

Once they got out of bed, he would give her dinner and let her leave, he bargained with himself. No, that could make her feel used and no way was he doing that to her!

He let his fingers slide into her hair, relishing that softness, that absence of product that left the strands flexible. He gazed down into her blue eyes and felt triumphant that he had her with him and hadn’t allowed the less presentable flaws in his driven nature scare her off. He was thinking too much. He didn’t know what had got into him. Performance anxiety? He didn’t want to hurt her. That was what was wrong with him, he reasoned with relief. Female friends had told him that their first sexual experiences had been basement-level bad, and naturally he wanted something better for Gigi. Only a selfish bastard wouldn’t be concerned on that score. When did I stop being a selfish bastard? he wondered.

Gigi ran exploring hands down over his torso, fingers delighting in the indentations and the hard muscle that was such a contrast from her own softer curves. Jace almost shuddered beneath her touch and returned to kissing her with hungry fervour. She arched up to him in response and was empowered by his hungry groan. He shifted against her and she felt him hard and ready at her core. Without hesitation, she lifted her legs and curved them round him, urging him on. After all, she didn’t think it would be that much fun for her and she knew it would probably hurt. Anticipation was not her friend at that moment.

Jace braced his hands on the mattress to stare down at her with exasperated green eyes that scorched her like flames. ‘We do this slowly or not at all,’ he breathed.

‘There’s two of us here and I have a voice too.’

‘Gigi—’

‘If you expect me to stay in this bed another thirty seconds—’

Put to the test, Jace flexed his hips and surged into her like an invasion force. As he tilted her thighs back to gain depth, a sharp pang of pain shot through her lower body and she gasped. ‘Oh, well, that’s done, then,’ she pronounced with satisfaction. ‘I expect that’s the worst over with.’

Jace gritted his teeth together. ‘You’re making me feel like a science experiment—’

He sort of... was , as Gigi saw it. She cringed at that insensitive inner recognition and closed her eyes tight lest he could read her expression.

‘So,’ he breathed, mastering his temper. ‘Stop talking. I don’t need egging on to the finish line like a child in his first race!’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t have conversational filters.’

He pulled out of her, watching her try not to wince, and then pushed into her again with decisive speed. And on the strength of that single movement, Gigi forgot what she had been talking about, forgot what she had been worrying about and experienced that first seductive taste of sensual pleasure. He was an incredibly tight fit inside her, stretching her inner sheath with an efficiency that was uniquely enthralling. Her mind went blank as that glowing warmth filtered through her and all of a sudden she was in the moment again and wanting more. Excitement sparked as his pace increased, providing her with intense sensation that made her heart race.

‘Good?’ Jace checked, embarrassed by the fact that for the first time in his life he was concerned.

‘Don’t you dare stop!’ Gigi launched up at him, her hips rising to his in a language older than time.

Jace bestowed a dazzling smile down at her and thought of all the many, many things he still had to do with her. He shifted position, picked an angle, watched the flush of response rise up over her face, picked up pace again.

An electrifying tingle ran down Gigi’s spine. Her entire body was thrilling to the surfeit of pleasure she had never known before. He drove into her harder and faster and tiny jolts of lightning tightened like bands round her pelvis. She struggled to keep a lid on her excitement and that drowning desire but as it built and built like an alarm clock ready to go off, she realised that she couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it if she tried. When another climax engulfed her, she quivered and cried out, moaned, hearing herself, despising herself and, out of control, she was sent gasping and flailing into an explosion of pleasure that utterly consumed her.

Jace threaded a line of tiny kisses down over her drowsy face. ‘Admit it...you liked it—’

‘Don’t talk,’ she urged, her body too heavy, her brain too drained at what she had learned about herself for her to stand examination of any kind.

She dozed off without even being aware of it. Jace surveyed her in fascination. That was another thing that had never happened to him before: a woman just going to sleep as if he weren’t there. As if he had indeed merely been an experiment ? He suppressed that toxic suspicion. He was grateful that she was so different from the other women he had known. No flattery, no calculation, no apparent greed, no false front, no lies, the complete opposite of his cousin, Seraphina, who was as artificial and treacherous as Gigi was not. Gigi’s qualities were solid gold in the Diamandis family where no woman he had met within the family circle saw him as anything other than a rich trophy to be caught. Not that he wanted her long term, of course he didn’t! He was committed to his freedom from all such ties.

And while reassured by that conviction, Jace got on his phone and ordered a dinner for them that evening and wondered where she would like to go when he took her out. A nightclub? It didn’t strike him as a very good fit for her and she had nothing to wear. He went into the bathroom to clean up and only then noticed that the contraceptive he had used had torn. He groaned out loud in consternation. As Evander’s name swam onto his phone screen, he walked out onto the terrace naked to talk without disturbing Gigi.

‘I thought I’d have heard from you by now,’ his uncle said tautly.

‘Why?’ Jace raked his fingers through his tousled curls, cursing them the way he always did but his pride was too great to get rid of them. It was the one reminder of his mother that he had and if his father had rejected him for his stupid hair and the colour of his eyes, he had felt stronger not altering his appearance in any way.

Evander swore in Greek, which was a rare enough event for Jace to tense and frown.

‘It’s your grandmother’s eightieth birthday tomorrow!’ Evander shot back at him a touch accusingly. ‘There’s a huge party for you to preside over on Faros with the whole family present. I told you about it weeks ago—’

‘I know. I forgot.’ Jace frowned, plunged into darkness at the prospect of a Diamandis family reunion at what was now, following his father’s passing, his main home on the island of Faros. ‘However, I made all the catering arrangements at the time. I’ve even bought the painting you suggested for her.’

‘Good enough,’ Evander grunted, soothed by those admissions. ‘So, what time will you be arriving?’

‘I’ll text you.’ Jace glanced through the glass doors at the barely noticeable presence in his bed.

Someone shaking her shoulder wakened Gigi. She stretched languorously before she opened her eyes and then it all came back to her.

‘Where are my clothes?’ she asked the stewardess.

The young woman pointed at the transparent garment carrier hanging on the outside of a swanky built-in closet. Gigi blinked and focused on the barely visible blue dress. ‘That’s not mine,’ she said.

Jace strode in like a sudden gust of wind, instantly filling the space with raw energy and expectations. The stewardess looked relieved by his arrival and departed.

‘Is it all right if I go for a shower?’ Gigi asked uncomfortably, striving not to look at him, striving not to be sucked in by his compelling dark attraction. He was casually dressed in linen shirt and chinos, but they had perfect tailoring and bore all the hallmarks of expensive design and sophistication. His black curls were windswept, his bright green eyes luminous with sheer energy, his stance one of command.

His expressive brows rose. ‘Why would you ask me that? Of course it’s all right.’

‘Where are my clothes?’ she asked again.

‘I’ve organised clothes for you to wear. However, if you want your own—’ Jace drew out his mobile and issued instructions in that cool, polite way of his in Greek that always warned her that he was making specific orders.

‘I’m going home,’ she told him, even more uneasily. ‘I don’t need anyone to organise clothes for me. I’m sorry I fell asleep. You should’ve wakened me ages ago. I know I shouldn’t still be here. I’m not that out of touch.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jace said truthfully, dark brows drawing together.

‘A one-night stand, you’re supposed to get up and get out, not linger like yesterday’s news—’

‘This wasn’t a one-night stand,’ Jace objected with unexpected rawness.

‘But you don’t do anything else!’ Gigi carolled in exasperation at his refusal to say it like it was while leaving her to gabble on in clumsy discomfiture.

‘There’s an exception to every rule.’ Jace was studying her in growing disbelief that she could actually be attempting to ditch him. ‘I had no indication that you were likely to wake up with such an idea. How could I have? I warned you that I didn’t want to be the guy you regretted—’

‘It’s not that,’ Gigi cut in, her face pink with mortification because she wasn’t inconsistent. She did not regret what had happened between them but she did feel unnerved about the intensity of what they had seemed to share and deemed it the wisest course to immediately call time on seeing him again.

‘That’s good because you’re trapped on Sea King for the rest of the night,’ Jace revealed quietly. ‘We’re at sea...’

‘At... sea ?’ Gigi gasped incredulously. ‘How can we possibly be at sea ?’

Jace laughed, which was the proverbial last straw in the dazed mood she was in. ‘Are you worried about your pets? Don’t be. The bird, the tortoise and the cat are all on board as well and I packed for you.’

‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that you’ve kidnapped me and my pets from Rhodes?’ Gigi shrieked at him, grabbing up the discarded towel still lying on the floor and anchoring it below her armpits to slide out of the bed.