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Alex Kolovos gazed down at her, high aristocratic cheekbones taut, black lashes low over his unnervingly bright eyes. ‘I want to take you home,’ he informed her levelly.

Colour surged into Rosie’s cheeks in receipt of that forceful statement. She didn’t know what to say, how to react. Why was he putting himself out like this for her benefit? Was he attracted to her or simply a good Samaritan? Why on earth would he be attracted to her? she scolded herself irritably. She was small, flat as a pancake out front where it mattered: men didn’t turn their heads to look when she walked by. Embarrassed by her own thoughts and a growing sense of utterly ridiculous inadequacy, she slid into the passenger seat of the saloon car and did up the belt. He drove off but seemed to have difficulty with the gears and cursed only half under his breath when the engine conked out at the traffic lights.

‘It’s a new car. I haven’t driven it much,’ he commented in his own defence, cursing the fact that he so rarely drove himself anywhere. From childhood he had had a chauffeur and had only enjoyed the freedom of driving his own car while at university.

Rosie tried not to smile at the excuse. Just about everybody she knew got around the city on public transport. She wondered if his was a company car and if so, did that mean that even though he had to share an office, he was a bigger wheel than she had appreciated in STA Industries? Glancing out of the window, she finally realised that they were travelling in entirely the wrong direction.

‘Sorry, I should have given you my address first,’ she said and did so.

He hadn’t a clue how to get there: that was immediately obvious to her, although he tried to hide it. She gave him directions and tried not to wince as he wrenched at the gears like a learner driver every time they had to stop at traffic lights.

‘Will you join me for a meal?’ he asked casually when after several wrong turns—she was lousy at giving directions—they finally were within minutes of her bedsit.

Surprised by the invitation, Rosie glanced at him in dismay. At the same time her empty tummy emitted an embarrassing growl and she coughed in the hope of masking it. ‘A meal?’ she prompted.

‘By the sound of it you’re as hungry as I am,’ Alexius remarked, his amusement unhidden.

So, the cough hadn’t worked. Rosie reddened yet again. She could not remember ever being so self-conscious in a man’s company before and it exasperated her. Circumstances had thrown them together and his was a spontaneous invite. Why not? It wasn’t as though he was asking her for a date.

‘There’s a place just round the corner from my bedsit,’ she volunteered. ‘It’s not fancy but the food’s good.’

‘That’ll do.’ Alexius parked the car, noting in the driving mirror that his security team were following in the car behind him. They had probably laughed their socks off every time the car stalled on him, he reflected wryly. But having got into Rosie’s good books again, he had every intention of staying on target, even though he knew that he no longer had his godfather as an excuse to spend time with her. He would do as he liked; Alexius always did as he liked. When he saw the restaurant, a shabby, brightly lit beacon in a rundown street, he was taken aback. He had never eaten in such a place in his life. The sheer scale of the gulf between their daily lives finally penetrated and disconcerted him. Pretending to be someone else was bringing challenges he had not foreseen.

It was a relief for Rosie to know that she would have no need to cook when she got home. She smothered a yawn as he followed her into the self-service restaurant, popular with shift workers for its long opening hours. She lifted a tray and turned to see Alex scanning his surroundings with wide-eyed attention.

‘We serve ourselves?’ Alex enquired, a black brow quirking at the concept.

Without fanfare, Rosie handed him a tray and joined the queue. Across the room three women at a table were giving Alex the eye. He seemed quite unaware of their blatant interest as he studied the menu on the wall. He did attract attention though, Rosie conceded, deciding that he was too good-looking for his own good. It was a thought she was familiar with and it had occurred to her the first time she saw a photo of her very handsome blond, blue-eyed father, Troy Seferis. She had always been wary of very attractive men and for the first time it occurred to her that that was a rather unreasonable bias. Alex had waded in to tackle Jason for her sake and she had no reason to think him vain, shallow or self-serving, in fact, the direct opposite. Her green eyes rested on him assessingly. With his black hair, tall, well-built body and that lean, strong-boned face sheathed in bronzed skin, he was extremely eye-catching … and he was with her. Her narrow shoulders suddenly straightened and she smiled.

At the checkout Rosie tried to insist on paying for her own meal, which seemed to totally bewilder her companion.

‘No woman pays for herself in my company,’ he breathed with arrogant finality, passing money literally over her head to conclude the matter.

Rosie gritted her teeth at being overruled. As she grabbed cutlery and a napkin he hovered with his own tray as if he didn’t know what to do. As a last resort, she lifted cutlery and a napkin for him and asked him if he wanted water. For a fully grown adult male he could occasionally exude the strangest hint of helplessness, she thought in bewilderment.

‘Why didn’t you want me to pay for your meal?’ he demanded once they had found a table.

‘I always pay for myself when I’m with a guy,’ Rosie admitted stiffly. ‘That way there are no misunderstandings.’

His black curling lashes screened his disconcerted gaze. Socrates was going to like her, oh, yes, Socrates was going to like her a lot, he decided with suppressed amusement. But the concept of a woman paying for herself was entirely foreign to Alexius and he didn’t like it at all. ‘Tell me about that thug, Jason,’ he urged. ‘Who is he?’

‘Until about ten days ago, I shared a flat with a friend called Melanie. Jason was Mel’s boyfriend. One night he grabbed me in the kitchen and tried to kiss me and Mel walked into the middle of it,’ Rosie recited, rolling her highly expressive eyes heavenward at the unpleasant memory. ‘She blamed me totally for it and said I must’ve led him on and she told me to get out of the flat. I thought she would have seen sense and cooled down by the next morning but instead she stomped into my room, called me a man-stealing cow and started packing my stuff for me. She threw me out …’

‘And Jason?’ Alexius watched in fascination as she tucked hungrily into her Irish stew like a woman who hadn’t eaten in at least a week. She might be thin but, seemingly, she had a healthy appetite.

‘He was forgiven on the spot … or so I assumed, but tonight he said that they’ve broken up,’ Rosie told him wryly. ‘Whatever, I still don’t want anything to do with him.’

‘Bearing in mind his obvious anger management issues, that’s wise,’ Alexius commented.

‘Are you Greek?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I recognised a couple of the words you used speaking to the guy that drove us to the doctor’s.’

He tensed. ‘You speak Greek?’

‘No, only a few words, tourist stuff,’ she proclaimed, her head tilting, pale blonde hair feathering round her cheekbones in artless waves. ‘I signed up for classes once but only went to a couple. It’s a more difficult language than I expected.’

‘Why Greek?’ Alexius realised in surprise that he was actually quite content to sit in the dump of a restaurant if it meant he could watch her amazingly animated face, linger on her sparkling eyes and the brightness of her fleeting smiles.

Rosie studied him. He was getting a five o’clock shadow, dark stubble marking his hard angular jaw line and defining his beautifully sculpted mouth. On him, it was an incredibly sexy look. Her tummy turned a somersault inside her as he focused those curiously light eyes on her full force. ‘Why Greek? My father was Greek,’ she admitted a little shakily, disturbed by the knowledge that he attracted her as if she were iron filings and he were a magnet. That was a scary first for her. ‘I never knew him, though. He broke up with my mother before I was born and died soon afterwards.’

‘Your mother?’

‘She died when I was sixteen—she was diabetic and she wouldn’t follow the rules to improve her health and she had a heart attack. I don’t have any other relatives. What about you?’ Rosie prompted, marvelling that he could be sufficiently interested in her to ask such personal questions, but pleased as well.

‘My parents died in a car crash about ten years ago,’ Alexius volunteered. ‘I was an only child. Aside from a couple of very distant cousins, I’m alone in the world and I prefer it that way.’

Her brow furrowed in surprise. ‘But why?’

‘Family members can cause you a lot of grief,’ he said, his handsome mouth compressing on that clipped judgemental statement.

Rosie reflected that that was certainly true when it came to her own troubled relationship with her mother. Even so, the experience had not soured her entire outlook, but the unyielding angles of Alex’s features as he spoke suggested an engrained aversion to such close ties. ‘But being a part of a family can also bring great joy and security. It can be a source of strength and comfort. I saw that in one of the foster families I lived with. I’ve always wanted a family of my own,’ she admitted without hesitation.

‘Is that why you tried to learn Greek?’ Alexius enquired.

‘No, I don’t have any relatives in Greece either that I know of. But I had this crazy notion that my Greek blood would somehow make the language easier for me to learn.’ Rosie pulled a face and laughed at her youthful folly. ‘I soon found out my mistake.’

From his side of the table, Alexius was watching her intently. He was trying to work out what it was about her exquisite little face that constantly drew his attention back there. The expressive eyes and the sadness that was there in repose? The delicacy of her bone structure? As she laughed her whole face lit up and reluctant fascination gripped him. She was so natural, so relaxed in his company and he wasn’t used to that. She had disagreed with him on the topic of families and had had no fear of saying so and arguing her point. Women, indeed men as well, usually rushed to agree with Alexius while complimenting him on his insight and intelligence. She savoured the dessert she had chosen with tiny spoonfuls, pausing to lick her lips every so often so that not a drop could escape. He stared at that soft full mouth and lust roared through him at breathtaking speed, shocking him back to awareness. For the first time, he wondered if she was deliberately teasing him and if the friendly innocence of her manner was a fake to pull in the unwary.

In the sudden silence that had fallen, Rosie was insanely aware of Alex’s intent scrutiny. She could feel every breath she drew, the tightening pulsing sensation in her nipples and the sliding sense of warmth in a place much lower down that she wasn’t used to thinking about. An electrifying tension held her still, that treacherous warmth at the heart of her body tugging at her as she stared back at him. She knew it was desire controlling her, knew exactly what it was but could barely believe she was feeling it. The last time a man had got her that hot under the collar she had been sixteen and the object of her affections had been a poster pin-up on her bedroom wall, the lead singer of a long forgotten band. Alex Kolovos was a far more dangerous prospect than that first tender crush.

‘It’s time I said thank you and went home,’ Rosie told him curtly, keen to pull back and make her escape, for she didn’t like feelings or reactions that were not in her control. They made her feel unsafe and foolish. It had always been her secret terror that she might have inherited more of her mother’s impulsive passionate nature than she had ever appreciated. Jenny Gray had been a pushover for the wrong men, easily impressed, easily bedded, easily discarded. Rosie’s mother had lived in a chaos of traumatic relationships, always hoping for something better, never finding it, but hope had sprung eternal with every new man who came along.

Alex sprang upright, lifted her coat from her fingers and held it out for her to put on. ‘I’m not used to that kind of attention,’ she confided, her face colouring at the admission as they walked out of the restaurant and on down the street. ‘You can leave me now. I only live three doors down.’

Alexius said nothing but ignored the invitation to leave. She was unlocking the battered front door when, without even realising it, he put his hand on her arm to stay her. She turned back, colliding with those silvery-grey eyes of his, and her heartbeat hammered so fast she was afraid she might somehow choke on the tightness in her throat.

He wound his hand into her hair and bent his imperious dark head—it was a long way down to her level, he discovered as he captured her lush mouth with his. And that single sweet taste of her went straight to his head like the finest brandy and he kissed her with tortured, driving urgency, hauling her slight body up against him. He wanted her at that moment with a sexual ferocity he had never experienced in his life before.

At his first touch, Rosie had initially frozen in shock, but just as quickly she melted, entrapped by the surge of hunger that leapt inside her like a burning flame that threatened to consume her. Her arms went round his neck without her volition and she rejoiced when he crushed her to him. One little taste of him was only enough to make her crave the next with every fibre of her being. His tongue delved inside her mouth and she gasped, straining into his big powerful frame, desperate to sate the ache in her pelvis as he unleashed a tempest of desire through her body.

As she broke free of him briefly so that she could catch her breath, she was trembling and she didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want to let him walk away. ‘Come in for coffee,’ she heard herself say.

Coffee, she thought, trying not to wince as she thrust wide the door. Everyone knew that that was a euphemism for sex, didn’t they? What was she doing making such an invitation? Panic almost claimed her. He was more than she could comfortably handle. Her brain told her that she didn’t want passion. She didn’t want the dreadful feeling of loss clawing at her now as her body longed for him to touch her again. Safety with men meant maintaining a distance, never wanting more than she might receive, ensuring that she didn’t feel too much or get hurt. He broke every rule and that was too risky.

Alexius lifted his head, shrewd grey eyes veiled, face tight with self-discipline. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he playing at here? His body rigid with suppressed arousal, he lowered her back to the ground, knowing that he could more happily have pushed her back against the door and satisfied his hunger there and then. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a very long time. There was nothing wrong with that, he decided abruptly. He didn’t need to question his libido.

Determined to see where she lived, he followed her over the threshold. The entrance needed painting and the stair carpet was badly worn. It was dingy and for the first time he thought critically of his godfather, who had clearly committed money to the cause of raising his granddaughter without ensuring that it went to her rather than her mother.

The door to the living room opened and a tiny dog rushed out to leap at Rosie’s knees with shrill yelps of joyous welcome. She scooped him up and cuddled him like a toy. Enormous bat ears flexed above big dark eyes and the dog growled the instant he saw Alex. It was a chihuahua but it looked more like a cartoon rat of the nasty variety, Alex decided.

‘This is Baskerville … I call him Bas for short—’

‘Ah, you got him. He’s been fretting for you,’ Martha, the older woman in the doorway, declared. ‘He knows when you get home and he seemed to know you were late. He’s been patrolling that door listening to every sound for the past hour and more. Oh, you’ve got company …’

‘I should’ve rung you to let you know I’d be late back,’ Rosie said apologetically. ‘Thanks for looking after Bas.’

‘I’ll keep him,’ Martha declared, smiling and scooping the tiny dog back from Rosie and into her arms. ‘He’s great company.’

Martha vanished tactfully back into the living room. Rosie hovered. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she enquired in the rushing silence, barely able to look at Alex, she was so tense, so unsure, but suddenly she knew that she was done with living her whole life in fear, always afraid that she might make her mother’s mistakes.

‘No, I want you,’ Alexius admitted almost harshly, reaching for her again, urging her slight body up against him, crushing that luscious mouth below his again with hungry pleasure.

Rosie let him kiss her because she couldn’t stamp out the longing for that kiss or the even more intoxicating one that followed. Desire, she was learning, was a slippery slope. Give way, open the door to a little and you might invite in a whole lot more of the same. His tongue tangled with hers and a ripple of such intense reaction travelled through her that she shivered, hot and cold with sensation, shock and craving, feeling all the things she had never felt before, and, in that weakened state, his every touch was unbearably seductive.

‘Where’s your room?’ Alexius husked, lifting her up in his arms with decisive cool, finally getting her where he wanted her with a fierce sense of satisfaction.

Rosie gave him a conflicted look. ‘I don’t do this kind of thing, Alex. I don’t bring guys home.’

‘I’m not just a guy, moli mou,’ Alexius told her thickly as he mounted the stairs.

‘First door on the right,’ she told him hesitantly, her heart thumping so hard she was afraid it might stop. ‘No, first on the left!’

He claimed her mouth again then with even greater urgency and her body leapt and yearned and learned all at the same time. There was something about him, something that called to her down deep inside. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, brought her down on her narrow single bed and somehow nibbled on the soft sensitive fullness of her lower lip at the same time. His knowing mouth traced the corded delicacy of her throat, touching and teasing places she hadn’t known were erogenous to send searing flashes of blinding delicious desire racing through her. She slammed the door shut on the doubts at the back of her head.

CHAPTER THREE

ALEX found the switch of the bedside light and the small room was illuminated, stark and plain and impersonal. Reminding himself that she had only recently moved in, he stared down at her, his lean powerful length taut and pent-up with the hunger she had aroused.

Her glorious hair lay in a tangle across the pillow. There was a dazed look in her soulful eyes. Her mouth was swollen and red from his kisses and the allure of her called to him as strongly as a siren song. He flipped off her shoes, tugged at her sensible socks. He wanted to strip her bare, he wanted to see her. Painfully unsure of herself, Rosie came up on her elbows and reached down to unzip her trousers. He brushed her hand away and took over. Was this what men and women did? she wondered, plunged into ridiculous anguish by her own ignorance of how to behave in an intimate situation. Was it the done thing for her to lie there and let him undress her? If the only alternative was for her to get up and strip for him, she could not imagine doing it.

‘I don’t bite unless you ask me to,’ Alexius quipped, enjoying his ability to read her thoughts from her ever-changing expressions while he wondered what might be responsible for her obvious tension at the prospect of sex.

‘I’m not very experienced,’ she warned him defensively. ‘So, don’t be expecting too much.’

‘I know it will be amazing,’ Alexius fielded with a level of assurance that shook her. ‘You’re a passionate woman.’

‘Did you work that out from one kiss?’ she teased, scanning the high cheekbones that lent his face such strong, sexy symmetry along with the deep-set mystery of his stunning silvery-grey eyes.

‘There were many,’ he reminded her. ‘No, I see your passion in the way you look at me.’

Instantly, Rosie closed her eyes and he laughed with male appreciation, lightening the moment, putting to flight some of her shyness and uncertainty. ‘And how do you look at me?’ she traded, lifting fluttering lashes to study him.

‘Probably much the same way. The first time I saw you, I couldn’t take my eyes off you …’

She remembered him staring: she had been staring too but that statement buoyed her up, restored her flagging confidence. The pull towards him that she felt was not hers alone. In the interim he tugged off her trousers, frowning down at the plasters marring the smooth sweep of her slim, shapely bare legs. There might not be much of her but there was a delicate perfection to every line of her diminutive body, he decided as he roughly unknotted his tie. Rosie came up on her knees, no longer content to be passive, and removed his tie for him. Her hands lowered and slid beneath his suit jacket to his shoulders and the sheer heat of his hard muscular flesh burned through his shirt. She paused, gazing at him eye to eye for the first time, loving the blaze of intensity she saw there. There was nothing cool about Alex in this particular mood and he couldn’t hide the fact.

He captured her face between his big hands and claimed her mouth with hungry fervour, his innate need to dominate taking over while a low growl of satisfaction vibrated in his throat.

Her head swam and the tug at the heart of her intensified, so that she leant forward, bracing her weight on his shoulders. She wasn’t aware of him unbuttoning her tunic but she absolutely froze in dismay when he slid a hand between the parted edges, her heart thudding like a drum inside her.

She never wore a bra, had never needed to, and this was the moment he would learn that she had nothing much to offer up top where other women had a feminine bounty. But he didn’t hesitate or even tense in surprise. Instead, he cupped a slight swell in one hand and stroked a thumb across an almost painfully swollen nipple and she flinched, so on edge that she felt the thrumming power of that casual caress right down to her toes. With his free hand he lowered her down on the bed and straightened to pitch off his jacket, letting it fall carelessly on the floor.

‘What’s wrong?’ Alexius prompted, staring down at her with shrewd questioning eyes as his sure hands curled to the hem of her tunic. ‘You’re very tense …’

‘Could I keep that on?’ Rosie heard herself ask plaintively.

‘No,’ Alexius said simply, drawing her up one-handed to pull it off over her head.

Rosie felt naked, exposed and she didn’t like it and only just resisted the urge to clamp her hands over her flat chest.

‘I like your body,’ Alexius murmured thickly.

‘I don’t …’

Ignoring that response with the knowledge that few women appreciated their own bodies, Alexius peeled off his shirt to reveal a truly mesmerising physique, composed of washboard abs and a taut flat stomach peppered by a fine silky furrow of black hair. Rosie’s throat closed over. Her mouth ran dry. He was even more gorgeous half-naked than he was clothed. What on earth was he doing with her? Instantly, she suppressed the insecure thought, knowing that she could be her own worst enemy.

He shed his trousers and she looked … of course, she looked at the distinctive bulge in his close fitting boxers. It looked massive, and she swallowed hard. From his long, hair-roughened thighs to his broad shoulders and sleek narrow hips, he was all male, lithe and powerfully muscled. As he skimmed off his last garment she glanced hurriedly away, shy and unsure, but when he came back to her she felt his erection brush her thigh and she shivered, thinking, This is it, I’m a big girl now, time I knew what all the fuss is about.

‘You’re cold,’ he growled, coming into contact with her nerve-chilled lower limbs, his body hot as a furnace against hers.

He kissed her, and she gripped his shoulders, needing him to hold on to as his tongue mated with hers and the wild fever kicked off inside her again. It was like nothing she had ever felt, an insane, intoxicating flood of need that left her dizzy and trembling. Her hands sank into the silky luxuriance of his black hair. He might wear his hair short but there was a lot of it.

Alexius was struggling to contain his hunger and slow down. She was tiny and fragile and he didn’t want to hurt her. Lying there with her eyes wide open and somehow trusting as he gazed down at her, she seemed achingly vulnerable and naive and that sent a chord of dismay travelling through him. And then she shifted under him and her smooth soft skin slid against his and the peachy floral scent of her entrapped him, bringing the desire back full force. With the ease of long habit and strong self-control he stifled the stab of misgiving. She was happy, he was happy, why complicate things? This was sex, nothing but sex, and he never wrapped it up as anything other than a meeting of bodies.

He bent his arrogant dark head and shimmied down a little on the bed to lower his mouth to a very swollen nipple the delicate shade of an apricot and wonderfully ripe. Rosie gritted her teeth as sensation darted through her as though there were a line of elastic jerking taut between breast and pelvis. He rolled the sensitive peaks between his fingers and then he sucked them and her hips rose off the bed and she gasped.

‘You like that,’ Alexius whispered.

‘A lot,’ she admitted shakily.

But there was, she discovered, an awful lot more for her to like. There was the slow glide of his fingers along her inner thigh and the unbearable yearning to be touched. A finger sank deep inside and she writhed, breathless with longing. Her tension ratcheted up another notch as he stroked her clitoris, circling, touching, teasing, sending the tormenting pleasure to an ever greater height. The ache between her legs and the desire for more grew steadily.

‘Please …’ she gasped at one stage, not even sure what she was asking for, only knowing that she needed it more than she had ever needed anything.

‘Are you protected?’ Alexius asked, wishing that he had not tossed his jacket halfway across the room.

Rosie had once suffered from cramps and her doctor had advised her to take the contraceptive pill. She nodded in silence. ‘Not stupid,’ she squeezed out.

He sank his hands beneath her bottom to lift her to him and his erection nudged her core, seeking entrance. He moved slowly, carefully. ‘You’re so small, so tight,’ he ground out. ‘I could almost think you hadn’t done this before …’

She parted her lips to confirm the fact but no sound came out because all her concentration was on what was happening to her just then. He was pushing inside her, stretching her and it was the most extraordinary sensation as her body adapted to welcome him. Then with a groan of frustrated hunger he shifted his hips and drove deeper, and the sharp pain as he broke through the barrier of her innocence provoked a sharp cry from her.

‘What the hell—?’ Alexius demanded rawly although even at that point he was very much afraid that he knew very well what the matter was.

‘S’pose I should’ve warned you,’ Rosie mumbled, embarrassed to death by the cry she had given.

Alexius levelled forbidding icy-grey eyes on her flushed and anxious face. ‘You’re a virgin?’

‘Not any more,’ she pointed out helplessly. ‘My choice, my decision.’

Alexius gritted his teeth in annoyance. The deed was done. Her choice, not his and not a position he was used to finding himself in. But it was the work of a moment to let the dam of hunger he had rigorously restrained flow free and he buried himself deep in the silken welcome of her hot little body.

Her inner muscles clenched round him as tiny little tremors of pleasure began to course through Rosie. She had feared he might stop; she hadn’t wanted him to stop. Now he began to move, harder, faster, deeper and the excitement returned with an intensity that took her breath away. Raw sensation and energy controlled her now and she tilted her hips and locked her legs round him in instinctive welcome. The pleasure came in an electrifying wave, tingling and burning through her every fibre, and then it peaked as she came in shock at what she was feeling. Alexius shuddered and poured himself into her, on a high of excitement that was new to him. He looked down at her to see that tears had left glistening trails down her cheeks and knew that she had been overwhelmed as she gazed up at him in astonishment. He released her from his weight and, even though he usually rolled away from his lovers the instant he had achieved satisfaction, he pulled her back into his arms and held her close, his heart thudding madly against hers.

‘Are you all right, moli mou?’ Alexius asked, his breath fanning her cheek. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘No.’ Rosie suppressed her embarrassment by burying her face in a strong brown shoulder, drinking in the hot musky scent of him and loving it. She felt both light as air with happiness and exhausted. ‘I’m totally fine, Alex.’

‘Is there anywhere I can get a shower here?’ Alexius enquired, suddenly ill at ease with the way he was holding her to him and in search of a good get-out clause. He lacked the cuddle gene and didn’t even pay lip-service to it, but her tiny body felt surprisingly good nestled close to him, and he discovered that he was ridiculously reluctant to risk hurting her feelings by pushing her away.