In the Greek's Bed. Sara Wood
what I need—a sprained ankle, or, the way this day is going, it will probably be broken!
Impatiently brushing the tears of self-pity and impatience from her face, Katie squared her shoulders and, catching her soft lower lip between her teeth, concentrated her efforts on getting to her feet.
So far, so good, she thought as she tentatively took a cautious step; to her relief her ankle hurt but it took her weight. Wincing, she hobbled over to a convenient Japanese flowering cherry tree that was shedding its sweet-smelling blossoms onto the damp grass below and leaned against the trunk.
She gazed towards the house. The fire crew, seeing she was not seriously hurt and no longer capable of dashing headlong into a burning building, had turned their attention elsewhere.
Katie was pondering the compulsion that had been responsible for her stunt—as if I could do something the fire-fighters couldn’t—when she finally recognised what the fire crew had turned their attention to. A tall figure was emerging from the smoke.
‘Thank God!’
She watched through a teary haze of relief as a couple of paramedics headed purposefully towards Nikos. The incredible noise of a fire scene seemed to recede to a low background buzz and the hurrying figures appeared to slow; only her heart continued to beat fast, so fast she could feel the vibration of each inhalation in her throat. She lifted a hand to her spinning head; each breath she took was an effort.
If I faint now he’ll probably accuse me of faking it to steal his moment of triumph. Only she didn’t faint, the nervous tension found a more prosaic release.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she gulped to nobody in particular, before she quietly did just that—not that anyone noticed; they were all crowding around Nikos.
Trust him to turn out to be a hero…it was a part he was born to play, she thought, a wry but relieved smile on her face as she leaned back against the tree trunk.
CHAPTER SIX
THE hero was clearly not comfortable with his moment of fame.
‘I am fine.’ The cough that followed this impatient pronouncement did not add weight to his claim. Ignoring a recommendation to breathe deeply, Nikos pushed aside the oxygen mask that someone was trying to slip over his head. ‘I don’t need that!’
‘You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke,’ the paramedic explained patiently.
Nikos smiled thinly and resisted the impulse to point out to this well-meaning individual that as the one who’d done the inhaling he didn’t need any reminders. After a few moments of fruitless arguing they reached a compromise, of sorts.
‘Though it is an unnecessary precaution I will come with you if you give me a few moments to speak to my wife.’ Nikos gestured towards the solitary figure on the lawn and immediately regretted it because by no stretch of the imagination did she look in need of comfort. In fact she looked extraordinarily composed. ‘I think she’s in shock,’ he improvised.
Hopefully this would adequately explain away the fact that his wife had been able to contain her joy at his miraculous escape. His lips curled in a cynical smile, then he shrugged; at least she wasn’t a hypocrite.
‘Well, just a few minutes…’
Everyone, Nikos reflected, was a sucker for a couple in love.
Did the professionals think it strange his wife had not been part of his reception committee? That she hadn’t dashed to throw her arms about his neck, tears of joy running down her cheeks? Nikos did not ponder the question for long; he rarely worried about how his actions were viewed by strangers. Though the potent image did remain in his mind, not because he was thinking about the impact on others—no, it was the impact on himself that occupied his thoughts.
Smooth arms wrapped around his neck, a soft, pliant body pressed to his, a silky head close to his heart. As he closed the distance between them anyone noticing would have wrongly assumed that the dark bands of colour highlighting the slashing curve of his high cheekbones were a product of the inferno he had just escaped—they’d have been wrong.
This scenario in his head was not a displeasing one, so the primitive response of his body was not, Nikos reasoned, to be wondered at. It was an explanation he was content with, but his reluctance to release this image was less easily rationalised.
Katie levered her back from the tree trunk and pushed a large hank of heavy hair from her face. ‘You found me, then…’
Nikos nodded. Her question made him realise that even though she had made no push to attract his attention, some inner radar had located her the moment he’d emerged from the building.
If you ignored the dark film of grime covering his skin and clothes he looked quite remarkably unscathed by his recent brush with death. In fact, he radiated an almost indecent amount of edgy vitality. It occurred to Katie that this was probably the most natural and relaxed she’d seen him. Near-death experiences obviously did for him what a box of chocolates, a soppy romance and a glass of wine did for her.
One corner of his mouth lifted as their eyes touched. Katie felt a flare of indignation—it clearly hadn’t even occurred to him that she had been through hell and back during the last few minutes because of his ridiculous macho stunt.
She didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or kiss him. Not literally kiss him, of course, because that would involve…her stomach took a sharp dive and the flow of her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt. Her wide eyes were drawn by an invisible but irresistible force to the sensual curve of Nikos’s mouth.
She swallowed convulsively, unable to prevent the image forming in her head of that sexy mouth claiming her own, parting her lips, his tongue invading her mouth, tasting…touching.
She shook her head and took a deep, tremulous breath. But it was too late, the chain reaction had already started.
Her eyelids fluttered as a rush of fluid warmth worked its way up swiftly from her shaking knees until her entire body was bathed in the golden glow. She held her breath and willed the flames consuming her to subside.
Katie couldn’t deny she had wanted to experience that kiss for real; for several moments she had been consumed by the wanting. Even now her bones ached with the raw desire that had swept through her with the ruthless force of a forest fire.
She was guiltily aware that she had never felt that way anticipating Tom’s kiss. She struggled to understand what had happened and more importantly why it was happening. It had to be her hormones; this was some sort of revenge attack because she’d neglected them.
Or maybe this wasn’t just hormones—it was conceivable that she was actually suffering from some post-traumatic thing? Her flashbacks just happened to be of something that hadn’t happened yet—yet! A grammatical error, nothing more, and she for one hated people who banged on about Freudian slips.
The more she considered it, the more she became convinced that the extraordinary things she was feeling were a result of the near-death thing. That sort of ‘we could have died but didn’t, let’s go to bed’ thing—it apparently happened in war situations all of the time. Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized she’d jumped from kissing to bed!
That was an alarming leap by anyone’s standards.
She realised that Nikos was waiting for her to say something.
‘You’re not dead,’ she heard herself blurt out stupidly. Stupid it might be, but it was a far safer option than begging him to kiss her.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit singed if that’s any help.’
Katie took a deep offended breath. ‘Don’t be facetious!’
Nikos inclined his head in meek acknowledgement of her censure. ‘It’s true, look at my eyelashes.’
‘I don’t want to look at them,’ she snapped, turning her head away. In