The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters
by me! I’m not trying to take away your heart either. Love isn’t something to dread.”
“I know that,” he cut in. “But people knowing how I feel... When that woman said we were in love tonight, I lost a bit of sanity. I couldn’t bear for them to know how much you mean to me. It makes me too vulnerable.”
It wasn’t the statement she was looking for, but it was close enough to make her turn and look at him. “Do you mean that?”
“The last thing I feel toward you is dread, Jaya. When I walk through the door, I’m relieved, like some kind of unidentified pain has stopped. I’m so damned happy to see you, it’s embarrassing. Is that love? You tell me. I’ve never felt like this toward anyone. It sure as hell isn’t anything like what I feel toward my sister,” he growled.
She pressed a hand to her diaphragm, reminding herself to keep breathing because she felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Somehow she found her voice. “Each time I see you, I’m filled with intense joy, like I’m finally home and safe again, no matter where we are.”
Reaction seemed to spasm across his features. “When you say things like that, I almost don’t want to believe it. It means too much and I trained myself not to care, not to want, but I crave those things you say, Jaya. They make me start to hope.”
“For what?” A fragile bubble of optimism was building in her, but she was afraid to grasp it in case it burst.
He visibly struggled, feet shifting, glance cutting to the door before he hardened his stance and lifted his chin, no defenses anywhere on him as he revealed both somber vulnerability and an achingly tender warmth toward her.
“That you might come to love me one day.”
Her own controls fell away, leaving her floating in a void, jaw slack, mind wiped clean by shock. A hot pressure flared in the back of her throat, urging her to speak, but all she could say was, “I’m such an idiot.”
Before she could cover her face and absorb how appallingly stupid she’d been, she glimpsed how her words affected him. The tightening and closing, the dimming of his eyes.
“I thought if I told you how much I love you, it would scare you,” she blurted, lurching forward a step. “I’d make you feel too much pressure. Like you were failing me because we’re not equal, but I shouldn’t have held back. I should have told you.”
“That you love me,” he clarified in a voice that rocked between disbelief and shaken anticipation. He came forward to grasp her arms. “That’s what this is? This feeling like if we have a disagreement, I’ll die of loneliness? That if I’m hurting I don’t want anyone around except you, and if you’re there I can bear anything, that’s it? That’s love?”
She nodded, blinking matted lashes. A tickle of wetness ran onto her cheek. “That’s how it is for me. I want to tell you things I’d never admit to another soul.”
He cupped her face in gentle fingers, his eyes blazing with heat and admiration and adoration. “Then Jaya, I have loved you for a very long time.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart had grown too big for her chest. Her mouth wouldn’t form words because her lips were quivering.
He soothed them with the pressure of his own. The tender kiss deepened by degrees past sweet wonder into heat and passion and a deep need to express their love completely. They knew each other’s signals and they were even more evocative now. He cupped her breast and held her heart. She pressed her lips to the pulse in his throat and only a very fine, translucent wall separated her from his lifeblood.
“Oh, Theo, I’m sorry—”
“Shh, I shouldn’t have made you wait, either. I just didn’t know...”
“I know. I love you.” She kissed him again, unable to control the outpouring of emotion, passion, her need to connect.
He slowly drew back, but only to offer a smug smile. “I scored us a free night of babysitting.”
“How could I not love you for that?” She was bursting with joy at how carefree he looked. Like he’d fully broken free of his shell and all of him was available to her.
He swooped to whisk her off her feet and into the cradle of his arms, making her gasp in surprise. As he started for the bedroom, she toed off her shoes so they clunked to the floor.
“Are we going to sleep at all tonight?” she teased.
“You say when, you know that.” He set her onto the bed and followed her in one motion, his strength and power entwining with hers in the familiar way she’d come to love. “But I’ll make it worth staying up if you do,” he cajoled.
He did, fulfilling her completely when, hours later, they were trembling with sexual exhaustion. Still panting, damp skin adhered and bodies locked in ecstasy, he smoothed her hair from her cheek with a shaking hand and looked into her eyes. “I love you. I will love you forever. Thank you for being my wife.”
* * * * *
Rebecca Winters
His only chance to be a father…
Navy SEAL captain Nikos Vassalos is a shell of the man he once was. Tortured by PTSD, he isolates himself on his luxury yacht. But his bitter solitude is interrupted—by a heavily pregnant woman who tells him he’s about to be a dad!
Putting her own deep-rooted fears of rejection aside, Stephanie Marsh is determined that her baby will know its father. Only this cold, suspicious Nikos is not the man she once fell for. Will the tiny miracle growing inside her help them find the happy ending they both deserve—together?
REBECCA WINTERS lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. With canyons and high alpine meadows full of wildflowers, she never runs out of places to explore. They, plus her favourite vacation spots in Europe, often end up as backgrounds for her romance novels – because writing is her passion, along with her family and church. Rebecca loves to hear from readers. If you wish to email her, please visit her website at cleanromances.com.
To my talented daughter Dominique, a writer herself, who has put up with her outre writer mum and encouraged her through thick and thin.
How lucky can I be?
April 27
EVERY TIME MORE hotel guests entered the beachfront resort restaurant on Grace Bay in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, Stephanie expected to see her black-haired Adonis appear. That was how she thought of Dev Harris.
After their fantastic ninety-foot dive to Elephant Ear Canyon that afternoon to see the huge sponges, the tall, powerfully built New Yorker, who resembled a Greek god, had whispered that he’d meet her in the dining room at eight for dinner. They’d watch the sunset and later, each other.
As he’d helped her out of the dive boat, giving her arm a warm squeeze, his eyes, black as jet, conveyed the words he didn’t speak in front of the others in their scuba diving group. He was living for another night with her like last night.
She’d reluctantly left him to go to the beachfront condo and get ready for dinner. Her silvery-gold hair needed a shampoo. She’d decided to wear it loose from a side part. Time with the blow dryer and a brush brought out the natural curl, causing it to flow across her shoulders.
With the golden tan she’d picked up, tonight she’d chosen to wear a blue sleeveless sundress. She wanted to look beautiful for him. Last night she’d worn a filmy tangerine-colored dress and had bought a shimmering lip gloss to match. He’d told her that, in