Cristos winced. 'Don't be such a -pessimist. I'll be careful. I’ll withdraw.'

Betsy had turned very pink at that declaration and she was no longer meeting his brilliant dark gaze. 'It's too risky-'

'I'm a risk-taker-'

'I'm not, never have been.'

'If I get you pregnant I will be there for you every step of the way,' Cristos swore huskily. 'You don't need to worry. I don't think: it's going to happen, but be assured that if it does I will take full responsibility and support you.'

Betsy stole a glance at his devastatingly handsome face. Was he really thinking things through? She could not help being impressed.

'Trust me, pethi mou… ' Cristos added, doffing his chinos with a flourish.

His designer boxers interfered with her concentration. He shed those too with the natural grace that accompanied every supple movement of his lean, hard body. Involuntarily she stared at the rigid maleness of his bold shaft and hastily averted her eyes, thinking that she had just found another very good reason why they should not be getting together. In fact she was having very serious second thoughts.

'It's not that I don't trust you,' she began tremulously as the mattress sank beneath his weight. 'It's just that-'

'You're nervous and outrageously shy about displaying your fantastic figure.' Cristos parted her arms, spread them wide and rearranged her hair so that the tumbled strands no longer concealed her breasts. 'I'm your perfect match. I don't have a modest bone in my entire body.'

'I know that but… ' Betsy looked up at him and met scorching golden eyes that sent her heartbeat into a sprint.

'All you have to do is lie back and enjoy being seduced,' Cristos told her lazily, tipping her back so that her mane of hair spread in a vibrant fan across the pillows. 'I had several wildly erotic dreams about you before we even met on Friday. Now I have you here on this bed I intend to live the fantasy.'

'I'm not a fantasy, though,' she whispered. 'I'm just an ordinary woman.'

'No ordinary woman could exercise this much sexual power over me… I'm a tough guy to pull,' Cristos asserted, holding her hands down beneath his and feeding from the sweetness of her already-reddened mouth with burning intensity.

It was as if every skin cell in her body were throbbing into new life. He let his teeth graze her throat and her pulses leapt with almost painful enthusiasm. Electric excitement had her in its grip. His thumbs flicked over her distended nipples, lingered to torment. Even more sensitive there than she had been minutes earlier, a whimper of sound escaped her. Her hips were shifting on the cool sheet below her. A barely understood hunger was tearing at her in waves of wanting. She was unprepared for the sharp bittersweet edge of sensation that bereft her of control, leaving her capable only of yearning for the next and the next. But, somehow, not the most passionate kiss or knowing caress could answer the fever burning inside her.

'I didn’t know it would be like this…' she gasped, both exhilarated and scared by the sheer overwhelming force of her own longing.

'Layer on layer of the most perfect pleasure, pethi mou.'

He skimmed through the silken copper curls below her belly and lightly traced the thrumming heart of her. She was unbearably tender, hot and damp. She twisted. He held her still. He let his mouth trail a slow, 'smoothing passage down over her quivering body. 'Relax…'

She was boneless with anticipation. Her hands fluttered over him, discovering the bunched muscles of his shoulders, the smooth hard strength of his back. The feel of his incredibly male body against hers held her rapt. The taste of his skin beneath her lips and her tongue enchanted her. She was in a world of discovery. He explored the slick wet heat of her. She twisted and turned, the fire of her desire racing higher and higher until it threatened to consume her.

He tilted her back and shifted over her to ease into her tight, moist entrance degree by degree. Her eyes opened wide in wonderment. Where she had ached he filled her to the hilt. The sudden stark flash of pain as he powered through the barrier of her resisting flesh took her by surprise and then he thrust into her some more.

Cristos looked down at her with hot golden eyes. 'You feel awesome.'

He eased his hands beneath her hips, arched her up to him and sank even deeper into her with a groan of very male satisfaction. She had no time to catch her breath. With slow, provocative deliberation, he set a sensual rhythm that made her heart pound like mad against her breastbone. He ground down into her and wild excitement seized her. The pace quickened. She moved against him with an abandon that became more and more frenzied. Any notion of control was long gone. She was reaching for the very zenith of pleasure when – without any warning he suddenly yanked himself back from her.

'Cristos… l' she yelped in disbelief and she stretched up and hauled him back to her before he could complete his withdrawal.

He slammed back into her willing body with welcome fervour. She hit the heights in an explosion of ecstasy. He bit out something raw in his own language. His magnificent body shuddered over her and she clung to him as the shattering pagan surge of pleasure rocked them both.

In the aftermath, she hugged him close, revelling in that new intimacy and feeling incredibly content.

'As withdrawals go, that was a disaster,' Cristos muttered breathlessly, surveying her nonetheless with scorching golden eyes of appreciation and smoothing back her tousled hair to drop a kiss on her brow.

'Oh…' Too late, Betsy realised what she had done and she blamed her own mindless excitement for her lack of awareness. 'My fault.'

'But as an experience… it was the ultimate. I do hope this isn't going to be a one-night stand,' Cristos murmured teasingly, flipping over onto his back and scooping her up to arrange her back on top of him.

In rather a daze at the new state of play between them, Betsy gazed down at him. Feeling quite unlike herself and insanely happy, she smiled.

The softened light in her clear eyes disturbed Cristos. 'A word of warning,' he murmured lightly. 'Don't go falling in love with me. I'm not into all that.' "

A deep inner chill banished her sunny mood. It took effort not to betray her disconcertion and her hurt. It took even more of an effort to produce an amused laugh. 'You don't need to worry,' she told him, affronted by the warning he had considered jt necessary to give her. 'I'm in love with someone else.'

Astonished by that careless statement, Cristos went very stilt He did not think about what he did next;-he went with his gut reaction. Clamping two hands to her waist, he scooped her off him again and dumped her

back on the bed beside him with a scant lack of ceremony. 'Then why did you go to bed with me?'

Taken aback by his flagrant anger, Betsy scrambled out of the bed. Only then did she recall that she was stark naked and an immediate need to drop to her knees in search of something to wear could not have been said to cool her temper. Below the bed she found the sarong she had discarded earlier and she dragged it round herself.

'I'm waiting for an answer… ' Cristos stressed. 'Well, I don't see what you have to get all worked up about.' Betsy's ire was up and she had gone on the defensive. 'When you felt the need to tell me not to go falling for you, you should be grateful to hear that

I'm in love with another man!'.

'Who is he?' Cristos growled, furious with her, aghast at her lack of shame. To think that he had fondly imagined that she was vulnerable, naive…

'None of your business.' Betsy tied the sarong in a knot over her breasts. Her hands were all fingers and thumbs. She was upset and she couldn't understand why she had had such a violent adverse response to what he had said to her.

'You made it mine when you got into bed with me,' Cristos framed in a raw undertone. 'Who is this guy? Your boyfriend?'

Her resistance gave in the surge of bitterness that that enquiry produced. 'He was once,' she admitted tightly. 'But now he lives with my sister and they have a child.'

At that admission, the savage edge to his anger blunted. The other guy was unavailable and not a rival. 'How long since you were with him?'

'Three years.'

Cristos treated her to a derisive appraisal. 'And you still haven't got over him?'

'You are one hateful, sarcastic bastard when you want to be!' Betsy yelled at him full throttle, high spots of colour burning over her cheeks.

A symphony of bronzed flesh and powerful masculinity, Cristos lounged back against the tumbled pillows, offensive in his studied relaxation. 'Three years after this guy shacks up with your sister, you're still in love with him… don't you think that's more than a little sad?'

Betsy was in such a rage she felt light-headed. 'You don't understand what you're talking about. Rory was my best friend, my soul mate-'

'But you never screwed him,' Cristos slotted in with a blunt lack of respect for such high-flown sentiments that sent her hot temper climbing even higher. 'So he must have been a non-starter between the sheets.'

'You're disgusting… you reduce everything to a sexual level!' Betsy slammed back at him.

'I'm also the guy you gave your virginity to.'

'So you've got sex appeal… just as well, you've got nothing else!' Betsy slung at him between gritted teeth. 'You're intensive, ignorant, vain-'

'Where the hell do you get off calling me vain?' Cristos roared at her.

Hands on her slender hips, Betsy treated him to an all-encompassing look ·of scorn such as he had never before received from a member of her sex 'Suggesting that I would be thick enough to fall in love with a guy like you! And you don't think that's vain?'