The Greek's Baby Bargain (6 page)

“You look delicious,” he said but he didn’t bend to touch her in any way, only smiled and then turned to start the engine.

Emma had no idea where they were going today and didn’t care. She listened as Dimitri talked to her about the scenery they were passing, the older buildings and how they came to be side by side with the newer ones. He drove to the heliport and Emma was confused. Dimitri drove right up to the tarmac and helped her into a helicopter. From there, Emma was able to see Greece from a bird’s eye view and it was spectacular. As Dimitri flew the helicopter, he pointed out areas of interest and other historical places she hadn’t had a chance to get to yet since they were only visiting Athens this time.

After two hours of flying along the stunning coastline, pointing out various points of interest, he landed the small craft in a field and helped her out. In the cargo area, he had already stored a picnic and, at the top of a cliff looking out into the sea, they dined on cold chicken, sliced pears and delicious wine with cheese and crackers. Emma loved hearing him talk about the country and the culture. She could listen to him all day and not get bored. Once lunch was over, he took her back to the heliport but he didn’t drive her back to the hotel. They climbed back into the jeep and he drove her to the harbor where they walked along the pier, watching the fishermen bring in their catch from the day. He led her down the docks, pointing out the large fish, octopus and squid, all of which were horribly fascinating to someone who had dined on mundane food most of her life.

It was evening by the time he drove her back to the hotel but it was also the earliest in the past three days. Emma wanted to cry out that she didn’t want to leave him, but that would probably annoy him. Instead, she stood next to him on the sidewalk, looking up into his eyes and hoping that he would kiss her goodbye.

“What time is your flight tomorrow?” he asked.

His words were clearly not a prelude to a goodnight kiss and Emma’s heard almost broke with the knowledge that this would be goodbye. She desperately wanted to pull him to her and beg him to give her one more chance, the ask him to show her what it meant to be a woman. But she knew him well enough to be able to read his expression and it clearly said that they were finished. Sadly, she replied, “Early. We’ll need to be at the airport about seven o’clock.” She stared at the buttons on his shirt, unwilling and unable to look at his face, to see the end in his eyes.

“Call me when you land so I know you arrived safely. Okay?” he said, pushing a soft curl off her forehead that had fallen away from the others.

“Okay,” she said and bravely put on a smile. He hadn’t touched her all day long. Not even a casual or accidental touch. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t going to kiss her goodbye but she desperately wished it were otherwise.

“Goodbye, Dimitri,” she said, taking a deep breath to hold her emotions in check until she found the safety of her hotel room. “Thank you for today. It was beautiful.”

 

“Yes. It was. Have a safe flight,” he said and stepped back from her.

Emma nodded and turned away. Holding her head up straight, she walked all the way into the hotel without glancing back. It wasn’t until she reached the lobby that she felt safe to turn around and look back, wondering if she could have one last glace at his handsome face before he drove off. The tears were already coursing down her cheeks and her shoulders started to shake with the effort to keep the pain inside.

She saw him still standing on the sidewalk, hands on his hips but his back facing her. He looked up at the sky and shook his head before finally getting back into the jeep and driving off quickly. Emma’s heart broke but she knew there was nothing to do for it but to move forward, one step at a time. She’d only known the man for three days. He was wonderful to talk to and made her laugh. Whenever she made him laugh, she considered it a special treat since she didn’t think he laughed very often.

The plane ride home was awful. She’d cried throughout the night, unable to sleep as the pain lashed her body, making her insides churn. Once she was on the plane, her tears increased and by the time the wheels lifted off the tarmac, she was sobbing uncontrollably. Her friends tried to cheer her up, but their efforts only made it worse since they didn’t understand her sadness. She arrived home but didn’t call Dimitri, assuming that his request for a call to reassure him had only been to placate her due to the impersonal departure yesterday.

Classes started the day after their return and Emma threw herself into her classes immediately, studying far ahead of the class and even finishing several papers before they were even assigned, desperate to push all thoughts of Dimitri out of her mind and consciousness. She volunteered at the student center, helping other students with their courses and even at the local church to help out on the nursery, loving children and babies. Each time a thought slipped into her mind about Dimitri, she pushed herself harder, the pain of his rejection too intense to bear.

The second week, she answered the phone absently while making a list of things she could do to keep her mind off of Dimitri. “Hello?” she said, getting a clean piece of paper out to take a message for her room mates, knowing that the call wouldn’t be for her.
“Emma?” an angry voice came on over the line.

“Dimitri?” she asked, the pencil dropping from her numb fingers.

 

His voice was angry when he said, “I’ve been calling you for the past week. You didn’t call to tell me you were okay. I’ve been worried about you.”

 

“How did you get my number?” Her heart was racing at the sound of his voice and her fingers started shaking.

 

“Don’t worry about that. Just tell me why you didn’t call and let me know you had landed without incident!”

Emma could hear the anger in his voice but didn’t understand it. “I didn’t think you were serious,” she snapped back, not willing to take the abuse she didn’t think was justified.

“I told you to call. I never say something I don’t mean, Emma.”

Emma took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart beat. “Thank you for calling to ensure that I’m okay but everything turned out well. No problems at the airport, security was easy this time and we’re all safe and sound.”

“What about your classes?” he asked.

Since he didn’t sound angry anymore, Emma answered questions about her classes, her professors, the types of students in all of her classes for over a half hour. She was thrilled that he was talking to her but knew it was more of a fatherly concern which wasn’t what she wanted from this man. When she finally hung up the phone, the tears started to well up again in her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Picking up her list of things she should be doing, she dove into anything she could to keep her mind off of him. Distraction was the key she reminded herself.

She was walking across campus a month later, a fantasy involving a gorgeous Greek man storming into one of her classes and carrying her away to make love to her spinning through her mind. She took a seat on a bench in a sunny part of the campus to read through a chapter on physics, a topic she absolutely hated but had to get through for her degree.

A shadow fell over the page and she looked up, gasping when she saw Dimitri standing over her. “Dimitri?” she asked, sure that her eyes were deceiving her since she’d been thinking about him so often.

“Yes. How are you Emma?” he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked down into her confused features.

 

“Okay. What are you doing here?” He didn’t look happy to see her. In fact, he looked downright irritated.

Dimitri looked up at the sky, then back down at her. “I think we have some unfinished business. If you’re still interested, I want to finish what happened on the ship that night.”

Emma could only stare for the longest time as his words sunk in to her consciousness. “Really?” she finally said, her heart starting to expand so much that she wasn’t sure if it would stay within her chest.

He looked angry for a moment, then nodded his head. “Really.”

 

“When?” she breathed, her physics book forgotten. In fact nothing intruded on her mind except for the gorgeous man standing in front of her.

“I’ll pick you up tonight. We’ll have dinner first.” Without another word, she jumped up into his arms, ignoring the books that fell to the ground. He easily caught her in his strong embrace, his mouth already covering hers, taking possession and making her light headed while his hands rediscovered her body, the shape of her waist and her hips, not daring to go any farther in public.

After a long time, he pulled away, his thumb rubbing against her swollen mouth. “Until tonight, Emma,” he said and then turned to walk away.

Emma raced back to her apartment and searched through her clothes, desperately trying to find something sophisticated to wear. Between all of her friends, she finally came up with a pair of smart black slacks that hugged her waist and a figure hugging, white turtleneck sweater. She wore a pair of cubic zirconium earrings and no other jewelry. When he arrived to pick her up, she was more than ready for his kiss.

The night was spectacular. Dimitri arrived in a long black limousine and took her to a small restaurant where they ate pasta and drank red wine. Dimitri eased her nervousness by telling her funny stories about different people in the news, things she never would have heard about through the newspapers. By the time he took her to his London penthouse, she was more than ready to be with him.

As soon as the door closed behind them, her shivers started up again. Dimitri felt it and pulled back, taking off his tie as he said casually, “Would you like a brandy?”

Emma was relieved that they wouldn’t immediately go into the bedroom but also disappointed that he didn’t take her into his arms. She was only nervous when he wasn’t touching her or kissing her. But she was too shy to tell him that. “A brandy would be nice,” she replied, hoping he didn’t detect the catch in her voice.

He walked over to a bar and poured the amber liquid into two snifters, bringing one back to her. Emma took it and carefully took a sip, walking around the room and pretending to look at the décor. “This is nice,” she said, impressed with the blue and silver decorations but not really caring if they were fucia and orange. She just wanted him to kiss her and ease her anxiety.

“Come here, Emma,” he said, his voice deep and soothing.

He stood across the room, one hand holding the glass of brandy, the other deep in his pocket. She walked over to stand near him, but he pulled her closer. “Tell me what you want,” he said, his dark eyes staring down into her blue ones, reading her face to make sure she really wanted to be here.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she said, “I want you to kiss me.”

Slowly, he set both of their glasses on the coffee table. With extreme gentleness, he covered her mouth with his own, caressing her lips, moving back and forth. When he felt her relax against him, he moved from her mouth to her neck, finding the frantic pulse with his mouth and enticing the feelings higher while his hand slid higher, going from her waist to just under her breasts. As his mouth moved over her neck and ear, his hand hesitated and when he felt her arch against him, he moved his hand to cover her breast, catching the gasp of pleasure in his mouth as he covered hers again.

Picking her up in his arms, he carried her to the bedroom and set her down on her feet beside his bed. With deft hands, he slid the zipper down on her slacks, never stopping the sensual onslaught with his hands and his mouth. Her automatic and increasingly intense responses from her body inflamed him, driving his need higher but he kept reminding himself to hold back, to go slow.

He almost lost it when her shirt fell to the floor and he stood there, looking at her incredible body in just a pair of black lace underwear and a scrap of nothing lace bra that barely covered her nipples. “You’re beautiful,” he said, reaching up with his hand and tracing the lace on her left breast.

Emma shivered, desperate to feel more. Her body instinctively moved so that the path his finger was tracing would come down across her nipple, but he wouldn’t allow it. His finger moved higher, avoiding the peak pebbling under the lace.

“Please, touch me, Dimitri,” she said and took his hand in hers and covered her breast, closing her eyes when the shudder rippled through her body. “Yes,” she sighed happily.

Dimitri watched her face, unaware of the sweat breaking out on his forehead as he watched this sensuous, gorgeous woman and the reactions his simple touch were creating on her face. He wanted to pick her up and sink his hardness into her soft, welcoming warmth but, more so, he wanted this night to be special for her and he’d have to go slower to make that happen. Reminding himself of her innocence, which was damn hard at the moment as her passion glazed eyes looked up at him and made his body clench more tightly, he forced his body to slow, his touch to be more gentle. The realization that no man had ever touched her was a heady one and he wanted her to remember his touch, his love making when she went on to her next lover.

That thought stunned him as well as the fury that rampaged his mind at the idea of another man touching this glorious, passionate woman that seemed to blossom with his touch. He didn’t want Emma experiencing anything else with another man. He didn’t like that feeling so he concentrated on bending his head and tasting her breast, kissing her already budding nipple, then laving it with his tongue, enjoying her cries of ecstasy as he brought her desire to the next level.

“Yes!” she cried out and Dimitri lifted her up and placed her gently on the bed, his fingers expertly flicking the clasp on her bra and tossing it aside.

Except for her underwear, she was completely naked while he was still fully dressed. Looking up at him, his dark suit and his silk tie, she licked her lips nervously, then sat up on her knees. “Do you mind?” she asked, her fingers shaking as she reached up and touched his tie tentatively.

Dmitri almost groaned with pleasure as her fingers found his skin. “Please do,” he said and was stunned to hear his voice sound so husky.

Emma clumsily unknotted his tie, then tossed it to the ground, a part of her mind thinking she should be less careless with his clothes but another part of her was desperate to see him, to feel him. She pushed the perfectly tailored suit off his shoulders then started on the buttons of his shirt but her shaking fingers were not up to the task of unbuttoning them. He chuckled and pushed her hands gently away. “Let me help you,” he said and tore through the task, then pulled her hands back up, placing both against the now bared skin.