What the Greek's Wife Needs Read online

  “We do seem to play off one another, don’t we? I haven’t forgotten.” It was a smoky warning that made her want to wriggle closer.

  She pushed her palm against the weight of the blanket where his chest was radiating warmth into her side, resisting him as much as reminding herself that she ought to.

  “Don’t pretend your reaction has anything to do with me.”

  “See, that makes me think you’ve forgotten how good we are together.”

  He hadn’t moved, and she was suddenly fixated on how close he was, willing him to close the distance between his mouth and hers.

  She should have said something pithy but wound up saying, “Perhaps I have.”

  And slowly, very, very slowly, the shadow of his shoulders shifted. His head lowered. The tip of his nose brushed hers and the heat of his lips settled feathery soft across hers. She let her mouth open slightly while he ever so gently deepened the contact, searching out the fit before he sealed them in a deep kiss and plunged them into a molten sea of passion.

  Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Harlequin novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

  Books by Dani Collins

  Harlequin Presents

  Untouched Until Her Ultra-Rich Husband

  Cinderella’s Royal Seduction

  A Hidden Heir to Redeem Him

  Confessions of an Italian Marriage

  Innocent in the Sheikh’s Palace

  Once Upon a Temptation

  Beauty and Her One-Night Baby

  One Night With Consequences

  Innocent’s Nine-Month Scandal

  Bound by Their Nine-Month Scandal

  Secret Heirs of Billionaires

  The Maid’s Spanish Secret

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Dani Collins

  What the Greek’s Wife Needs

  This book was written in early 2020 as the social distancing measures began to take place. This is for you, dear reader. I wish we could all have a sexy tycoon sweep in to release us from being housebound and whisk us into a much more luxurious world. At least I can give you one for a few hours. Enjoy!

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THE SECRETS SHE MUST TELL BY LUCY KING

  PROLOGUE

  Five years ago

  THIS WAS IT. Tanja Melha was a modern woman and she would go after what she wanted.

  Which happened to be a man, leaving her to wonder exactly how modern she really was, but she was also human. Leon Petrakis was sexy and single, and she was headed back to university in a few weeks. This was her only shot at a summer fling that might cure her of a crush she couldn’t seem to shake.

  She sauntered down the ramp to the wharf, watching her step around the coiled ropes and other tripping hazards. The August evening was a few degrees cooler down here on the water, and laden with the scent of seaweed and tidal flats. Home, she thought, breathing it in.

  Her childhood friends hadn’t been able to leave the island fast enough, heading to Vancouver or Calgary or Toronto. Tanja went to the University of Victoria, and sometimes even that felt too far from Tofino, the small town on Vancouver Island’s west coast where she’d grown up.

  Which was another reason she had to carpe this man on this diem. Leon was Greek, but a citizen of the world, living off his sailboat. He was intending to stay the rest of the summer to help her brother expand her father’s marina, but he was the type of rootless bachelor who could easily slip over the horizon at any moment.

  As she came up to his slip, she saw him stowing something in the hold of the cockpit in the stern. He wore frayed denim cutoffs and nothing else but a tan.

  Lord, he was perfectly made. She drank in his broad shoulders and the twist of his spine, the light layer of dark hair on his thighs, and the absent way he planted his feet and rode the movement of the boat when a rippling wave came in.

  “Hey, sailor.” It was supposed to be a casual greeting but came out throaty with the lust that was overtaking her.

  He straightened and turned, unhurried and even more magnetically beautiful when his slow smile appeared.

  “Hello, Books.” She had a feeling he deliberately used her brother’s nickname for her, trying to push her into the pigeonhole of “best friend’s little sister.” His black hair was long enough to show its natural curl, his eyes dark and brimming with masculine appreciation as he slid his gaze down her blue minidress with its spaghetti straps.

  She did the same to him, noting the way the hair on his chest flowed out from his sternum to dance like flames toward the brown discs of his nipples. Another darker line drew her eye from his navel to the brass button that barely held his shorts on his hips.

  “I’m all paid up on my moorage fees. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She dragged her eyes back to his knowing grin. He’d seen where her attention had strayed and liked it, which made butterflies take flight inside her.

  “I wondered if you wanted company for happy hour?” She held up the bottle of wine she’d brought. It was a crisp, dry white coated in condensation from the short walk from her car.

  After the briefest of pauses, he tilted his head and said, “How could I say no? Come aboard.” He took the bottle in one hand and held out his other to assist her.

  He didn’t move back to give her room. When she stepped down into the cockpit beside him, they were toe to toe, practically mashed up against each other. He kept her hand in his and looked down his nose at her.

  “I’m too old for you, you know.”

  “At twenty-nine? Please. I’m twenty-two. I didn’t come here to lose my virginity.” But she had come here for lovemaking. She couldn’t pretend otherwise. Not when her breath was hitching so unevenly that her breasts grazed his muscled chest.

  The corners of his mouth slowly curled. “Should I open this now or later?”

  Oh, he was smooth. She told herself that was why he appealed to her. She wanted to know what it was like to be with a man who knew his way around every piece of coastline on a woman’s body.

  “Later.” The word was a husk in the back of her throat. She couldn’t peel her eyes off his mouth.

  “Come below,” he invited.

  She ought to be nervous. In some ways she was. She didn’t do random hookups. She’d had a few boyfriends and had dated since being at university, but her two relationships that had been serious enough for lovemaking had been hard cases of puppy love, intense enough to dent her heart when they fell apart. Sex with the first had been many frustrating experiments in figuring things out, the second a much more successful and satisfying pairing, but they ultimately wanted different things.

  The bottom line was, she was hardly an expert in the arts of seduction and eroticism.

  “This is nice,” she said of the interior. It was tidier than she’d expected, given how devil-may-care his personality seemed. The windows were surprisingly big and bright, showcasing the gleam of t
he polished wood and stainless steel. The upholstery was maroon, the curtains smoky gray, the accent cushions sage green and rusty orange.

  “Thanks.” He stowed the wine in the refrigerator and rinsed his hands, then dried them on a tea towel, hip leaned beside the sink. “I keep it this way. I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Weren’t you?” She dipped her chin in a small challenge. She’d been flirting unabashedly since returning in June. He had finally, this morning, given her a low whistle and said, “Lookin’ good, Books.”

  Now he didn’t bother pretending to be sheepish. “I’m a sucker for a miniskirt. What can I say?” His gaze went down to her low-heeled sandals. “And long legs. Freckles.” His gaze struck the ones on her chest, then her face. “Red hair.”

  “Why didn’t you say? I’d have been here sooner.”

  “You know why.” He opened his feet, slouching a little lower as he invited her with a roll of his wrist to come closer.

  “I don’t,” she assured him, trying to act blasé as she moved into the space he’d made. “We’re consenting adults.”

  A fine tremble of anticipation accosted her, belying the maturity she was claiming to possess. Her hands hesitated when she felt the heat off his skin hit her palms, then she gently let them rest on the firm muscles of his upper chest.

  His wide hands came to her waist. He didn’t kiss her. He looked deeply into her eyes.

  “Mixing business with pleasure gets messy. As you see, I prefer tidy.”

  “Your business is with my brother.”

  “Mmm.” His mouth pursed as though he wasn’t convinced. His fingers dug a little more intently into her hips, as though he was undergoing some small struggle within himself. “And you’re here for pleasure?” His gaze was incinerating her mouth.

  “Hope springs eternal,” she teased in a breathy voice, leaning a little closer. “So far it seems like you want to talk my ear off.”

  “That is not what I want to talk off you.” He dipped his head, brushed her mouth once with his own as though testing whether she was sure, then he covered her lips in a long, unhurried kiss that sent an earthquake through her, unhinging her knees.

  She had sensed that things would be different with him. Stronger. More exciting. She hadn’t known he would fill her with the energy of a thousand storms.

  She curled her arms around his naked shoulders, holding on and moaning at how vital and strong he was, enclosing her in hard arms, crushing her breasts to his chest. The scent of salt air and sunscreen clung to his taut, smooth skin. His light stubble abraded her chin and the faint taste of coffee lingered on his tongue when he swept it into her mouth.

  He was only kissing her, and this was already miles beyond anything she’d experienced. All of her was flowering open. She was kissing him back with an abandon that wasn’t like her at all, and she couldn’t help it. The more deeply he kissed her, the more turned-on she was and the more she wanted to turn him on.

  He made a deeply sexy noise in his throat, and his fingers dug through her skirt into the crease of her butt. He squeezed the underside of her cheek, pulling her hips into contact with his rippled fly and the hard shape behind it. They were fully plastered to one another, kissing like their lives depended on it. She began to think hers might.

  Leon broke away to whisper in Greek. It might have been a curse.

  “I really didn’t expect this,” he said in his sensual accent, nipping at her jaw and chin before burying his mouth in her neck. “Are you sure?”

  His heart was pounding so hard she felt it against her breast. When he lifted his head, there was something sharp and bright in his gaze. A warning? A revelation that he was as startled by this as she was?

  Whatever it was, it caused her belly to tighten and her bones to melt and her hips to press forward into firmer contact with his.

  His breath rushed out in a jagged noise. With a lithe twist, he straightened and angled her backward toward a door, gaze locked with hers.

  She would have stumbled if he hadn’t steadied her, narrowing his eyes when she licked her lips. Oh. Her abdominals contracted again. She hadn’t realized she had such power over him. She did it again, more deliberately, and color rose in his cheeks. His jaw tightened and his nostrils flared.

  As they entered the captain’s quarters, he flicked the curtains closed. She dropped the straps off her shoulders and shimmied the minidress to the floor, leaving herself in the pale blue thong she’d put on in hopes he’d see it. Like it.

  He bit the edge of his lip as he looked her over, one hand touching the ceiling when the boat took a sudden rise and dip. His other hand released his button and fly. He dropped his shorts and he was naked. Naked and aroused. Really, really... Wow.

  She swallowed, her own hand going to the edge of the nearby shelf to steady herself.

  He slid onto the wide mattress that covered the entire space between the two sides of the hull. “Join me.”

  She did, flowing onto berth and man in one motion, fusing her mouth to his as she did.

  He was so hot! His whole body burned her wherever they touched. The steely hardness of him was almost hurtful to lie against, yet so erotically good.

  His fingers trailed down her back, both possessive and light, exploring with laconic purpose, mapping from nape to shoulders, splaying wide and tracing her spine. Gathering into her sides and shifting her against him as though celebrating everything she was.

  She braced her hands by his shoulders and continued to move on him in a full body caress, moaning into his mouth at how good he felt beneath her. Rough and satiny smooth, hot and hard, vital and strong. His fingers tangled in the strap of her thong and his palms branded her butt as he guided her to straddle him and move higher on his body.

  “I want your nipples,” he said in a guttural voice that nearly undid her.

  She shifted higher, sat across his waist, hand braced in the recessed storage space over his head so her breast dangled over his open mouth. He began to suckle at her and her whole body tightened. He wasn’t shy about palming her butt and stroking her thighs and sweeping his touch beneath the damp placket of her thong.

  She’d been thinking of this all day. For weeks. Months. Of course, she was slippery and wet. She moaned and squirmed as he teased and caressed, sucking strongly and seeking the bundle of nerves that were so swollen and aching she nearly went out of her mind. Within moments, a sharp climax struck, turning her into a quivering, shaking, panting mess.

  He released her nipple and looked up at her with stunned delight and such carnality she felt a fresh rush of heat into her loins.

  “I want to feel that when I’m inside you.” His graveled voice made her skin tighten.

  “So do I.” Her voice was nothing but faint breath.

  They shifted and she kicked away her thong while he quickly applied a condom. He settled on his back and invited her to be on top again. To take him in.

  He was thick and hot and so hard he barely felt real, but there was no denying he was all man. His hands moved restlessly on her thighs as she settled into place. His teeth clenched and his throat strained with his effort to stay in control.

  “You’ve been wanting this, too,” she accused.

  “I have.”

  “Then why—”

  “We’re here now.” His voice was guttural, his hips rising beneath her. “Tell me if that’s too much.”

  “No, it’s so good,” she gasped. She pressed her hands to the low ceiling above her and began to undulate on him, moaning freely at how exquisite it felt to ride him in the same rhythm as the soft rock of the boat.

  He ran his hands up her front, caressing and stroking, thumbing her nipples and plumping her breasts and letting his hands come back to steady her hips as he began to thrust with more power.

  She had never felt like this. Like she was pure woman. Like her body had bee
n made for exactly this purpose. For him. They were the only two beings in this world and they weren’t of this world. They were something exalted. A god and goddess creating the universe with the charged union of their bodies.

  When his touch strayed inward and his thumb lazily circled her swollen bud, she groaned in the sheer luxury of letting the tension build even more strongly, one glorious layer at a time.

  “You’re so beautiful.” His voice was both faint and distant, yet reverberated in her consciousness. “Tell me when.”

  “Never,” she said throatily. “Let’s stay like this for—oh.” A tiny shift in the tide, a slap of a wave against the hull, caused a twitch in their rhythm that sent a shock wave through her.

  He made a similar noise, one of gratification and delight. Anticipation. He steadied her and said, “Soon, lovely. Hang on a little longer. When I say.” His thumb circled and circled, becoming her whole world. The point on which she existed while her inner muscles squeezed him and he continued those lovely, lazy thrusts.

  It wasn’t long before the noise she made became tortured. This lovemaking was becoming more than she could bear. She couldn’t find words to express how good she felt. Couldn’t say or do anything but push her hands against the ceiling and hold herself still for his upward thrust. For his caress. Waiting and waiting for his dark command.

  “Now.”

  They shattered into a million pieces.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Present day...

  WHEN THE HARD pounding on the door sounded as Tanja Melha was climbing into bed, her heart caved in. This was it. They had come for her. She was a foreigner and was being targeted for questioning. Perhaps worse.

  Trembling, she dragged on her jeans. They nearly fell off her hips, but tucking in her T-shirt helped.

  Everything in her urged her to run, but where? There was no way off Istuval, not since the tiny island off the coast of Tunisia had been taken over by rebels. They were holding the island—and thus her—hostage, all so some authoritarian in a far-off country could have a toehold on the Mediterranean’s shipping lanes.