He shook his head, his eyes full of affectionate laughter. ‘I did not. Hermione had said she had come to visit Barbara, and finding Barbara still away she went on to stay with friends of hers at Patras. Satisfied?’
‘Almost. It’s rather lowering to feel the way I felt about Hermione, though.’
She hesitated, then wound her arms round his neck, freely offering him her lips. ‘S’agapo para poll,’ she whispered. ‘I love you very, much.’ She kissed him with every bit of conviction at her command. ‘May we go back to Hydra one day?’ she asked him. ‘Just the two of us, as you wanted it before, only this time’—there was a hint of mischief in her tone—‘without Hermione.’
‘My darling Aphrodite,’ he said against her lips. ‘Does any man refuse an invitation to heaven with the goddess of his dreams?’
The villa in Hydra was primitive by any standards, but to Emily it was a paradise that had been brought alive for her by her husband. When it was warm enough, which wasn’t as often as either of them would have liked, he took her swimming and called her Aphrodite until she retaliated by refusing to answer to the name.
‘I’m not at all like her!’ she declared. ‘How can you say I am?’
His eyes moved over her possessively. ‘You are as beautiful as she. I was sure of it as soon as I saw you, and now that I have seen you as she is, I know it’s so.’ He smiled at her flushed face. ‘How can you still be shy of me? Don’t you like it when I find pleasure in your shape?’
She made a face at him. ‘I suppose so.’
She didn’t add that she, too, found pleasure in looking at him, but she could well have done so. She revelled in the golden shine to his skin, her own particular realm of gold and one that she had feared might never be hers.
He pulled her close against him, slipping his hands up beneath her sweater. ‘Tell me again that you love me,’ he commanded.
‘I love you,’ she responded obediently.
He kissed her slowly, savouring the salt on her lips. She pressed herself closer to him, burying her fingers in his curling hair.
‘I never thought to be so happy as I have been here with you. Will it always be like this?’ she whispered.
His kisses grew more demanding until she was weak with longing for him. ‘This can only be the beginning for both of us,’ he murmured.
She stirred in his arms. ‘Please go on loving me,’ she whispered.
He leaned up on his elbow, his eyes alight with the glow of the setting sun. The expression on his face told her more than words could ever have done as he got to his feet and pulled her up beside him. Slowly, he kissed her again.
‘It’s time for us to go inside, Emily mou,’ he said at last. ‘Shall I light the lamps or will you?’
She smiled, knowing exactly how it would end. ‘Neither of us,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, Demis, I do love you so much!’
‘Then come inside and prove it to me!’ he suggested.
Elizabeth Hunter, The Realms of Gold
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