Marie Donovan - My Sexy Greek Summer

“What do you think?” She crossed her forearms under her breasts, offering them up to him.

As he stared, her nipples tightened further, and he didn’t think it was from the cool night breeze. “I think yes.” As if of its own accord, his hand rose and hovered above her right breast.

She pulled his hand to her. They gasped simultaneously. Her breast filled his palm, full and heavy like an apple ripe for the picking. He instinctively thumbed her nipple, making her shudder.

Encouraged, he cupped her other breast, teasing and plucking. She tipped back her head. “Oh, Yannis.”

He’d never felt skin so soft, so smooth before and closed his eyes in sheer sensual pleasure. Then suddenly his hands were empty.

Cara had stepped back from him and dropped the rest of her dress to the sand. She spun on her heel and ran toward the ocean, wearing only a tiny pair of black panties. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” she cheerfully called over her shoulder.

She’d literally pulled heaven from his grasp and now she called him a rotten egg? Yannis stripped down to his briefs and charged after her. Never mind calling him names—he’d have her screaming his in no time.

Dear Reader,

In a funny way, I’ve been waiting to write a book about Greece since I was a kid. My grandparents on my dad’s side were both organic chemists. My grandmother was one of the first women to earn her PhD in organic chemistry from Columbia University and ran a defense lab during World War II, where she was burned in an explosion. She decided to stay home after the war to raise her kids, writing chemistry books and articles with my grandfather. The only words in these articles I ever understood were a, and and the.

Once they retired, my grandfather decided to learn Greek. Not the useful, modern Greek language, as in “I’d like to order gyros,” but ancient Greek, so he could read Homer’s Odyssey. In the original. So he did. Over the years he and my grandmother took several trips to Greece and brought me a marble statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, which I still have. One of my favorite memories is snuggling in bed with my grandma as she quizzed me in Greek mythology.

So here is my tribute to my grandparents and the Greece they loved. I hope you enjoy Cara’s story as she falls in love with Yannis and learns to love his homeland, as well.

Marie Donovan

P.S. I’m delighted to hear from my readers. Visit www.mariedonovan.com to learn more about my upcoming books.

Marie Donovan is a Chicago-area native, who got her fill of tragedies and unhappy endings by majoring in opera/vocal performance and Spanish literature. As an antidote to all that gloom, she read romance novels voraciously throughout college and graduate school.

Donovan graduated magna cum laude with two bachelor’s degrees from a Midwestern liberal arts university and speaks six languages. She worked for a large suburban public library for ten years as both a cataloguer and a bilingual Spanish story-time presenter. She enjoys reading, gardening and yoga.

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

204—HER BODY OF WORK

302—HER BOOK OF PLEASURE

371—BARE NECESSITIES

To my grandmother and my grandfather.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

“LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL this place is, Cara! I can’t believe you didn’t want to come.”

Cara Sokol elbowed her friend in the ribs from where they were leaning on the ferry railing. Emma Taylor’s cheerful voice had carried to the clumps of locals. The ones who understood English looked at Cara with marked unfriendliness.

Welcome to Greece. As if Cara needed another reason for the Greek populace to hate her. “Aphrodisias is as beautiful as its namesake,” she told Emma loudly.

At her compliment to their admittedly lovely island, the scowlers turned to gaze at the landmass they were approaching. Cara poked her friend in the ribs again. “Emma, enough about my not wanting to come to Greece. I never said it wasn’t a beautiful country.”

“Sorry, Cara.” Emma swiped a hunk of straight blond hair out of her face.

Cara had expected the wild sea winds on the ferry ride and had pulled her curly red hair back into a braid. She couldn’t get a comb through her hair on a good day, and the June Aegean trade winds would snarl her hair into a copper-wire scouring pad. “That’s okay. I know you’re excited about our trip.”

“Well, who wouldn’t be?” Emma gestured broadly at the vista in front of them. “Greece—the cradle of mathematics, the birthplace of Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes—did you know that before Archimedes died at the siege of Syracuse, he requested his favorite mathematical proof be carved on his tomb?”

“Wow.” Cara would be hard-pressed to think of an appropriate proof for her own tomb. Maybe a big, fat zero with a slash through it, but she didn’t even know the fancy math name for it. She shook off her Greek-induced grumpiness and instead stared ahead. Emma was still talking about Greek mathematicians, understandably since she was a Ph.D. student in math at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where they were neighbors in the same apartment building. Emma looked like a cuddly blond cheerleader but had the brain of a supercharged computer.

While Emma subsided into silence with a happy sigh, Cara fell into the rhythm of the Greek speakers, their rapid-fire consonants and vowels sorting out into words as her ears adjusted to the language. The older men were complaining about ever-volatile Greek politics and the crooks mismanaging things in Athens, the women were discussing children and clothes, and the two young men closest to Cara and Emma were commenting on the girls passing by.

Cara hid a smile as the guys wondered if she and Emma dyed their hair and discussed their hip size in favorable terms. Chauvinistic Greek men might be, but at least they liked girls with some meat on their bones.

She straightened from the railing and let her gaze travel casually over the two young men. She knew better than to wink at them, since she didn’t want them following her around Aphrodisias like eager puppy dogs. They met her gaze and grinned, obviously enjoying the idea of putting one over on the foreign girl. Sorry, dudes, I’ve been there and done that. She’d like to meet the Greek guy who could put one over on her now.

Despite her previous travels in Greece, Cara had never been to Aphrodisias, part of the Cyclades group of islands. The island was straight out of Greek legend, craggy hills where undoubtedly shepherds still tended their flocks, blindingly white cubic houses dotting the town and a wide crescent of sandy beach pouring out into the ocean.

Emma followed her gaze. “Oh my gosh, look at that beach! As soon as we get settled, I am going to practically live there.”

“Athena says that beach is where the goddess Aphrodite first came ashore. That’s why the island is named after her.”

“Amazing.” Emma’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. “A whole island named after the Greek goddess of love? I can hardly wait to find out what kind of men must live here.”

Cara could. She had things to do other than cruise around Aphrodisias for Greek men. Visit Athena, for one. She sighed quietly but Emma heard her anyway.

“Oh, hey, here I am blabbing about guys like we’re on spring break in Florida and you must be worrying about your friend. What did her daughter-in-law tell you when you called from Athens?”

Cara shrugged. “Oh, Demetria says Athena is still having complications since they brought her home from the hospital. It wasn’t so much the broken hip, but the pulmonary embolism she got after the surgery. They’re having trouble making sure she doesn’t get another clot. Athena refuses to go back to the hospital, so they’re limited in what they can do for her.”

Emma patted her back. “Nasty stuff. But I’m sure she’ll recover quickly now that she’s home.” Emma stared out at the island. “There’s something about this place…but I don’t know what.”

Cara stared at Aphrodisias. The island was something, all right. Home to the only person in the world who could get her to return to Greece.

“IS SHE HERE? Is she here?” Athena Kefalas pulled herself to her feet using the aluminum-frame walker her doctor insisted on. Walkers were for old ladies, bah! And Athena Kefalas was not an old lady at seventy. Hadn’t her own dear mother lived to ninety-five and just passed away last year, God rest her soul, O Theos na tin anapafsi. She shook out her long black skirt and clumped over to the kitchen, where Demetria was hanging up the phone.

Her daughter-in-law pursed her lips and blinked a couple times, no doubt to get some patience with her mother-in-law. As far as Athena was concerned, she was a model mother-in-law compared to her own Giorgy’s mother. Now she had been a mother-in-law straight from the Evil One himself. She had also lived to a ripe old age, probably because the daimones were afraid to have her in Hell. They had eventually relented, though, and no doubt welcomed her as one of their own.

Ah, but perhaps Athena was getting old, reminiscing about long ago and not focusing on the present. And more importantly, the future. “Demetria, did Karoleena arrive?”

“Yes, Mother, she and her friend arrived at the villa you arranged for them and will come to see you this afternoon. But remember, Karoleena wants us to call her Cara, her American name.”

“Of course, of course.” Athena nibbled at a dish of pickled olives on the sturdy kitchen table. “And when Cara and her friend come, they must think I am still sick.”

Demetria snorted. “You may need that walker for a couple more weeks, but you look as healthy as a lamb in springtime.”

“Hmm.” Athena frowned. “I need to be pale and sickly. Demetria, bring me the flour.”

“Flour? Why? Are we baking kourabiethes for Cara?”

Athena paused for a second. Karoleena did love the sugared almond cookies, but no time for baking now. “To powder my face, of course. If Karoleena knows I am well, she will leave quickly and she needs to be here on Aphrodisias.”

Demetria didn’t bother to ask why again but brought the flour.

Athena looked up from where she was patting the white powder into her overly healthy-looking cheeks. “Thank you, Demetria. You are a good daughter.”

“Now, Mother, you only say that when you want me to do something.”

“Actually, if you could loan me your gray eye makeup to put circles under my eyes…”

Demetria blew out a breath strong enough to rival the ocean breeze but left to fetch the eye shadow.

Athena stared out the kitchen window overlooking the beach from where the Goddess of Love had appeared. So little love in this world anymore. But Athena had always known best, especially since her own dear mother had named her after the Goddess of Wisdom. She would do anything to help Karoleena, her poor girl who was so unhappy. And if Athena needed to wear enough flour on her face to make kourabiethes for the whole island, then by Aphrodite, she would!