Surrender: The Greek Affair Series Book One (3 page)

“What the fuck! What are you…fourteen?”

He lit the cigarette, took one puff and threw it away mumbling to himself: “you have to give up this filthy habit.”

It was then that he decided to leave, before he made a spectacle of himself. There was no way he was going to go and say hello. No way he would stick out his hand and say “Hi, my name is Jason. What’s yours?” and “Look what you do to me?”

Jesus, what was the matter with him? It was as if he had not been laid for a year or two, (which was not the case, as sex with Aphrodite was satisfactory and he could have it when they both found the time away from their duties).

He started the ignition and it was then that she looked up and he saw her eyes. Jesus, what were they made of? Her eyes were amber from this distance, but he knew it was not just the colour; there was something in the glance he wanted to explore. He would have to find the opportunity to get up close. He felt compelled to speak to her soon, without his hard-on visible between his legs. How was he going to approach this?

He thought he would try to follow her as much as possible around the island, without seeming like it was stalking, Christ, that will be a feat on its own! What the fuck! Why did this woman have this effect on him? He knew it was lust, but why? He had to find out. At that moment he made a decision that had nothing to do with intellect. It had to do with his body and he knew he never made decisions like this; he had always been the sensible one.

Ok Plan A. He would drive by the same spot late afternoons and see if this was a usual time and spot for her. He would have to find out what beach she went to, what bar she hung out in and what late night entertainment she enjoyed.. And if plan A did not work, there had to be a plan B.

Plan B, mmmm… let’s see. “If I don’t see her in that spot where she was today, how am I going to find her?” He was not a man who gave up easily and plan B would come into fruition he was sure, as the days progressed, with the hope that she was on the island for long enough and not just for a few days. It was an island after all. And no matter how far she went, she would show up somewhere. He wanted to have her and he would make sure he did not miss any opportunity of “bumping” into her. He did not make it a habit to chase women he met, or befriend them. He had to befriend this one, without seeming desperate - or was he?

Back at headquarters, he made meticulous mental plans on his pursuit strategy. First, he had to get laid so that he could minimise the blood flow to his cock at inconvenient moments, and he knew that he was being an arse now, but he had to do what he had to do. As it turned out though, when he was with Aphrodite, he only saw the amber eyes surrounded by auburn curls. He decided to minimise how much of an arse he was being. He knew that he had to cool it with Aphrodite for a while, as he was feeling unsettled and could not explain why. Surely, it could not just be about amber eyes?

For the next few days Jason went about his duties and allowed himself to be at the same seaside bench at the same time, late afternoons, and the woman with the amber eyes was always there. Amber eyes was not always sketching though, sometimes she was reading and at other times she was taking photos of the surroundings, as the sunset in the sea was spectacular.

For about four days he just watched, as she sat there and pondered what to say to her, always hoping she did not see him, because he knew he was indeed stalking her.

On this one day he found her with her back to the road. She was setting up her tripod and she was bent slightly looking into her viewfinder. He saw her standing for the first time and he was a goner, her legs were perfect, her slim rounded hips were there for his taking. As she moved around her tripod he saw her full breasts. Oh my… they were perfect; not too small, not too big, to be out of place with the rest of her petite frame. “Damn it!!”

He had to appear cool and unaffected, even though he was burning up inside. His whole body was reacting in ways that surprised him, but he had to approach her in a calm, cool and collected way. He had to play it like a gentleman. Boy, that was going to be hard! What on earth was the matter with him?

After some deliberation, and taking full body control whilst remembering his grandmother’s words, which had taught him to respect and at the same time appreciate women, he got out of the jeep. He swaggered towards her, cigarette in hand. Even though she was not facing him, he knew that she had felt him approaching. She straightened her body and turned around. She looked him in the eyes and waited for a beat. She almost glared at him and it was then that he saw that her eyes were not just amber, but had a dark rim around the pupil, making the amber stand out even more, making them look yellow with a dark brown rim.

Hope felt his presence, which made her turn around before he could speak to her. She heard a slow, smooth, husky, velvety voice saying hello to her in Greek, while she was trying to concentrate on the sunset and her camera. He was like a shadow. When Hope looked up, she saw Jason standing about two meters away from her. She thought he might be somewhere in his middle-to-late twenties, wearing khakis. He had jade-green eyes and a very serious face. He was devastatingly good looking, his eyes almost the colour of his uniform, his lips were luscious and his short hair seemingly fair - but it was too short to be precise about the colour.

“Beautiful sunset.” He said in Greek.

“Yes, it’s very beautiful,” she replied, not daring to look into his face, as she was intimidated by the ease with which he spoke and the way he stood, just a few feet away to her side.

It made her feel like a teenager. Why she felt like this, she did not understand. She was used to younger men approaching her, and she had always been at ease with them. Why was this encounter making her so nervous?

He went on to ask her if she was doing this as a hobby or did she have a professional interest. He then asked her if she was Greek, which was a rather unusual question, as they were having the conversation in Greek! It was a question she was often asked in Greece, especially on the islands in the summer. She was “different” apparently, (what that meant she had not worked out yet). She didn’t know why, but she told him she had lived most of her life in Australia, as if somehow she owed him an explanation. But she suspected her “difference” was that she just looked like every other tourist. On that beat, he began to speak to her in very good English. It was a British accent and a posh one, at that!

She turned and looked at him, nodded her head towards the cigarette in his hand and said: “That will kill you.” And then she looked away, leaving him even more nervous than he already was. He shuffled his feet, threw the cigarette down and crushed it with his army boot.

He had to get going as he was still on duty. But he stood there in a haze.

Chapter Three

Hope stopped what she was doing and looked up into the face of this man, who was trying to befriend her. WOW! Killer green eyes, full lips (and from what she could see was likely), a ripped body to boot. You could tell by his stance and his posture, that he had a strong and well looked after physique. He was tall, (but not too tall), his hair was light, although a tad ambiguous in colour, (much too short to make a serious judgment of its correct hue). But most of all, it was his glance. It was a glance that hid him; hid his inner-self and hid a need. She could not figure it out, but did she want to? Did she just want to be left alone?

The voice was husky and deep. It was like velvet, like chocolate with liqueur! She reminded herself what that tasted like, and briefly thought what he might taste like. He was drinkable, edible, but most of all, he reminded her of hot, sheet-clawing sex! Oh good God! Where was her mind going? She looked away from him, back to her camera, although by this time she had no idea what she was doing.

She felt completely derailed!

He stood there watching her and then he introduced himself. “My name is Jason. Are you going to tell me yours?” It was a request with a question mark, which Hope found very difficult to ignore. They were talking to each other in English now and she realised it was more comfortable then Greek, (as they would have been talking to each other in formal language of not knowing someone well). English was a lot more relaxed and took some of the edge off the nerves, that they were both apparently feeling.

“It’s Hope.”

“Elpída, in Greek?”

“Yes.

Hope noticed an insignia on his uniform. What is it with men in uniform? She did not know anything about the military, so she was ignorant as to what it meant, and she also did not see the jeep he had arrived in, parked nearby.

“Do you live here?” he asked and Hope thought he was asking about the island.

“No, I live in Athens.”

“I meant to say are you staying nearby?”

“Yes, I live across the street.” Hope had no idea why she wanted to tell him this. He hung around for a few more minutes in silence and then suddenly….

“Nice talking to you. Maybe next time we meet there will be more time.”

Hope looked up at him. “Nice talking to you, too.”

He gave her a wonderful guarded smile, waved and she followed him with her eyes to the parked jeep. She noticed his panther-like stride. An economy of movement that was telling of a hidden sexuality, and for a moment she allowed herself to see under the khakis. Shaking herself back into reality and telling herself she had had enough holiday flings with younger men, she told herself that she would not touch this one. She could smell and feel the danger radiating from him.

As Jason sat in the driver’s seat, he looked back at Hope, waved and called softly. “I’ll see you here again?” It was half a question - almost a request, he started the engine and was off.

Hope had lost her concentration.

She packed up and walked back across the street to go home, her comfortable one bedroom second floor of a duplex. It was small, but ideal for an island residence, where one does not have to live all the year round. The sitting room had a veranda overlooking the sea, where the dolphins came to frolic. She stepped onto the white marble floor and looked at her sparse white furniture, broken up by some blue. She loved the neutrality of white and often wondered why, as her paintings were all about colour. Even her flat in Athens was white in its interior.

It was as if she floated on a cloud in her daily routine, trying to keep the rest of the world out and all the angst and problems of her reality were on her canvases.

She grabbed the remote and activated her iPod, putting Chants d’Auvergne on repeat. Sliding the veranda door open, she sat on a chair and looked into the blue of the sea, always in anticipation that the dolphins would come and play, with the soulful old French music in the background.

As she sat with her gaze towards the sea, she was always aware that to her left rose a very large medieval fortress. A fortress that had been there since ancient times in some form or another. This last version was the Venetian one. It was built from the same stone as the island and as the boats sailed in, it was almost invisible to the naked eye until the boat got closer to the shore. Half way up the hill, before the entrance to the fort, there was a small white chapel dedicated to one of the many saints that Greeks worship. The inside of the fort is teaming with deer, but they never seem to come down to the town, even though it is quite close.

The sight was dazzling! It was a monument to another chapter of history on this island, so far away from the mainland. Away from other islands, and yet it has seen so much history over the millenniums because of its strategic geography between the Levant and the west.

There was nothing about the island that Hope did not like. It was indeed a love affair she was comfortable with; a love affair that asked nothing of her. She was not afraid of abandonment from it, but she knew she could abandon it one day herself, although she would prefer not to, but that was the only way she understood how to love.

She sat looking at all this beauty and thinking of Jason. She found it so fitting that his name was part of this island’s pre-history. (This was the island that Jason and his Argonauts stopped at, on their way to find the Golden Fleece. It was on this island that Jason married the Queen Hypsipyle, gave her twin sons and then went on to find the Golden Fleece and bring back Media.) One version of mythology has the Amazons from here.

The island’s legend tells us it was known as a matriarchal society in prehistory. For some reason she felt that her Jason fitted well with this island. Her Jason! Nothing was hers and she wanted nothing - not even her son will be hers for much longer, as he gets older, another woman will claim him.

She got up, picked up her handbag, locked the doors and made her way to the port via the narrow cobble-stone streets.

She came out to the main street itself, cobble-stoned but full of shops, trendy boutiques, small art galleries, provincial shops of every kind, and a throng of locals and holiday makers, out for the early evening
vólta
, (a stroll that is a must for everyone in the summer, as Greeks eat late in the evening and in the taverns this early one only sees foreign tourists.)