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‘A good bit older than I was then. In her thirties, I think,’ Luka said. ‘She was my first.’ He looked at her. ‘Who was yours?’
‘I don’t have to answer that.’
‘If you want to know more you do.’
‘Gordon.’
He wrinkled his nose and Luka was surprised as something that felt like it should be called jealousy surged in his chest.
Which was ridiculous when he was telling her about his own depraved past.
‘Well, my first was actually stunning—a divorcée. She was there with friends but had her own villa. I was there every night until morning and I thought I had found the keys to heaven. The morning she left she came into Reception and when Geo wasn’t looking she gave me an envelope. I thought it was a letter. When I opened it there was a whole load of cash. Until that point I had thought it was a romance.’
‘Were you hurt when she paid you?’
‘Hell no,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth I was already starting to get restless.’
Cecelia suppressed an eye-roll and refrained from saying that perhaps it was an indicator of things to come, as Luka spoke on.
‘I was trying to work out how to break it off but had decided to do so after her holiday. I was the naïve one back then.’
Cecelia gave a wry smile at that. ‘I doubt you were ever naïve. And after she’d gone there was another?’
‘Of course, although it wasn’t always cash. Sometimes they would take me shopping for a watch or such like. Once a car...’
‘A car?’
She started to laugh. An embarrassed laugh, but she was also very curious. ‘Luka!’
‘What?’ He shrugged. ‘I was always careful and it wasn’t all sex.’
‘What else?’
‘Romance. Dinner. Shopping. But mainly talking.’
‘You mean, saying what they wanted to hear?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you care for them?’
‘Some I did,’ Luka said. ‘Mostly it was work.’ He met her eyes. ‘They didn’t all care for me, Cece. They paid for the full Luka Kargas treatment.’
For a few years the pool had been his playground and the pickings had always been rich.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘once I had bought the restaurant I hired a decent chef and changed the décor.’
‘What about your father?’
Luka didn’t answer directly.
It felt disloyal to his mother to admit that his father hadn’t so much as lifted a saucepan.
‘The restaurant started to do well and was too busy for one chef. Though it didn’t do too well—I made sure of that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew it wouldn’t be long until Geo blew things again and would be forced to sell. When that happened I had planned to be in a good enough position to put in an offer on the resort. With help, of course...’
‘Financial help?’ Cecelia checked.
‘No, one of the women I was seeing helped me get my papers in order to go to the bank.’ He didn’t add that the woman had also warned him not to bring his father into the hotel side of things.
It was advice for which he would be grateful for ever.
‘How old were you by then?’
‘Twenty-two. Once the resort was safely mine I hired the best chef I could find and things really started to happen. As the guests came in I started to buy up the houses and land around it. Out of all the hotels I own, it is still the jewel in my crown. From humble beginnings it’s magnificent now.’
She looked at him. He mesmerised her, he truly did. And she was nervous too, for the more she knew him, the more she wanted him.
‘Is your father still your business partner?’
‘Not fully.’ He shook his head. ‘The hotels are mine, the restaurants belong to us both.’ And then, a touch unguarded, he admitted a little more. ‘I should never have gone into business with him.’
‘I agree about not going into business with family,’ Cecelia said, because she had seen such things go wrong in her work before. ‘And, Luka, I also think it’s a really bad idea getting involved with an employer.’ It was Cecelia who brought it back to them. ‘I’m not saying that I regret last night, but it should never have happened. I take my career very seriously.’
‘I know you do, but you’re leaving anyway.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But I still don’t think it’s right and I don’t want Bridgette or anyone knowing that something once happened between us.’
‘Once?’ he checked, and he took her hand to move it to the sheet beneath which he was hardening, but she resisted and her palm came to rest on his flat stomach.
There was no solace there for his skin was warm and she could feel the silk hair that led from his navel to paradise and she ached to move her hand lower.
So much had changed since yesterday.
Not just that she was leaving.
And not just that they had slept together.
He was creeping further into her heart.
‘Luka, I really think we should just draw a neat line under what happened and when you come back from Xanero we’ll go back to how we were.’
She was trying so hard to hold onto her heart, while at the same time sitting on his bed and looking into his eyes.
He pulled her head towards him, and she let him, and they shared a lingering kiss. He was leaving this morning, Cecelia told herself.
Order would soon be returned.
Just not yet.
Their tongues explored each other and their mouths were hungry for sensations.
He kissed down her neck and then moved the collar of her linen jacket and kissed the shoulders that had been revealed to him only yesterday, tracing her clavicle with his tongue until her neck arched.
‘Don’t leave a bruise...’ she said, but he ignored her, biting into her flesh and sucking as his hand pushed between her thighs, which were pressed together.
‘Come to bed,’ Luka said.
And without hesitation she nodded.
Cecelia stood and his eyes were on her as she undressed. He watched as the navy jacket came off and he just stared as she removed her top to reveal the purple mark on her shoulder.
She slipped off her skirt and sandals and then straightened up and removed her bra. She could see he was hard beneath the sheet, and, in response to the command from her hungry eyes, he kicked it off.
He loved that he did not have to persuade her—that he did not have to slowly remove her bra and kiss her while sliding down her knickers.
Instead, she took care of that.
For this was no accident.
Her delicately shaped curls, which he had not had time to appreciate last night, had a coppery tinge that he stared at as she removed her bra. For the first time in years he was hungry to taste a woman, and reached for her to join him in bed.
‘After this morning...’ she warned, but he hushed her with his mouth. ‘I mean it, Luka,’ Cecelia said, pulling hers away.
‘Sure,’ he agreed, ‘so this morning we make the most of it.’
Instead of kissing her, he knelt and lowered his head to her breast.
His tongue swirled around her nipple while his mouth closed and created a delicious vacuum. He sucked hard and Cecelia felt herself clench down below.
‘Luka...’
‘Nice?’ he asked, removing his mouth and blowing on her erect nipple. Cecelia didn’t know how to answer.
It was beyond nice, it was bliss, yet his moves were so practised and sure. She closed her eyes and then his mouth moved down her stomach.
‘Am I getting the full Luka Kargas treatment?’ she asked.
There was a moment of arrested silence while he paused, his mouth hovering over her stomach. What she didn’t know was that in Luka’s world the tables had turned many years ago. He no longer went down on women.
His start had been sex and Luka had long ago perfected his routine.
But now that his wealth exceeded theirs...
Well, he paid for their favours.
Not directly, of course.
With jewels and exotic weekends.
Now they went down on him instead of the other way around.
But not this morning.
It had been years since...
Years since her pleasure had mattered.
This morning it did.
‘No,’ he responded to her question. ‘You’re getting me.’
He kissed her stomach, not lightly but as deeply and intently as if it were her mouth, and Cecelia found her breath held in her throat as his hand slid between her closed legs. ‘Open them.’
She did, just a little, and she lay there, determined almost not to enjoy it. To remind herself that this was his skill.
His thumb was intent and his fingers were inside her but Cecelia’s throat was tight as he teased and stroked and rubbed, for she brought up her knees in an involuntary movement.
Women had paid him for this, she told herself as his tongue set to work alongside his thumb.
There was a moan building but she held onto it, yet he read it, for he moved between her legs to increase the intensity.
Luka heard her low moan and forgot his practised moves of old for this was new.
He heard her gasps, and finally learned the scent and taste of Cecelia on his tongue.
Her thighs were shaking as he probed deeply, and her hand pressed on his head, pushing him away. He knew she resisted pleasure.
So he upped the intensity again.
‘Luka...’ she sobbed, because it was too intense. His tongue was penetrating and he growled—and knew the moment she felt it. She wanted to come, but knew she would come so deeply that she was terrified to let herself go.
‘Come, Cece,’ he said, his voice rumbling through her. It was a command, an order her body could not ignore. Her back arched and her orgasm shot through her like lightning and earthed to his mouth.
He coaxed every flicker from her so that she was flushed and near crying when her body came down.
Never had it tasted this good. This was not like the work he used to do. This was different.
He slid up her body, Cecelia pulling him those final inches. They drank from each other in a desperate kiss that was both deep and heady. Luka came up on his arms but she pulled his head back down to claim a deeper kiss.
It was nothing like either of them had known before.
He was practised to the core and she was so new to passion, yet it was fire that they made together. She did not want him to be this good.
‘That wasn’t work,’ he told her. ‘That was bliss.’
