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‘I was hardly in a position to give you a phone call,’ Zarek cut across her, breaking into the flow of reproach like the slash of a knife. ‘How did Hermione end up living here? Did you invite her to move in?’
‘No, I did not! She invited herself and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Have you ever tried to get your stepmother to do something she didn’t want to do?’
‘As a matter of fact I have.’
Zarek expertly removed the cork from a bottle of rich red wine and poured a generous amount into a couple of glasses.
‘Well, I don’t happen to have the promise of a generous income—or the threat of withholding one—to dangle over her head like a carrot. Hermione arrived when the news of your disappearance had just broken—I didn’t know what to do for the best. I thought it might after all be an idea if we were all in one place until we found out just what had happened.’
And she had been reeling in shock and distress. It didn’t matter how she and her husband had parted, learning that his yacht had been hijacked by pirates and Zarek himself taken hostage had left her unable to think straight, so that she hadn’t had the strength to fight Hermione over anything.
‘And Jason…’
Something in the way that Zarek reacted—or, rather, his complete lack of reaction—sent her a warning signal that she was entering dangerous territory. She knew what Zarek had seen and heard on the harbour front only the day before. Her husband might not love her but he was her husband and a traditionally possessive, jealous Greek husband at that. He would not take at all kindly to seeing his wife in the arms of another man. Particularly if that man was his hated stepbrother.
‘And Jason…’ Zarek prompted almost casually, holding out one of the glasses of wine towards her. Because of the darkness in the room, she couldn’t read his face properly but the stiffness of his long spine, a clipped edge to his use of his stepbrother’s name, made all the little hairs on the back of her neck lift in wary apprehension.
‘Jason dealt with all the practical things—liaising with the police, the press. He was very—helpful.’
Besides, Jason had been kind and considerate then and his support had been welcome at a time when she most needed it.
‘Good for Jason.’
It was impossible to interpret the strange note in Zarek’s voice as he lifted his glass to his mouth and took a deliberate sip of the wine. But Penny didn’t care what his mood was. If there was any doubt in his mind about what he had seen then it was time she made things perfectly clear. His opinion of her was low enough as it was. She didn’t want to add any further complications to the already explosive mix.
‘We’re not lovers,’ she said starkly and saw his head come up very slightly, though he controlled the movement almost at once.
‘Did I say anything?’
‘No—but you’re thinking it.’
‘Oh, is that what I’m thinking?’
Another slow deliberate sip of his wine, but, watching him, Penny saw how long it took him to swallow it. The burn of his eyes challenged her with the fact that he could have been thinking something else entirely but she wasn’t yet ready to go there. Better to clear the air with the things she could deal with here and now rather than rake up old problems and risk ripping open old wounds.
That would have to come, but it was early days yet—not even days! She was still feeling her way with this man who was her husband and yet, after the time he had been missing, now seemed like a stranger to her. She knew his face, his stunning features, his voice, his mannerisms. But was the Zarek she had married, the Zarek she had been intimate with, made love with—no, no—the man she had had sex with—still inside this façade that was so well known and yet somehow totally unfamiliar to her? For now she would do better to stay on safer ground. If Zarek’s detested brother could ever be considered safer.
‘I know how it might have looked to you, but if you’d stayed around last night then you’d have seen how I pushed him away.’
‘Forgive me—’ the twist to Zarek’s mouth, the cynical emphasis to the words made them anything other than a genuine apology ‘—but I was still trying to absorb the fact that my wife wanted me declared dead.’
‘Not wanted. It was the only practical thing to do.’
‘And of course you have been carefully planning the most practical way of dealing with things. With Jason’s help.’
‘I needed someone’s help.’
Penny drank some of her own wine, feeling the rich red liquid burn its way down her throat. The kick of the alcohol entering her blood gave an added spark to the volatile cauldron of emotions bubbling inside her. Sick and tired of managing in the dark—in all ways—she ignored Zarek’s previous command and moved to click on the nearest lamp, flooding the room with light before swinging round to face him with a challenge.
‘And as you said, you were hardly in a position to do anything.’
She was not sure if the light was now helping or actually making matters worse. Yes, she could see Zarek’s expression, but did she really want to know just how intent his eyes were on her face? Did she want to look into their dark depths and see the burn of suspicion, the coldness of contempt? And in the light her eyes were once more drawn to the ugly scar that marked his temple, twisting and distorting the beautiful bronzed skin.
Impulsively her free hand lifted again, needing to touch it, to touch him. She wanted to reassure herself that he truly was real, and at the same time she had a crazy, irrational need to smooth her fingers over that scar as if by doing so she could ease the long-ago pain the wound must have caused him.
But something that flared deep in those stunning eyes had her wrenching her hand down again, clenching it into a fist at her side. She took another swift, snatching drink of wine to bolster her courage.
‘What did happen to you?’ she asked brusquely, not having enough self-control to try and think of some more careful way of phrasing the question. ‘We were told you were—dead.’
‘You heard about the pirates?’ Zarek asked, moving to the open patio doors where he leaned against the wall and looked out into the garden, watching Argus, who was happily investigating something that clearly smelled very appealing.
Penny nodded.
‘I found it hard to believe at first. It doesn’t sound at all twenty-first century. But since you were taken, there have been several other ships that have been boarded by pirates. We saw the reports on the television—saw the pirates get into that small boat and leave the yacht. But at the time we didn’t know that you were with them—that they’d taken you hostage.’
‘No one knew.’
Zarek sipped at his wine again, staring out into the moonlit garden, his attention, his focus, seeming to be totally elsewhere. In an absent-minded gesture he lifted his free hand and rubbed at the ugly scar on his temple, making her shiver in distress at the thought of how he had come by it. She hated to see the evidence of that hurt, was saddened by the way that it marred the male beauty of his face. But, at the same time, in some way it only added to rather than detracted from the powerful impact of his forceful features.
‘The small boat they tried to get away in was covered so the troops who were going to board the ship couldn’t see inside. It was pitch black in there—foul.’
With another swallow of his wine, Zarek frowned at the gleaming path the moonlight made along the sea.
‘They were all nervous, panicking—possibly high on something…’
Penny found that the glass she held was shaking violently as her hand trembled in reaction to the stark, matter of fact way he was reporting the story. He might have been talking about someone else entirely—or recounting a story he had heard. She could only imagine with horror how it had felt to be in that situation. To be trapped in that small, dark boat, bobbing on the expanse of the ocean in the middle of the night, with a group of pirates who were all out of control and even more dangerous as a result.
And the last memory he would have had of her was of the angry, lying words, she had flung at him before he had left for the Troy.
‘They were arguing amongst themselves. Some of them wanted to use me as a hostage—to try and get a ransom out of the company at least.’
With an effort Penny tried to raise her glass to her lips. Perhaps a taste of wine might calm her nerves, reduce the sense of revulsion she felt at the thought of Zarek being trapped in that situation. But her hand was shaking even more, so that she couldn’t manage it.
‘And then when the shooting started all hell broke out.’
‘Oh, my—’
Zarek’s head swung round as Penny finally lost her grip on her feelings and slammed down her drink on the nearest window sill, crashing it against the window.
‘Penny?’
‘They said…’
Her throat closed over the words, refusing to let them out, and her eyes were wild as she looked into his dark gaze. Swallowing hard, she tried again.
‘They said—he said—that he p-put—’
It was unbearable to think of the words, let alone say them. And even with Zarek standing there before her, whole and safe, making a lie of the pirate leader’s claim, she still found the idea too horrific to contemplate.
‘He said that he put a bullet in you—your head.’
Burning tears were swirling in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she recognised rather than saw the now-familiar gesture as he rubbed at the scar once more. And the thought of how he had come by it made her dig her teeth in hard to her lower lip to hold back the moan of distress that almost escaped her.
‘Then he gave himself rather too much credit.’ Zarek’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘And exaggerated his success. He might have planned to do that but the truth is that he missed. His aim was off. The bullet grazed my head and knocked me flying—out of the boat and into the sea. Penny?’
His question was sharp, urgent, his tone changing completely. And suddenly he was right beside her, having moved up close, his powerful body almost touching hers as he stared down into her face. And when Penny ducked her head to dodge that searing, probing gaze, he dumped his wine glass down beside hers and put a strong warm hand under her chin, lifting her face towards his.
‘What’s this?’
It was impossible to resist his control as he turned her face to the left, into the light, and she could sense the frown that drew his dark straight brows sharply together.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded again, his voice rougher now and his accent deepening on the hard-toned question. ‘Tears?’
Penny fought to twist her chin away from his forceful hold, to hide her betraying expression. But finding she wasn’t strong enough, instead she lifted a shaking hand to dash roughly at her eyes, brushing the moisture from her lashes.
‘Yes, tears,’ she flung at him furiously, determined to face it out now.
Of course he hadn’t expected tears. They had never had that sort of a marriage—at least not in Zarek’s mind. And the bitterness of that bit so deep that she was almost out of her head with the agony.
‘And what’s so shocking about that, hmm? What did you expect? Laughter? Three cheers?’
‘You would have cared?’ He actually sounded stunned.
‘Of course I would have cared! And not just “cared” in the past but still care now! I might not want to be married to you any more, but I sure as hell would never, ever have wished you dead!’
The last word came out on a choking gasp. One that was as much from the sensual shock of realising just how close he was now as from the anguish that came with the memory of how it had been when she had really thought that he had died in the pirate attack.
‘So you thought of me once or twice in the time I was away?’
‘Yes, I thought of you! We might not have had a marriage worth saving but there were—things—about you that I—that I missed…’
Her throat dried in a sudden rush of heat as she foolishly looked up on those words and met the burning fire of his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat then lurched into a rapid, thudding rhythm that was almost painful as it slammed against the sides of her ribcage, sending the blood pounding through her veins, pulsing round her head.
How could something so dark blaze so fiercely? she wondered as she felt herself come close to melting in the intensity of his eyes. The effect was doubled, strengthened all the more because it met with exactly the same feeling inside her own body. The same hotly yearning hunger. The aching need that drove all rational thought from her mind and left just a burn of molten desire.
‘Penny…’ Zarek said slowly and his voice was ragged at the edges so that she knew the need that had her in its grip had taken hold of him too.
So what had happened to that cold command of ‘Don’t’? There was no rejection, no distance in the look he turned on her. It was pure fire and lightning, searing where it landed. And it landed on her hair, then on her eyes, then burned across her mouth so that she opened her lips in a gasp of much-needed air.
And then forgot to breathe at all as Zarek reached out his hand and touched her cheek. Still holding her eyes locked with his, he let his fingers trail down to the side of her jaw, following the line of the bone until his touch reached her still-open mouth. His thumb rested on the lower lip, pulling it down very slightly, very softly. And she couldn’t resist the temptation to slide out her tongue to taste it, taking the essence of his skin into her mouth as she did so.
Which immediately made her want more. Her breasts felt tight against the lace of her bra, her skin seemed to ache for the touch of his hands and she knew that her eyes were heavy-lidded and sensual, her pupils dark, telegraphing her feelings without the need for words.
But of course Zarek had no use for words. Even after two years apart, his senses were totally attuned to the signals she was unable to control. She saw his body still, the tension in the long muscles communicating a need that was like a visible force, reaching out to enclose her. His fierce, unblinking eyes were black as night, his touch on her face a brand that marked her out as his, and the hiss of his breath in between his lips was a sound that seemed to shiver all the way down her spine as she heard it.
‘I missed things too,’ he murmured, low and rough. ‘Mou elipses—I missed you—but most of all I missed this…’
And his head bent to take her mouth with his.
Chapter Seven
SHE had forgotten the sensation of drowning, Penny thought hazily as Zarek’s mouth closed over hers, the heat and hardness of his kiss making her senses swim. She had forgotten how it felt as if a dark wave of sensuality was breaking over her head, taking her down into the depths of passion where she lost her last grip on control, gave herself up to the sensation that possessed her.
One touch of Zarek’s mouth on hers and she was once more the naïve young virgin he had first taken to bed, at the mercy of her hunger for him. A hunger that no other man had ever been able to awaken in her. And waking up was what it felt like. Waking from a deep dark sleep in which there had been no sensation, no light, no warmth, no joy.
Now she was flooded with heat and hunger, a sensation of coming back to life and seeing the glory of delight that was possible.
Her head fell back under Zarek’s kiss, her hands going up to clutch at his arms, hold him near to her. Her lips opened under the pressure of his and she felt the heated, sensual slide of his tongue as he invaded the moist interior of her mouth. No amount of wine could have more of a head-spinning effect than the taste of him, no tantalising appetiser could stir her appetites as swiftly and as powerfully as it did.
‘I have missed this,’ Zarek muttered again, his voice thick and raw, his accent deep on every word. ‘Missed it and thought about it so often at night. Longed for it. Hungered for it.’
He had gathered her up into his arms, crushing her tight against the heat and hardness of his body. Her head was pressed to his chest, feeling the wall of his ribcage under the soft cotton of his shirt. The race of his heart was like thunder in her ears and at the base of his strong neck she could see the heavy pulse that gave away how fiercely he was aroused. The force of his response sparked off an answering reaction in her own body. Moist heat pooled between her legs, in intimate evidence of the hunger he made her feel so easily.
‘Zarek…’
His name felt strange on her tongue even though she’d used it before in the time since his sudden shocking arrival back in her life. But then it had been just a sound of shock. Now she was using it as a term of endearment, a recognition of something special, the name of her husband.
The man who had had the right to touch her as he was doing now. To stroke his hands over the shape of her body, sliding down her back, fingers tracing the line of her spine, until they splayed out over her hips, curved over the swell of her buttocks to press her even closer to him. His hips cradled her pelvis, the heat and swell of his erection hard against the softness of her feminine mound. Acting purely instinctively, she moved seductively against him, brushing against his arousal and hearing him groan low in his throat.
‘Gineka mou, gineka mou…Ise panemorfi. You are so beautiful,’ Zarek translated his muttered Greek, obviously needing her to understand.
Penny snatched in a shaken breath on a sound that even she was not quite sure whether it was a tremulous laugh, a gasp, or even an uncontrollable sob of response.
‘I know. I know.’ She whispered the words against his lips. ‘You told me, remember?’
They had been some of the first words in his language that he had ever taught her.
Gineka mou…my wife. Ise panemorfi. You are so very beautiful.
And he had spoken them to her on their wedding day. Murmured them to her as they lay in bed. Whispered them in her ear as he took possession of her body for the very first time, took her virginity and made her his completely. And finally he had cried them aloud, in the heat of his passion and the throes of his climax as the thundering orgasm took them both right over the edge of the world, it had seemed, and out to spin in the wilds of uncharted space beyond.
At the time she had had no idea of what sexual fulfilment could possibly mean. She had dreamed and fantasised of course, yearned for Zarek’s kiss, his touch. But she had had no concept of just how powerful a force of need could overwhelm her, the ecstasies that were within her reach when she abandoned herself to the skilled and knowing touch of her forcefully passionate lover. She only knew that she had given herself to him happily and willingly because she loved and had believed herself to be loved. She had thought that that was what made the difference.
Ten months of marriage had taught her all she needed to know. Ten months of marriage had given her time to learn, to discover her own latent sexuality and find herself as a sensual woman. A woman whose needs and desires were as hot and responsive as the man who made love to her each night.
And those needs, those hungers now rushed to the surface in a surge of demanding, stinging need in response to the caresses, the kisses of the man who had taught her everything she knew. Her one, her only lover.
She’d missed these sensations, missed him, and she couldn’t hold back the ardent response that shuddered through her as she gave herself up to them for the first time in so long—far too long.
Zarek’s hands were at her breasts, cupping their soft weight through the fine material of her clothing, making her moan aloud in a sound of hunger that she could just not hold back. It was not enough. She needed more. She needed the full sensation of his caress against her skin and she almost felt that she would have torn open the front of her dress to give him access if he didn’t give her what she wanted.
But at the same time she wanted to use her hands to unfasten his clothing too. To wrench the buttons of his shirt from their fastenings, strip the fine cotton from his powerful torso, expose the muscled lines of his chest and shoulders to her hungry touch, her seeking mouth.
And Zarek was there ahead of her anyway. He needed no urging, no impatient encouragement as he used his mouth to ease the delicate straps of her green dress aside, fastening his teeth on one and tugging it down and over her shoulders. At the same time his hands were busy with the front of the garment, sliding it down over her straining, aching breasts to expose the creamy curves, the pink, tightly budded nipples that curled and hardened even more under the arousing caress of his knowing hands.
‘Oh, Zarek…’
This time his name was a long, sighing cadence of delight as his thumbs swept over the swollen tips. The rough caress sent burning arrows of pure pleasure along every nerve pathway to centre in the most feminine core of her being, where they piled further hunger, built even more need on the yearning that was already driving her to total distraction. She couldn’t take much more of this, couldn’t take any more…the thought was like a beating refrain inside her head, making her feel as if her mind would blow apart if she was subjected to this onslaught of sensation for very much longer. She couldn’t take much more and stay in one piece and yet she knew that if Zarek so much as considered stopping then she would disintegrate, would fall into pieces in a totally different way.
