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‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Appreciating you,’ Aristandros husked, breathing in the soapy fresh scent of her skin as he bent over her, the hot blood pooling at his groin. His soap from his shower, his woman, right where she belonged. It was a moment of supreme sensual satisfaction for Ari. He pressed his warm mouth lightly to the tender skin at her collarbone, where a tiny pulse was beating out her tension. With the tip of his tongue he tasted her. His hands slid from her slim shoulders to brush the bra cups down and ease her pert breasts free of confinement. The sweetly curved mounds spilled forward, held high by the constraint of the bra, the stiff, pink crests drawing his attention.
‘You’re perfect.’ He moulded the ripe swell of her brazenly exposed flesh and kneaded the tender tips. Taken by surprise, Ella was defenceless, mentally unprepared for a sexual challenge before nightfall. Her nipples were unbearably sensitive. Her head tipped back, and a moan broke from her throat as he stroked and pinched the distended buds. A warm, rich wave of sensational response was engulfing her even before he lowered his head to suck the rosy crests. Her control was sliding as inexorably as night followed day. Desire was sinking taloned claws of need into her treacherous body. He drove her lips apart with sudden mesmeric urgency, his tongue plundering the moist interior of her mouth while his skilled fingers traced the taut, damp stretch of material between her thighs and made her shiver violently.
At an unhurried pace, he eased below the triangle of fabric and circled the most sensitive point, teasing and toying with her delicate flesh. All lingering remnants of self-discipline were wrenched from her as he subjected her to his erotic mastery. Very soon she reached the stage where she could have wept with frustration and begged him on her knees for satisfaction. A husky sound of amusement broke from him as she dragged him closer with frantic hands, seeking the temporary consolation of physical contact that their position denied her.
‘Take a deep breath, khriso mou,’ Aristandros urged thickly. ‘We have a gallery opening to attend, and I need a shower—’
‘A gallery opening?’ Only with the greatest difficulty did Ella extract herself from the all-encompassing sexual hunger that he had induced and return to reason again. It was like coming out of a coma to a brash new world. She was appalled to appreciate that Aristandros had virtually seduced her in his bathroom and was now trying to head for the shower while she still clung to him. She whipped her hands from him as though she had been burnt. ‘Of course.’
‘We have no time.’ Aristandros lifted her down from the marble unit-top with strong hands. ‘I don’t want to treat you like a takeaway,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I want to enjoy you like a feast and appreciate every nuance.’
‘A takeaway!’ Ella repeated through gritted teeth of disdain.
Aristandros gazed down at her with shimmering golden-brown eyes fringed with spiky black lashes. ‘You want me,’ he countered with hard satisfaction. ‘A time will come when you don’t care how I take you … only that I do.’
That frightening forecast trickled down her taut spine like ice-water. ‘Never,’ she swore. ‘I’d sooner die!’
A wolfish smile slashed his beautifully shaped mouth. ‘I know women; I’m never wrong…’
‘You were once,’ Ella reminded him before she could think better of summoning up a recollection that could only alienate him.
His lean, dark face tensed, ruthless eyes cool on her face. ‘Don’t go there,’ he warned her softly.
A deep chill formed inside her tummy. Regretting her incautious words, she turned her head away, shame and uncertainty clouding her blue eyes as she returned to the bedroom. For a split second she was recalling the short-lived joy of the moment when he had told her that he wanted her to marry him. Her happiness had turned to horror an instant later when he made a public announcement about their plans while spelling out the fact that she would be giving up medicine to concentrate on being a wife and a mother. Minutes later they had been engaged in a heated dispute in which it had swiftly become clear that Aristandros could be as inflexible in his expectations as a solid-granite rock and quite unapologetic about the fact too.
Rejection had swiftly followed her refusal to conform seven years back. Aristandros was very black and white. There was no going back with him, no halfway measures or compromises. The break-up had felt as swift, cruel and unjust as a sudden death. At least this time around, she reflected heavily, she knew what to expect if she crossed the line with Aristandros Xenakis. There would be no second chance to get it right …
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I ALMOST forgot,’ Aristandros remarked, striding into a book-lined room off the imposing hall and leaving Ella to hover in the doorway.
Ella watched him lift a small shallow case from the desk. Her smooth brow pleated.
‘Come here,’ he urged with his usual impatience. ‘You can’t go out without jewels.’
‘I don’t have any,’ she confided with an uneasy laugh.
‘I’m starting off your collection, glikia mou.’ Aristandros detached the glittering diamond necklace from its velvet bed as she approached him on stiff legs. ‘Turn round.’
‘I don’t want it!’ Ella told him sharply for, while she had tolerated the clothing, a dazzling river of diamonds felt too much like the biblical wages of sin. Her principles had already taken enough of a hit.
‘But it is my wish that you wear it,’ Aristandros spelt out, purposeful fingers curving to her shoulder to flip her round. The jewels felt very cold against her skin. She shivered as his fingertips brushed her nape. He spun her back round and, with a satisfaction undiminished by her bleak expression, surveyed the glittering tracery of jewels encircling her throat
Ella was surprised by the crush at the gallery opening. She had never dreamt that she would see so many well-dressed people and famous celebrity faces grouped in the same place. Nor had she ever received quite so much personal attention for, the moment she entered the room by Aristandros’s side, every female head seemed to swivel in their direction. An audible buzz of conjecture accompanied their passage through the crowds. While Ari was engaged in discussing a sculpture with its creator, Ella strayed across the room. She was studying an enchanting painting of the seashore when she was accosted by a tall, leggy redhead whose perfect body was adorned by a tiny white satin dress.
‘So, you’re my replacement!’ the woman snapped, settling her furious and accusing green gaze on Ella. ‘Who the hell are you? Exactly when did Aristandros meet you?’
Ella knew exactly who the beautiful redhead was. Her name was Milly, she was a top model and probably Aristandros’s most recent ex. Ella said nothing, for she had seen the tears in the other woman’s eyes and recognised her distress.
‘You won’t get any warning that it’s over. One day you’re in, and the world’s your oyster, and the next you’re out and there’s nothing you can do about it. He doesn’t take your calls any more,’ Milly recited chokily. ‘Every door slams in your face!’
‘There has to be many safer and more rewarding options for a woman as young and beautiful as you are,’ Ella told her bracingly. ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that you care.’
Milly studied her in wide-eyed bewilderment. ‘You’re being nice to me? Aren’t you jealous?’
‘No,’ Ella declared with innate dignity. ‘I’m not the jealous sort.’
Too late, she saw that the redhead’s attention had shifted from her.
‘Milly.’ From behind Ella, Aristandros greeted the other woman politely.
‘You’re not jealous?’ Aristandros queried in near disbelief as his ex-girlfriend vanished speedily back into the crush, unnerved by his ice-cold appraisal.
‘Of course not,’ Ella assured him, thinking of the seven years she had spent reading about his exploits with countless other women. Familiarity, she was convinced, had brought tolerance and common sense to her outlook. Everywhere Aristandros went, he was a target for ambitious women. That was a fact of life, and as long as he remained fabulously rich and gorgeous, the situation wasn’t likely to change any time soon.
Dark eyes sardonic, Aristandros guided her back to the landscape of the seashore. ‘It reminds me of Lykos … the beach below the house,’ he remarked, inclining his imperious head to the gallery owner hovering a few feet away. ‘We’ll take it.’
Aristandros had inherited the Greek island of Lykos from his mother’s side of the family. Once Ella had had a picnic there with him, and suddenly the years were rolling back inside her head and she was remembering how the breeze had whipped wildly at her hair while they ate. Wrapped up warm for the winter temperatures, she had listened with interest while Aristandros had outlined his plans to revitalise the island’s failing economy and prevent the population from falling any further. His sense of responsibility for the small, isolated community living on Lykos had impressed her a great deal.
‘Where will you hang the seascape?’ Aristandros asked as they left the gallery.
‘Where will I hang it?’ she stressed in confusion. ‘Are you saying that you are buying it for me?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want you buying stuff like that for me; the way you’re splashing out cash on me is indecent!’ Ella hissed frantically under her breath as they headed across the pavement to the silver limousine awaiting them. Crash barriers prevented the gathered members of the press from getting too close.
Her spine rigid, Ella blinked like an owl while cameras went off all around them, and questions and comments were hurled at Aristandros. Uppermost were the demands to know the identity of his new companion. But, in every way, Aristandros remained gloriously impervious to the media presence, settling into the limo beside her, ‘Of course I’m going to buy you things; get used to it!’
‘I’m only here with you because of Callie. Contact with her is the only reward I want,’ Ella proclaimed, uneasy fingers brushing the diamond necklace in meaningful emphasis of the point.
The smooth planes of his lean features took on a cold, sardonic light, his brilliant gaze narrowing. ‘No man wants to be told that his only attraction is an eighteen-month-old baby, khriso mou.’
Ella lifted her pale head high. ‘Even if it’s the truth?’
‘But it’s not the truth, it’s an outright lie for which you should hang your head in shame,’ Aristandros traded without hesitation, his beautifully shaped mouth curling with derision. ‘You want me as much now as you wanted me seven years ago. Don’t make the child your excuse.’
Ella had lost colour. ‘It’s not an excuse. I may occasionally find you … attractive, but I wouldn’t have done anything about it.’
‘Too spineless?’ Aristandros sent her a contemptuous glance. ‘I didn’t meet your narrow-minded requirements, so the fact that you wanted me and I wanted you meant nothing to you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous … of course it meant something!’ Ella flashed back. ‘But you wanted me to be something I couldn’t be.’
Aristandros closed a strong hand over hers to force her to turn and look at him. ‘I only wanted you to be a woman, not a strident feminist—’
Ella sent him a flaming look of bone-deep resentment. ‘I was never strident. I was sensible. We wanted totally different things out of life. It could never have worked.’
‘No doubt time will tell,’ Aristandros fielded very drily, releasing his hold on her hand.
The silence that laced their return to the penthouse gnawed at Ella’s nerves. She was already wishing that she didn’t speak first and think later. They were about to share the same bed, and she could barely believe that, never mind accept the idea in the mood she was in. ‘If the painting’s to be mine, I’ll be hanging it here somewhere,’ she told him abruptly, surrendering to a sudden need to bridge an atmosphere filled with tense, uneasy undertones. ‘Because I don’t have anywhere else to live at present.’
Aristandros sent her a sudden, satisfied smile, as if that bleak assurance was a heart warming plus on his terms. ‘You live where I live now.’
An involuntary shiver ran down her taut spine as the level of dependency that that statement suggested continued to chill Ella and her independent soul to the marrow.
The tall, powerful Greek closed his hands over hers to turn her back to face him. Brilliant golden-brown eyes assailed hers. ‘Don’t fight the inevitable, glikia mou. Embrace these changes in your life. You might even find that you come to enjoy them.’
‘Never,’ Ella swore in a fierce undertone.
‘I hear words on your lips that no other woman has ever dared to confront me with,’ Aristandros confided, his deep drawl silky with indulgence. ‘You are truly unique.’
Recognising his triumph at the position he had her in, Ella shut her eyes tight. So, when his mouth came down on hers without warning, her only weapon was her rage. But even as she braced her hands to his chest to push him angrily away she thought better of that move. She had made a devil’s bargain, and now payment was due. While Aristandros kissed her, she stood like a statue, unresponsive as stone. But he played with her mouth, soft one moment, teasing the next, and then hot and male and hungry, until her thoughts were no longer clear and her resistance was breaking down, sensual response beginning to quiver through her treacherous body in an ever-swelling tide.
With a masculine growl of approval, Aristandros bent down and lifted her, swinging her up into his arms with easy strength to carry her into the master bedroom.
Her heart was racing so fast she couldn’t catch her breath. When he set her down, she kicked off her shoes. A soft glide of air brushed her backbone as her dress was unzipped. His sensual mouth was like a brand on hers. The slide of his tongue between her parted lips was an indescribable aphrodisiac that sent darts of heat and tingles of excitement quivering through her entire body. For an instant she was shattered by the awareness that she wanted him as fiercely as she wanted air to breathe. Guilty unease filtered through her, cooling her head for a moment as she tasted the bitter truth that she was weaker than she had thought she would be.
‘Stop it,’ Aristandros growled, scorching dark-golden eyes raking her troubled face.
‘Stop what?’
‘Thinking whatever you’re thinking which is suddenly giving you all the animation of an Egyptian mummy.’
Discomfited colour bloomed across her cheekbones.
‘In fact, don’t think at all,’ Aristandros urged forcefully. ‘This is sex. You don’t need to carve it up into little intellectual nuggets to be studied below a microscope. Be spontaneous … natural.’
‘Natural?’ Ella hissed at him tempestuously. ‘This is the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done!’
His blue-shadowed jawline clenched. ‘Only because you’re fighting everything I make you feel.’
That he recognised her struggle, ineffective though it was, shook Ella, for it had not occurred to her that he might understand her that well. His impatience unconcealed, he dumped her down on the bed. ‘This is sex’, he had said with a detachment that ran contrary to her every instinct. But if their arrangement was to work, she reasoned, she had to stop judging him and wanting and expecting more than he was ever likely to give her. She had passed the last deadline: it was crunch time.
‘How many guys did you say?’ Aristandros enquired silkily, watching her shimmy beneath the sheet until only her shoulders could be seen.
Ella sat up, delicate facial bones tightening defensively. ‘I didn’t say!’
The silence stretched. A sardonic edge to his expressive mouth, Aristandros undressed, taking his time, every movement fluid with a grace that caught her eye no matter how hard she tried to avoid that side of the room. From the whipcord muscles of his shoulders to his beautifully defined torso, he was a vision of sculpted masculine perfection. He was also very well endowed and fully aroused, she could not help noticing. Her mouth ran dry and her heart began to pound.
‘Less than fifty?’ Aristandros asked casually.
Ella shot him an aghast glance.
‘Definitely less than fifty,’ he decided for himself.
‘It’s none of your damned business!’ Ella launched back at him furiously. ‘Stop making a production out of it!’
‘Come out from below the sheet.’
In a series of violent movements, Ella kicked off the sheet and reclined back against the pillows in the exaggerated pose of a glamour model, with her spine arched to thrust out her chest. ‘Satisfied?’
Aristandros raked his appreciative gaze over the voluptuous swell of her breasts in the turquoise bra. ‘Not yet. Take it all off, glikia mou.’
Her blue-as-sapphire eyes rounded. ‘Everything?’
Aristandros inclined his handsome head in a confirmation that was a clear challenge. For a split second, Ella was rigid with rejection, and then she scrambled off the bed. Taking up a defiant stance, she peeled off her bra and discarded her knickers.
His attention nailed to her, dark eyes flaring hungrily over her pale, slender curves, Aristandros strode forward and snatched her up into his arms. ‘I already feel like I waited a lifetime for you!’ he growled, claiming her soft mouth with savage possessiveness even while his hands moulded to the pert mounds of her breasts and kneaded the swollen pink tips between his fingers.
Her body came alive with almost painful immediacy. Needles of bittersweet longing arrowed from her breasts to her pelvis, and awakened a hollow feeling that was swiftly followed by a sharp stab of desire that made her tummy muscles contract. His mouth on hers suddenly became a fierce necessity. The pressure of his hard, masculine lips and the erotic exploration of his tongue went some way towards satisfying the craving taking charge of her. The stimulating passage of his hands over her sensitised body made her push against the unyielding contours of his hard muscular torso. He backed her down on to the bed. Heat and restlessness had entered her bloodstream. All of a sudden she was alight with a need that she had known only once before. Then, as now, the power of that sexual hunger scared her with its unnerving strength. Of their own volition it seemed, however, that her hips lifted and her thighs eased apart, seeking ever more intimate contact with him.
Aristandros lifted his tousled head to look down at her, his smouldering gaze scanning her flushed cheeks and the swollen contours of her mouth. ‘You’ll enjoy yourself much more when you let go of that rigid self-control—’
‘Don’t taunt me,’ Ella warned him grittily.
‘I wasn’t.’ He frowned. ‘I want this to be an unforgettable night.’
Her body a playground of tingling, energised responses, all of which seemed beyond her control, Ella shivered, so wound up with tension that it was an achievement just to think. She registered that this was Ari, the ultimate alpha male at his most driven, and seemingly sex was not quite as casual an event as he had made it sound. Even between the sheets he was set on scoring the highest possible results. At the same time, he was so beautiful that just looking at him turned her heart over. He shifted, the hair-roughened skin of his chest scratching against her jutting nipples and sending a scorching dart of extreme awareness down to the swollen heat and moisture at the very heart of her. In a movement that was utterly instinctive, she sank her fingers into his luxuriant black hair to drag him down to her and urge his mouth back onto hers again. He dealt her a frank look of surprise.
‘You talk too much,’ Ella told him baldly.
Laughter rumbled in his chest and then he kissed her. Complaint was the last thing on her mind, for in that department he had no equal. He kissed with an unholy passion. The all-encompassing hunger surged again and she clung to him, excitement taking over and overwhelming her final defences.
‘Se thelo … I want you,’ he bit out, studying her with dark-golden eyes that smouldered with appreciation. ‘When you respond like this to me, it blows my mind, khriso mou.’
She writhed in whimpering reaction while he explored the slick, wet flesh between her thighs. She was so tender and he was so skilled that both stillness and silence were impossible for her. Sensation engulfed her with exquisite pleasure as he teased the tiny bud below the pale curls screening her feminine mound. All restraint was gone. Her entire being was centred on the throbbing need he had awakened and the wickedly tormenting expertise of his technique. The yearning hunger got stronger and stronger until it felt as though her whole body was primed on a knife-edge of intolerable tension and longing. When he finally tipped her off that edge into climax, it was as if an explosion began low in her pelvis and slowly, wonderfully, roared in wave after glorious wave through the rest of her.
She was still awash with wondering bliss and stunned by the intensity of the experience when Aristandros slid between her thighs and sunk his hands below her hips to raise her. His iron-hard shaft probed her lush opening, and she gasped at the strangeness of a sensation magnified by the incredible sensitivity of her tender flesh. He attempted to plunge deeper, but for an instant her body seemed to resist him. With a stifled exclamation he tipped back her knees to ease his entry. Her untried feminine sheath finally stretched to accommodate him, and she cried out at the sudden shockingly sensual pleasure of his penetration. Her heart was racing as he delved deeper into her, and she arched up, on fire with excitement and renewed hunger. Nothing had ever felt so amazing. She was spellbound by the heady exhilaration of his masculine dominance and the extraordinary pleasure that was building inside her again. Just moments later she surged feverishly to another sexual peak which shattered her like glass into a hundred glittering pieces and flung her into the sun. Stunned by the explosive intensity of the pleasure, she was better prepared when it happened yet again, before he achieved his own release.
In the aftermath of that wild rollercoaster experience, Ella was in shock and as physically weak as a newborn kitten, drained by her own extravagant response.
‘My every dream comes true,’ Aristandros purred as he stretched like a jungle cat in the heat of the sun. Rolling back to her, he dropped a kiss on her brow and studied her with unashamed satisfaction. ‘A multi-orgasmic woman who sets my bed on fire, khriso mou.’
Ella was hugely embarrassed at having been so wildly responsive. She could not deny that sex with him had proved to be an extremely pleasurable activity. But, whether it was fair or otherwise, she pretty much hated him for the fact that he had made her enjoy herself. Her lovely flushed face bleak as a wintry day, she evaded his keen scrutiny because she felt she had let herself down. After all, she had planned just to tolerate his love-making, not leave him with the impression that he was an amazing lover.
‘And so beautiful,’ Aristandros remarked, trailing caressing brown fingers lazily through the silken tangle of white-blonde hair lying across her slim shoulder. ‘But remarkably inventive with the truth.’
Her hackles rose instantly. Given the excuse, she pulled away from him and snapped, ‘Meaning?’
‘You said you’d had a lot of lovers. But I don’t think there was even one.’
‘Well, you’d be wrong!’ she hissed furiously.
Aristandros captured her hand to imprison her when she began scrambling out of the other side of the bed. ‘I’ve never shared a bed with a virgin before, but you felt as tight as one,’ he imparted softly.
Affronted by the intimacy of that comment, Ella wrenched her hand out of his. ‘Wishful thinking, eh?’ she jibed, high spots of colour burning over her cheekbones. ‘You’re Greek to your backbone, aren’t you? You’ve slept with scores of women but you don’t want one who’s enjoyed the same freedom. In fact, your ultimate hypocritical fantasy is a virgin!’
