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His eyes narrowed. Was that a criticism? Of him? Did she not realise that he would not tolerate being judged? That no woman ever had, and no woman ever would? And was she not aware that she was in danger of treading the path of the predictable—the path that so many women before her had taken—and that if she did there could be only one outcome?
Leaning back in his chair just a little, he crossed one long leg over the other, watching the way that her eyes followed the movement as she tried to disguise the hunger in her eyes. Should he take her now? he wondered idly. Could he really be bothered to endure a restaurant dinner of small talk when all he wanted was to lose himself in the sweetness of her body?
‘Indeed I am not,’ he agreed softly, following her gaze to his bare feet and remembering that amazing time when she had … ‘But that is easily remedied,’ he said thickly. ‘I shall go into the bedroom and finish getting dressed right now.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly, something telling her that he was playing a game with her.
‘Or …’ His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile. ‘Or you could always come over here and say hello to me properly.’
Was that a subtle dig that she hadn’t already done so? Rebecca was aware of some unknown emotion hovering in the air about them—something unspoken and dangerous. Instinct told her that she was playing with fire if she continued to moan about his lateness. And an even stronger instinct made her badly want to kiss him.
Letting her handbag slide to the floor, she crossed the room and went over to him, bending her face to brush a light kiss against his lips. A kiss could wipe everything away, she thought longingly, her hands reaching up to his shoulders. Oh, Xandros.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘Oreos. Do it some more.’
She kissed him again. And then again—only deeper this time and more intently—until he groaned and reached for her so that she let him pull her down onto his lap. ‘Xandros!’ she gasped.
‘Touch me,’ he urged, his mouth against her ear, his nostrils inhaling her light, flowery scent and feeling the silken spill of her hair next to his skin.
‘Wh-where?’
‘Where ever you want, agape mou.’
Oh, the choice was dazzling. Where did she begin? With his face—and all its shadowy contours, its contrasting lines and curves? She let her fingers caress his cheeks, running them along the luminously gold skin as if she were measuring the high angles of his cheekbones until she encountered the rasp of the dark new growth around his jaw.
‘You didn’t shave today,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you know what they say about men who need to shave a lot?’
‘No. What do they say?’
‘What do you think they say?’ he taunted. ‘They say that he is a real man. Shall I prove it to you?’ Taking her hand, he guided it down to between his legs and Rebecca felt the rush of blood to her cheeks as she felt the unbelievable hardness of him stretching the fabric of his elegant trousers. ‘Ne,’ he groaned. ‘Touch me there. Right there.’
‘Like that?’ she whispered, cupping him in the palm of her hand.
‘Ne. More. Do that some more.’
She drifted her fingers teasingly over the rocky shaft of him, and his soft moan became an impatient imprecation. His ebony eyes were sparking pure passion and fire and his voice was unsteady as he stroked the silken skin above her breasts. ‘I haven’t seen this dress before.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No. I want to tear it from your body.’
‘Don’t do that, Xandros—it’s new.’
‘Then why don’t you take it off for me?’
Suddenly she felt shy, the doubts which had been assailing her all day coming back like spectres to haunt her. Was this an acceptable way to be treated by a man—to be made to feel insecure with him and then for him to ask you to perform a striptease, while he was still seated at his desk?
‘Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?’
He gave a short laugh, but he was so hard and so hot for her that he doubted he would be able to make it to the door and this sensual power which she always seemed to exert over him made him want to wrest back control. ‘Isn’t it a little soon in our acquaintance for convention to rear its ugly head?’
Rebecca froze. Acquaintance. What kind of a word was that?
He saw her mouth tremble and he licked the tip of his tongue over it to cease its shiver, his hands slipping around her waist, fingers splaying over its slim indentation. ‘Take it off,’ he urged thickly.
She wanted to say I can’t, but then he might ask her why, and how could she possibly answer that? Telling him that she wanted him to respect her and not just treat her as a sex object might sound like emotional blackmail. Respect had to be earned, not demanded—and, besides, maybe this was the kind of high-octane way in which billionaires conducted their love affairs.
And wasn’t there a part of her which was revelling in her newly discovered ability to thrill him, to make his body rigid with tension, the black eyes opaque with a kind of helpless desire? Wasn’t this the only time she felt that she had any real say in the relationship—in that emotionally and physically fraught time just before a couple had sex?
She stood up and lifted her hands to her hair, scooping it up between her fingers, before letting the whole heavy mass fall around her shoulders, watching his black eyes following the movement almost hypnotically. She knew he loved her hair. He had told her that the first time she’d met him—he’d said it was the colour of the setting sun before the night sky swallowed it up, whole. And when he had said it, he had looked as if he would like to swallow her up whole.
Hadn’t it been his almost poetic way with words which had disarmed her just as much as the dark, good looks and the hard, lean body? The idea that a man could be the embodiment of all that was masculine and yet be unafraid to express himself in the way which would make a woman melt?
But hadn’t that just been part of his well-practised seduction technique? How long had it been since he’d told her that her eyes were like the violet-blue flowers which scrambled in among the arid rocks and bloomed during a Grecian spring? Or that her skin was pure cream, and that was why he liked to lick it?
She shivered. Pride told her she should not strip for him and yet she knew that the evening would start off badly if she started playing games by refusing.
Peeling off her dress with one slow, sweeping movement, she dropped it on the desk, right in the middle of all his papers, daring him to object—wanting him to object. To somehow make this powerful man feel as helpless as she did. ‘I do hope that won’t interfere with your work,’ she said, thinking no such thing at all.
‘Rebecca,’ he said unevenly.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
‘Turn around,’ he said huskily. ‘Turn around and let me feast my eyes on you.’
She made him wait. The only time she could—and then she began to walk to the other side of the desk.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Do you mean like this, Xandros? Do you want to see my bottom?’ Slowly, she turned around and gave a flamboyant little wiggle and heard him laugh, but the laugh was tinged with a small groan as he saw the unbelievably alluring scarlet briefs and the matching bra over which her breasts spilled.
‘Ne. Just like that.’
He loved her bottom, as well as her hair. He had told her that, too, insisting that the pert globes be covered in nothing but lace, wanting to buy her sets of lingerie from one of the most exclusive stores in London—but she had refused. She would not be bought, even though sometimes he made her feel like a possession—just like one of his sleek cars or the fancy apartments he owned.
She began to slide the panties off, but her hands were trembling as she hooked them off over each foot and as she turned around, she crumpled them angrily between her palm and threw them at him.
Catching them effortlessly, Xandros raised his dark brows, and then—very deliberately—he lifted them up to his face and closed his eyes as he breathed in their scent.
Rebecca felt faint. What did he do to her? What power could he wield that could make her feel so utterly abandoned and wanton when she was with him—and yet leave her feeling abandoned in quite a different sense when he wasn’t there?
‘Delicious,’ he murmured. ‘Now the bra. Take it off.’
‘You take it off.’
‘But I can’t reach.’
‘Then move.’
‘Are you ordering me around, agape mou?’
‘You bet I am.’
Laughing softly, he rose to his feet and walked towards her with the slow stealth of the certain predator. And then, without warning, he snaked his arms around her and crushed her into his arms into a kiss of such hard—almost brutal—passion that she lost her balance.
But Xandros had her held firmly in his arms and he continued to kiss her, luxuriating in the softness of her body, enjoying the little cries she was making. For a woman who had made him wait longer than any other—his victory was almost complete.
‘Still want to go to the bedroom?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away from hers. ‘Or did you have somewhere else in mind?’
She no longer cared, but she was damned if she was going to tell him that. Or to give into him yet again. He wanted her now and he wanted her here and he could damned well wait as he had made her wait for him to turn up tonight.
‘B-bed,’ she managed. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Everything with him was a battle—but this was one she was going to win. She didn’t care if it was conventional to want to go to the bedroom—at least it wouldn’t be insultingly convenient to have him take her there and then on the floor as he had done so many times before.
But he scooped her up in his arms as she had known he would—and all her angry thoughts melted because this bit was her fantasy come true. Her darkly virile lover taking his willing captive off to experience the perfect pleasures of his body. Wasn’t that the stuff of every woman’s secret dream—to be mastered and dominated by such a powerful man?
Rebecca kissed his neck as he carried her down the long corridor of the suite he rented whenever he was in London—which took over the entire top floor of the Park Lane hotel. She remembered the first time she had seen the bedroom—and had been rendered speechless.
Photo-spreads in glossy magazines could easily show luxury—but she’d been unaware that a single room could be so spacious. This one had a bed which was only slightly smaller than her entire bedroom back home—and everything else seemed to be controlled at the push of a button.
There was a giant TV screen and a small fridge, stocked with champagne and fancy chocolates as well as cut-glass bowls of flowers strategically placed to scent the room. There was even a bookcase and a rack which held all the international newspapers. But there was only one thing which she and Xandros did once they crossed the threshold of this room…
Xandros put her down on the bed and began to unbuckle his belt, watching her face as he did so, seeing her eyes darken in anticipation, as they always did. ‘You want me to strip for you now?’ he questioned softly.
‘Yes. I-I insist on it,’ she said unsteadily, but for her it was less of an erotic turn-on than the fact that she wanted to see him vulnerable—or as vulnerable as he was capable of.
But there was nothing remotely vulnerable about watching Xandros take his clothes off. First, he loosened his shirt, button by button—an interminable amount of buttons, or so it seemed to her.
‘Want me to go faster?’ he mocked as he saw her tongue snake out to moisten her parched lips.
Rebecca shook her head as he slipped the garment from his broad, bare shoulders and let it flutter to the floor like the white flag of surrender—except she knew that he didn’t have a surrendering bone in his body.
Rebecca saw him give a mocking wince as he slowly slid the zip of his trousers down and it said much for his self-possession and steely control that still he did not hurry it, despite the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
How could he possibly look both elegant and sexy as he removed his trousers and draped them over the back of a chair? His feet were bare, so all that remained were the silk boxer shorts which gave his body the look of a taut and supremely fit athlete. He kicked them off and for a moment just stood before her—completely naked and thrillingly aroused—his eyes glittering with an irresistible and arrogant challenge. And in that moment there was something so daunting—almost forbiddingly masculine—about him that Rebecca’s heart thumped with something which felt more like fear than desire.
‘Shall I come to you now, agape mou?’ His voice was a caressing tease. ‘Is that what you want?’
She wanted to tell him to promise not to break her heart, and she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything in her life—more than breath itself. Was he aware of that? Or that sometimes he made her feel emotionally raw—as if he had seared away the top layer of her skin, leaving her cruelly exposed to his analytical eye? And what did that eye see? Someone who lived the way that plenty of other young women did—yet one who was dating a man way out of her league.
‘If you want,’ she answered, as if she couldn’t care less.
He gave a low laugh of delight as he climbed onto the bed beside her. ‘Come here.’
‘No.’
‘Ah, Rebecca. Rebecca mou.’ Reaching out, he pulled her trembling body into the hard heat of his own, his thumb reflectively circling one puckered rose nipple so that it seemed to push insistently against him. ‘You are still angry with me for being late?’
Tell him. Tell him! ‘You could have let me know. I just don’t want to be taken for granted, Xandros. I thought that you—’
His kiss silenced her, but then it was the most effective silencer in the world where women were concerned—and if all she was intending to do was to subject him to the age-old complaint about how a woman wanted to be treated, well … He had heard that grievance more times than he cared to remember.
This was better. Just this. The feel of skin against skin, the growing warmth of their ardour making their bodies closer still—as if they were glued together. In his arms, she was everything he could want from a lover—a little inexperienced, it was true, but he liked that. He had no time for women with lots of different party tricks to try out—for they were little better than hookers. A sense of wonder was fine by him, and, for however long the affair lasted, he would enjoy teaching her everything he knew.
He enjoyed the mental battle he engaged in during sex. He liked to test himself—to bring the woman to the near-height of pleasure over and over again, while denying himself until he could deny it no longer.
‘Oh, Xandros,’ she pleaded, with a frantic little cry of pleasure.
‘Mmm?’
‘Please!’
‘Please, what, agape mou?’
‘Now!’
How eager she was! How quickly she reached her peak! He lifted his dark head from where he had been suckling at her breast and moved over her, his black eyes glittering, before thrusting into her long and hard and deep, with a little groan of pleasure.
Sometimes he liked to watch a woman bloom and flower, but Rebecca was reaching her hands up to his shoulders, pulling him down so that their mouths met, and she groaned with pleasure as she writhed beneath him.
Tangled and gasping, she wrapped her limbs around him like a soft, white octopus, moving her hips in abandon until he felt the control slipping away from him. His orgasm came with a strength and a power which surprised him, but it had been like that with her since the very first time, and he couldn’t quite work out why.
Because she had made him think the unthinkable—that he was actually going to fail to get her into his bed?
Her head lay against the stilling thunder of his heart and he stroked her hair, missing the absence of her warm breath as she turned her head away to stare at the wall, saying nothing.
Ironically, this was when he liked her best—when she was retreating from him, like the tide moving away from the ever-distant shore. Xandros only wanted something when it was beyond his reach. Because once he had possessed it he wanted to move on, as he had been moving on all his restless life.
‘Do you still want to go out for dinner?’ He stretched lazily, and yawned. ‘Or shall we stay here and order something in?’
For a moment, Rebecca didn’t answer. In a way, she was perfectly happy to stay there—for she was as warm and replete as a woman could be. He would order from room service and the food would be wheeled in on a grand linen-covered trolley, with big silver domes concealing the food. And a silent waiter would set their table for them, while they watched him, rather awkwardly.
There would be flowers and fine wines and morsels of food which they would pick at—and, soon enough, they would return to bed. Or make love on the sofa, while watching a film. And Xandros would probably take at least one business call.
The alternative was to get dressed and be whisked off to dinner—and every woman liked a little life outside the private world of the bedroom, no matter how wonderful the fantasy land within it. If theirs was a normal relationship she would have been thrilled to have been seen with him—but it wasn’t. They weren’t supposed to be dating and so they crept around, like thieves in the night. They visited discreet, out-of-the-way restaurants—or they stayed in his hotel room. Sometimes she wondered if anyone would actually believe her if she told them she was seeing the Greek billionaire.
But who could she tell? She had put her job on the line by agreeing to date him in the first place and none of her colleagues knew about it.
She turned her head to look at him, touching the strong curve of his jaw with the tip of her finger, and her heart turned over. Was she being selfish by wanting to go out? He looked so tired. Suddenly, her doubts and her fears melted away and she snuggled closer against his warm body, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and massaging the silken skin beneath. Was it inbuilt in a woman that she should want to nurture her man?
‘Which would you prefer?’ she questioned softly. ‘To stay here?’
Xandros bit back an instinctive click of impatience. He wanted to tell her not to keep accommodating his needs. But this was inevitably what happened. Women tried to please you and in so doing they submerged their own identity into yours. And then you lost sight of what had attracted you to them in the first place—for you could no longer see it.
