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He wanted her.
Still wanted her.
And tonight he would have her. He would peel that tarty-looking dress from her body and bare the breasts he knew so well and he would take them into his mouth and suckle them. He would soon discover for himself how time had changed and refined the curves of her body and her secret feminine places.
His mouth dried. He would make her keep her shoes on. He would make love to her and finally slake his desire for her. Only this time he would walk away and he would finally be free—for there would be no lingering trace of her left in his mind or his body. He would shake off every last trace of her in one long and delicious night of sex.
‘Indeed, it does happen to everyone—for nobody’s experience is unique,’ he agreed softly, his gaze settling on the scarlet gleam of her lips. Like a snake uncoiling itself, he rose from the sofa with a fluid grace and began to walk across the room towards her. ‘So tell me about this party you’re going to tonight.’
Alice’s breathing began to quicken. ‘There’s… nothing much to tell.’
He thought of what a stir she would create in that outrageous outfit. He thought of all the times she had dressed for him. And undressed for him, and suddenly a great rush of jealousy washed over him—hot poison firing his blood. ‘Whose party is it?’
She registered the sudden animosity in his body language. ‘Kyros! You can’t just waltz back into my life after ten years and start interrogating me about who I associate with!’
‘Can’t I?’ He took a step closer. ‘And that still doesn’t answer my question, Alice.’
He was close enough now for her to be able to detect his raw, masculine heat—the shimmering aura of sexuality which always seemed to radiate from his powerful frame. For the first time she noticed the tiny lines which fanned out from the sides of the black eyes. The faint hint of silver at the sides of his thick ebony hair. The deepening of lines around the strong, firm mouth. ‘But I don’t have to answer your question.’
‘Whose party is it?’ he persisted softly, but at that moment there was the clip-clopping of heels on the stairs and a woman wearing a very tight silver catsuit walked into the room.
‘I can’t breathe in this thing!’ she was saying, holding a half-drunk glass of wine and smiling until she saw him, and then she stood stock-still, her face freezing like a cartoon character.
Kyros stared at her in utter disbelief. ‘Who the hell is this?’ he said.
Alice watched as Kirsty began to blink rapidly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing—completely ignoring the fact that his greeting had been so rude and unwelcoming. It might have been comical if it hadn’t still inexplicably had the power to hurt—the sight of her best friend staring open-mouthed at Kyros as if some kind of god had just materialised.
‘Well, hel-lo,’ said Kirsty. ‘You must be—’
‘This is Kyros. Kyros, this is Kirsty,’ said Alice quickly. ‘You remember, I told you—Kyros and I knew each other at university.’
‘Er, that’s right,’ said Kirsty, her fingers unconsciously moving up to pat at her red hair. ‘But I had no idea that—’
That he was quite so stunning? Or that he was standing there in her parents’ sitting room—legs apart and hands resting arrogantly on his narrow hips as if he owned the place—looking at the two of them as if a couple of aliens had just landed?
‘Do you always go out dressed like this?’ he demanded.
Kirsty giggled. ‘Of course not—but the theme of the party is “Divine Decadence”. Didn’t Alice tell you?’
Black eyes fixed on Alice, sending several conflicting messages sparking at her from their ebony depths. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘She omitted to mention that fact. I think she found it slightly amusing to allow me to carry on thinking that she enjoyed dressing like a lady of the night, didn’t you, Alice?’
‘I think I did,’ Alice agreed blandly, and smiled. ‘Kyros was just passing by on his way back from a wedding,’ she told Kirsty. ‘And he’s just leaving.’
‘Oh!’ Kirsty pouted. ‘What a pity.’
Kyros’s expression was lazy and complicit as he subjected the redhead to a slow smile. ‘Indeed it is—for I am rarely in this country.’
Alice saw the question coming from a mile off, but it was too late to field it because Kirsty was already asking it.
‘Well, why don’t you come, too?’
‘He can’t. It’s a themed party, remember?’ Alice snapped. ‘And Kyros isn’t dressed for it!’
‘Oh, I don’t know—he looks divinely decadent to me,’ gurgled Kirsty.
‘You think so?’ Kyros’s lips curved into a smile. ‘Well, I should like to come along if you are sure I will not be in the way? If you are sure that your host will not object, ne?’
He was peppering his words with Greek deliberately, thought Alice furiously, knowing damned well the effect they had on women—for hadn’t they once had that same effect on her? Just as he was dazzling Kirsty with one of his rare and brilliant smiles. Either way, her friend was shaking her head as if he had just suggested the most outlandish thing on earth.
‘Object—to you?’ Kirsty gave him a conspiratorial grin. ‘I don’t imagine you ever have much trouble getting into parties, Kyros! Anyway, it’s a pretty casual do. The more the merrier—and single men are always at a premium.’
Especially men like you, her eyes seemed to say and Alice bit her lip, furious now. Kirsty was managing to make them sound like a small pack of man-eating women! The kind who were pushing thirty and were desperate to get their hands on anything with testosterone. How could she?
It was true that she had convincingly told her friend that she’d got over Kyros years ago. But she’d mainly been getting in practice for when she came face-to-face with him herself. Surely Kirsty could have guessed that she didn’t want him anywhere near her?
But at least the party was local—a few short streets away. It would be all too easy to leave unnoticed once it got going—and she could lose herself in the crowd. Why, doubtless Kyros would quickly be surrounded by women and probably wouldn’t even notice her slip away.
‘Yes, you’re very welcome to join us, Kyros,’ Alice agreed indifferently, although her fast-pounding heart told a different story entirely.
Kyros felt the flare of desire mingled with curiosity as she deliberately turned away from him and he observed the stiff set of her back, which was at such odds with the delicious curve of her bottom. Was she really as immune to him as she appeared? Would he have to work very hard to get her into bed tonight?
But the prospect of such a sexual conquest as this thrilled him and it was a long time since a challenge had filled him with quite so much excitement.
CHAPTER TWO
THE party was in a big, old house whose garden spilled down to the river—and clearly no expense had been spared. It was already in full swing when they arrived, as waitresses wearing very little bobbed around with trays of exotic-looking cocktails. Fairy lights were threaded into the branches of the trees, giant torches flared on either side of a specially constructed walkway, and there was a huge marquee with loud music blasting from it.
‘I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t complained about the noise,’ said Alice as they stood at the edge of the marquee’s black and white dance floor and watched people dancing around with varying degrees of skill.
‘That’s because they’ve invited all the neighbours!’ giggled Kirsty. ‘Oh, look—there’s Giles—won’t be a minute, I must say hello!’
Alice could have screamed as she watched Kirsty wiggling her silver bottom before being swallowed up by the crowd. She might have objected to the way that her friend had been fawning over Kyros all the way over here, but the last thing she wanted was to be left alone with him.
Yet she wasn’t alone, she reminded herself—there must be over a hundred people here with more arriving by the minute—and what could possibly happen in full view of everyone, if she didn’t want it to?
‘Some party,’ murmured Kyros, looking around.
‘Yes.’ Alice saw someone she’d been at school with, and waved. ‘The couple holding it are both bankers—they’ve just bought this house and this is their housewarming. Let’s go and find them,’ she suggested.
He turned then, a flicker of irritation flaring in the depths of the ebony eyes. ‘But I don’t want to find anyone.’
‘Don’t you think that’s a little rude, Kyros?’
‘Not really.’ His mouth curved into a half-smile—the kind that usually warned people that it was pointless to waste their time arguing with him. ‘Look around—see for yourself. People are drinking enough to ensure they have headaches by midnight and the more adventurous have already started dancing. In other words, Alice, everyone is doing their own thing. No one knows me—and why should they want to?’
Alice grabbed a vicious-looking purple cocktail from a passing tray and drank a potent mouthful. ‘Oh, please don’t be disingenuous, Kyros. Despite the fact that you’re woefully underdressed compared to everyone else, every woman in the garden noticed you walking in and every man is watching you out of the corner of their eyes to see what you’ll do next. Or rather, where’re you’ll strike.’
‘Strike?’ he echoed.
‘Like a predator,’ she said, before she had time to think about the wisdom of her words.
‘Then let me put their minds at rest,’ he said softly, cupping her elbow within the palm of his hand. ‘I am not interested in any of the women here—except the one whose perfume is invading my senses. Is it rose?’ he questioned.
‘Jasmine,’ she said automatically as the cocktail fizzed its way round her bloodstream.
‘Ah, jasmine. Sweet and intoxicating.’ Just like her. His thumb began to idly stroke at the satin texture of her skin and he felt it prickle into goose-bumps beneath his touch. ‘What I want is a few uninterrupted moments alone with you—catching up as ex-lovers do. To see what the world has done to us both in the intervening years.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Then don’t think,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘You’re curious. I’m curious.’ The pad of his thumb now traced a featherlight line down to her wrist where he could feel the thready flicker of her pulse and see the dark blue tracery of veins beneath the fair skin. ‘Very curious.’
Had he deliberately couched his words to sound like a sexual invitation? Probably. She wanted to tell him to stop touching her—just as she wanted to tell him to stop dipping his voice like that, so that it resembled rich, creamy chocolate which was gliding sweetly over her skin. But no words came—all that came was a terrible awareness of the aching emptiness inside her.
But maybe in a way, he was right. Maybe she needed to fill in the yawning gaps of her imagination with a few facts because he must have left scores of broken-hearted women behind. Women just like her. And wouldn’t it be good for her to hear that? To understand that what she had shared with him had not been unique or special. It might be painful—but if she could see their relationship as it really was, rather than what she had wanted it to be, then mightn’t that help take Kyros off the pedestal where he stubbornly seemed to stay, no matter how fervent her efforts to remove him?
‘Okay. Why not?’ she questioned carelessly, but quickly moved away from the temptation of his touch before beginning to walk away from the marquee.
The garden was long and they stopped by a quiet, shaded spot near to where the dark river water lapped against the bank—far away enough not to be bothered by stray guests or the insistent music, but Alice found that she was trembling, even though the summer air was thick and warm and scented with flowers.
He gestured to a bench which curled all the way round the trunk of a tree. ‘Let’s sit here.’
Though hard, the seat was oddly intimate and Alice was uncomfortably aware of how close his thigh lay to hers—and how she had to keep surreptitiously tugging at the hem of her satin dress to stop her stocking tops from showing.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ he said lazily. ‘I have no objection to looking at your legs.’
‘Well, I do,’ she said, when he plucked the cocktail glass from her suddenly boneless fingers and put it on the grass nearby.
‘You don’t need that,’ he said flatly.
‘Says who?’
His mouth curved into a mocking smile. ‘I do.’
The gesture was both autocratic and yet thrilling—and Alice was appalled at herself for thinking so. Was it because he was Greek that he seemed so utterly masculine and in total command of the situation? That he could get away with the kind of domination she wouldn’t dream of tolerating from any other man—or was it simply because he was Kyros?
‘As high-handed as ever, I see,’ she observed.
‘Ah, but women like a man to take control.’ In the fading light, his eyes gleamed. ‘You always did,’ he added deliberately.
Especially in bed. The unspoken words seemed to filter their way through the gathering gloom towards her, pulling her back to a time of erotic awakening at Kyros’s hands.
When they’d met she had been a virgin—something which had delighted him. A woman’s virtue was the most precious gift that she could give to a man, he had assured her as he had removed the underwear from her trembling body with the dexterity of a man who had done so many times before.
With a passion which had dazed her, he had taught her everything he knew—and it seemed that his knowledge on this particular subject was encyclopaedic. Kyros was an expert in the art of love-making, ‘Because it is an art, agape mou,’ she recalled him murmuring as he had pulled her down onto his lap. How jealous she had been of all the women who had come before her—the women he had practised his art on. And what of the ones who had followed—what of those?
She wasn’t going to go there. They weren’t here to talk about intimacy—because that would only highlight unwanted emotions like envy and regret. Once again, she smoothed the hem of her dress.
‘I thought we’d already decided it was a little late in the day for fake modesty?’ he murmured.
‘Fake modesty will go once you ditch the caveman comments,’ she said, and he laughed. ‘So let’s have this catch-up you’re so keen on, Kyros. What exactly are you doing these days? Where are you living?’
‘On Kalfera. Where else?’
Alice had only ever seen photos of the stunning island where he and his twin brother had grown up and to her unworldly eyes it had looked like some kind of faraway paradise—with its sapphire seas and blazing white sands. Kyros had always spoken of returning there, but somehow she had thought that it might feel claustrophobic after London. She had thought that he might want to be free of its bitter memories. For hadn’t he once told her—on the one and only time she’d ever seen him slightly drunk—of the mother who had walked out on him and his twin brother when they were barely four years old?
And she remembered tentatively bringing up the subject another time—and the way he had shot her down in flames, telling her never to mention it again.
She watched him now—the shadows which caressed his sculpted cheekbones. ‘I thought you might find island life too small and insular—after all the freedom you enjoyed while you were studying.’
‘I choose to live on an island—that doesn’t mean I’m marooned on it,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I can move between the mainland and rest of Europe whenever it suits me.’
‘And how often is that?’
‘That depends. I have business interests which I’m growing, but Kalfera is where I most like to be. Life is very simple there—with a peace like nowhere else on earth. There’s nowhere like it,’ he finished softly, but then narrowed his eyes, shuttering them against further intrusion. So she still had that inquisitive way with her—and he had not brought her down here to this secluded spot for Alice to be interrogating him about his choice of home!
‘But that is enough about my unsophisticated life on a little Greek island,’ he murmured, leaning back against the tree trunk so that he could study the slim swell of her breasts. ‘I want to hear all about you.’
It occurred to Alice that he had actually told her very little about himself, other than where he was living. Had he made a success of the family business, she wondered—because hadn’t the company been struggling at some point? she recalled. Her eyes flicked over his jeans and T-shirt—not exactly the outfit of a rich man. Was it struggling still—and did that explain his reluctance to talk about it?
‘Oh, I’ve done okay,’ she said quietly. She didn’t want to boast—particularly if Kyros hadn’t made the dizzy and expected rise to the top—but neither did she want to play down her achievements. Even if her love life hadn’t been a success, at least Alice’s job was the one constant area she could be relatively proud of. ‘Enough to be able to support myself, anyway—and to own my own apartment.’
How long would it take to drive there? he wondered idly. In time for bed? ‘Doing what?’
‘I’m in marketing.’ She thought she saw his mouth curve and stupidly found herself rushing to her own defence! ‘It may sound a little dull, but it’s anything but—especially in the company I’ve joined. We sell health-care products—alternative therapy stuff—which is big business now. When I started out, things were on a downward spin—but we rethought our marketing strategies and it coincided with a change in people’s thinking, and…’ she shrugged, suddenly aware of the gleam in his black eyes ‘…now it’s on the upturn.’
‘Ah, Alice—how passionately you speak of this business. So you have become a career woman?’ he observed mockingly.
‘You make it sound like a fault.’
‘Do I? That is too strong an assessment—though nobody can deny that it is different for a woman. That if she puts her heart into her career, it leaves little room for anything else,’ he mused, glancing down at her bare fingers. ‘Particularly a family.’
Don’t take it personally, she told herself, but the taste of regret made her bite her lip. Just because you’ve never settled down and had children doesn’t mean you’re any kind of failure, she told herself firmly. ‘There’s still plenty of time for that,’ she returned, horribly aware that she might now be sounding even more defensive.
‘You think that women can have it all?’ he questioned.
‘I think men would like them to believe they can’t—but that they owe it to themselves to try.’
‘So you have become the arch-feminist in your silk stockings and suspenders,’ he observed drily, aware of the sudden kick of lust.
Now his black gaze was sliding down over her body, making her skin tingle with a growing kind of awareness. ‘I don’t remember you being quite so outrageously old-fashioned—even in the past,’ she returned. ‘Did you turn the clock back by a century when you returned to Kalfera?’
He stretched out his long legs in front of him and he saw her shift a little, as if her own position was uncomfortable. Was it? Well, it was pretty uncomfortable for him—but maybe that was because the inexorable build-up of desire was pulling tight across the heavy denim of his jeans. Would she notice? he wondered. What would she do if he put her hand there? Would she stroke him and then unzip him and take him into her mouth as she had done so many times in the past?
‘So have you missed me, agape mou?’ he murmured, cursing himself against the now exquisitely painful ache.
It was a long time since she had heard that particular term of affection—it was one of the first and few Greek phrases she had learned and now it took her by surprise. But more crucially, it took her back to a time and a place which she had sectioned off as being too dangerous—rather as you might wire-fence a crater you’d found lurking at the bottom of your garden.
Forgetting Kyros had been something she’d taught herself to do after he’d gone. It hadn’t been easy—but time had helped and so had practice. Yet seeing him here like this hurtled her back to a forgotten time and suddenly she found she had no defence against the flood of memories which washed over her.
