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‘Because I arrived.’ His eyes glittered like coals from hell. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you.’ He made a terse exclamation in Greek.
Jade swallowed. Had she been blase about the danger? She saw the hard, formidable lines in the handsome face, saw the ruthless glitter in the black eyes, and she knew a fleeting feeling of sympathy for the two hapless tourists. ‘You won’t—hurt them?’ she whispered again, and was relieved to see a half-smile lift the corner of his mouth.
‘What did you imagine I would do—beat them into pulp?’ he queried softly, and then he gave an amused smile. ‘Do not be concerned, little one. I shall merely speak to them—that will serve as suf- ficient deterrent.’
Feeling as though she’d been caught up in a sudden time warp, Jade stared curiously up at him. ’Do you always over-react like this?’ she quizzed him, forcing her voice to be light.
He shook his head. ‘It is not over-reacting at all.’ Some feral light sparked at the depths of the coal- dark eyes. ‘In Greece, you see,’ he told her, ‘we are protective of our women.’
He made her feel very small and very fragile, not a bit like her rather lanky five feet nine, and Jade couldn’t repress a shiver of excitement. Put like that it sounded so darkly atavistic, so—well, so thrilling, the idea of someone like this black-eyed and powerfully built man actually protecting her. Be- cause hadn’t protection been in very short supply in her life up until now?
The sun beat down on their bare heads as they walked up from the beach to the narrow track which was masquerading as a road. Jade could see the heat shimmering hazily upwards into the endless blue of the sky.
‘Put your hat on,’ he said.
She obediently crammed the battered straw down on her head. ‘Shouldn’t you?’
He gave a little shake of his head. ‘I am used to the sun.’
And hair that thick, that black, thought Jade, would surely protect him from its fierce rays?
Lizards ran swiftly along the sun-baked road, and he named them for her, pointing out tiny scrubby and fragrant plants that she’d never noticed before. His accent was entrancing; it lulled her into a dreamy sense of well-being, and when they arrived at last at the small house she was renting she stared up at him, aware of the disappointment thudding through her. I don’t want this day to end, she thought suddenly.
‘You want to know what we should do next?’
Could he guess so easily what she was thinking? she wondered dimly. Did her reluctance to see him go show on her face? ‘I…’ Her voice tailed off in hopeless confusion—she who everyone always said could talk her way into the record books!
‘We have a number of choices,’ he mused, as though this were the kind of bizarre conversation he was used to conducting every day. Was he? ‘You could offer me some of your water and we could sit together and drink. Or we could walk down to the village and take some refreshment there. Alternatively, I could initiate what we both most want to do?’
And only the biggest fool in the world would have replied, ‘Which is?’
‘Why, to kiss, of course,’ he replied, his voice a velvet caress which would have melted ice. ‘That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?’
Now she could feel her cheeks blanch—heaven only knew what harm this man was doing to her nervous system! He was virtually making love to her with his eyes. Jade Meredith the fearless re- porter took stock of the potentially dicey situation she was in, and astonishingly still felt no fear. She used the gritty voice with which she’d fired ques- tions at soap stars and the unsuspecting wives of footballers.
‘Just who are you?’ she demanded. She’d met confident men in her life before, yes, men who were arrogantly sure of their effect on women, yes—but never one who was this confident!
At the question, his eyes narrowed and he stilled, watching her intently from beneath dark, luxuriant brows. ‘I told you.’ His voice was a slumberous caress. ‘My name is Constantine.’
‘Yes—but…’ Her voice trailed off helplessly. What could she say? Yes, you’re right, you delec- table man—I do want you to kiss me? More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life? She was breaking every rule in the book by even standing here listening to him. What about all that assertiveness training she’d undergone? Did women allow men to change their minds for them? No, they most certainly did not! She gave him a conven- tional and dismissive nod. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life. ‘It was very kind of you to accompany me—but I think you’d better leave now.’
He smiled again. ‘In time.’
He had moved closer now, and when he moved it was like poetry in motion. You could see the muscles moving in perfect symmetry beneath the olive perfection of his skin.
He really wasn’t that tall, she reminded herself; plenty of men were taller than six feet, and she was only a few inches shorter herself. Yet there was something about the width of his shoulders and the magnificent breadth of a chest with its dark, dark whorls of hair. Something, too, about the powerful thrust of his thighs—as solidly carved as the trunk of an oak tree. All these things combined to make him seem the biggest man she had ever seen. She suppressed another little shiver of excitement.
He was smiling now as he let her give him the once over, again with that curiously cold smile- as though laughter was a stranger to his life. ‘You aren’t afraid of me.’ It was a statement of fact; he sounded amused.
‘No.’ Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She knew that Greek men were notoriously old- fashioned. Would he have preferred it if she’d started backing away from him, white-faced and trembling? Oh, come on, Jade, she chided—why should you care what he’d prefer?
‘Not even a little afraid?’ he quizzed her softly. ’And yet you terrify me.’
Jade swallowed. Now he was talking in riddles. ’No, I’m not afraid of you,’ she said firmly, and held her chin up stubbornly. ‘But I happen to have a black belt in judo, just in case you’re getting any ideas.’
This provoked a laugh, a low, rich chuckle, and Jade stupidly felt as though she’d just won the first prize in a raffle. ‘Very commendable,’ he re- marked. ‘But you know that your—black belt—in judo wouldn’t do you any good at all?’
Such arrogance! Such amazing arrogance! ‘Let me enlighten you,’ she said quite calmly, which was astonishing considering how fast her heart was hammering away in her chest. ‘Size has nothing to do with it.’
‘Oh, really?’ he teased softly, and her comment became something else completely. The black eyes glittered with mischief, and Jade coloured to the roots of her hair. Now what had she said?
‘I mean comparative size,’ she said firmly, re- fusing to back down or be intimidated. ‘You are taller and obviously stronger than I am, but judo isn’t about brute strength—it’s all to do with control and balance, of observing your opponent and waiting for the right opportunity.’
‘I know. And that isn’t what I meant.’
‘Oh? And just what did you mean? You implied that I’d be unable to defeat you.’
‘Absolutely,’ he said softly. ‘And do you know why? Because I think that once we made contact…whoosh!’ He lifted the palms of his hands in front of that magnificent bare chest in a flam- boyant gesture that an Englishman could never have got away with.
Jade’s heart had renewed its hammering. She shouldn’t be letting him talk to her like this; didn’t Greek men notoriously think that Englishwomen were easy? Well, he was about to discover that Jade Meredith was not among that merry band of women who fell swooning into the arms of handsome islanders for two weeks of holiday bliss before being put firmly on the plane with a load of lies about writing. ‘Is this your normal chat-up line?’ she asked cuttingly. ‘Because it if is I’d give you nought out of ten for subtlety!’
The dark brows knitted together. ‘Chat-up line,’ he mused. ‘Considering that English is one of the most perfect and complex of languages, that phrase is rather—inelegant, wouldn’t you say?’
It was rather shaming that someone to whom English was not a first language could express himself so eloquently, Jade thought with a touch of irritation. She had expected that to put him in his place, not to start some highbrow discussion about semantics!
The ebony brows remained knitted together. ‘And if we’re going to continue this—fascinating dis- cussion—might I suggest that we do it in a little more comfort?’ He looked pointedly at the table where the empty water jug sat. ‘Shall we sit down?’
Excitement vyed with prudence. ‘Why should we? I don’t know you,’ she said stubbornly.
‘But you know enough to know that I won’t hurt you?’
Jade stared at him. Enough, yes, to know that he would never physically hurt her, but… as she looked into those glittering black eyes, observed the slash of jaw and the high cheekbones, she suddenly felt some terrifying fear icing her skin. A knowledge that, yes, this magnificent creature with the cold smile and the eyes of jet could hurt her. That through him she could learn the real meaning of pain; indescribable, unbearable pain… She started to shake uncontrollably, a violent tremor which ran through her body like wildfire.
He saw her tremble. A warm hand was placed on her chilled forearm and she felt his strength like a warm embrace.
‘Fear not—I will not hurt you,’ he said quietly.
You will, she thought suddenly. Oh, this was rid- iculous! Had three weeks in Greece had turned her into a clairvoyant? She shook him away inel- egantly, but he captured her hand in his, raising it to his mouth where it stayed just centimetres away from the proud curve of his lips.
‘Do you not know that in Greece it is customary to offer the traveller refreshment?’
Her breathing was inhibited, shallow, painful. She awaited the brush of his mouth on her hand.
In vain.
His eyes gleamed and he let her hand go, but somehow he had regained supremacy, and Jade was angry. Angry with herself for wanting him to press his lips on to her hand, and angry that he had not chosen to! And she wasn’t sending him away with him thinking that she was some kind of desperado! She straightened her shoulders and gave her most English smile, spoke in her most chillingly polite tone.
‘Then you must sit down and have a drink.’
‘Thank you.’ In response, he deepened his accent, his eyes sparking with mischief, and Jade found herself wanting to giggle. So much for icy polite- ness!
‘I’ll fill the jug and fetch another glass,’ she said hastily.
And she scrambled inside as he pulled out one of the wooden chairs, which now looked hopelessly insubstantial if expected to accommodate that large, muscular frame.
Jade filled the jug with water and ice and found the glass with fingers which were still trembling, her eyes lifting reluctantly to the small spotted mirror which hung on the whitewashed walls. A wild-eyed, fey stranger stared back at her. Her pale green eyes were almost unrecognisable as her own, the colour almost completely obscured by the deep ebony of two dilated and glittering pupils. Her mouth looked swollen and throbbing and redder than usual—had she been chewing it while talking to him? she wondered. Even her hair—baby-fine but masses of it—which she hadn’t had a chance to brush since he’d disturbed her; it had dried into a thick, pale cloud—shimmered like an uncontrol- lable halo around her head. The sun had bleached it almost blonde. Did Constantine, she thought suddenly, like women with blonde hair?
She took the jug and glass back outside, half afraid that he might have disappeared, but he hadn’t. He had spread those long olive legs beneath the table and was watching her return.
Walking suddenly seemed a skill she hadn’t yet acquired, and she would have stumbled if a strong hand hadn’t shot out and caught her. She managed to get the jug down on the table, but the tumbler slipped from her grasp; the sound of the glass shat- tering on the grey stone of the courtyard sounding piercingly loud to her ears.
‘Oh, hell! Now look what you’ve made me do,’ said Jade unreasonably, and, crouching down, she began gingerly to pick up the larger fragments.
He was beside her in an instant. ‘Be careful,’ he told her, but it was too late, a shard had pierced her forefinger, and crimson blood began to well and to drop in dark starry splashes on to the grey stone.
Her finger went up to her mouth, but he deliber- ately took it before it reached its destination, the black eyes fixed on hers as he put it into his mouth and sucked the blood away.
If there hadn’t been glass all around them, Jade thought that she would have keeled over. She felt the blood drain from her face as she stared into the night-dark eyes.
‘You—shouldn’t have done that,’ she said shakily.
He relieved the pressure, but her finger stayed firmly in the hot, moist cavern of his mouth. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s dangerous,’ she managed. ‘Blood…’
He shook his head, as if he understood her meaning perfectly. ‘I think not.’
‘How can you know?’ she demanded breath- lessly. ‘We’ve only just met.’
His eyes met hers. ‘I know,’ he said softly.
Another slow and deliberate suck; it was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her in her life—and then he took the finger from his mouth, examined it and held it up for her inspection. ‘The flow is stemmed,’ he pronounced, and something in the formality of this statement, spoken with all the solemnity of a Victorian surgeon, instead of the more modern ‘it’s stopped bleeding’, made Jade’s lips twitch in amusement.
He saw the movement, and raised his eyebrows. ’What?’
‘You have a very formal way of speaking,’ she said honestly. ‘But your English is absolutely superb.’
He inclined his head. ‘And so it should be. I grew up with it as my second language.’
She shook her head, as if bemused by what was happening. ‘Are you always like this— Constantine?’ She said his name experimentally for the first time. Her tongue had to protrude a little in order to pronounce it properly, in the slightly lisping Greek manner. She liked saying it, liked the way his eyes flared as he watched her tongue snake out and then back in again.
‘Like-what?’
Jade stared back into the glittering black eyes, realising that she actually felt as though she were high on something—if this feeling was ever mar- keted, the world would go into total chaos! ‘So darned assertive!’ she answered crisply.
He looked surprised. ‘But naturally. Are not all men supposed to be assertive? The dominant ones?’
She smiled. ‘That’s not what the feminists would say.’
‘Ah! The feminists! You are one of these?’ He ran his eyes lazily over the bright and filmy covering of her sarong, at the cloud of blonde hair. ‘I don’t think so,’ he observed.
Jade could not let that pass. ‘You think that I couldn’t possibly be a feminist because I haven’t got cropped hair and am not wearing dungarees?’
A light flared in his eyes. ‘But those are your words, Jade,’ he said softly. ‘Not mine. No, I made the comment because I could imagine you soft, and pliant, loving and giving. Very feminine, but not a feminist. There is a subtle difference, you know.’
Jade realised that she was letting him get away with statements she would have emphatically dis- agreed with if she’d been back at home in England. Persuasive kind of guy. She tried again. ‘But men being so dominant and assertive,’ she said, ‘it isn’t really the modern way.’
‘But I,’ he answered proudly, ‘am not a modern man. At heart all Greeks are ruled by the very same passions which have existed since the beginning of time.’
This was totally new, uncharted and terribly ex- citing territory, men talking quite openly of passion. Jade shivered.
‘But perhaps,’ he said deliberately, ‘you are not used to assertive men?’
Oh, but she was—she most certainly was! But there was a world of difference between the way all the men at her office behaved, and the way that Constantine was behaving. Her editor rode roughshod over all the staff. However, perhaps that was less like assertion, and more like bullying! Cer- tainly there was none of this man’s cool assurance in her boss’s behaviour.
‘Well, are you?’ he persisted.
She wasn’t used to men at all, not in the sense that he meant. Which was probably why she was responding in such a pathetic way towards this par- ticular man. Men had been deliberately put on ice until the career which had meant so much to her had had a chance to develop properly—the career which she was now thinking of chucking in because she was so disillusioned with it. A cynic already— and at the tender age of twenty!
She stared into the black eyes, blinked, then looked down at the thick fragments of glass which glittered by their feet. Mostly from a desire to steer the conversation away from her shameful lack of experience with the opposite sex, she began to turn away. ‘I’d better go and fetch a dustpan and brush’
‘No.’
There he went again, dishing out the orders! Jade stared up at him, half in anger, half in admiration, marvelling that it actually felt extraordinarily good to be around such a masterful man. Shame on her!
‘You put some covering on your finger. Go! I will deal with the glass.’
She found herself obeying him without question. In the tiny bedroom she found the box of Elastoplast she had brought with her from England, and, after removing the wrapping, she shakily ap- plied one to her thumb. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen, presumably looking for the dustpan and brush. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d find it!
She wondered fleetingly whether she had a touch of sunstroke. Surely normal women of her age didn’t allow half-clothed perfect strangers the run of their house? And yet, given the outstanding at- traction of the man, she didn’t feel in the least bit threatened. She examined her finger carefully. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She felt a threat, all right, but it had absolutely nothing to do with thinking that he might be some mad axeman. It was more an interested kind of wondering just what would happen if she caught him in a judo stranglehold. That expressive little ‘whoosh’ sound he’d made… implying… mmmm…
She went outside to find him disposing of the last of the glass. It was strange to see such a self- proclaimed non-modern man doing it so com- petently, and yet to see Constantine brushing up the fragments of glass… it almost emphasised his masculinity, rather than detracting from it. Con- fusing, she thought fleetingly. He’d talked about the man assuming the dominant role, and had teased her about feminists, and yet he didn’t seem to mind lending a hand. Interesting.
As she appeared, he straightened up.
‘I will wrap it up tightly in newspaper,’ he in- structed. ‘So no more cut fingers.’
Jade nodded, acknowledging the perverse sinking of her heart. There was something of the farewell in the way he spoke. Surely he wasn’t going?
She ventured a smile. ‘You didn’t have your drink.’
‘No matter. It is time I was going.’
She had been right. ‘Yes.’ Disappointment crept through her veins like a debilitating drug.
‘I shall collect you at seven.’
‘Collect me?’ squeaked Jade, only keeping the excitement from her voice with the most monu- mental of efforts. ‘What for?’
