скачать книгу бесплатно
Her mobile phone started ringing.
It was like chaos arriving to further agitate havoc because yet another telephone started ringing somewhere else in the house and Natasha’s feet pulled her to a confused standstill, the sound of those two phones ringing shrilly in her head.
Behind her he wasn’t moving a muscle. Was he—was Leo Christakis really as attracted to her as he’d just made out? Her jangling brain flipped out.
Then a knock sounded on the door and the handle was turning. Like a switch that kept on flicking her brain from one thing to another, Natasha envisaged Rico about to walk in the room and her feet were taking a stumbling step back. Maybe she swayed, she didn’t know, but a pair of hands arrived to clasp her upper arms and the next thing she knew she was being turned around and pressed against Leo Christakis’s shirt front.
‘Steady,’ his low voice murmured.
Natasha felt the sound resonate across the tips of her breasts and she quivered.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Christakis,’ a female voice exclaimed in surprise. ‘I heard you come in and assumed you were alone.’
‘As you see, Agnes, I am not,’ Leo responded.
Blunt as always. His half-Greek housekeeper was used to it, though her eyes flicked curiously to his stepbrother’s fiancеe standing here held against his chest. When Agnes looked back at his face, not a single hint showed in her expression to say that what she was seeing was a shock.
‘Mr Rico keeps ringing, demanding to speak to Miss Moyles,’ the housekeeper informed him.
Natasha quivered again. This time he soothed the quiver by tracking a hand down the length of her spine and settling it in the curvy hollow of her lower back. ‘We are not here,’ Leo instructed. ‘And no one gets into this house.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The housekeeper left the room again, leaving a silence behind along with a tension that grabbed a tight hold on Natasha’s chest. Just totally unable to understand what it was she was feeling any more, she took a shaky step away from him, confused heat warming her cheeks.
‘Sh-she’s going to think w-we—’
‘Agnes is not paid to think,’ Leo cut in arrogantly and moved off to pour another brandy while Natasha sank weakly back down into the chair.
‘Here, take this…’ Coming to squat down in front of her, he handed her another glass. ‘Only this time try drinking it instead of throwing it at me,’ he suggested. ‘It is supposed to be better for you that way.’
His dry attempt at humour made Natasha flick him a brief guilty glance. ‘I’m sorry I did that. I don’t even know why I did.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Leo’s smile was sardonic. ‘I am used to having my face slapped in car parks and drinks thrown at me. Loathsome guys expect it.’
He added a grimace.
Natasha lowered her eyes to watch his mouth take on that grimacing tilt. It was only as she watched it settle back into a straight line again that she realised it was actually a quite beautifully shaped mouth, slender and firm but—nice.
And his eyes were nice, too, she noticed when, as if drawn by a magnet, she looked back at them. The rich, dark brown colour was framed by the most gorgeous thick, curling black eyelashes that managed to add an unexpected appeal to his face she would never have allowed him before. That pronounced bump in the middle of his nose saved his face from being a bit too perfect. A strong face, she decided, hard hewn and chiselled yet very good-looking—if you didn’t count the inbuilt cynicism that was there without her actually knowing how it was there.
OK, so he was a lot older than her. Older than Rico by eight years, which made him older than her by a very big ten. And those extra years showed in the blunt opinions he had no problem tossing at people—her especially.
But as for his looks, they weren’t old. His skin was a warm honey colour that lay smooth against the bones in his face. No age lines, no smile lines, not even any frown lines, though he did a lot of frowning—around her anyway.
Unaware that she was taking short sips at the brandy as she studied him, Natasha let her eyes track the width of his muscled shoulders trapped inside the smooth fit of his jacket, then let them absorb the fact that his torso was very long and lean and tight. When standing up, he was taller than Rico by several inches and his dark hair was shorter, cut to suit the stronger shape of his face.
She was asking for trouble, Leo thought severely as he watched that lush, pink, generous mouth adopt a musing pout while she looked him over as if he were a prime piece of meat laid out on a butcher’s slab.
‘How old are you, Natasha?’ he asked curiously. ‘Twenty-six—twenty-seven?’
Her spine went stiff. ‘I’m twenty-four!’ she iced out. ‘And that is just one more insult you’ve hit me with!’
‘And you’re counting.’ His eyes narrowed.
‘Yes!’ she heaved out.
With her blue eyes flashing indignation at him she looked pretty damn fantastic, Leo observed as he knelt there, trying to decide what to do next.
He could leap on her and kiss her—strangely enough she seemed to need him to do that. Or he could gently remove the glass she was crushing between her slender fingers, ease her down on her knees in front of him, then encourage her to just get it over with and use his shoulder to have a good weep.
Something twisted inside him—not sexual this time, but an ache of a different kind. Did she know how badly she was trembling? Did she know her slender white throat had to work like crazy each time to swallow some of the brandy and that her hair was threatening to fall free from its knot?
‘I th-think I w-want to go home now,’ she mumbled distractedly.
To the apartment she shared with her sister? ‘Drink the rest of your brandy first,’ Leo advised quietly.
Natasha glanced down at the glass she was holding so tightly between her fingers, then just stared at it as if she was shocked to find it there. As she lifted it to her mouth Leo watched her soft lips take on the warm bloom of brandy and the ache inside him shifted back to a sexual ache.
The doorbell rang.
Rico called her name out.
Natasha’s head shot up, the brandy glass falling from her fingers to land with a thunk on the carpet, sending brandy fumes wafting up.
‘Natasha—’ Leo reached out to her, thinking she was going to keel over into a faint.
But once again Natasha Moyles surprised him. He did not need to pull her to her knees because she arrived there right between his spread thighs with her arms going up and over his shoulders to cling to his neck, those vulnerable blue eyes staring up at him with a helpless mix of pleading and dismay.
‘Don’t let him in,’ she begged tensely.
‘I won’t,’ Leo promised.
‘I h-hate him. I never want to see him again.’
‘I will not let him in,’ he repeated gently.
But Rico called out her name again hoarse with emotion and Leo felt her fingernails dig into the back of his neck while the two of them listened to his housekeeper make some stern response.
‘My heart’s beating so fast I can’t breathe properly,’ Natasha whispered breathlessly.
A spark of challenge lit Leo’s eyes. He should have contained it—he knew that even as he murmured the challenging, ‘I can make it beat faster.’
If he’d said it to distract her attention away from Rico, it certainly worked when her mouth parted on a surprised little gasp. Leo raised a ruefully mocking eyebrow, feeling the buzz, the loin heating, sex-charging, challenging buzz.
And he leant in and claimed her mouth.
It was like falling into an electrified pit, Natasha likened dizzily as not a single part or inch of her missed out on the high-voltage rush. She’d never experienced anything like it. He crushed her lips to keep them parted, then slid his tongue into her mouth. The sheer shock feel of that alien wet contact stroking across her own tongue made her shiver with pleasure, then stiffen in shock. He did it again and this time she whimpered.
Leo murmured something, then slid his arms around her so he could draw her closer to him and deepen the kiss. The next few seconds went by in a fevered hot rush. She felt plastered against his muscled torso. She could hear Rico shouting. Something hard and ridged was pushing against her front. The wildly disturbing recognition of what that something was sent her deaf to everything else as her own senses bloomed with an excited sparkle in response.
It was crazy, she tried telling herself. She didn’t even like Leo Christakis yet here she was drowning in the full on power of his heated kiss! In all of her life she had never kissed anyone like this—never felt even remotely like this! It was like throwing herself against a rock only to discover that the rock had magical powers. His hand skated the length of her spine to her waist, then pressed her even closer, at the same time that he increased the pressure on her mouth, sending her neck arching backwards as he used his tongue to create a warm, thick chain reaction that poured through her entire body like silk.
Natasha heard herself groan something. He muttered a very low, sensual rasp in response. Then Rico called out to her again, harsh and angry enough to pierce into her foggy consciousness, and she wrenched her mouth free.
Trembling and panting with her heart pounding wildly, she stared up at this man while her mind fed her an image of the way Rico had been enjoying Cindy across his desk.
As if her sister knew what she was thinking, her phone began to ring in her purse.
The scald of betrayal burned her up on the inside.
‘For God’s sake, Natasha, let me talk to you!’ Rico’s rasping voice ground out.
Revenge lit her up.
Leo saw it happen and knew exactly where it was coming from. Sanity returned to him with a gut-crushing whoosh. She was going to offer herself to him, but did he want her like this, bruised and heartbroken and throbbing with a desire for revenge on Rico, who could easily charge in here and catch them?
As they had walked into Rico’s office and caught him.
Natasha leant away from Leo and began unbuttoning her jacket with shakily fumbling, feverish fingers.
Leo released a sigh. ‘You don’t want to do this, Natasha,’ he said heavily.
‘Don’t tell me what I don’t want,’ she shook out.
The two pieces of fabric were wrenched apart to reveal a white top made of some stretchy fabric that crossed over and moulded the thrusting fullness of her two tight breasts.
Leo looked down at them, then up into her fever-bright eyes, and wanted to bite out a filthy black curse. As she wrenched the jacket off altogether, he reached out to try and stop her, only to freeze when he read the helpless plea that had etched itself on her paper-white face.
If he turned her down now, the rejection was going to shatter her.
Her smooth white throat moved as she swallowed, those kiss-warmed lips parting so she could whisper out a husky little, ‘Please…’
And he was lost, Leo knew it. Even as she took the initiative away from him by winding her arms around his neck again, he knew he was not going to stop this. Lifting his hands up to mould her ribcage, he stroked them down the tight white fabric to the sexy indentation of her waist in an exploring act that rolled back the denials still beating an urgent tattoo in his head.
Her mouth was a hungry invite. Leo raked his hands back up her body again and this time covered the full perfect globes of her breasts. She fell apart on a series of gasps and quivers that sent her body into an acute sensual arch, fingernails digging into his neck again, hair suddenly tumbling free in a glorious roll of fine silken waves down her back. She was amazing, a stunningly complicated mix of prim, straight-lace and pure untrammelled passion with her lily-white skin and her lush parted mouth, and her breasts two sensational mounds that filled his hands and…
The front door slammed.
Rico had gone.
If Natasha recognised what the sound meant she did not make a response. Her eyes still burned into him with the fevered invitation she was offering.
Time to make a decision, Leo accepted grimly. Continue this or put a stop to it?
Then her fingernails dug deeper to pull his mouth back down onto hers and the decision was made for him.
Natasha felt his surrender and took it with a leap of triumph that bordered on the mad. She became aware of the power of his erection pressing against her again, instinct made her move against it. He muttered a low, throaty response and he was suddenly tightening his hold of her and drawing her to her feet. Next he was swinging her up into his arms and carrying her, the kiss still a seething hot fuse that frazzled her brain and had her heart pounding to the beat of his footsteps echoing on oak flooring as he headed across the hall and began climbing the stairs.
It was the moment that Natasha saw a small chink of sanity. Her head went back, rending the kiss apart as she opened her eyes to look deep into Leo Christakis’s heavily lidded dark eyes before she glanced around her as if she’d been woken up suddenly from a dream.
It was only then that she realised that the hallway was empty. No one was there. No Rico witnessing his betrayed fiancеe being carried to bed by her soon-to-be new lover. No housekeeper containing her disapproval and shock.
‘Changed your mind now you don’t have a witness?’ Leo’s hard voice swung her eyes back to him again.
He’d gone still on one of the stairs and the look of cold cynicism was back, lashing his skin to the bones in his face.
‘No,’ Natasha breathed, and she discovered that she meant it. She wanted to do this. She wanted to be carried to bed and made love to by a man who genuinely wanted her—she wanted to lose every single old-fashioned and disgustingly outmoded inhibition she possessed!
‘Please,’ she breathed softly as she leant in to brush a kiss across the hard line of his mouth. ‘Make love to me, Leo.’
There was another moment of hesitation, a glimpse of fury in the depths of his eyes. Then he was moving again, allowing her to breathe again though she had not been aware of holding her breath. He finished the climb up the stairs and carried her into a sultry summer-warmed bedroom with pale walls and big dark pieces of furniture. A red Persian rug covered most of the polished oak floor.
Then he really shocked her by dumping her unceremoniously on the top of a huge soft bed.
As Natasha lay there blinking up at him Leo stood looking down at her, his expression as hard and cynical as hell. ‘Stay there and pull yourself together,’ was all he uttered before he turned around to walk back to the door.
‘Why?’ Natasha shook out.
‘I will not play substitute to any man,’ the cold brute answered.
Natasha sat up. ‘Y-you said you wanted me.’
‘Strange—’ he turned, his kiss-heated mouth taking on a scornful twist ‘—but seeing you getting off on the possibility of Rico witnessing us together was a real turn off for me.’
Natasha sat up with a jolt. ‘I was not getting off on it—!’
‘Liar,’ he lashed back, then really startled her by striding back to the bed to come and lean over her—close enough to make her blink warily because she just didn’t know what was going to come next.
‘To keep things clear between us, Natasha,’ he murmured silkily, ‘if you loved what we were doing downstairs so much you forgot all about Rico, then ask yourself what that tells me about Miss Betrayed and Broken-hearted, hmm—?’
It was as good as a cold, hard slap in the face. Natasha just stared up at him because the worst thing of all was that he had only told it how it was! She had been thinking about Rico when she’d invited what she had downstairs. And she had no excuse for the way she had begged him to bring her up here!
But had he behaved any better? ‘You cruel, h-hateful swine,’ she breathed, and pulled up her knees so she could bury her face.
Leo agreed. He was behaving like an absolute beast feeding her all the blame for whatever had erupted in both of them downstairs. It was still erupting inside him, he admitted as he turned away again and strode back to the door, wishing that he had stayed in Athens this morning instead of…
Telephones started ringing again, piercing through the high-octane atmosphere—his phone in his jacket pocket and another phone ringing somewhere else in the house. Retrieving his mobile, Leo glared at the display screen, expecting it to show Rico’s name.
But it was Juno, his PA. Leo sanctioned the connection. ‘This had better be important,’ he warned as he stepped out of the bedroom and pulled the door shut.
Natasha lifted her head at the sound of the door snapping into its housing. He’d gone. He’d left her sitting here in a huddle on his bed and just walked away from her—because he could.
On a sudden pummelling punch of self-hatred she scrambled up off the bed, hurt beyond sense that yet another man had humiliated her in the space of one horrible day.
Oh, she had to get out of here! Natasha almost screeched that need at herself as she looked around the floor for her shoes and couldn’t find them. Then she remembered the vague echo of them falling off her feet and hitting the floor when Leo had picked her up. Her hair fell forward, tumbling in long waves around her face as if to taunt how she’d been so wrapped up in what she’d been doing with him that she hadn’t even noticed before now how her hair had sprung free of its restraints!
Like herself. She shuddered, turning like a drunk not knowing where she was going and heading for the door. She made it out onto the landing and even found her way back down the stairs without coming face to face with anyone else. The door to the living room still hung wide-open and the wretched tears almost broke free when she saw the way her jacket lay in a pale blue swish of fabric on the floor by the chair she had been sitting on before she…
