‘Playing at?’ she threw back at him. ‘I’m not playing at anything! I have absolutely no idea what the hell you think you’re doing, but—’
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. The scorching look in her eyes intensified. Absently, he noticed how it made them even more luminous.
‘What I think I’m doing, Ann,’ he said—and now the edge in his voice had gone, replaced by something very differerent, ‘is this—’
He reached for her. Unable to help himself. He’d been wanting to do it since he’d walked into breakfast and seen her there, feeling a punch to his system that had made him want to walk right up to her and sweep her to him.
She was pliant in his arms as he drew her to him, and satisfaction surged through him as he lowered his mouth to hers. The next moment she had gone rigid—as rigid as a board—and her hands were balling against his chest, her mouth jerking away.
‘Let me go! Let me—’
His mouth silenced her, catching her lips and his hand at her back slid up to hold the base of her skull, fingers spearing into her silken hair. God, she felt so good to kiss! So sweet and soft and honeyed—
Her momentary resistance had vanished, melted away into his kiss, and he took instant possession. He felt her hands splaying out, pressing through his polo shirt against the wall of his chest.
He kissed her thoroughly, deeply—arousingly. And not just arousing her. His own body was responding as though a switch had been thrown, and desire swept through him.
Eventually, breathlessly, he surfaced, holding her still, gazing down into her eyes. They were huge.
‘You were saying?’ he said. The amusement was in his voice again, but different now—husky and low.
For a moment she just gazed at him blindly. Then, with a little choke, she tugged free. He let her go—he had proved his point. Handsomely.
Her face was strained. ‘I don’t want this.’ Her voice was faint, hands knotting in her lap. ‘I don’t want it.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Ann, no games. Not now. Last night proved that amply.’ The glint intensified. ‘Very amply.’
He started to reach for her again, but this time she was faster. She thrust open the Jeep door and leapt down. Nikos stared with a mix of exasperation and incredulity as she started to march back along the track. Was the girl mad? It would take a good hour to walk back to the villa, and the sun was getting high in the sky. He gave a rasp of irritation and went after her. She was only doing it as some kind of grand gesture, though heaven knew why.
He caught up with her in seconds and turned her round towards him. She was rigid, face clenched.
‘Take your hands off me,’ she gritted, eyes sparking. ‘I told you I don’t want this! What part of that don’t you understand?’ she bit out.
Something shifted in his eyes. ‘This,’ he said. Deliberately, quite deliberately, he lifted a hand to her face, letting the other one drop from her arm so that she was quite free. His eyes never leaving her, he simply drew his index finger down her cheek—lightly, like a feather.
He saw her eyes flicker, saw her pupils dilate. Then he let his hand fall.
She didn’t turn, or run, or march away. She simply stood there, on the track, the sun pouring down on her pale hair, swaying slightly. There was a helpless look on her face.
‘That’s the part I don’t understand, Ann,’ he said, his voice low. ‘The part where I only have to touch you and you respond to me. Or not even touch you …’
His gaze held hers, lambent with desire for her. ‘Do you think I haven’t wanted you from when I first saw how beautiful you had become? All that was required was—opportunity.’ His hand lifted to her face again. This time he slid his fingers around her jaw, feathering her hair, his thumb playing with the tender lobe of her ear. She did not move. Very slowly, her eyelashes lowered over her eyes. His other hand lifted, his thumb going to her lips, tracing across their fullness. Then, as she still stood there motionless, eyes shut in the silence all around, he gently pressed down on her lower lip with the pad of his thumb, even as his mouth came down sensuously, languorously, to take its place.
He felt her give. Felt her mouth slowly start to move against his. Felt the stiffness leave her body, the rigidity ease, dissolve. She was dissolving against him. She was exploring, tasting every moment of the sweet, delectable arousing. How long he kissed her, standing as they were alone, at the edge of the deserted beach, he did not know. Only knew that at some point he let his mouth ease from hers, felt his hand slip into hers, take it lightly, loosely, but enough to lead her, as if she were still in a daze, towards the little stone building. She came willingly, unresistingly.
Just as he had known she would.
Light filtered through the wooden shutters. It slanted narrow fingers across the bed, casting planes of dark and shade across the strong face lying so close to Ann’s. She lay looking at it a moment. The eyes were shut and the features in repose. He looked—replete. The word came to her, and she knew it was apt. For herself she was—drained. Drained of everything—all emotion, all will. She could only go on lying there, her naked body held slackly against his. Her mind was a miasma, floating adrift in a strange state. She’d gone, she knew, beyond conscious thought—because what could she think? What was it possible to think, rationally, about what she had done? What was happening? It wasn’t possible, that was all.
It was barely sane …
Because how could it be sane to sink again into the bliss she had known last night when that bliss came courtesy of a man who made his contempt of her no secret? And yet that man, that harsh, condemning man, so sneeringly offering her money for Ari, for her time here on Sospiris, seemed a universe away from the man who had initiated her into an ecstasy she had never known existed …
She felt something squeeze inside her that was almost pain.
But it’s the same man … The whisper formed in her head, and she felt that strange, squeezing pain again.
Her eyes shadowed. Is it the same man—is it?
Her head told her yes, but her body—oh, her body denied it with all its power.
Without conscious thought, she let her hand press against his warm, hard body, smoothed the golden skin. He was so beautiful to touch. She felt her heart give that little squeeze again, felt a strange catch in her breath, as if in wonder—in homage—at such perfection.
The long lashes lifted from his eyes, and immediately his gaze focussed on her. Equally immediately she felt as if those incredible dark eyes were piercing right into her. She felt naked—
‘Ann—’
It was all he said, but it was said in a voice that sounded as replete as he was. He glided the hand resting on her upper arm along its smooth surface. It was not sexual, not arousing. It was just because she was there. In his bed. Beside him.
‘Ann,’ he said again, and drew her more closely against him, settling himself into the bedding, feeling her slender body curved against his. It felt good—but then everything about her felt good. Idly, he went on smoothing his palm along her upper arm. He felt full, at rest. And after a while he started to caress her again.
This time arousingly.
And yet again Ann went with him where he wanted to go.
The Jeep was rattling over the trackway again, heading back to the villa. Nikos was driving a lot more sedately now—and why not? His ill-tempered mood of the outward journey had disappeared completely. Of course it had! Ann’s ludicrous and incomprehensible show of resistance had taken him nothing more than a few moments to dispose of. Why she’d done it he had no idea, and he didn’t much care. It had obviously been some kind of ploy, and it had equally obviously been completely