‘You still dare to deny it. You dare to play games with me even now,’ he grated, his self-control completely deserting him. She saw the glitter of violent fury in his black eyes, and for a moment her heart quaked with fear.
But she refused to be intimidated. Stephen was her son; and she was prepared to fight for him. She knew instinctively that she could not afford to appear weak in front of Theo Kadros.
‘Get your hands off me, you b—’ she gasped, but was prevented from saying any more by a second cruel tug on her hair.
‘I’d like to strangle you,’ he snarled, ‘but you aren’t worth swinging for.’ And his mouth crashed down on hers with a cruel force that drove the breath from her body.
She was crushed against him so closely she was aware of every bone in his huge body. She only had a brief fleeting glimpse of the merciless intent in his dark eyes before his mouth hardened and he forced her lips apart and began a ruthless exploration of the moist interior of her mouth. It was a savage and hungry passion that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with a primitive male desire to punish and dominate.
She tried to resist but his hand curved around the back of her head, and held her immobile while he continued to plunder her mouth. He eased the pressure a little to allow her to breathe and a slight moan escaped her. Then the hand at her waist was holding her crushed against his lower body, slid over the curve of her buttocks and made her instantly aware of his fiercely aroused state. At the same time the punishing pressure of his mouth subtly altered, and, to her horror, a treacherous heat ignited deep down inside her.
She closed her eyes tightly; it should not be like this, her mind cried. Shaken as she was by the destructive power of his passion she was still capable of realising that he was using his superior sexual expertise as a weapon to deliberately humiliate her. But with the ever-softening sensuality of Theo’s lips and tongue and his hand moving up her body to her breast, the fine cotton of her dress no barrier as deftly the first few buttons flew open, Willow knew she was in imminent danger of falling under his spell all over again.
She wasn’t wearing a bra and his hand cupped her naked breast, his thumb sliding over the tender peak, and she was helpless to prevent her body responding. She groaned a low, soft sound of both desire and despair intermingled, and involuntarily her slender arms linked around his neck. She then surrendered to the heat, the hunger and the fierce wave of passion suddenly sweeping through her body.
Theo slowly raised his dark head. ‘That’s better, Willow,’ he said roughly. His long fingers were still covering her breasts, deliberately moving from one to the other, playing with the aching, rigid peaks. She opened her eyes, and gazed up into his darkly attractive face, hot and breathless with sensual excitement.
He was staring down at her, unable to hide the desire in his eyes, his breathing as erratic as hers, a muscle beating in his jaw. But his voice was remarkably steady as he added, ‘Now I know coming to an arrangement will not be a problem.’ She caught the gleam of cynical triumph in his smouldering eyes and it was like a douche of cold water.
What on earth was she doing? She must be mad. This man wanted her son, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours she was lying in his arms, her dress half off, gazing at him like a besotted fool. Terrified by her own emotional frailty, she wrenched herself from his arms and darted out of the room. She ran into the kitchen, fumbling with the buttons of her dress, her legs trembling and almost collapsing with shame and embarrassment.
Leaning over the sink, she turned on the cold-water tap and splashed her face with water in a desperate attempt to cool her overheated flesh. Straightening, she picked up the hand towel from the rail and dried her face. Coffee, thick and black, that was what she needed. She realised it had been a long night and an even more harrowing morning and she needed to start thinking sensibly and quickly. She filled the kettle and reached for the jar of coffee in the cupboard with a hand that shook.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Spinning around, she almost dropped the coffee jar as Theo, her nemesis, walked in.
Willow glared at him. He’d removed his tie, and the open-necked shirt only served to draw her attention to his strong, tanned throat. She gulped and felt hot colour return to her cheeks as she recalled how only minutes ago her arms had been wrapped intimately around that throat. It was so unfair—he looked even more incredibly attractive than ever, and he was in total control, she thought bitterly.
‘Coffee. Good, I could do with a cup, and I hope your hasty exit means you are going to make me lunch. I am starving,’ Theo drawled smoothly, and, as cool as a cucumber, pulled out one of the four pine chairs that surrounded the square breakfast table and sat down. ‘We can talk just as easily in here.’
She didn’t trust herself to speak, and simply stared at him as his dark, curious gaze swept around the room, lingering on the window that opened out onto the back garden and the fields beyond.
‘One thing I will say for this little house, it does have rather good views.’ Theo turned his dark head towards her, his eyes taking in her beautiful face still tinged scarlet with embarrassment. His gaze flickered over her slender figure before lingering on the bodice of her dress, where in her haste she had fastened the buttons in the wrong buttonholes, and the curve of one breast was exposed to reveal the dark aureole surrounding a small, tight nipple. ‘Both outside and in,’ he added.
As a gentleman he should tell her, but after what she had done to him he had no inclination to act the gentleman. Let her find out for herself, and in the meantime he could sit back and enjoy the view. He glanced up into her wary eyes, a broad smile slashing across his handsome face, his dark eyes lit with amusement.
His grin was so open that for a moment Willow was tempted to respond, but, tearing her gaze away, she muttered, ‘Flattery will get you nowhere,’ and she turned back to the bench. Reaching up for two cups, she plonked them down on the worktop. ‘But I will make you a coffee.’ At least that way she could keep her back to him for a while. ‘There is a good pub and restaurant a few miles back the way you came that serves a very nice lunch, if you are really hungry.’ With a bit of luck he would take himself off to the pub and, with a bit of breathing space, she might just possibly get her chaotic thoughts into some kind of order before she had to pick up Stephen.
‘You don’t really imagine for a minute that I am going to leave you alone,’ he prompted, moving across the room to lean casually against the bench beside her. ‘And surely you cannot be so cruel as to refuse to feed a starving man? Because of you, Willow, I ate very little breakfast.’
She ignored his barbed reminder and cast him a sidelong glance. ‘You don’t look like any starving man I have ever seen. But, if you insist, I think I have some eggs and homemade bread rolls.’ Slowly it was beginning to dawn on Willow that there was no point in fighting Theo. She needed to keep her temper, and her arguments, for the big issue: Stephen.
Ten minutes later she placed a plate containing a cheese omelette and salad on the table in front of Theo, accompanied by the butter dish and a basket of crusty bread rolls.
Willow did not want to eat, in fact she felt sick, but Theo had insisted she join him. His earlier anger appeared to have vanished and she agreed, hoping to keep him sweet. As she watched Theo wolf down his food with apparent enjoyment she pushed hers around the plate, pretending to eat, her stomach curled in knots of nervous tension.
‘That was excellent, Willow. I must say you surprised me. The omelette was perfect and the bread rolls were a work of art; you are a wonderful cook.’ Theo grinned, leaning back in his chair. ‘I don’t think I have ever had a girlfriend who made her own bread,’ he offered, amusement in his tone.
Rising to her feet, she collected the plates and glanced down at him. ‘You still haven’t,’ she responded bluntly. ‘Your type of girlfriends are well-documented fashion plates who probably don’t have the time between visiting the beautician’s and the hairdresser, and of course pandering to your every whim, to do anything else,’ she ended dryly. Turning, she crossed to the dishwasher and loaded the plates, and then plugged in the kettle. ‘More