‘I have never felt towards any woman what I feel towards you.’ The words had the unmistakable ring of sincerity. She trembled beneath them, the hallway suddenly cramped and infused with the same subtle tension she had sensed the first time she saw him. ‘Ah, Sienna, you must not look at me like that. How can you look at me the way you do and still have remained a virgin? Your eyes tell me that you want me to make love to you.’
‘I do.’ She whispered the words shyly, still amazed that she could feel this way, that there could be this depth and intensity of feeling, something she had never suspected existed. ‘And I am still a virgin because I have never looked at any other man the way I look at you. I have never loved any man before you….’
‘And will not love any man after me. I shall imprint myself on your heart and body so that you will never forget me. We have not yet made love, but already I know how you will feel in my arms, how you will taste against my lips, how sweetly you will cry my name and abandon yourself to me.’
He bent his head, sliding his fingers into the thickness of her hair, holding her still beneath his mouth, letting her feel the depth and heat of his passion, leaving her shaking and achingly bereft when he eventually lifted his head, his lips curling into a smile as he caught her half-smothered protest.
‘So reserved and English,’ he murmured, probing the parted warmth of her mouth with his thumb, ‘but I promise you I will make you forget your reserve and the politeness of your good manners, and in my arms will remember only that you are a woman.’ He smiled down at her, a dark seriousness in his eyes that stilled the frantic racing of her pulses. ‘I cannot promise you that I will be a tender, gentle lover, Sienna, my need for you does not permit that. If you wish to change your mind, to retreat, then now is the time to do so, while I am still able to let you go.’
He knew! He knew how fear mingled with her love for him, how tremulous she felt about committing herself completely to him, about walking blindfold into waters which she sensed were deep and dangerous and he was offering her the chance to turn back. She returned his smile with one of her own faintly wavering and hesitant, unaware of the shy vulnerability glowing in her eyes as they met his.
‘I don’t want to turn back, Alexis,’ she told him huskily. ‘I fell in love with you the moment you walked into Gill’s office. I….’ She tried to find the words to describe the awe and wonder of that moment, then gave up, knowing that it was a feat beyond her.
‘And if I had not fallen in love with you in return?’
She shivered, despite the warmth of Rob’s centrally heated flat. ‘I don’t know….’ How could she explain to him that she wasn’t the type of girl who had the confidence to go out and get the man she wanted, that if she hadn’t seen the desire, the hunger in his eyes she would have had to dam up her feelings for him?
‘Your silence is its own answer,’ Alexis told her. ‘Without the security of my admission of love you would never have been able to bring yourself to tell me of your feelings. You would have worked for me as my temporary secretary, harbouring impossible dreams, is this is not so?’
It startled her a little that he should so accurately be able to judge her reactions, for that was exactly how she would have behaved, envying the women who shared his life, but totally unable to emulate them.
‘Do not look so chastened.’ His hand caressed her jaw, tilting her face so that he could look into her eyes. ‘I knew the moment I opened the office door how it would be between us, and because you are what you are, the only place I shall hold you in my arms tonight is on the dance floor. I want you to come to me willingly, Sienna—more than willingly,’ he added huskily, ‘knowingly, wantingly, as hungry for me as I am for you.’
She wanted to tell him then that that was already how she felt about him, but because he was right when he said that she was still a little shy and uncertain of herself, she allowed him to escort her to the waiting car, and half an hour later when they were seated at their table in a fashionable nightclub she had only read about in the Society columns, she no longer regretted her silence.
Her arrival with Alexis had caused something of a stir. Heads had turned, and Sienna knew quite well that they had not turned on her behalf. Several eager pairs of female eyes followed their progress to their table. How many of the women dining here with other men were known to Alexis? she wondered as she sat down, and not just here in London, but in all those other cities where he had business interests and offices. It shook her to feel so vulnerable and, yes, jealous. Alexis was nine years older than her and what was past was past.
‘Is something troubling you?’ He leaned across the table, attentive and concerned, and she pushed away her dark thoughts, a little saddened by the knowledge that love brought pain as well as pleasure.
She asked him to order for her. Although she was perfectly used to dining out both with her father and Rob, neither of them had ever taken her to such an openly luxurious place. Most of the other women were wearing rich jewels and couture gowns, and even though she knew it was foolish, Sienna was aware of feeing slightly ill at ease.
The food Alexis chose was delicious, but she discovered that she had little appetite for it. She was too aware of the man seated opposite her, of the movement of his body beneath the covering of expensive clothes, of the lean darkness of his hands, her mind unable to stop picturing them on her body, causing a heated flush to rise up over her skin, and Alexis to break off from what he had been saying, to ask with a frown, ‘Sienna, are you all right?’
‘Yes….’ She sounded flustered. ‘It’s… it’s very warm in here, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ His eyes narrowed in perceptive amusement. ‘I confess I hadn’t noticed it. Would you like to dance?’
She glanced at the small dimly lit dance floor and then back again to Alexis’ darkly masculine face. There was nowhere she wanted to be more than in his arms, and her eyes must have given her away, because he muttered something thickly under his breath and put down the glass he had been holding, with fingers that were distinctly unsteady, his hoarse, ‘Yes… yes, I know, but I will not take you in hungry greed, however much both of us want to at this moment, and since I cannot make love to you on the dance floor, we are safer there than sitting here, where your eyes tell me with every breath you draw what you are thinking and my body responds to that knowledge.’
Alexis had lied when he said he couldn’t make love to her on the dance floor, Sienna thought minutes later; the firm movement of his thighs against hers turning her bones to water, making her grateful for the dimness of the lights and the seductive tempo of the music which enabled them to move so slowly together, her body registering every movement of Alexis’. She could feel his heart thudding beneath the hand she had slipped inside his jacket. Both his arms were round her, pressing her against him, caressing the vulnerable arc of her spine, his lips feathering, brief, tormenting kisses against her temple.
‘You tremble so in my arms,’ Alexis murmured against her ear. ‘It makes me ache to possess you, do you know that?’ He felt her body’s response and his own hardened against her, his chest expanding as he dragged air into his lungs. ‘No, you don’t know yet what you do to me, how you make me burn and shake with need, but I will teach you, Sienna.’
Teach me now, she wanted to cry out, but the tempo of the music changed and with it the mood he had created around them. In a daze she allowed him to lead her back to their table. They must have talked, but later she could remember nothing of what they had said. All she could think of when she lay alone in her bed in Rob’s flat was that Alexis had wanted her and that for her sake he had denied himself because he didn’t want to rush her. Had denied them both, she acknowledged feverishly, understanding now the deep-seated ache that lay curled in the pit of her stomach, sending stabbing waves of need coursing through the rest of her body. Her total turn-around from a cool, remote young woman to this hungry aching feline creature who now seemed to live inside her skin took