Leisurely, Theo lifted her scarlet-tipped, freshly manicured fingers to his lips. But instead of grazing her knuckles in a courtly fashion, as Leandra was steeling herself to expect, he turned her hand over to expose her palm and bent his head.
As his lips touched her flesh she felt them part slightly. Then, in a caress that exploded every nerve-ending in her palm, they laved her skin softly and sensuously. She felt a prickle of arousal all over her body, delicious and enticing. Warm, liquid coils of heat pooled in her veins. Then suddenly, shockingly, she felt the tip of his tongue flicker exploringly at the junctions of her fingers.
Shock, outrage and a sizzle of raw sexual excitement electrified her, searing the breath in her fractured lungs. She couldn’t move even as he released her from his shockingly intimate caress.
She grabbed her hand back into her own possession. It felt as if every nerve-ending in it had been set on fire, humming like flame racing along her veins. For one long, overwhelming moment she felt as if the world was whirling round her, and the only still point was the flare of sensation echoing in her hand.
Her lips parted and she stared, helplessly, at Theo Atrides.
He smiled down at her. A warm, intimate smile. A knowing, indulgent smile. A dangerous, sexy smile.
Almost, almost she felt herself moving blindly towards him, to press herself up against his lean, hard body and give herself to him absolutely. He was like a powerful magnet sucking her towards him.
But she had to resist. She must! She was here to play his cousin’s mistress—nothing more. Forcibly she relaxed her muscles, and by sheer effort of will—still reeling from the sensual onslaught of Theo Atrides’s terrifyingly skilful, insolent mouth on her exposed, defenceless skin—she managed to pull her body back from leaning into his.
Thee mou, thought Theo, as she drew back with obvious reluctance, the girl couldn’t have come on stronger if she’d given him her telephone number! She’d all but gone up in flames for him! What the hell would she be like if he got her horizontal?
A sudden, overpowering image of her lying beneath him, naked and aching for him, yielding her body to him with soft moans, filled his mind with devastating, vivid clarity. He thrust it aside brutally. This was no time to get the hots for a woman who was threatening the stability of his family and its very future! All her sizzling reaction to his deliberate sexual provocation had proved was that, whatever she felt for Demos, it wasn’t anything that stopped her lighting up for any other man. The faithful type she wasn’t!
He turned back to his cousin.
As his attention snapped off Leandra wondered why she felt bereft, instead of relieved—as if a source of heat suddenly turned off had revealed how cold she had been feeling.
All her life.
In a daze she tried to make herself concentrate on what Theo was saying to his cousin. It was hard, because her brain felt like mush.
‘So,’ Theo said to Demos, his deep voice sounding amused, ‘this is what is keeping you in London so long, I see! I can’t say I’m surprised, now I’ve met this delicious morsel of female flesh—’ His eyes worked over Leandra once more, so brazenly she felt her stomach drop even as anger leapt in her throat at such a description. ‘But,’ he went on, holding up a hand peremptorily and focusing back on his cousin, ‘all good things come to an end, Demos. Sofia is waiting for you. It’s time to come home.’
Leandra could feel Demos tense.
‘I’m not ready,’ he replied tersely. His usually mild voice sounded strained.
‘Then be ready,’ said Theo unforgivingly. He reached out and closed his hand around his cousin’s shoulder, turning him slightly away from Leandra as if she were an intruder on the scene.
He switched to Greek, reinforcing her exclusion.
‘Milo’s on the way out, Demos. It’s only a matter of time. His doctors know it and he knows it. He’s old—he’s had too much to bear in his life—don’t do this to him. Come home and get engaged to Sofia. It’s all he asks. He needs to know that the next generation is assured—you can’t blame him for being anxious. He knows, Christos, he knows, just how uncertain life is! He needs to know that a great-grandson could be on the way soon—he needs an heir.’
He spoke rapidly, in a low voice.
Stiffly, Demos answered. ‘Milo has two grandsons, Theo. Why don’t you oblige?’
Theo’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m not the marrying kind, little cousin.’
For a second something showed in Demos’s eyes.
‘And suppose I’m not either?’ he said.
There was something in Demos’s voice that stayed his cousin. Theo looked at him narrowly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked slowly.
For a long moment Demos just looked across at him, as if he was going to say something. Then, with a fling of his hand, he shook Theo off his shoulder.
‘It means I’m having too much fun to want to settle down! I’m not ready to marry anyone, let alone Sofia Allessandros!’ An urgent note entered his voice. ‘Make Milo see that, Theo. Make him!’
Anger lashed through Theo. Anger at both of them—Milo for wanting to arrange other people’s lives because he was taking leave of his own, and Demos for insisting on living his own life when he had responsibilities to meet!
And most of all anger, irrational but powerful, against the girl plastered against Demos—the cause of all this trouble.
He wanted out of this! He hadn’t wanted to come here, and now he was here he wanted to wash his hands of the whole business. He wanted to get away—away from the endless demands of family, of business—go some place where all he had to do was gaze out over the blue Aegean, hear the cicadas calling, inhale the heady scent of the maquis, feel the zephyred wind from the south on his body.
With a soft, compliant woman in his arms…
Like the one at Demos’s side…
He gave a rasp in his throat, banishing the dangerously enticing vision.
‘Enough!’ His hand slashed the air with a short, brusque slash. ‘I’ll expect you tomorrow, Demos. Milo wants to see you at nine. We’re in the penthouse suite here. Be on time.’ He eyed his cousin darkly, his harsh gaze sweeping out to Leandra. ‘And get some sleep tonight!’ he finished, reverting to English.
His eyes flickered briefly over her face. The expression in them made her want to hit him. His thoughts were naked. With a woman like her at his side what man would want to sleep?
He, for one, could think of a thousand better things to do with her—
He snapped his mind away again. The woman was an irrelevance.
Soon her brief intrusion into his family affairs would be over—permanently.
Demos Atrides opened the door to his apartment and ushered Leandra inside. Immediately she was tightly enveloped in a bear hug.
‘Well,’ demanded the extremely handsome blond embracing her with long familiarity. ‘How did it go? Did he show?’
Leandra extricated herself, tossing her evening bag on the silk-covered sofa, and kicked off one of her high heels. Her feet were killing her. She said nothing. She didn’t think she could for the moment.
‘Oh, yes, he showed all right,’ said Demos behind her. His voice was tight.
‘And?’ demanded the other young man. ‘Did he fall for it?’
Demos gave a short laugh, displaying the tension he was still under.
‘Hook, line and sinker—isn’t that what