Читать книгу Contracted For The Petrakis Heir - Annie West - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

ADONI ROLLED ONTO his back, his blood thundering, aftershocks of rapture echoing through him. Light flashed in the blackness of his closed eyes and he struggled for breath, his chest rising mightily as he sucked in air.

Finally he found the strength to open his eyes and stare at the ceiling of his bedroom. It looked unfamiliar, as if the events of the evening had changed his perspective, even on something as mundane as cream paint.

Certainly he felt different. Not just sated but as if he’d tapped into an energy source that both drained and renewed him at the same time.

‘They didn’t do it right,’ he said finally, his voice raw.

‘Sorry?’ Alice’s voice was a wisp of sound. It shivered across pleasure points on his body that were still remarkably receptive to that sweet cadence.

‘The guys you had sex with. The ones who didn’t give you an orgasm. They had no idea what they were doing.’

For Alice Trehearn had to be one of the most sensual women he’d met. Her responsiveness, her passion, had soldered a connection between them that felt rare, almost precious, even if her limited experience had been glaringly obvious. She hadn’t been able to conceal her shock at some of his caresses.

At one stage, when he’d finally allowed himself to thrust deep within her, he’d even imagined for a moment that he was her first. She was so incredibly taut and close around him she might have been a virgin. Except virgins didn’t offer themselves to strangers and talk so casually of orgasms.

He’d half wondered if, despite her frank talking, she might be reticent and cold with a man. Instead she’d been like a live wire just waiting to explode in a shower of sparks.

Aware that she’d never before had an orgasm, Adoni had taken his time exploring her body, lavishing caresses all over till she was trembling and gasping against him, sobbing for release. Her throaty pleas had been sweet as wild honey and had prolonged her sensual torture. For he’d lingered, experimenting, revelling in each gasped exclamation.

By the time he’d slipped his fingers across that nub at the centre of her need, it had taken barely a caress for her to lift off the bed, shuddering as she gasped out her release. And again when he’d nuzzled her there...

Adoni closed his eyes at the vivid memory of musk and sweet femininity, of silky thighs clamping round him and her choked little cries of disbelief as rapture took her.

He’d almost come undone there and then, so aroused was he by this woman. Yet she’d been worth the wait. Finding his own completion, deep-seated within her velvet heat, watching her slate-blue eyes blaze in wonder as her body reached that pinnacle a third time. That was a pleasure that would stay with him well into the future. He couldn’t remember another climax so intense it felt as if he’d lost a part of himself.

But he’d eagerly lose himself again and again with a lover like Alice Trehearn. Even now, gasping for breath as they fought their way down from that incredible high, her fingers splayed possessively across his thigh.

If this was how it was when they barely knew each other’s bodies, what would it be like when they were even better attuned?

How would it feel if she did for him some of the things he’d done for her?

Adrenaline slammed into his blood, hurtling around his body at dangerous speeds.

‘Well, I’m glad you know what you’re doing.’ Her voice was an uneven whisper. ‘That was amazing.’

Something about the hoarse strain in her tone made Adoni open his eyes and turn his head.

She too lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, her pert breasts rising and falling with her rapid breathing. The sight of them, the memory of their sweetness on his tongue, sent a charge of energy back to his groin.

Again? So soon?

Adoni smiled, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of sex underlain with the orange blossom fragrance of her hair. There was something overwhelmingly attractive about a woman who made a man feel all man.

He opened his mouth to murmur something suggestive when his gaze rose to her face and his mouth snapped shut.

Her pale brow was furrowed in thought and those full lips pursed as if something other than bliss occupied her brain. His gaze moved to a reddened patch of skin on her slender throat. Razor burn. He’d kissed her there as he powered into her, stifling the need to yell his triumphant pleasure with a ravaging caress of her tender flesh.

‘Alice?’

She blinked rapidly and to Adoni’s consternation he saw fat tears spike her dark lashes.

He didn’t do emotion. Not with lovers. Sex was about pleasure, scratching an itch, not—

Her tongue slipped out to swipe her reddened lips and, despite his sudden tension, Adoni’s sex stirred.

‘Sorry.’ She swiped her cheeks with the heel of her palm. ‘I’m feeling a little...overwhelmed. It will pass, I’m sure.’ Her laugh sounded strained. ‘It was just so much more than I expected.’

She turned her head and snared him with her brilliant eyes. Adoni’s heart knocked his ribs in a rough, unfamiliar rhythm.

‘Thank you.’ Her mouth turned up into a crooked smile that did something devastating to his internal organs.

‘My pleasure.’ What a weird conversation. They were so...polite when just seconds ago he’d been deep within her, pulsing out his climax and revelling in her broken gasps of wonderment and the close embrace of her body.

He wanted to kiss her again, see if the promising stirrings of his lower body would strengthen. But that mouth was so solemn. That puckered brow so serious. Above all, there were those crystal teardrops clinging to her thick, bunched lashes. Those made him pause and rethink.

‘I need to see to the condom.’ Even as he said it, an inner voice rose in protest, telling him he could have her again, find easy satisfaction with this unlikely siren.

But a lifetime’s caution came to his aid. He refused to get involved with feminine tears and...feelings.

He levered himself from the bed and strode across to the bathroom. Strange how, with every step, he felt the weight of her gaze. It was as if she touched him, a light caress that strayed from his shoulders, down the sweep of his spine to his buttocks and thighs, then back up to the bunching muscles of his glutes. A shiver of awareness rippled through him.

Again, temptation rose to turn back to Alice and take more of what they’d already shared. Instead Adoni kept walking. It was only when he closed the bathroom door behind him that the tension pushing at his shoulders eased.

In the end he decided on a cold shower, sluicing water off his face and relying on the chill to douse his libido. It would be too easy to fall back into sex with Alice Trehearn. Her combination of naivety and forthright ways attracted as he couldn’t recall being attracted before. She was different, possibly unique, and something about her cut straight through his hard-won caution to the instinctive risk-taker deep within.

Which was why Adoni would take stock before having sex with her again.

That they would have sex again was a certainty. He might be cautious but he wasn’t a self-denying fool.

He grabbed a towel, roughly drying his hair, then leaned forward, considering the shadow darkening his jaw. He should shave, out of consideration for Alice’s delicate skin. Yet he hesitated. He’d gone blindly into sex with a stranger and got more than he’d bargained for, in satisfaction and pleasure. But in tears too, and that made the hackles of caution rise.

For a second he hesitated. That in itself piqued his anger. He prided himself on his quick decisions, yet with this woman he was second guessing. Frowning, he reached for a towel and wrapped it around his hips. They had some talking to do.

After that there’d be time for shaving and for more sex.

Lots more sex.

Adoni repressed the urge to smile as he crossed the vast bathroom. Already he was fantasising about where the next time would be. The whole time he’d showered he’d been picturing Alice naked with him under the icy spray. Or naked on the sofa by the fire. Or up against the big picture window that gave his owner’s suite its multi-million-dollar views of central London.

He swallowed, his mouth drying as he thought of those delectable legs wrapped around his waist, her sultry mouth open as she gasped her pleasure and—

Adoni slammed to a stop. The sheets were a riotous tumble on the vast, empty bed but Alice wasn’t beneath them. He frowned.

Was that a door he heard closing down the corridor?

‘Alice?’ He cast about, expecting to see her in some dim corner of the room, but she wasn’t there. Nor was that abomination of a dress.

A niggling sensation started up in his belly. He couldn’t place it but it reminded him of the nerves he’d felt the first time he’d gone, virtually penniless, to beg for a loan to start his business. When he’d had nothing to recommend him but his bright ideas and determination to succeed or die trying. Anything to prove to Vassili Petrakis that the son he’d disinherited was a man to be reckoned with.

The memory of that day halted him, mid-stride. His frown became a scowl. Nothing could compare to the way he’d felt that day.

Yet that curious, unsettled feeling persisted.

His stride lengthened as he headed down the corridor, checking out each room as he went. She was nowhere to be found. He paced the sitting room. Hadn’t she left her shoes beside the couch? Hadn’t her purse been there too?

‘Alice?’ He swung round, taking in the unmistakable emptiness.

She’d gone. Not just gone, but run away without a word.

Unbelievable! No woman had ever done that before.

He didn’t like it.

Adoni retraced his steps, his brow furrowed as he tried to work out why she’d run.

Embarrassment? It seemed unlikely, given the conversation they’d had and her enthusiasm for sex. Heat stirred anew at the memory of Alice, abandoned with rapture. It had felt like the first real moment in this long, trying day. He’d even had someone trying to sell him real estate over the wedding dinner.

Adoni stood in the bedroom doorway, scanning the room as if it could provide a clue to her bizarre behaviour. In his experience women were far more likely to hang around long after you wished they’d left than go too early. Most had that greedy look in their eyes. The one that said they lusted after his body or his money or probably both.

Unease filled him. Was Alice capable of looking after herself alone in London late at night? Should he follow her? She wasn’t drunk any more, he’d never have taken her to bed if she was, but—

His thoughts halted as he spied his wallet on the floor. When he’d shed his clothes it had still been in the pocket of his trousers. Now it lay, splayed open, beside the bed. The side of the bed where Alice had lain, exhausted and emotional.

Apparently exhausted and emotional. For now he stepped closer Adoni saw that not only was his wallet open but one of his credit cards was tugged out of its slot.

He blinked, mind cataloguing the implication of the open wallet. Yet something, a part of him that hankered after the illusion of an honest woman, protested he couldn’t be seeing what he thought.

Adoni picked up the wallet and sank onto the bed. How much cash had been in there earlier? He flicked through the notes. Nothing was obviously missing. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t helped herself to some.

Of more concern was that she’d obviously been rifling his credit cards. They were all there; she hadn’t stolen them.

But maybe she’d made a note of the numbers and security data to use later? She could even have taken an imprint. Who knew what she carried in her bag?

Adoni leaned back against the bedhead, torn between disbelief and anger at himself for being so easily gulled. Women had tried to inveigle their way into his life in so many ways, he’d thought himself awake to them all. Yet he’d allowed Alice Trehearn to slip under his guard.

If that was even her name. Now he thought about it, it sounded a little too sweet and old-fashioned. Made up to allay suspicion?

He raked a hand through his hair. What a bloody fool he’d been! Thinking with his penis while she’d been busy scheming to get her grimy fingers on his money.

You’d think, by thirty-one, he’d be awake to such schemes. Especially given his history. A mother who’d lied shamelessly to both her husband and her son. A fiancée who’d fooled Adoni into believing she loved him then dropped him the moment he was disinherited.

As for the man he’d once called Father...

Truly, it was remarkable Adoni had allowed himself to be conned. He’d learned the hard way not to take people at face value.

Until tonight when a slip of a girl with an endearing smile, an owlish stare and a voracious sensuality had blindsided him.

His mind clicked back to that heady rush of primal, masculine possessiveness. That first slow thrust to Alice’s silken core, when she’d felt as tight and untried as he imagined a virgin would be. Then she’d looked up with wonder in her glazed eyes and something had beaten hard and insistent in his chest. Pleasure and a primitive satisfaction that made him feel as sophisticated as a caveman.

He’d even believed, when her breath caught and her whole body stilled, that perhaps she was a complete innocent. Until her fingers dug into his buttocks and she demanded ‘More!’ in that husky little voice that was the most potent aphrodisiac he knew. That had banished the strange moment of fantasy.

Adoni’s jaw set. He supposed he should be thankful he hadn’t taken longer in the bathroom. If he had he was sure his wallet and his credit cards would have been exactly where he’d left them and he wouldn’t have realised Alice was a thief till large sums disappeared from his accounts.

Alice Trehearn was just another gold-digger who’d set her sights on his fortune.

He breathed out hard, shoulders rising and falling in self-disgust that he’d actually fallen for her scam. She’d better look out if their paths crossed again. He wouldn’t fall for her wiles a second time.

He reached for the phone. It was time to cancel his credit cards.

* * *

‘Sensitive breasts. That was the first sign.’ The woman’s whisper penetrated the hum of the crowded café. ‘Even when I just crossed my arms.’

Alice paused, feeling her eyes widen at the empty cups and plates she was clearing from a nearby table. Her own breasts had felt sensitive for the last couple of days.

Out of all the customer conversations in the room, her tired brain would snag on that one. Any minute now she’d hear that the woman had since been diagnosed with a weird flu or some horrible life-threatening illness. Alice did not need to hear that. She couldn’t afford time off with illness. She had enough trouble making ends meet.

She blinked and tried to focus on her task, wrinkling her nose at the half-drunk coffee she loaded onto her tray. For some reason the scent of coffee, one she usually adored, seemed downright unpleasant today.

‘I didn’t have that at all.’ Another woman spoke. ‘My first sign was cigarette smoke. Every time Jake lit up I gagged. I made him quit smoking, which is just as well when you think about it. But it wasn’t just cigarettes. Coffee too. I couldn’t bear the smell.’

Alice froze, her arm outstretched towards a cake plate.

Was this some hoax? Was she being set up in an elaborate joke?

She shook her head. Tiredness was confusing her. She’d spoken to no one about either of those strange symptoms. It was just coincidence.

Briskly, telling herself she wasn’t listening, she finished stacking the tray.

‘And of course that led to morning sickness.’ It was the second voice again. ‘You don’t know how lucky you were to miss out on that.’

Alice felt the hairs on her nape lift, one by one, till her flesh drew tight. She took a slow, calming breath, its effect spoiled as another waitress walked by with a load of coffees. Alice inhaled the fumes and swallowed convulsively.

She felt clammy now, as if her skin was too tight for her body. Perspiration popped out on her hairline and she swayed.

It took an enormous effort to straighten, supporting the laden tray, and turn towards the kitchen. As she did her gaze turned to the pair who’d been speaking. Both were young and healthy-looking. Both smiling. One had a baby on her knee and the other was so pregnant it was a wonder she managed to fit in the alcove seat.

A tremor racked Alice and she almost dropped the tray.

Pregnancy!

That was what they were talking about?

But Alice couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

He’d used a condom!

Of course she wasn’t pregnant. She was only twenty-three. She was just starting to live life for herself. She had no plans for a baby.

It was just coincidence.

A strange, scary coincidence.

But as the morning wore on Alice became more and more conscious of the way her breasts tingled whenever her arm pressed in as she reached for something. She found herself avoiding the coffee machine as much as possible.

By her break, despite some stern self-talk about not leaping to conclusions, Alice found herself in a pharmacy, handing over hard-earned cash for a pregnancy kit.

It couldn’t be. Of course it couldn’t be.

But it was.

Alice stood in the cramped staff washroom and stared at the indicator that told her she was pregnant.

She didn’t slump against the counter. She didn’t squeal with excitement or cry. She didn’t do anything but stare as the implications worked their way into her brain.

She’d experienced so many life-changing events. Alice had learned railing against fate or trying to avoid reality didn’t work.

Her mother had died in a car crash when Alice was twelve. Her father’s injuries in the same smash left him in a wheelchair, needing constant support until he’d died of complications when she was seventeen. At least her godfather, David, had given them a roof over their heads when their money dried up and the house had to go. Then David, as close as family, had been diagnosed with a terminal condition. Alice had been the one to look after him through the prolonged illness till last year when—

Alice shook her head. At least, for a change, the latest crisis in her life wasn’t about death, but about life. Maybe when she got her head around it she’d even be happy.

She stared into the mirror at the wan-faced young woman whose eyes seemed too big for her face.

Fear stirred.

Fear of the unknown. She knew nothing about babies!

Fear about how she’d support a child when she could barely support herself.

And, yes, a blinding moment of frustration and self-pity. Because, as she’d lost the people she loved, she could find only one positive—that now she could begin experiencing those things her peers took for granted. Parties and carefree weekends. Dating. Starting a career. Going to art school, if she could scrape enough money to support herself.

Now art school would be on hold again, perhaps permanently. She’d have to find a way to support her child, plus a career that earned well and had family-friendly hours.

Alice’s mouth twisted at the impossibility of it all.

She grabbed at the counter as another thought struck and her knees gave way.

She’d have to tell him. Adoni Petrakis.

For, she realised, she was having this baby. She didn’t know anything about babies but she was sure she didn’t want a termination.

That was one thing sorted at least.

She tried to smile at her reflection and failed. For she cringed at the idea of confronting Adoni. They were from different worlds. It was a miracle they’d ended up in bed together. He was rich, sophisticated and urbane. She was ordinary and embarrassingly inexperienced. More, she’d been downright gauche that night.

The memory always left her torn between horror at what she’d done and a wish that it had never ended. She could get used to a handsome, sexy man with a sense of humour and an appreciative glint in his eyes. A man who was kind and generous and awakened all sorts of unfamiliar desires.

Just as well she’d peeked into his wallet to check his surname. At the time shame had pushed her to spy because in her alcoholic haze she’d forgotten his last name. She’d been determined to know the full name of the man she’d given her virginity to.

Her crooked smile became a rictus grin, her cheeks aching at the pull of taut flesh.

At least she had a name to put on the birth certificate!