Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 35
ОглавлениеLILAH BOARDED BASTIEN’S private jet with her head held high. No, she wasn’t about to show the shame she felt, and she wasn’t anyone’s victim—least of all Bastien’s. This was her choice, she reminded herself doggedly. Bastien might have laid out those hateful options but she had made the choice, and she was still happy with what her sacrifice had achieved for her family.
Her father was managing the business he loved. For the moment he and Vickie would stay on in Lilah’s little house, because it was affordable and within easy reach of Ben’s school. Lilah thought her father and stepmother probably couldn’t quite credit that life had changed for the better again. Having so recently lost everything, they were afraid of another disaster.
Lilah had had tears in her eyes when she’d parted from her little brother and sister that morning, for she had no idea when she would see them again. Did a mistress get time off from her role? Would she have any rights at all?
* * *
Bastien rested his arrogant dark head back to survey Delilah as she walked into the cabin. His mouth took on a sardonic curve when he saw her. She wore a drab, dated black trouser suit and had braided her hair again, concealing her every attraction to the best of her ability. But Bastien was hard to fool. She couldn’t conceal the supple elegance of her delicate build or the healthy youthful glow of her fair skin and bright blue eyes, and when the jacket of her suit flapped back, revealing a sheer white shirt that hugged her small pouting breasts like a second skin, the fit of his trousers became uncomfortably tight.
Tonight, he thought impatiently, would finally rid him of the almost adolescent state of arousal she inflicted on him. A virgin, though... Was that really the truth? Didn’t that deserve a certain amount of considerate staging?
Since when had he been considerate? Bastien asked himself irritably as Delilah attempted to walk past him towards the back of the cabin, where his staff were seated. His hand snapped out to close round her wrist and bring her to a halt.
‘You sit with me,’ he told her flatly.
Her full pink mouth tightened.
‘Take off that ugly jacket. Let down your hair,’ Bastien instructed.
Lilah froze. ‘What will you do if I say no?’
‘Rip off the jacket and yank out the hair tie for you,’ Bastien traded without hesitation.
Warm colour flooded Lilah’s cheeks and feathery lashes lowered over her eyes, because she was insanely conscious of his staff watching from the other end of the cabin. They were clearly wondering what she was doing on board and were now about to have their curiosity satisfied. She shrugged out of the jacket stiffly and reached up to tug at the tie anchoring her braid. Her hand was shaking as she loosened her hair.
Rage and mortification gusted through her as she dropped down into the seat beside Bastien, glossy black curls fanning in tousled disarray across her shoulders and brushing her flushed cheekbones.
‘And just like that you look gorgeous again, koukla mou.’
‘Is it going to be like this with everything? Your way or the highway?’ Lilah pressed in a strangled hiss.
‘What do you think?’
‘That I once thought you were enough of a man not to need to control a woman’s every move!’
His lean, darkly handsome features slashed into a sudden, entirely unexpected grin, his pride untouched by that crack. ‘The trouble is...I enjoy controlling you.’
Lilah snatched in a much-needed gulp of oxygen. He sent her temper zooming from zero to sixty in the space of seconds. She had never considered herself quick-tempered until she met Bastien, but he literally set her teeth on edge almost every time he spoke.
‘Why would you even want a woman who doesn’t want you? Or is that what it takes to turn you on?’
That was a suggestion that deeply affronted Bastien, for the merest hint of aversion to him from a lover would have repulsed him.
He turned round to face her more directly, his dark eyes flaming gold as ingots, and closed a hand into the fall of her hair to hold her still. ‘No, you’re what it takes to turn me on...but, believe me, you can make very angry.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Lilah whispered tauntingly, tilting her chin, blue eyes gleaming.
In a searing movement of sensual intimidation Bastien crushed her soft mouth under his, driving her lips apart for the stabbing penetration of his tongue. She wasn’t able to breathe, but then at that moment she didn’t want to breathe. Her head was swimming, her body stinging with wild awareness, and a roaring hunger was awakening like a hurricane deep down inside her.
For a count of ten energising seconds Bastien thought about carrying her into the sleeping compartment and sating himself on her. But he would hurt her. He knew he was too hyped up for control. Besides, it was only a short flight to London and the jet would be landing soon.
He pulled back from her, positively aching from the throbbing force of his desire. ‘You do want me,’ he contradicted thickly, scanning her wildly flushed face and swollen, reddened mouth with satisfaction. ‘You did from the first, koukla mou.’
Lilah whipped her attention away from him again and stared into space. Well, you asked for that, she told herself crossly, wondering why she always felt such a driving need to try to shoot Bastien down in flames. Unfortunately, in spite of all her efforts to ground him, he kept on soaring heavenward like a rocket.
Even so she was being confronted by a truth that she couldn’t bear to examine. From the very first glimpse she had got of Bastien she had wanted him, and the hunger he had awakened in her was both primitive and terrifying. It truly hadn’t mattered who he was or even what he was like, because her body had instantly seethed with a life of its own, wanting to connect with his, and her brain had swum with new and disturbing erotic images.
She hadn’t known attraction could be that immediate or that powerful, and had certainly never suspected that it could overwhelm all restraint and common sense. Even worse, she was painfully aware that, had Bastien employed a more subtle approach and less honesty, he most probably would have succeeded in seducing her into his bed.
The cabin crew served drinks, the glamorous blonde stewardess syrupy sweet and persistent in her determination to serve and flirt with Bastien at the same time. He ignored her behaviour as if it wasn’t happening, neither looking directly at the woman nor responding to her inviting chatter.
‘Where are we going?’ Lilah asked once the jet had landed.
‘I’m taking you shopping, and tomorrow we head to Paris. I have a business meeting there.’
‘Shopping?’ she queried in surprise.
Bastien shrugged a broad shoulder and said nothing. Lilah caught the stewardess studying her with naked envy and thought, If only you knew the truth.
But what was the real truth? Lilah asked herself as the limo whisked her and Bastien through the crowded streets of London. She had given her word and Bastien had already delivered on his promises, which meant that he owned her body and soul for the foreseeable future. And that interpretation cast her as a complete victim, Lilah acknowledged ruefully—until she admitted the reality that one glance at Bastien’s exquisitely chiselled features and tall athletic physique reduced her to a melted puddle of lust and longing. He was incredibly attractive—and, taking into account his reputation as a legendary womaniser, a very large number of women agreed with her.
They were met at the door of a world-famous store and conveyed upwards in a lift, surrounded by a posse of attendants composed of a stylist, a personal shopper and sales assistants. Clearly Bastien had already stated his preferences, and they were shown into a private room where he was ushered into a seat. Lilah hovered, watching the approach of a tray of champagne, and then she was steered into a changing room, where an astonishingly large selection of clothing awaited her.
Surely trying on loads of clothes for Bastien’s benefit wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to her? But if making her model the clothes he wanted her to wear was a deliberate ploy to annoy her, he had played a blinder. The demeaning concept of swanning around in clothing personally picked by Bastien set her teeth on edge.
With a flush on her cheeks, she stepped back into the room clad in a blue silk dress that clung to her like cling film.
Bastien kicked back in his comfortable chair, very much in the mood to enjoy himself. His burnished gaze rested on Delilah and the oddest sense of contentment settled over him. Amusement tilted his handsome mouth when she teetered dangerously in the very high heels she clearly wasn’t accustomed to walking in. The dress was rubbish: far too revealing. The only place Delilah would be encouraged to show that amount of flesh was in his bedroom and nowhere else.
He moved a dismissive hand and awaited the next outfit, a pale pink jacket and skirt that was cute as hell against her cloud of blue-black hair and bright blue eyes. There might not be much of her, Bastien conceded, but what she lacked in curves she more than made up for in class, and with a delicacy that he considered incredibly feminine. The first time he had seen Delilah she had put him in mind of a flawless porcelain doll—until he’d noticed how expressive her face was: an ever-changing fascinating vista of what she was feeling and thinking. And what he liked most about her face was that he could read it as easily as a child’s picture book.
‘I’m not modelling underwear for you,’ she warned him in a biting undertone.
Disconcerted, Bastien froze and lifted his arrogant, dark head to meet her bright eyes head-on, finally recognising the blaze of anger banked down there. ‘Not a problem,’ he assured her lazily. ‘We’ll save that show for the bedroom, glikia mou.’
Lilah’s cheeks blazed with sudden livid colour. ‘No, that’s not me,’ she parried abruptly. ‘If that’s what you want, you’ve picked the wrong girl!’
‘You’re perfect for me,’ Bastien assured her levelly.
‘Well, that’s not a compliment I can return,’ Lilah replied tartly. ‘After all, it’s obvious that we’re a match made in hell. You want a dress-up doll that does exactly what’s it’s told and I won’t do that.’
Bastien rose lithely to his feet and looked down at her from his commanding height with unreadable dark eyes. ‘That’s not what I want.’
‘You want all the imperfections airbrushed away. You want obedience. Clearly you want a woman with submissive traits, and yet I don’t have a submissive bone in my body! In fact, I’m more likely to argue with people who make unreasonable demands,’ Lilah shot back at him in angry frustration. ‘You’re the king of unreasonable demands, Bastien. So, what are you doing with me?’
‘You’re misinterpreting everything I’ve ever said to you,’ Bastien told her drily.
‘Am I?’ Lilah rolled her bright blue eyes, unimpressed by that accusation. ‘You’re such a control freak that you even want to choose the clothes I wear.’
‘That’s untrue,’ Bastien incised. ‘You’re more like a jewel I want to see polished up and placed in the right setting. I don’t want to see you wearing cheap clothes... I want to see you shine—’
‘Bastien!’ Lilah broke in helplessly, hopelessly confused by his attitude. He only wanted to have sex with her. He had been brutally honest about that reality. What did the clothes she wore have to do with a hunger that basic? Why on earth did he care what she wore?
She had paraded around for his benefit in one outfit after another. A vast wardrobe was being assembled for her use. She was stunned by that reality as well. For goodness’ sake, was Bastien planning to keep her for the rest of her life—and his? How would she ever wear even a quarter of these clothes while she was with him? This was a male who was famed for barely lasting a month with one woman. Yet she had been equipped with countless wardrobe choices—indeed, everything a woman could conceivably want for every possible occasion and every season. Late afternoon had already stretched well into evening to encompass the shopping trip.
‘We’ll go back to the hotel now for dinner,’ Bastien proposed, as if no dispute had taken place.
Lilah returned to the changing cubicle and selected a skirt and top from the rack to put on. She was being torn in two. On one level she wanted to fight Bastien, but on another she wanted to give him what he wanted to keep him happy. After all, how much was her own pride really worth when she could still clearly recall her father’s renewed energy and hope?
What Bastien had given could easily be taken away again, she reflected fearfully. By giving her father a job, Bastien had revitalised the older man’s drive and confidence. She should be grateful, she told herself urgently, but it was no use—she was too idealistic for such practicality. Unlike Bastien, she wanted sex to come packaged with romance and commitment.
Bastien took her back to an exclusive hotel and a very spacious suite. There were two bedrooms, and in the doorway of the first, Bastien paused to say, ‘This is your room. I like my own space.’
Relieved by the news that she would not have to share a bedroom and surrender all privacy, Lilah watched as the hotel staff carted in the boxes and bags containing her brand-new wardrobe as well as a sizeable collection of designer luggage.
Bastien turned to grasp the phone extended to him by one of his personal assistants. Lean, strong face intent, he began talking urgently in French while raising an impatient hand to summon his team. As he spoke he strode to the desk in the large reception room, where a laptop had already been set up for his use.
His attention had drifted away from Lilah at supersonic speed. She watched his staff move into action, unfurling phones and tablets to follow Bastien’s instructions. One name was mentioned repeatedly—Dufort Pharmaceuticals.
She kicked off her high heels and switched on the television in the far corner of the room. The fancy evening meal she had expected to eat in Bastien’s company did not materialise. Instead, about an hour later waiters arrived with trolleys of buffet food to feed staff more interested in standing upright to eat than sitting down.
‘Delilah!’ Bastien called across the length of the room. ‘Eat...you must be hungry by now.’
‘Starving,’ she admitted, padding over to him barefoot to grasp the plate he extended, daunted by the sheer size of him when she stood next to him without her shoes.
‘A promising business deal has come up,’ Bastien confided, studying her casually tousled hair and teeny-tiny bare toes, admiring the lack of vanity that allowed her to relax to that extent in his presence. She didn’t care about impressing him, and he respected her innate sense of self-worth.
‘I guessed that...’ Lilah hid her amusement, delighted not to be the sole focus of his attention.
Ebony brows pleating, Bastien watched Delilah curl up on the sofa to return to the reality show she was watching. She was simply accepting that business came first for him without either taking offence or angling for a greater share of his attention. Yet, watching her relax back into the sofa and start eating with appetite, Bastien wondered if he should be the one taking offence—because it really wasn’t a compliment that she should be so unconcerned by his preoccupation.
Becoming bored after an hour, Delilah switched off the television and crammed her feet back into the shoes she had kicked off to stand up. It was too early for bed and she was restless.
‘Where are you going?’ Bastien asked as she moved towards the door.
‘For a walk. I need a break.’
Delilah was stepping into the lift when, to her surprise, one of Bastien’s security team joined her.
‘Is Bastien scared I’m going to run away?’ she gasped in frustration, recognising the young man.
‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.’ Her companion sighed. ‘My instructions are not to let you out of my sight.’
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Ciro.’
‘I’m Lilah,’ she responded with a rueful smile, knowing that it wasn’t fair to take her irritation out on Ciro, who was only guilty of doing his job.
A pianist was playing in the low-lit bar on the ground floor. Sitting down, Lilah ordered a drink. Ciro retreated to a table by the wall and left her in peace. Wishing she had thought to tuck a book into her bag, Lilah decided to catch up on her phone calls instead.
She rang her father first. Robert Moore talked non-stop to his daughter about Bastien’s plans for the business and the advantages of the new location Bastien had picked for the firm. Lilah followed up that call with one to Vickie, learning that her dog, Skippy, had been picked up on schedule by a transport firm that morning.
She was replacing her phone in her bag when a blonde woman sat down without warning in the seat opposite her. Lilah looked up in disconcertion.
‘You’re staying here with Bastien Zikos, aren’t you?’ the woman pressed with a smile.
Lilah’s brows pleated. ‘Why are you asking me that?’
‘I’m Jenny Gower and I write for the women’s page on the Daily Pageant,’ the blonde told Lilah cheerfully, setting a business card down in front of her. ‘That’s my number. Feel free to call me any time you’d like a chat. Bastien’s a real favourite with our readers and we like to keep up to date with his latest ladies.’
The woman was a reporter, Lilah realised in dismay. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘Don’t be shy. We pay generously for even little titbits.’
Without warning Ciro appeared at her elbow and intervened. ‘Lilah...you’re talking to a journalist.’
Lilah stiffened. ‘We’re not actually talking. I was just about to leave.’
And with that last word Lilah finished her drink and left the table.
‘Mr Zikos loathes gossip columnists,’ Ciro warned her with a grimace. ‘I’ll try to avoid mentioning the fact that you were approached.’
When Lilah returned to the suite Bastien was in the act of dismissing his staff for the night. ‘I was planning to come down and join you,’ he informed her.
Lilah flinched and coloured, focusing on Bastien with her heart in her mouth.
Annoyance flared in Bastien when he recognised the apprehension flashing in her gaze. Women didn’t shrink from him; they wanted him. She must’ve been telling the truth about her inexperience, he concluded grimly. Only ignorance could explain such an attitude. It was surely past time that he showed her that she had nothing to fear from him.
‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked lazily, strolling closer.
‘No, thanks,’ she said jerkily.
Bastien crossed the room and scooped her right off her feet. Loosing a startled gasp, she wriggled like an electrified eel, strands of coconut-scented hair brushing his cheek as she moved her head back and forth.
‘Relax,’ he urged.
‘Are you kidding?’ Lilah exclaimed.
‘You said you were a virgin. You didn’t tell me that you were a hysterical one,’ Bastien derided.
Lilah froze in his arms as though she had been slapped. She was overreacting, she acknowledged ruefully. Obviously Bastien was going to touch her, so his move shouldn’t have sent her into panic mode.
‘I’m not hysterical,’ she protested, dry mouthed.
‘You could’ve fooled me,’ Bastien traded, settling down in an armchair with her slim body still firmly clasped to his broad chest.
‘You startled me...you pounced,’ Lilah condemned.
‘And I’m not about to apologise for it,’ Bastien husked, running down the back zip on her top and tugging it off her arms in one smooth movement.
‘Oh...’ Lilah gasped again, shocked to find herself stripped down to her bra without ceremony.
Bastien splayed a big hand across her narrow midriff to hold her in place while his mouth moved urgently across the pale skin at the nape of her neck. Her heart hammered inside her tight chest and a tiny uncontrollable shiver racked her when his teeth grazed and nipped along the slope between her neck and her shoulder. It was a fiercely erotic assault, subsequently soothed by the skim of his tongue.
Her eyes flew wide, her pupils expanding as quiver after quiver of response gripped her. Suddenly even breathing became a challenge. Bastien closed his hands to her waist to lift her and turn her to face him, bringing her down again with her skirt hitched and her legs splayed either side of his hips.
His tongue plunged against hers in a deep, marauding kiss that made her tremble. Her bra felt too tight and the ache stirring in her pelvis was powerful enough to hurt. He kept on kissing her, forcing her lips apart with urgency and drawing her down on him so that she could feel the hard thrust of his erection between her spread thighs.
‘Bastien... I—’
Dark golden eyes accentuated by a canopy of black velvet lashes held hers and silenced her. He truly had the most stunning eyes. Her mouth ran dry. Her mind was as blank as an unpainted canvas because she was reeling from the intensity of what he was making her feel.
She didn’t even realise he had flicked loose her bra until he ran his hands up over her pert breasts to make actual skin-to-skin contact. Her usual alarm about her lack of size in the breast department had no time to develop, because his hands were already curving to the small pale mounds. With knowing fingers and thumbs he roughly tugged and chafed the pale pink sensitivity of her straining nipples. His touch sent hot tingles of longing arrowing through her limp body, heat and moisture gathering at the pulsing heart of her.
‘You have such pretty breasts,’ Bastien said thickly, bending her back over his supporting arm to capture a swollen stiff bud between his lips and torment it with attention. ‘And so very sensitive, koukla mou...’
Her breath see-sawed back and forth in her throat while he rocked her over his lean, powerful body, ensuring that on every downward motion her tender core connected with the hard swell of his arousal. The tightening sensation in her womb increased to an unbearable level. Long fingers skated over the taut fabric stretched between her legs, where she was excruciatingly sensitive. He eased a finger below the lace edge of her panties. Excitement roared through her as he stroked and rubbed the tender bud of her clitoris. Rational thought vanished, because her body was greedily craving every new sensation, living from one intoxicating moment to the next.
As he rimmed the tiny wet entrance to her body with a teasing fingertip and at the same time let his carnal mouth latch hungrily on to an agonisingly tender nipple, Lilah’s every nerve ending went into screaming overdrive.
‘Come for me, Delilah,’ Bastien told her rawly.
And then there was no holding back the explosion of excitement that had risen to a high Lilah could no longer suppress. Within seconds she was crying out, shuddering and convulsing with the wild surge of pleasure Bastien’s expert hands had released. Exhausted and drained in the aftermath, she let her head drop down against his shoulder, barely able to credit that her body could react so powerfully that it still felt as though she was coming apart at the seams. He smelt of expensive cologne, testosterone and clean musky male, and at that moment—astonishingly—it was the most comforting scent she had ever experienced.
The strangest sense of protectiveness crept through Bastien while Delilah clung to him. He licked his fingers, her unique taste adding another layer to his fierce arousal. He wanted more—so much more that he knew he dared not let himself touch her again until he had cooled down. Unfortunately he had never been a patient man, and he knew his own faults.
He stood up, cradling her slight body in his arms, and carried her through to her room, where he settled her down on the bed.
‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Conscious of the cool air hitting her bare breasts, Lilah crossed her arms across her body with a defensive jerk and looked up at Bastien in astonishment as he switched on the bedside lamp. That was it? He wasn’t joining her in the bed to finish what he had started?
Hot colour surged in her cheeks as she collided with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘But...’
‘Tonight was for you, not for me,’ Bastien told her wryly, striding back to the door and then coming to a halt to glance back at her with a blindingly charismatic smile that mesmerised her into staring. ‘You know the weirdest thing...?’
His lean, darkly handsome features were pure fallen angel in the shadowy light. ‘No...’ she whispered, almost hypnotised by the flawless perfection of his sculpted features.
‘What we just did...’ he mused, with a self-mocking curve to his beautiful mouth. ‘That has to be the most innocent experience I’ve ever shared with a woman.’
As the door thudded shut on his exit Lilah’s brows lifted almost as high as her hairline. Innocent? How could such shattering intimacy be in any way innocent? What on earth was he talking about?
Her body was still aching and quaking as though it had come through a battle zone. She slid off the bed and staggered dizzily into the en-suite bathroom, challenged to place even one foot accurately in front of the other. There she studied her tousled reflection in disgust. Her hair was messy, her mascara smeared and she was half-naked.
With a groan of shame she stripped off the skirt and panties and stepped into the shower. But even beneath the cleansing, cooling flow of water her body tingled and burned with new awareness in the places Bastien had touched.
Lilah shuddered—and not in disgust—at the thought of him doing it again. That acknowledgement alone was sufficient to keep her tossing and turning half the night.
