Читать книгу Summer Sins: Bedded, or Wedded? / Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded / The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain - Эбби Грин, Julia James - Страница 13

THERE WAS SILENCE, complete silence, through the rusting grille of the entryphone system. Xavier stood, every muscle tensed.

Emotion tore at him.

Had that garbled message his PA had relayed to him with a deadpan face really been what the few incoherent words implied? The fractured phrases were burned in his mind.

Things have changed … completely … at my end. Something very unexpected … My former commitments are … finished. I’m no longer … So, if he wanted …

If the words were true it could mean only one thing.

She and Armand were finished.

It was blunt, it was brutal—but if, if it really were true, then—

One thought and one alone burned in his mind. I can have her.

Triumph surged in him. If his brother no longer had a claim on her, then those damning words of hers—I can’t—no longer mattered. Were no longer true.

If.

So small a word, so much hanging on it.

It must be true. Why else would she have phoned?

He needed to know. Right now. Frustration stabbed at him again, poisonously mixing with hope.

Why wouldn’t she open the damn door?

As if he’d spoken the words aloud, there was a sudden ping from the door and the lock yielded. He pushed it open instantly and strode inside. There was a narrow corridor, lit only by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stairs led away up from the central area. Everything looked bleak and bare. But he had eyes for none of it—only for the woman standing in the doorway of the ground-floor flat, clinging on to the doorjamb.

He went to her. He caught her to him. Dropped his mouth to hers.

His kiss was urgent, possessive, putting his brand on her. She collapsed against him, boneless. Triumph surged in him. He let her go, slipping his hands either side of her face, tilting it up to him. Her eyes were huge.

‘Why did you phone me?’

His voice sounded fierce, and he saw her pupils distend even more.

‘I … I …’ Her voice was faint, her body still weakly collapsed against his, held upright only because of the strength in the palms of his hands, holding her face as he looked down at her, towering over her.

‘I need to know,’ he said, and his voice was still fierce. ‘I need to know if you are free to come to me.’

There was a soft rasp in her throat. And then, as if a dam had broken inside her, she suddenly flung her arms around him and crushed her face against his shoulder. His hands slid around her back automatically, cradling her.

‘Is that a yes, cherie?’ The edge was still there, but something else, as well. His hands began to stroke up and down the length of her spine. She lifted her face away from him. Her eyes were shining like a rainbow. Something leapt in him.

Then she breathed a word—a single word.

‘Xavier.’ It was a sigh, it was an exhalation, it was all he needed to hear.

Very slowly, he brought his mouth down on hers again.

Exultation flowed like a rich, deep tide.

Lissa Stephens was his.

He did not mention Armand. He did not need to. There was no point. Whatever had happened between Lissa and his brother, it was over. All he knew was that he, Xavier, had done the honourable thing—he had walked away from a woman who was forbidden to him, no matter what it had cost him to do so.

And it had cost him—no doubt of that. Now, as he held her tight against him, feeling the warmth of her body in his arms, it slammed home to him just how much it had cost him, thinking that he was forever barred from her.

Relief poured through him. He could make Lissa his, and that was all he cared about. Whatever had happened between her and his brother was immaterial—it was over, and that was all that mattered. He would not think about it, would shut it out of his mind, would only tighten his arms around the woman he wanted and now had. There was only one centre of focus in his whole being—and she was in his arms. He would ask no questions, either of her or his brother. He would just accept, with relief and gratitude, that there was nothing standing between them. The tide that had started to flow so powerfully, so overwhelmingly, that moment when he had walked into the cocktail bar and seen Lissa as she truly was, could flow now unchecked until it reached the satiation it craved.

But not right here, or right now.

Reluctantly, he drew away from her glancing past her, into the interior of the wretched flat she lived in. Then his eyes came back to hers. The blast of radiance in them shook him.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. He kissed her lightly, possessively. ‘And bring your passport.’

Lissa was floating. Floating on a bubble of bliss that lifted her feet right off the ground. He had come for her. Xavier Lauran had come for her—wanted her so much that he had flown here from Paris the moment he’d got her stuttering message.

A glow filled her, sweet and intense and radiant. As she dashed around the flat—throwing things into a small valise, hastily changing into something less frumpy than a tracksuit, turning off the hot water, unplugging electrical appliances, leaving a brief voice mail for the agency to say she was taking time off at short notice—one of the few perks of temping—gathering her purse and passport, mobile phone and anything else she knew she must take with her—she could hardly think straight.

She had gone from dejection and resignation—from forcing herself to face up to accepting that Xavier Lauran was not for her, that her chance had gone, that he was not going to come back into her life, that all she would have of him was a brief memory, a jewel kept in a secret place whose colour would slowly dim and drain away—gone from that to its complete opposite. From dejection to elation. From resignation to radiance. From monochrome to glorious colour, like a rainbow just for her.

She could feel her heart leap as she glanced up from throwing underwear helter-skelter into her valise. He filled her vision. Dear God, he just looked so breathtakingly handsome standing there, his eyes fixed on her as he leaned, with effortless elegance, against the doorjamb of the bedroom, watching her pack, watching her with that half smile of his dancing in his eyes, playing about his beautifully shaped mouth. Recalling for her the memory of the night he’d taken her to that magical dinner at his hotel.

Were they going there now? Or, if not, then where? He had said passport, so did that mean he was taking her to France—but when? For how long? She didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything—only that she would go with him wherever he took her.

I’m going to take this moment. Take it and relish it. I know he’s only a fantasy made flesh, but for the time he wants me I will be with him and have him.

She wouldn’t think about the reality of what she was doing—that was for later, not now. All she would do now was allow herself the thrill and bliss of the moment, with her feet floating off the ground, all courtesy of Xavier Lauran—here, live, freshly flown in from Paris just to claim her, waiting to take her with him.

She zipped up the valise and picked it up, along with her handbag.

‘Ready?’ he asked, and strolled towards her, taking her valise from her. She nodded, heart racing. It was all she could do.

‘Yes,’ she said.

He held out his hand to her, and she went to him.

Lissa stood in Xavier Lauran’s bedroom in his apartment in Paris. It was gone midnight, and she had to pinch herself to believe that only a few hours ago she had been cleaning her drear and dingy flat in South London. Now she was in a high-ceilinged grand appartement, its décor a stunning mix of ancient and modern, occupying the first floor of an old courtyarded hotel which, a century ago, had been the town house of a wealthy Second Empire financier to Napoleon III—or so Xavier had informed her when they’d arrived. She’d been stunned to realise that Xavier intended to fly straight back to Paris that very night, whisking her right to Heathrow in the waiting car outside.

And now she was here, in Paris—with the man she had thought could never be hers.

Who was standing here, now, in front of her, a glass of champagne in his long fingers, just as she held one in hers. It was probably an exquisite vintage, she knew, but she was incapable of doing it justice. Every atom of her being was focussed on one thing, and one thing only—being here with him.

‘To us, together at last,’ said Xavier, and took a sip from his glass.

She made herself do likewise, though she was hardly aware of doing so. She was only aware of the man who, this very night, was going to take her to his bed.

And she would go. Willingly, ardently. Xavier Lauran wanted her—had come for her—had swept her off to Paris—and she wanted him with every cell in her body, every fibre of her being. Her breath caught for the thousandth time as she gazed up at him, at the lean, elegant body, the incredible planes of his face, and into those dark, long-lashed eyes gazing down into hers with a message in them that turned her knees to jelly, that sent her pulse soaring into the stratosphere. All thought was gone. Only the wonder and thrill of the moment possessed her.

She watched him set aside his glass on an antique tallboy, and then reach to take hers from nerveless fingers. He smiled down at her. She felt her legs dissolve. The smile was warm and intimate and for her alone. His hand lifted, and with the backs of his fingers he stroked gently down her cheek.

She could not breathe, could not speak—could only stand there while his touch caressed her. So lightly—so devastatingly. She felt her skin come alive beneath his touch, her breathing quicken suddenly as his hand turned, and now his fingertips were brushing with tantalising sensuousness over the contours of her lips.

He had stepped closer. She wasn’t sure when—wasn’t sure of anything except the sweet, honeying sensation that was dissolving through her.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, and his voice was soft. It sent a tremor of arousal through her, and her eyelids fluttered of their own accord as he held her eyes with his long-lashed dark gaze. She wanted to touch him. To lift her fingers to that sable hair, to feather it and run her fingertip along the high line of his cheekbone. She felt her hand lift.

He caught it. Swiftly, with a soft, encircling grip around her wrist. His hold was not hard, but she could not escape.

‘No,’ he told her, and his voice had the very slightest husk to it. ‘First I want to touch you.’

She let him touch. Let the delicate pads of his fingers explore her lips, the line of her throat, the tender lobes of her ear, the sensitive nape of her neck. And then slide down, down into the valley of the blouse she had hurriedly put on. One by one he slipped the buttons, all the time his eyes holding hers, and she simply stood there, incapable of moving, incapable of anything except letting the exquisite sensation swirl slowly through her, weakening her whole body.

He parted her blouse. Already her breasts were swelling, responding to the sensuous play of his touch, and as his thumbs grazed over her nipples beneath the fine material of her bra they flowered instantly. She gave a little sigh in her throat at the sensation, and then he was sliding her blouse from her shoulders, so that it fluttered to the floor. In the same movement his fingers had slipped open the fastening of her bra, and he peeled that from her, as well.

Then his hands returned to her breasts. They were fully ripe now, heavier than they had ever been, and yet again he turned his hands over and gently, so gently, began to brush the sides of the backs over the twin orbs. The sensation was exquisite, and Lissa felt her head drop backwards, her lips parting. Yet for all the exquisiteness of the sensation there was a lack, too—a yearning within her. Her breasts lifted, and the sheer delicacy of his touch as he stroked them to yet further ripeness was almost unbearable. And then, at last, his fingers trailed over the ripened peaks, his fingers scissoring with almost leisurely enjoyment over their straining coral tips.

Sensation shot through her, quickening her, and her lips parted more.

‘Xavier—’ She breathed his name on an exhalation.

He didn’t answer her, but the long lashes of his eyes swept down as he brought his gaze to where his fingers were.

‘Belle—’ he said softly.

For timeless moments he continued to stroke and play with her breasts, until Lissa could almost no longer bear the exquisiteness of his touch. She felt her body sway. She was hot with desire, unaware of anything except the deliciousness of the sensation in her breasts. And yet she was aware of something—aware that it was not enough, not nearly enough.

As if he read her desire for more, he slid his hands downwards, over the slender wand of her body, his fingers splaying out across her bare flanks. His hands slipped around her waist, and she felt the loosening glide of the zip of her skirt, then the swooshing fall as it cascaded to the ground. She stepped out of it, a little sideways step that she scarcely noticed. Because every atom of her being was focussed on what Xavier was doing next.

His hands were cupping the lush roundness of her bottom, fingers spread, stroking and lifting. Lifting her into himself. He let his hips rest against hers, and with a surge of sudden excitement Lissa felt the hard, revealing strength of his arousal. Her breath caught and her eyes went to his.

There was knowledge in his eyes, and a rich, deep desire.

‘And now, cherie, it is time for you to touch me,’ he said softly.

For a moment she hesitated. She was supremely conscious of the fact that she was standing against him, stripped to her skimpy panties, her breasts swollen and peaked, her hair loose down her naked back—a woman waiting to be taken to his bed while he, fully aroused, was also fully clothed. The contrast shivered through her with erotic intensity.

Her arms lifted, and she draped them loosely around his neck. The movement brought the breasts he had caressed to ripened fullness into contact with his suited body. She felt the contact of his jacket against her nipples, and the sensation excited her yet more.

Her breathing quickened yet again.

She softly pressed hips barely covered by the thin silk of her panties against his, and felt the delicious contact there, as well. Against a yet more intimate part of her body.

She watched his face—quite deliberately. There was a line of tension along his cheekbones. It sent a thrill through her. Oh, she might be one of many women a man as gorgeous as Xavier Lauran could have for his pleasure, but right now she was the woman in his arms—she was the one who was causing that tension, that arousal, that absolute focus of his extreme attention.

It would not last. She knew it with a distant portion of her mind. But she did not care. She would pay the price when it came, and come it would, and then she would return to her real life, but for now she would have what she had never thought she would have, never thought she would experience.

For one delicious moment longer she held still, simply revelling in the feel of her silk-veiled pubis against the strength of his straining shaft, then she leaned back slightly from him, so that their hips were still in contact but she had the space to draw her hands back from around his neck.

Her fingers went to his tie. Teased open the knot. Then, never losing contact with his eyes, which were locked to hers, she slowly slid the tie out from beneath his collar. She discarded it on the floor. It lay, coiled, beside her bra and her other clothes, unseen, unattended to. She had more to attend to with her fingers.

One by one she slipped the buttons on his shirt, easing and teasing each button loose with deliberate slowness. As she worked her way down, the backs of her fingers rested on the smooth white surface of his shirt. She could feel the heat from his hard flesh beneath. Soon, so very soon, her fingers would be gliding over that smooth, firm flesh.

Opened, she eased the shirt little by little from his waistband, and then, when it was loose, her hands went back to his shoulders. His gaze was still locked to hers, still unreadable, although she knew perfectly well, with every feminine instinct, that he was exerting supreme control over his reactions, forcing himself to stay immobile while she stripped him down to the lean, perfect body beneath the expensive tailored clothes.

Her hands, at last, slid beneath the surface of the material of his loosened shirt, and the sensation of his warm, smooth skin beneath her palms was heady in its intimacy. Her fingers cupped his shoulders and worked the shirt from his body and arms. It slithered to the floor. Only then did she allow herself the luxury of letting her hands stroke over his torso. It made her breath catch—it was perfect, quite perfect. A column of lean, muscled flesh and bone, neither over-nor under-developed, neither broad nor slim, but perfect. It was bliss to touch, bliss to let her hands roam free, drifting in slow sweeps on its surface warmth, sliding around his waist to glide up over the muscled contours of his back.

And then, most blissful of all, to lift her body against his again, and let the contact of her swollen nipples graze across his own naked, exposed flesh.

She felt his arousal strengthen, and it made her breath catch, made the excitement surge again in her. As if it were a cue for him, suddenly, from being immobile, he took control again. His hands wrapped around her back, fingers splaying out in possession.

His mouth came down on hers.

This was no soft kiss as at the hotel, nor was it urgent with relief as it was at her flat. This was the kiss of a man, a male, strong, sensual, possessing her mouth as if it was his to take for the asking. He opened her to him with effortless intent and speared within, meeting her and deepening the kiss with sensual mastery.

Desire surged in her, stronger and more insistent. She returned kiss for kiss, her hands moving up to cup the shape of his skull beneath the pressure of her fingertips, buried in the silken, sable hair.

Her body was ripe, engorged, her lips swollen, her breasts straining, and between the vee of her legs, where the strength of his shaft pressed insistently, intimately against her, she felt a quickening that fed the hunger she must sate.

As if he felt she had reached that point, he suddenly caught her up and deposited her on the wide, soft bed. Her breath caught as he stood briefly, to strip, with controlled, swift movements, the last of his clothes. He came down beside her and in the same moment his fingers hooked into the hip-level waistline of her panties and peeled them from her. Where they fell she did not know or care. Knew only that she was lying naked to his view. And now he was perusing her, propped on one elbow, just a little way from her on the wide bed, his eyes moving over her naked body leisurely, lingeringly, until his gaze reached her eyes, and held.

It was the most intimate look he had given her yet, and Lissa knew that now they were truly about to start making love together. This was her moment of time with him.

She felt beautiful. More beautiful than she had ever felt in her life. The beauty of her naked female form, her long hair flowing out in a swathe behind her, her limbs, her body, all displayed for him, for him alone—the body of a woman in desire, a desire that she would consummate with this man, whose perfect body lay beside her, in a state of nature as was hers. There was a naturalness about it, a rightness about this coming together of two bodies, two people, giving themselves to each other.

Not in love, nor lust, but in mutual appreciation of the gift of physical sensuality.

She smiled. It was a warm smile as the recognition of the rightness of what she was doing, where she was, what was to happen, glowed in her. For just a second something veiled in his eyes—as if it might be a question, and then it was gone, banished, and he was looking down at her with an answering tug at the corner of his beautiful mouth.

‘Xavier,’ she said softly. A statement, a recognition. An acknowledgement of what she was about to do. Make love with a man she desired above all others. ‘Xavier,’ she breathed again.

It was all he needed. His head lowered to hers and he began to kiss her. Slowly this time, but with such skilled, arousing sensuality that she was lost—lost in a world she had not known possible, a world where every touch, every caress, drew from her a response that intensified with every exquisite contact.

He stroked her body, his hand warm on her flanks, her breasts, smoothing and gliding over her stomach, cupping her breasts with the bowl of his hand, fingers scything slowly either side of her nipples as if the touch were as pleasurable to him as it was to her. She moved her head in the soft pillows, sensuously revelling in the sensation as his hand moved down over her flank again, dipping between the pillars of her thighs, parting them for himself.

The tips of his fingers glided between, and she was dewed for him already, her breath catching with a soft cry in her throat as the incredible sensation of pleasure and bliss focused her entire being on that portion of her body. Against her thigh, as he moved closer to her, she could feel the strong length of his bared shaft.

He moved over her. He was against her stomach now, full and hard, and his hands framed her face, his mouth lowering to hers to kiss her yet again, sensual, deep kisses.

Then he lifted his mouth from her. ‘I must delay one moment,’ he said, and as he raised himself from her and turned away she realised what he was doing. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she let her head tilt slightly in the opposite direction. There was the subdued slide of a drawer, another moment’s delay, and then she felt his weight shift on the bed.

‘You may open your eyes again, cherie,’ he said. ‘The dreadful deed is done.’ There was amusement in his voice, and his hand reached to turn her head towards him again. He kissed her softly, reassuringly, and she relaxed, her eyes opening to his amused consideration. A man as experienced in affairs as Xavier Lauran would of course, she acknowledged, be prepared to take the necessary precautions, against both disease and the threat of an unwanted pregnancy with a woman who was, after all, no more than a passing desire to him. For just a moment unease flickered within her. She had come to this point knowingly, consciously, without any seduction or persuasion, simply because she was at a moment in her life when she had the time and opportunity to seize for herself an experience she would savour, appreciate, for the rest of her life. It was not real, this fantasy of desire with Xavier Lauran, but for its duration it was sweet, and oh so potent.

And it was now—now. The moment of consummation, of desire fulfilled, of yearning achieved, of fantasy indulged.

He moved over her again, kissing her on her mouth, his elbows supporting the weight of his lean body, his hips against hers, his legs lying between hers, and on her abdomen rested the manhood with which he would possess her.

She was ready for him. Absolutely, completely. For this moment. Now. Her hands glided along his flanks and she felt him tense. She gazed up at him, desire in her eyes, and met his answering desire.

‘Now,’ she said softly. ‘Now.’

He lifted away from her, his strong thighs parting hers yet a little more, and then, his fingers still cradling either side of her face, he slowly started to enter her.

She gave a long, low gasp, an exhalation of pleasure that brought the tilted smile crooking at his lips again.

‘A little more?’ he asked.

She only sighed in reply, not wasting breath on words to give an answer he already knew. He eased further into her, deeper. She opened to him, her silken tissues making his entrance as smooth as satin. The sensation was like nothing she had ever known, widening her, stretching her, yet entirely without pain. Only pleasure—pleasure that was more than physical sensation, pleasure that went through her whole body, engaging every part of it, so that her blood began to throb in her veins. Her fingertips pressed into the sides of his body.

‘It’s so good,’ she breathed.

He smiled at her again, and the way his mouth curved, his eyes lit, made her catch her breath again. He deepened his penetration, his hips now coming into contact with hers. Instinctively she raised her own hips, bending her knees just a little to balance herself. As she opened to him further he surged yet deeper into her, fusing her to him, and her flesh enclosed him like a lover’s embrace.

She was filled—fulfilled. Entire and whole. Complete. Two bodies become as one. For precious moments he just lay like that, cradled within her, as her hands rested at his waist.

‘Don’t move,’ she breathed. ‘Just for a moment longer—don’t move.’

She wanted to go on lying there, her naked body taken by his, his taken into hers, the softness of the bed cradling them. It was perfect, so perfect.

For a little while she was indulged, and she felt, if it were possible, that he seemed to grow fuller and stronger within her as her own body tightened around him in perfect unison.

Then— ‘Cherie …’

There was a thread of strain in his voice that roused her from the sweet pleasure that was so perfectly balanced between ful-filment and further desire. She gave a slow smile, and lifted her mouth to brush his lightly. Then, with the same movement, she lifted her hips fractionally.

It was all it took. He surged within her, and as he did so, his internal caress of that most sensitive place of all fused into a single, absolute point of bliss.

She gasped aloud, and he surged again, then again. Her throat arched, and his eyes locked with hers. With absolute surety of stroke he built a pyramid of bliss within her, the soft gasping in her throat becoming almost a cry of anguish, anguish—so sweet that it was indistinguishable from the most intense pleasure.

He gave one final surge, and the incredible feeling blazed out through her body, torching it. She cried out, a sob of bliss, her eyes shutting so tightly there was nothing in the entire universe except this.

Her hands clutched him desperately, her heels digging into the bedclothes and her hips straining upwards against him to intensify the sensation that was sheeting through her. And then a new sensation impacted on her—her internal muscles were pulsing, convulsing, drawing him further, further into her, and then suddenly she felt him tense every muscle and sinew in his body, his body taut against her like an arrow in soaring flight.

He cried out, the strong muscles of his chest ridged, the cords of his throat rigid. For one timeless moment they held each other in the completion of their union, and then she could feel her body collapse in exhaustion. He closed down on her, his body warm and damp with a sheen of sweat that she realised in wonder was dewing her skin, as well. She was panting, her breath coming with unsteady inhalations against the exhausted, heavy weight of his body which she was cradling fast against her.

Wonder filled her, and an exaultation she had never known before. She felt her mouth part in a rapturous smile.

She speared her fingers into his hair—hair that was damp at the nape, tousled by her touch.

How long she lay like that, she was not sure. She was sure only that she wanted now for nothing, and that here, in this moment, was all she was and all she needed. Her eyes were closed, and she lay supine, her limbs exhausted but replete, his weight against her, his cheek against hers.

She felt him move. Softly, she felt her closed eyelids kissed.

‘Ma belle,’ he said.

Then he started to withdraw his weight—and more than his weight.

‘Do not move. I will be but a moment,’ he assured her.

Yet even that brief time apart from him left her feeling cold, abandoned, so that when he returned to her she held out her arms to him, wrapped him to her and clung to him.

‘Xavier,’ she breathed into his skin, inhaling the scent of him. Then, as her eyelids closed again, she felt drowsiness sweep over her.

Dimly, she felt the covers being drawn over her. Dimly she heard him murmur something. Dimly she registered that the lights had been extinguished, and then, still cradled against him, held in the strong circle of his arms, she went to sleep.

For a while longer Xavier lay, looking up into the darkness overhead. What had happened? He had known he had wanted Lissa—that her beauty had struck him like a coup de foudre that night at the hotel, overpowering all his logic and reason and sense, stimulating in him a desire that had swept him away. He had been known that his thwarted desire for her had been a torment, and that he had continued to want her with an intensity that had been sharpened to unbearableness by the knowledge that she was beyond his reach, reserved for Armand, his own brother. And he had known, ever since that out-of-the-blue message had sent him chasing from Paris to London to claim her, that possessing her finally, as he now had, would be a release and a satiation all the sweeter because he had not thought to have it.

But what had just happened had gone beyond that.

Why? How?

He asked the questions, but his rational mind could find no answer. No reason. He was in unknown territory, that was all he knew. A place he had not been before. He tried to put it into words. As his mind searched, as he stared up into the darkness, he could feel the soft warmth of her body curled against him.

The reality of her presence in his arms, his bed, swept over him. What did anything matter compared with that? It was all that was important—all he would allow himself.

He shifted his limbs to ease them a moment. As he did, the weight of her soft, warm body shifted, too, bearing down on him more. He heard her murmur in her sleep, her dream. She lay so peacefully in his arms. So naturally.

She felt good to hold. Good to lie with.

Good to fall asleep beside.

He felt his focus dissolve, the drowsiness of post-coital satiation wash up over him. His eyes started to feel heavy and close, his breathing slowed. Instinctively for one second his arms tightened around her, checking she was still there. He let his body relax, his mind, too.

He slept in her embrace, embracing her.

It felt very good.