Читать книгу Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 32

LEAH LOOKED OUT from the huge balcony that gave a view of the lush acreage surrounding her grandfather’s house.

The estate was covered with huge marquees. Multicolored fountains were lit up in the grounds, buffet tables groaning under the weight of delicacies and dishes. Soft music filtered from unobtrusive speakers nearer the house.

Laughter and greetings in Greek floated up from the crowd of two hundred or more guests, piercing through the melancholy that gripped her. In the half hour or so she had spent down there, she had only heard goodwill for Giannis and praise for Stavros and Dmitri.

It seemed her grandfather couldn’t have chosen better men to continue his legacy. She was the outsider, the curiosity, the unknown, and being among people who had known her mother, the fact hurt. Yet she had no one but herself to blame.

When she had stepped out of the limo on Stavros’s arm, it was as if the entire world had come to a standstill. Thundering silence had reigned as she had walked through the parting crowd, her gaze both searching for and bracing for the sight of her grandfather.

He’s taking a break, Stavros whispered in her ear and her breath left her in a ball. Her knees would have buckled beneath her if he hadn’t held her up against his solid frame.

An hour later, here she was waiting for Giannis, everything she had done over the past decade rushing up toward her.

She hadn’t been in her grandfather’s house for almost eight years now, having chosen to live with Calista at Stavros’s house even before he had tied her to him. The grand house was as lifeless as Stavros’s house had been full of peace.

Her grandfather had been so open and loving of her when Stavros had brought her home. Just fifteen, she had been grief-stricken, too shattered by her father’s sudden death to respond to Giannis with anything more than single-word responses. But he hadn’t given up on her. He had bid Stavros to bring Calista along next time. And just as he had predicted, Calista had been a welcome storm in her life—fun, reckless, daring, and somehow, she had understood Leah’s grief.

Except Leah had never imagined it would be Calista that she would lose.

Crippled by Calista’s loss, stunned by Stavros’s decision, she had refused to even look at Giannis. If she didn’t love him, if she didn’t hug him as her arms sometimes ached to, if she didn’t pin all her love on her kind grandfather who told her thrilling tales about a mother she had never known, she wouldn’t have to live through another loss.

If she didn’t love him, there would be no pain when he was gone. Even when Giannis had recovered from his heart attack, she had refused to see him.

Stavros was right. She had truly become selfish. A coward who cared about nothing but protecting herself from pain.

Something broke her reverie and she turned around.

Stavros standing slightly behind him, for support she knew, her grandfather stood under the archway, his brown eyes hungrily studying her. “Come close so I can see you.” His voice, soft and coarse, reverberated in the stillness. Tugged as though by invisible cords, she took a few steps. Her heart thudded in her chest.

“You look so much more like her now, so much like my beautiful Ioanthe. Welcome home, Leah.”

And just like that, every defense she had put in place, every wall she had erected around her heart, came tumbling down.

Tears overflowing onto her cheeks, half blinded by the emotion engulfing her, Leah stumbled toward him. Wrapped her arms around him with no regard to his frail body, with no thought other than to lose herself in his unconditional acceptance. On the periphery, she heard Stavros’s soft curse.

Giannis was so thin and insubstantial that if not for Stavros anchoring them, she knew she would have toppled them down. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, a haunting void in her gut.

How cowardly she had been to deny herself his embrace, his love?

Her grandfather held her with a tight grip. The remembered pine scent of him made her tremble. “Shhh…do not cry, thee mou.”

When she became aware of her surroundings again, Giannis was sitting in a chair and she was kneeling in front of him, the stone floor digging into her knees. Overwhelmed by shame and grief, she hid her face in his knees while he kept his hand over her head, whispering endearments. Even in the turmoil she was in, she knew Stavros had left them alone. Breathing loudly, she swiped her fingers over her cheeks and looked up.

“I’m a coward. All I ever cared about was protecting myself.”

He shook his head and smiled, tucking her hand into his. “You are here now.”

She wouldn’t be if not for Stavros. But with all her old fears swirling beneath the joy of seeing her grandfather, Leah couldn’t be grateful to Stavros. Not yet.

Leah’s soft cries haunted Stavros as he paced room after room, trying to find her. More than two hours had passed since he had left her with Giannis and rejoined the party, his thoughts in a whirl.

When Giannis had brought him to this very mansion years ago, it had taken him a month to learn the layout of the house. Now he cursed it.

His nurse had just informed him that Giannis had returned to his bedroom an hour ago. Which meant Leah could be anywhere.

A sense of failure haunted him, a gnawing in his gut just as in the days after Calista had died. Had he pushed her too far tonight? Why had she cried as though her heart had been breaking?

Her reaction to seeing Giannis shook Stavros on levels he couldn’t grasp.

He finally found her in the dark music room, a shadow sitting in silence. Ioanthe used to play piano here, he remembered Giannis telling him fondly.

Stepping inside, he flicked the switch on and light from the overhead crystal chandelier flooded the room.

His chest swelled with a sudden surge of emotion as his gaze found her on the chaise longue, her legs tucked under her, her dress billowing around her.

“I wouldn’t comment on the wine bottle, or my dress or how I live my life just now, Stavros.” She flicked him a wary glance, guilty color streaking her cheeks. A bottle of red wine sat on the vanity table, a half empty glass in her hand. “I’m painfully alive, so that should be good enough for you.”

His breath came out in shuddering exhale, old fear lurking just beneath the surface.

Her hair had come undone from the severe style she hadn’t liked, framing her face in disarray. Her eyes looked a little swollen and that laughing, mocking, sensuous mouth was pinched at the corners. Face scrubbed of makeup and huddled against the dark red upholstery, she looked achingly innocent, and lonely. And afraid, he thought frowning.

“Are you hiding from me, Leah?”

Her sigh rattled in the silence. “Would it help my case if I said I was?”

Irritation flickered inside him. Couldn’t she tell him even such a tiny truth?

Even the proper, demure dress had lost its war against her. Crumpled and stained at the hem where she must have been kneeling while one strap hung half down her arm, it bared her neck and the upper swell of one breast. The diamond choker glittered against her slender throat.

A relentless peal of hunger began to simmer through him. His fingers itched to trace that delicate collarbone, his mouth tingling to press against the pulse hammering at the base of her throat.

But even as desire ran rampant in his veins, it was the underlying thread of tenderness that unsettled him. He should have been happy that she had done as he had asked, that she hadn’t hurt Giannis as she had…hurt him? Wounded him?

You are made of stone.

How had her words found such purchase in him? Another new awareness that only Leah could elicit, another new territory that she pushed him into…

Theos, what was wrong with him?

Tucking his hands in the pockets of his trousers, he leaned against the doorway.

“You don’t look like my version of you anymore. You look like…you. Even that dress…I think you have bent it to your will, Leah.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, sounding anything but. “Aren’t you done pulling my strings tonight?”

The dare in her tone would have made him smile if he could have believed it completely. If he hadn’t heard the quiver she worked hard to suppress. If he hadn’t seen such ache and longing ravage her fragile face when she had seen Giannis.

Still, he played along, unsure of her mood. Even more dangerous, unsure of his own intentions. “Have you still not learned not to challenge me, Leah?”

She looked down into her drink and he had a feeling she wanted to hide from him. That she didn’t want him to see her like this at all.

“I’m telling you to leave me alone, Stavros.” She confirmed his suspicions. “I’m telling you that I feel as reckless and deranged as you have always called me. I’m telling you to not dissect my actions today and pronounce judgment.”

Even as her tone rose, she still didn’t meet his eyes.

Had he made it so hard for her to show him anything but that selfish facade? Was he truly such an unfeeling monster then?

Had he always been like that?

He had worked so hard at his grandfather’s small farm, trying to pitch in for his father’s negligence, afraid that they would throw Calista and him out on the streets.

He remembered a strange calm the night his grandmother had said his mother wasn’t coming back; he remembered not shedding even a tear when he had found out that his father was dead. All he had thought of even that day was how he would shield Calista from it.

For as far back as he could remember, it had been about the little girl that had followed him around from the moment she had been able to walk, hugging him, kissing him, and coming to him with tears when she had a bruise, knocking the breath out of him.

She had had such trust in her eyes that he hadn’t known, literally, what to do with it. Hadn’t known how to return those hugs, hadn’t known what he could say to her. So instead he had done what he could.

He had protected her, provided her with everything he possibly—

Theos, no!

The thought that had always brought such comfort to him now flayed him, digging in, making him flinch in pain.

Do you actually miss Calista? Did you ever love her?

Had Leah been right in her cruel judgment of his feelings for Calista too?

After he had lost Calista, he had felt angry, confused, unbalanced. His failure poisoned his very thoughts, so he shoved them away and focused on his actions instead.

Protecting Leah, and punishing himself and her, had provided him with perverse relief.

Now, her words taking root inside him, he felt raw.

He should leave her, every instinct warned him. He should walk away when all she was capable of was piercing him with her acerbic words. He should be done with her, set her free and not look back.

And yet, he couldn’t have walked away if his very breath had depended on it.

Beneath his duty toward Giannis and his sense of responsibility toward her, even beneath his unnerving attraction to her, something very strange had begun to flutter in him for Leah.

He was in awe of that feeling as much as he was wary of it.

“What else do you intend to put me through in this test of yours, Stavros?”

Everything about what he had seen tonight troubled him. “Leah, was your hatred of me reason enough to keep away from Giannis?”

The wariness slowly dissipated as she held his gaze and finished her drink. Something new dawned in her glittering gaze—a satisfaction, and his breath rattled. One long leg stretching in front of her, her stance loosened. Her slender shoulders squared, her nostrils flared.

“I would let you think that if I thought it would hurt you. I would do anything right this moment if I thought it would make you bleed.”

He found himself walking toward her, found himself straddling the lounger to face her. It was as though the combination of pain and fury in her eyes tugged at him.

She looked glorious, infinitely breathtaking.

She had already somehow pierced him, the truth lingered on his lips. The thought of that vulnerability, of sharing that much with her made his gut clench.

Clasping her cheek, he lifted her to face him, his pulse pounding in his veins. The sound of her sharp breath was like a balm to him. “Are you so thirsty for my blood then, pethi mou?”

“Yes.”

Her resounding answer sent a shiver through to his very bones. It was as though seeing Giannis had peeled off that facade of hers.

“Are you satisfied, Stavros? Have I risen in my worthiness in your eyes?”

The thunderous roar of his heart, the curling heat in his muscles made it harder for him to whisper the one question that had been battering at him all day. He felt as if a huge truth was within his grasp, as if the real Leah was within his reach. And in that moment, he would do anything to have it.

To have her, to know her, to feel her…

If he had her, would the strange turmoil inside him stop?

“When has my opinion of you begun to matter, Leah?” he whispered softly, the words burning on his lips.

He felt her instant recoil in the stillness of her form, in the way the very air around her seemed to suspend and freeze.

A violent energy burst from her limbs. Lifting the hem of that heavy, voluminous dress away from her legs, she faced him. A flash of a toned thigh met his gaze and he looked away guiltily, the depth of his hunger for her shredding his control.

Her hair whipped around her face, the swish of her dress adding to the harsh exhales of her breath.

The uncaring mask back in place, she mocked him with that practiced glare in her eyes, with that biting edge to her tone. By hiding from him what he so desperately wanted to see.

“You know what, Stavros? Scratch that answer. I don’t care whether I could hurt you or not. I don’t give a damn about you. I did what you asked of me, I made sure Giannis is happy. I played the part of an heiress and his loving granddaughter to the hilt. Which means I’m one step closer to achieving my freedom. That’s what I care about.

“Tell me what will make the next month go faster so that I can see the back of you. Tell me what is next so that I never have to talk to you ever again.”

A dangerous fire burst in his belly.

How dare she put on this mask again? How dare she deny him even the merest hint of the real her? How dare she sink under his skin and yet deny him the same satisfaction?

How dare she turn him into this man teetering on the edge of his control, and walk away so blithely?

Before she could get to her feet and escape, because he had no doubt that she was about to escape, he clasped her wrist and tugged her down.

She fell onto her haunches, her shoulders knocking against his chest. For the first time in his life, Stavros gave in to every irrational urge, every desperate want. “What are you afraid of, Leah? Me or yourself?” he taunted.

Primal satisfaction pounded through him, the increasing frenzy of her movements telling him he had hit the mark. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, twisting her upper body to get away from him. Ended up torturing him further with the slide of her body against his.

“Then face me, Leah,” he whispered, driven by some reckless urge to prove that his opinion mattered to her, that he mattered to her.

Just as she was beginning to matter to him…

She couldn’t let him touch her, she couldn’t let him kiss her.

If she let him touch her tonight, if she let him hold her tonight, something inside her would break. She would pour out the whole wretched truth, she would blurt how lonely she had been…

If she let him see the real her, she would have no shield, no armor against him. And even in the fragility of her emotions, Leah knew she couldn’t let Stavros close.

“Why are you acting like this?”

Her arms ached with the effort it took to hold herself so stiffly in the circle of his body; every inch of her hurt to stay unaffected in the warmth of his rough embrace.

“Like a man acts with his wife?”

She fought back stupidly hot tears, knowing that she didn’t stand a chance against that claim.

When she pushed against his wrists again, he grabbed her hands this time. Laced her fingers through his and pulled her forward. Her hip touched his rock-hard thigh and she bit down on her lip.

Giving up her struggle, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “What do you want from me?”

“All I’ve ever wanted is the truth, pethi mou.” His fingers circled her nape with a possessively delicate touch. Her heart thudded as if it would thunder out of her chest as she raised her head. Molten heat filled his eyes. “But you won’t give me that. So, I will claim what I can of you.”

Somehow she shook her head, even mesmerized by how low and silky he sounded, by how astonishingly expressive his face was.

How had she always seen only one facet of Stavros?

There were so many sensations—the rough texture of his hands against hers, his bruising grip on her wrists, the sudden heaviness of her breasts as they jutted against him, the beckoning hardness of his thighs against her hips—she should have expired from so much sensory input. It was as though her body was one pealing, pulsing mass of sensation…

He was everything she ever wanted and yet she couldn’t give in. “I don’t want this. I…”

“In this, you’re not a good liar.” He placed a finger on the pulse at her neck, feral satisfaction filling his gaze. “Your pulse betrays you…your darkening eyes betray you.” With every word he said, his accent became thicker, her breaths came faster. “Even your mouth betrays you…” His long fingers framed her cheeks, pulling her closer.

Her hips nudged his thighs apart, and the hottest sensation zigzagged through her. His thighs were so hard and powerful, his touch possessive and potent.

How was she supposed to resist him when he looked at her like that?

“I will not be your wife soon. I won’t—”

He smiled then, and the sinful curve of his mouth, the dark laughter in his eyes undid the last layer of her willpower. “Now, tonight, in this moment, you’re still mine, yineka mou. One kiss for all the trouble you have caused me, Leah, one kiss for everything you deny me…”

He had turned her life upside down, and now he was doing the same to her heart.

Even as he staked his claim, he didn’t take the kiss. Long lashes hiding his gaze, his arm around her waist a heavy weight, he paused. But sinking under a deluge of emotions, Leah stared, transfixed, at the bow shape of his leanly sculpted mouth, felt need trump every fear.

Covering the last millimeter, she pressed her mouth to his. His savage growl shocked her as much as the incinerating texture of his lips…

His mouth was hot and hard, and a million sparks exploded under her skin.

With erotic strokes, he left her no air to breathe, gave her no room to think. Sensation exploded as he slanted his lips this way and that, his fingers in her hair holding her immobile for him. Teeth bit into her lower lip and punished. When she moaned, he softly blew at the spot before nipping again.

One hand slid over her hips, moved possessively over to her buttocks and then pulled her closer until she was straddling him. But not close enough for her to feel the part of him that she wanted to…

Even that, he controlled.

Her breasts felt full and aching as he crushed her against the wall of his chest with a palm at the base of her back. She panted, her breath balling up in her throat. Trembling, she ran her fingers over her mouth, and her cheek where his stubble had scratched her skin.

That mouth that could lacerate her with words, God, it could weave such erotic magic…those hands that had dumped cold water on her, they could evoke such heat in her; the cradle of his arms, it made her feel so alive…

He didn’t kiss softly, he didn’t seduce, he didn’t cajole.

He wrung the response out of her as he did everything else with her. Impinging his will on her senses, imprinting his hard muscles over her soft ones… The way he ruled her life, the way he decided what she needed.

She could have spent the next hundred years wedged against his hardness, lost in his kiss, delirious with the pleasure he brought her. But not let him tell her what she needed, not accept what he deigned to give her.

No!

In that, she couldn’t let him decide her fate, couldn’t let fear rule her.

Determined to give him a fight, determined to demand her due, she pulled her mouth away from his, trailed it along that hard jawline, buried it in the crook of his neck. Tasted the salty tang of his skin. An insistent pull began at her sex, and she moaned against his bristly jaw.

His grip loosened in her hair, his other hand loosely anchoring her against him as she caressed him roughly, learned every muscle and sinew.

She touched him everywhere, reveling in the tensile hardness of him. Traced up his rock-hard thighs, up toward his groin. And her palm found his erection—hard and long and so utterly arousing… Her breath jerked in her throat.

She had done this to Stavros. The harsh rhythm of his breath in her ears, that incredible stillness of him around her…

Goaded by a clamoring instinct, she shaped him with her palm, moved her finger down the length of him, a shiver spewing in her own muscles.

A guttural sound fell from his lips as he bucked against her hand. It lasted an infinitesimal breath but she knew he had almost surrendered then, that he had lost his rules, his very control then.

Only a second but it was still a victory.

He clasped her wrist in a vise-like grip. She looked up at him and smiled, feeling dazedly powerful, painfully glorious.

In this moment, with him…any pain would have been worth it.

Dark color filled his cheeks, his gaze haunted, agonized. “Why do you push me to the very edge, Leah?” His accent was coarse and uneven as he breathed the words into her temple. “Why do you fight me, deny me every step of the way?”

“Did you not like how I responded, Stavros?” she said shivering, and for a second, he clasped her in his warmth. If he had showed her tenderness…no, this was better. “You forced me to…to respond, just as you force me into everything. That kiss was about domination, not desire, not about taking tenderness.”

He studied her, his own gaze curiously empty. “And if I had asked?” Shaking his head, he stepped away from her. As if he didn’t want her answer. When he met her gaze again, his expression was shuttered. “You’re not wearing your ring.”

“It’s somewhere in my jewelry.”

“As long as you’re still bound to me, you will wear it.”

She stared in stunned silence.

“It would please Giannis too. And that matters to you, doesn’t it, Leah? So I don’t have to worry that you would talk about our little deal with him.”

“And when I’m…when I win our deal?” she forced the words out through the knot in her throat. That she would never see him again was like a lead weight in her chest.

“You will not abandon him, I know that.” Retribution, if she did, rang in his tone. “And I will continue to take care of the one man who means the world to me.”

Stavros left Leah without looking back, the image of her swollen mouth and dazed eyes burned into his brain forever. If he stayed another minute, he didn’t know what he would do.

He was unknown to himself the way he had reached for her, the way he craved her. In that moment, he had so desperately needed to claim something of her. Shuddering with frustrated desire, he wondered if she had given him anything that he hadn’t taken, wondered why it mattered so much, now.

One of these days, he would be releasing her from their marriage. He knew it as surely as the taste of her still floated on his lips.

Yet, instead of anticipating his freedom, all he suddenly knew was a keen urgency.

To understand Leah, to steal a part of her for himself even as she denied him.