Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 60

AT LEAST it brought him round to face her, she noticed hazily as both he and the room began to fog in and out. There was a moment of complete stillness followed by a curse and a dizzying blur of movement before her hand was snatched away from her forehead so that Andreas could place his hand there instead.

‘You are burning up!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t you say something?'

‘We were too busy fighting.’

The next rash of curses rattled in his throat as he lifted her off her feet.

‘Put me down,’ she protested. ‘I’m not so ill I can’t walk!’

‘Shut up,’ he gritted, striding for the steps to the lobby.

‘I’ve got a terrible headache,’ she confessed on a groan. ‘And I’m all hot but I can’t stop sh-shivering.'

‘It is called sunstroke,’ he clipped out in disgust. ‘Do you feel nauseous?'

She nodded. ‘Been sick once already. Sorry,’ she added and let her head droop onto his shoulder and hated herself for feeling so good about being able to put it there. A few seconds later and the soft feel of a bed arrived beneath her with the cool touch of fine linen that made her shiver all the more.

‘Look at your shoulders and your arms,’ he said angrily.

‘They’re just a bit hot.’

‘You need a doctor—’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Louisa sighed out, ‘bring in Dr Papandoulis and let’s start that great scandal you were so concerned about, when he discovers your estranged wife lying in the bed you usually reserve for your stupid mistresses!'

‘Parakaló?’ He straightened up with a violent jerk.

‘You might well beg my pardon!’ she shivered out, feeling so cold now she just wanted to crawl beneath the pale blue bed covers and curl up in a tight little ball. ‘The last magazine I saw with you splashed across it you had some lush little starlet hanging on to you like a limpet as you set off for your island retreat!’

‘I don’t bring women here.’ Blood surged into his taut face as he said it.

Not believing him, Louisa wanted to hit him. Then she suddenly shot upright and to her feet as another thought hit her full-on.

‘Did you sleep with her in this bed …?’

She was staring at the bed in horror.

‘No—You—’

‘Is that why you’ve had this villa built—so that you can bring your women here? Keep them separate from the family?’ She was becoming hysterical and she knew it but just didn’t care! ‘No wonder this place is barely furnished—you only needed a bed! Did you ever have cause to bring Dr Papandoulis out to one of them while they lay sick here?’ ‘Louisa, you—’

‘Don’t speak to me.’ Shaking as well as shivering now, she continued, ‘Y-you’ve already said enough. How dare you demand the last five years back when within weeks of deserting me you were shacked up with some woman while I hid and wept?'

He’d gone from red to white in as many seconds. ‘Agape mou, don’t—'

‘I can’t believe we did what we did on the hill the other night,’ she shook out. ‘I can’t believe I let you touch me at all after I’ve had to read every rotten detail of every rotten other woman you’ve been with in the last five years!'

‘It was not like that—’ He reached for her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ She pulled back. ‘I don’t feel well. I w-want to go h-home.'

‘You’re not well enough to go anywhere,’ he told her anxiously.

‘Well, I am not getting into that bed!’

‘Theos!’ he exploded. ‘The bed is new!’ Leaning past her, he tossed the pale blue covers back. ‘I had it flown in yesterday along with all the other furniture because I knew you would not want to stay with me at the family villa!—This house is not even ready for occupation!’ he added tautly as he straightened up again. ‘But I thought we could manage with the essentials. And I have never brought any woman to this island!’ he barked. ‘And you should know better than to believe everything you read in some sick glossy rag! Now, get into that bed before I murder you, Louisa!'

With that he turned and slammed out of the room, leaving her to sink weakly down on the bed in a mess of shaken limbs and emotions.

She had not even wanted to say any of that yet it had all just come pouring out! Fresh shivers overtook her, her burning skin quivering with prickly heat. On a low, angrily frustrated groan she just about managed to remove her skirt and top before she keeled over onto the cool linen then tugged the covers up to her chin. Her head was pounding, her stomach joining in, and hating Andreas for all she was worth only made her wriggle restlessly in the bed, which in turn made her wince when the movement irritated her burnt skin.

As soon as she was feeling fit enough she was getting out of here, she vowed fiercely. And he could take his lousy revenge-ridden proposition and his philandering self and offer them to some other woman—a woman who was probably as overused as him!

‘Here,’ a stiff voice prompted.

Peeling her heavy eyes open, Louisa discovered Andreas standing over her like some dark entity.

‘What?’ she mumbled aggressively.

Nothing flickered on his hard mask of a face as he held a glass out towards her. ‘To help the dehydration,’ he said.

Sending the liquid in the glass a dubious look, Louisa pulled herself up and took it from him.

‘And this …’ His open palm showed her a small pill. ‘Antihistamine to help cool your blood and take the sting out of your sunburn,’ he explained in the retracted tone of someone in no mood to take another argument.

‘I’m not sure if I should be taking …’

‘I checked with a doctor friend in Athens,’ he inserted. ‘The antihistamine might make you drowsy but it will not be harmful in any other way.’

He meant to a baby if there was one, though he was being very careful not to use the word now. Clearly, she’d shaken him up when she’d spat all of that out about his other women, so now he was playing it cold and stiff.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered and grudgingly took the pill from him then swallowed it down with the drink.

The drink tasted a bit odd but wasn’t too unpleasant. Handing the glass back to him, she sank down on the pillows, rolling carefully onto her side so she wasn’t facing him, then tugged the covers up over her burning shoulders and shut her eyes.

He did not move. Tension began to zip around them. Louisa had a feeling he was still standing there because he had something he wanted to say.

Well, she did not want to hear it.

‘Go away,’ she husked, desperately wanting to shiver and shake and put in a few miserable groans but refusing to let herself give in to the need while he stood there.

First she heard his heavy sigh, then the sound of his footsteps taking him back to the door, and absurdly she wanted to burst into tears.

What she did was drop like a stone into a deep slumber.

When next she awoke she was aware of something cool being smoothed into one of her arms. She opened her eyes to find Andreas sitting beside her on the bed, his dark eyes hooded and his mouth very grim.

‘Stay calm,’ he said as she made to stiffen. ‘I am not about to ravish you. I am merely applying a lotion to your burns.'

The effect was so wonderfully soothing that she didn’t want to do anything but lie there and let him continue. ‘You seem to be prepared for anything,’ she said drowsily.

‘Mm,’ was all he replied. But it was a very sexy mm, the kind of deep-bodied mm that vibrated up from his chest then across her senses and made her move restlessly between the sheets.

‘Be still.’

He was holding her arm out and was working the cooling lotion into her skin with all the gentleness of a masseuse. Eyes half-shut and still heavy with sleep, she watched him for a little while, unbelievably relaxed and unbelievably contented to just study him while he twisted her arm this way and that. She didn’t even mind when he reached the really hot spot on her shoulder though she was wearing no bra and was aware that the covers were slipping lower the higher up he worked.

A grateful sigh eased from her as the lotion began to neutralise the heat. ‘You’ll get it on the bedding,’ she thought she’d better point out when he finally allowed her arm to settle on the bed.

‘I would rather ruin the bedding than watch your skin peel off.’ He reached across her to pick up the other arm. ‘I thought you had learned to be more careful with your fair skin years ago.'

‘I used a sun-block before I left the hotel,’ she defended. ‘I just lost track of the time I’d been out, that’s all.'

He glanced up as she looked at him. Their eyes locked and her breathing stilled as a fine electric current began to pass between the two of them. It was sexual, they both knew that. Just as they both knew that if they did not break eye contact this was going to shift to a different all-consuming level.

He broke the eye contact first, his long lashes folding downwards as he twisted his body so he could begin work on her other arm. And because the antihistamine was making her feel like this, she told herself, she closed her eyes and just lay unmoving as he continued smoothing lotion into her until the sexual tug faded and without her knowing it she sank back into a relaxed sleep.

Leaving Andreas to grimace at the nagging sexual tug he was suffering from, which had no intention of relaxing its grip on him. He completed his task by gritting his teeth together before gently easing the cover down a little so he could smooth lotion into the slope of her breasts, where the skin was pink but not hot, he was relieved to discover.

After that he paused for a moment to study her sleeping face with her soft, slightly parted mouth and her dusky eyelashes resting against the delicate bones in her cheeks. Her face had escaped the sun’s heat by some miracle but just in case, and with infinite care, he smoothed the lotion into her forehead and her small, straight nose.

When he reached her chin his fingers lingered. Then he grimaced again and bent down to press a kiss to that sleep-softened. too tempting mouth. It quivered as she sighed. He frowned as he straightened and wished the hell he knew what was going to happen next.

Maybe Louisa was right and you couldn’t get five years back. Maybe he was crazy to want to try. They had baggage now.

Too much baggage?

Standing up, he walked into the bathroom to wash the lotion from his hands while he pondered that question.

No answer arrived like a bolt of lightning. No wise whisper of advice arrived from the gods. Walking back into the bedroom, he found that she’d moved while he’d been out of the room, her arms flung up on the pillows and her breasts now fully exposed.

Small, high, firm and tightly peaked by tempting pink rosebuds. And the answer to his question came right there. Not from the gods, not from his own head but from her perfectly shaped and very tempting breasts.

This woman, those breasts, that mouth, the fine-boned, slender body and long legs hidden beneath the sheets—all of this belonged to him.

Fight him as she no doubt would, she was going nowhere, he determined.

The next time Louisa awoke it was to the muffled sounds of voices. Sitting up, she pushed her tangled hair back from her face then took a few moments to look around the room while her foggy brain tried to sort out the events of a day that had brought her finally to this bed.

Then the door handle rattled and with a lurch she snatched at the cover and pulled it firmly beneath her arms. A second later and her brother appeared in the doorway—carrying her bags.

‘Well, talk about luxury.’ Jamie grinned at her. ‘Have you seen this place? When it’s finished it’s going to be the best house on the island!'

Louisa blinked. ‘Wh-what are you doing with my bags?’

‘Andreas said you were too ill to pack them yourself,’ he explained.

Two things hit Louisa at once. One that Jamie was very relaxed about her being here. The other that he seemed to think it was perfectly natural to find her occupying her estranged husband’s bed!

‘Andreas does not have the right to make that decision,’ she said crossly. ‘And since when did you become bosom pals with him?'

Jamie gave a shrug, his long frame hunching slightly as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and the grin disappeared from his face. ‘He told me what the parents did.'

‘He did what …?’ she gasped out.

‘I can’t believe they could all be so—’

‘He had no right to tell you anything!’

‘Well, take that up with him not me,’ Jamie said. ‘Did you know he’s got a brand-new jet-ski out there just waiting for someone to try it out?'

‘Jamie!’ she said in dismay.

A movement by the bedroom door caught her attention. She found Andreas standing there. ‘Pietros is waiting for you,’ he said quietly to her brother.

‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Jamie responded and turned to look at her again. ‘I’m off out for a night on the town with Pietros, so Andreas said it was OK for me to stay on at the hotel.'

Andreas said … Louisa looked at the man himself. ‘Since when do you make decisions about my brother’s sleeping arrangements?'

Jamie looked at her too. ‘You’re not well, sis. Get your act back together and I’ll come and see you tomorrow.'

With that he loped off, all cocky arrogance that further infuriated her when he sent a quick rueful glance at Andreas before leaving an atmosphere behind fit to slice through with a knife.

Andreas was still propping up the doorway, every inch of him as relaxed as a man could be, but Louisa knew it was a front. He was waiting to find out what she was going to say before he decided how to react to it.

And he was still wearing the same pale blue shirt and dark trousers, she noticed, but his hair wasn’t so neat. There was a five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw and his eyes might be hooded but she could see a telling glitter lurking behind the heavy lids.

The main door banged shut behind her brother, the sound echoing right through the house. She moved—Andreas didn’t—and her gaze drifted over to where Jamie had placed her bags. By the look of them, everything she had brought with her to Aristos had been packed up and transported here.

She transferred her gaze back to Andreas. ‘Would you like to explain to me what you’ve told my brother to turn him into your best friend?'

‘The truth,’ he said.

‘Your version,’ she derided that.

‘It is still the truth,’ he countered with a shrug. ‘I refuse to have any more lies spoken about us or by us.'

‘And I have no say in that, of course.’

‘None that I can think of,’ he confirmed. Then it was his turn to release a sigh. ‘Leave Jamie out of this, Louisa,’ he advised soberly. ‘He does not deserve to be dragged into it.'

‘And your family, are they to be dragged into it? Are we about to receive a visit from them so that I can tell them how they’ve been sussed as manipulating liars?'

‘My parents are no longer on the island,’ he informed her, ‘They flew back to Athens this afternoon—at my request.'

‘You mean you’re big enough to bully them too now?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed out, his patience suddenly waning. ‘We have ourselves to sort out before we even start to think about anybody else’s feelings.'

‘Well, that’s a big turnaround from wanting to spill blood!’

His squared chin jutted. ‘I’ve calmed down.’

Lucky you, she thought because she wasn’t feeling calm at all! ‘And I’ve been abandoned—again,’ she sighed, sinking back against the pillows.

‘I am still here.’

‘You,’ she flicked at him, ‘are the problem.’

‘Such an exciting problem though,’ he dared to grin, ‘so stop complaining and tell me how you feel.'

It was when he walked across to the bed and picked up an iced jug of water that a feeling of him having done this before filtered into her head. She went still, blue eyes narrowing as she watched him pour water into a glass then offer it to her.

‘Sit up and drink,’ he instructed.

Flashbacks of being woken up and made to do this several times during the afternoon hit her head, followed by another set of images—of Andreas sitting beside her gently smoothing lotion into her heated skin. That old feeling of awareness shot into play with a vengeance. Her breasts began to grow tight, a telling dampness spreading across a place that made the hairs around it prickle as they stirred in response.

Sitting up very slowly, she took the glass from him. She was beginning to remember all kinds of things that had taken place during the afternoon, like the brush of his mouth on her mouth. Her cheeks began to heat as she sipped the cool water. How far had he actually gone while she’d been comatose? She remembered talking to him, though not what she’d said. She remembered lying here enjoying the soothing stroke of his touch.

Had she allowed him to do more than that? Had she—?

‘Kostas has just delivered my clothes here,’ he remarked with no idea as to where her thoughts had gone off to. ‘I am in need of a shower. Do you want to use the bathroom before I take it over?'

‘Can’t you use another room?’ Louisa handed the glass back, refusing to look at him in case his expression told her things she did not want to know.

‘This is my bedroom,’ he countered smoothly. ‘And that is my bed.'

‘I’ll get out of it, then …’ she was about to throw back the covers when she remembered she was wearing nothing other than the tiniest pair of white cotton panties. Sheer frustration ripped a sigh from her as she sank back again.

‘Maybe I should rephrase that,’ her tormentor murmured softly. ‘This is our bedroom, and that is our bed.'

Something lazy about his tone had her lifting her eyes to look at him, only to wish that she hadn’t when she saw the mocking humour lighting his velvet dark eyes because it showed he knew exactly what she had been thinking about.

But worse, she saw he’d unbuttoned his shirt while she hadn’t been looking, and now the pale blue cloth hung open to reveal a long strip of bronzed torso with its impressive muscular structure and arrowhead of virile dark hair.

Dragging in a tense, stifled breath, he said, ‘I want you—'

‘I know you do …’ Deliberately waylaying what she had been about to say, he swooped low and captured her mouth so fast all she managed was a protesting gasp.

He smothered the sound with warm, gentle kisses laid like promises along her soft lips, one set of long fingers threading into her silk hair so he could hold her still. He badly needed to shave and the rasping brush of stubble against her skin made her quiver and, like the fool she always was around him, she lifted her arms up to encircle his neck and started kissing him back.

His low grunt of satisfaction should have annoyed her but it didn’t. When he sat down on the bed so he could draw her up against him the sheet slithered down to her waist, exposing her breasts to the full impact of his warm naked chest. Heat sizzled across her cooling skin like a second dose of sunburn, making her move in a restless wriggle that sent the wanton tips rasping against the prickly hairs on his chest. He responded by spreading his hands across her naked back and arching her closer so her head tilted backwards and on a hungry growl he deserted her mouth to trail a string of hot kisses down her throat and over both creamy slopes until he finally claimed a tight, eager nipple and took it deep into his mouth.

It wasn’t fair was the last sensible thought she had as she melted into a puddle of exotic sensation. She wanted him but she didn’t want to. She wanted to push him away but what she did was score her nails down his back beneath his shirt in encouragement. He shuddered and came back to plunder her mouth with hot and earthy driving passion.

Then, as if he were some evil torturer, he just let go of her and shot like a bullet to his feet, leaving her to fall back against the pillows, gasping for breath and quivering with shock.

‘Why?’ she breathed, so shaken up by his desertion she could barely make the single word work.

‘We still have issues to deal with.’ As if he needed to do something physical he dragged his shirt off and tossed it aside. Seeing the red score marks from her nails marking his muscular contours flooded Louisa with guilty heat. ‘Falling on each other like a pair of uncontrolled teenagers only confuses things.'

Snaking upright, Louisa reached for the sheet and dragged it up to her neck with shaking fingers, almost suffocating in self-loathing that she hadn’t thought to do it before.

‘Maybe the uncontrolled stuff is all we ever had going for us,’ she retaliated bitterly. ‘It was always like that for us, wasn’t it? You would go away for weeks on end then either come back here to the island or have me transported to Athens so we could fall on each other for a day or two before you’d be off somewhere else.'

‘It was not like that.’ His bronzed shoulders moved in a tight, masculine flex as he turned away again.

‘It was exactly like that,’ Louisa insisted, hating herself for always being so easy for him! ‘And I was so stupidly naïve I thought it had to mean that you must really love me to want me so much, but really it was just the great sex you enjoyed and you probably continued that elsewhere with someone else!’

He slammed into the bathroom and Louisa knew it was because he could not deny it, especially when she had seen him for herself! Now she wanted to cry. She wanted to squirm in shame at her lack of control—again—even knowing he was such a low-down, faithless rat!