Читать книгу Playboys - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 12

‘OPHELIA!’ Lysander growled just as Ophelia reached the top of the carved staircase. ‘Come down.’

For a split second, Ophelia hesitated. That note of command bit at her resolve. But she was now in full resistance mode to Metaxis authority and so she sped on. She reminded herself that she wasn’t really and truly married to Lysander, except on paper, and every passing minute was giving her another good reason to celebrate that truth.

‘Game over,’ Lysander breathed rawly, striding past her to block her passage down the corridor.

‘Games are fun … being married to you is anything but!’ Ophelia hurled back. ‘Now get out of my way!’

‘I have questions I want answered,’ Lysander imparted.

‘What you want isn’t always what you get—let me past.’

Lysander stayed where he was, his lean muscular frame as large, still and formidable as a cliff face. The atmosphere hummed.

Enraged at his persistence, Ophelia tried to sidestep him, but when he remained in her path she gave him a tiny meaningful push. In answer to that very restrained hint that he remove himself at speed, Lysander closed his hands round her waist and lifted her right off her feet.

‘Put me down!’ Ophelia shouted at the top of her voice, feeling remarkably foolish with her legs dangling.

‘Not until you cool off.’ Arms outstretched as he held her back from him, Lysander studied her with icy self-containment.

‘You’re behaving like a bully!’ Ophelia snapped furiously across the narrow divide that separated them.

‘You assaulted me,’ Lysander drawled, lush ebony lashes low above eyes that were blaze-bronze.

Ophelia was thoroughly disconcerted by that reminder. She collided with his smouldering gaze and it was as if all the air that there was to breathe had suddenly burned up in the atmosphere. Warmth curled through her in an enervating surge that scared her. ‘I’m calm,’ she framed, taken aback by a physical response that even rage couldn’t suppress.

Lysander lowered her to the floor again with exaggerated care. Anger was storming around like a caged animal inside him. He had planned to confine the marriage to one tiny compartment of his life and now that convenient arrangement was no longer possible. Even worse, he would have to maintain the pretence for the benefit of his family. ‘The grounds are crawling with paparazzi,’ he imparted.

‘Papa-what? Oh, those photographers that chase celebrities,’ Ophelia mumbled, her brows having pleated in momentary mystification. ‘What are they doing here? Oh, right, they followed you down from London—’

His scorching eyes were welded to her. ‘No. Try again.’

‘Try what?’

‘Acting dumb. So far you’re not being very convincing.’

‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Ophelia took the opportunity to snake past him with the agility of an eel. ‘Well, I’m not listening to one more nonsensical word!’

As Ophelia thrust open the door of her bedroom Lysander closed a hand like a steel manacle round her narrow wrist.

‘Tomorrow the newspapers will be full of the story of our marriage,’ he breathed in a wrathful undertone.

Wide-eyed, Ophelia turned back to look at him, his imprisoning hold forgotten. ‘Did they find out about the two wills as well?’

‘No. Only that we got married today, which is more than sufficient.’

‘But how did it get out? I mean, we’ve taken such care—’

Lysander studied her with sizzling force. ‘Stamitos, my head of security, already has a suspect and it isn’t anyone in my employ. The story was leaked by someone who knew the score. The woman who lives in the gatehouse—your friend …’

‘Pamela Arnold? What’s she got to do with this?’

‘She has a brother who works on a tabloid newspaper.’

‘Yes, but she hardly ever sees him.’ But dismay at that reminder had frozen Ophelia to the spot and she had paled. Although she had sworn her friend to secrecy, she was painfully aware that Pamela had found the entire wedding scenario, not to mention Lysander’s wealth, hugely exciting. Nobody loved to talk more than Pamela. Could her friend have accidentally let information slip in the wrong quarter?

‘By tomorrow morning the whole world will know that I have taken a wife.’

‘I really don’t think the whole world is likely to be that interested.’ An uneasy conscience, however, ensured that Ophelia’s comeback was less feisty than usual. Then her thoughts were sidetracked by the startling discovery that her bedroom looked unfamiliar—the bed had been stripped andher possessions were no longer in view. ‘Where have my things gone?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Half my stuff has vanished from my room!’

‘Wives don’t sleep on the other side of the house.’

Her hackles came up, since nobody had consulted her on what she assumed to be a move to another bedroom. ‘I’m not a wife.’

‘You are now and it’s obvious that the status of being my wife is what you wanted all along.’ His lean, tanned face granite hard, Lysander turned her back to him. ‘Clearly you planned the maximum possible exposure for our marriage in the media.’

Ophelia discovered that she was fighting a very irrational urge to giggle. Just at that instant she didn’t feel she could have planned her way out of an open space. The alcohol she had imbibed had gone straight to her head, for she had had nothing to eat since breakfast. ‘You’re so distrustful—of course I didn’t plan it! Why would I have wanted people to know about this crazy arrangement?’

‘So that you could become my wife in reality.’

‘In reality? Meaning?’ Ophelia queried as he strode down the passage, trailing her willy-nilly in his wake.

Lysander swung into the Long Gallery. ‘Plan B is about to go into operation.’

‘Plan B? Where on earth are you taking me?’

Lysander thrust wide the door of Madrigal Court’s principal bedroom. The huge room had not been used by Ophelia’s family, who had found the Victorian wing at the back of the house easier to heat. Now a fire leapt and glowed in the giant grate below the stone chimneypiece, sending shadows snaking and flickering over the oak-panelled walls.

A fabulous four-poster bed, wholly in keeping with the feudal splendour of the new décor, sat centre stage.

Ophelia had never been the slightest bit domesticated. She was untouched by any desire to rearrange the furniture or shop for new curtains, but she had occasionally been conscious of a wistful yearning for her surroundings to be warmer, more comfortable and inviting. Now she stared in astonishment at the imposing bed, draped in flamboyant golden fabric.

‘Your employees have contrived the most amazing transformation. I’ve been so busy in the garden I haven’t had the chance to keep up with all the improvements.’ Her smooth brow indented. ‘Why did you bring me in here?’

‘This is our room.’

‘Our … room?’

Lysander shot Ophelia a long, lingering appraisal that made her skin prickle. ‘The marital bedroom.’

‘We don’t have a marital bedroom because, well … what would we do with one?’ An uneasy laugh was wrenched from Ophelia, who was recalling his crack about the sort of boots he liked a woman to wear. She really didn’t like his sense of humour.

‘All the usual things, glikia mou,’ Lysander murmured lazily. ‘Not much else to do at this season in the country and at least it would keep us warm.’

‘Let me get this straight … you are expecting me to share a room with you?’ Ophelia gasped.

Grim amusement gripped Lysander. She was amazingly good at acting the naïve country girl while simultaneously contriving to look quite extraordinarily beautiful. ‘Even if our marriage had remained our secret we would still have had to share a room when I was here. How else could we ever have pretended that it was a normal marriage?’

Ophelia was bemused. ‘But I had no idea you were expecting me to share a room with you!’

‘We have an agreement.’

‘Yes, but everything has changed now—’

‘Only the will. You are still my wife and, since that is no longer a secret, we are much more married than I ever expected to be,’ Lysander delineated with cold emphasis.

Discomfited pink winged across her cheeks. ‘Yes, I appreciate that.’

Lifting a lean, elegant hand, Lysander skimmed the troubled pout of her upper lip with a careless fingertip. ‘Do you?’

Her colour fluctuated and her tummy turned a somersault. The deeper note in his rich dark drawl reverberated down her taut spine. It took conscious effort not to lean closer and invite further contact. ‘Other people knowing about us will make a difference.’

‘More than a difference. Marriage has never been on my to-do list. I enjoy my freedom,’ Lysander continued, ‘but for the foreseeable future I have no choice other than to behave like a newly married man.’

Now Ophelia sensed the inner tempest of the emotions that he had previously kept hidden; neither Gladys’s second will nor the paparazzi had provoked him into a loss of temper. Firelight gilded his eyes to pure gold and threw his strong bone structure into prominence. He was a natural born predator, she reflected helplessly, and as dazzling and dangerous as a glossy jungle cat in his prime. Even when every inner alarm bell was urging her to back off she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

‘I’m surprised you have so much respect for the conventions.’

‘Only in that one field, glikia mou.’ Lysander slid longbrown fingers into her hair and eased her up against him with a calm belied by the heat of his gaze. He was already fiercely aroused: he wanted her. The angrier she made him, the more he wanted her and the more determined he became to stamp her as his. He didn’t understand the connection but he didn’t waste any time thinking about it either. Any thought and any desire that had a sexual angle was self-explanatory and absolutely natural in Lysander’s opinion.

Her heart was pounding, her breath fluttering in her throat. As her slim body connected with his hard muscular frame a dozen pulse points of desire were ignited. She was so tense her lower limbs felt numb and she had to dig her fingers into his shoulder to stay upright. A battle was being fought inside her. She knew she should retreat but the bold challenge of his bronze eyes and the sweet taunting heaviness low in her pelvis kept her where she was.

He brought his sensual mouth slowly down to hers. Impatience grabbed her and she strained up to him on tiptoe without even thinking about it. A husky laugh sounded low in his throat. In a total change of approach, he plundered her mouth with a passion that left her dizzy. The erotic thrust of his tongue made her tremble and cling, response leaping through her with firecracker energy.

Between driving kisses, Lysander shed his tie and shrugged out of his jacket. He closed his hands over hers and tugged her towards the bed.

Doubtful, Ophelia said anxiously, ‘This can’t be right—’

‘Theos—what could be more right?’ Lysander reasoned. ‘This is our wedding night.’

That truth silenced her for an instant. ‘But I don’t feel married.’

‘You soon will.’ His arrogant dark head bent and hepried her lips apart for another heady taste that made her senses swim.

‘But you think I’m a liar and a ch-cheat,’ she stammered.

Lysander angled a wolfish smile down at her. ‘Nothing’s perfect in this world.’

His smile had a charisma that welded her gaze to his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Be serious. I don’t even like you!’

Lysander laughed out loud. ‘But you want me the same way I want you. From the first look the first day you saw me, yineka mou.’

The awesome truth of that instant contradiction cut through Ophelia’s protests like a knife. The hunger had started in the same second she had first laid eyes on him. An unsettling, embarrassing, maddening hunger that bore no resemblance to anything she had ever felt before. It was a visceral reaction that had nothing to do with conscious consideration. In any case, she registered in belated acknowledgement, he was never absent from her thoughts for longer than a few minutes. Just when had she become so obsessed with him?

Lysander bent down and lifted her and settled her down on the bed. ‘You think too much,’ he told her.

‘Possibly …’ Ophelia watched him remove her dainty bridal shoes. She couldn’t quite believe that she was allowing him to do that. Exhilaration bubbled through her while her mind continued to race. She was wondering if she could allow herself to succumb, if it would be so very wrong to sleep with him. Was it wicked to be curious? In terms of pure physical attraction, he was definitely the one. She wasn’t a romantic like her late mother. She wasn’t going to go falling in love with him or anything stupid like that, she told herself. She knew his limitations and accepted them. He was only suitableas a one-night stand. A week of fidelity would be a long-term commitment for him.

‘Do you mind me asking …?’ Ophelia hesitated.

‘Asking what?’

‘If you’re currently involved with someone else?’ Ophelia almost winced as she spoke.

Engaged in unbuttoning his shirt and casting it aside, Lysander suppressed a groan of disbelief. ‘Theos … you make everything so complicated! No, there is no one else at present.’

Ophelia noticed how careful he was to qualify that declaration with the words ‘at present'. A muscular brown strip of male chest appeared between the parted edges of his monogrammed shirt. Her mouth went dry. He dropped the shirt on the floor and edged her round to unhook her dress. She almost stopped breathing. It was one thing to watch him as though he were a pin-up guy on a poster, but quite another thing to imagine getting naked with him. And the prospect of acquiring an audience for the fancy lingerie she wore was even more disquieting.

‘You’re very tense …’ Lysander unfastened the delicate bra that banded her pale narrow back and stood her up again.

She looked down at her bare breasts and hurriedly away again, only just resisting a prompting to cover her naked flesh with her hands. She considered telling him that he would be her first lover and swiftly discarded the idea. He might not believe her and if he did he might think her lack of experience was funny. Even worse, he might think that no man had ever been that interested in her. Every fear that could occur to her at such a moment up to and including a fear of pregnancy was piling up inside her mind when her dress fell round her ankles and he lifted her out of the puddle of white silk.

‘Oh …'she gasped, settled back down on the bed, her slender body alternately taut and quivering with nervous energy.

‘Oh …’ Lysander mimicked wickedly, dipping his imperious dark head to slide his tongue in a provocative invasion between her swollen lips.

Her hips jerked in immediate reflex reaction, damp heat surging between her slender thighs. He explored the ripe swell of her rounded breasts and toyed with the tender peaks. A melting, tingling wave of response took hold of her.

‘Luscious,’ he growled with masculine satisfaction.

As Lysander studied her pale curves an enervating mixture of pleasure and self-consciousness battled inside Ophelia. Her face burned. He closed his lips round a pointed pink nipple and she almost cried out in startled response. Her body wouldn’t stay still for her. Her fingers buried themselves into the silky thickness of his close-cropped black hair and her back arched. He lifted his head again and drove her lips apart with devouring hunger. She loved the way he kissed. It was addictive. Her hands dropped to the corded strength of his strong shoulders. Her mind was a blur of half-formed thoughts. She couldn’t credit the strength of what she was feeling or the power of her need to touch him.

Lysander lifted his tousled head to look down at her. Below the black fringe of his lashes, his smouldering dark gaze was intent. He ran long brown fingers through the glossy coils of golden hair spilling across the pillow. He was enjoying his new right to touch. Her bewitching ice-blue eyes shone against skin with the luminous quality of a pearl. ‘You looked incredible in that dress today,’ he told her.

Disconcerted by that comment, Ophelia blinked. Lysander frowned because he had not intended to compliment her. Feeling off balance, he crushed the strawberry ripeness of hervoluptuous mouth under his. Her senses swam and proper thought got lost behind a mental fog. A torrent of energising impressions struck her—the rippling power of his muscles beneath her hands, the long, lean, hair-roughened strength of his thighs and the intrinsically wonderful and familiar scent of him. The weight of him against her felt glorious. The feel of his bold erection shocked and pleased her. And the whole time she was learning about him, her blood was drumming in her eardrums and her heartbeat accelerating as the pleasure became more and more intense.

She didn’t even notice her remaining garments being removed. All honeyed heat and response, she reacted by instinct to the pulsing ache at the junction of her thighs. He skimmed through the pale curls that crowned her mound and teased the tiny sensitive bud beneath. Her ability to think vanished. In the grip of his sensual expertise she whimpered and angled up her hips. Desire was becoming a burning, irresistible need. He traced the slick wet heat at the heart of her and exquisite sensation engulfed her in wave after wave. Caught up in out-of-control excitement, she craved a completion she had never known before.

‘You’re very small,’ Lysander murmured.

Ophelia looked up at him in bewilderment for an instant before realising what he meant. ‘I’m a virgin …’ And the instant the admission left her she tensed and closed her eyes because ironically, no matter how intimate being in bed with him was, that information felt as if it was much too private to share.

Not for one moment did Lysander credit her claim, but he didn’t argue because at that moment he didn’t care what she was. Her fervent response to him had stoked his hunger for her to a ravenous height. A sheen of sweat on his bronzed skin and with hands that were rather less steady and controlled than usual, he parted her legs and came over her.

When he began entering her, Ophelia tensed and gasped, for he felt impossibly large. Desire and panic took her in equal parts. ‘If it hurts too much you’ll have to stop,’ she warned him and a split second later, ‘You’re hurting!’

His breathing fracturing with the effort that restraint demanded, his big, powerful body trembling over hers, Lysander stilled and stared down at her in shock and growing awe. ‘You were serious. You’re really tiny—’

‘Stop!’ Ophelia recoiled from the sharp stab of pain.

‘A virgin …’ Studying her with laser-beam intensity and potent appreciation, Lysander closed one large hand over hers. ‘I’ll be gentle … I promise, yineka mou.’

Ophelia discovered that being looked at with awe was rather pleasant. And just for once he was doing as he was told while at the same time accepting that she had told him the truth. Her body was adjusting a little to the intrusion of his and the throbbing ache of hunger was stirring again.

‘I’m mad for you,’ Lysander growled, his accent thick and deep as his long brown fingers toyed abstractedly with the wedding ring she wore. ‘Don’t make me stop.’

For the first time Ophelia was conscious of her feminine power and it was as intoxicating as the desire tingling back at every pulse point. ‘All right,’ she framed in a driven whisper.

Lysander shifted in a subtle move and she squeezed her eyes tight shut as he slowly, carefully sank deeper. It hurt and she cried out. He paused and cupped her face with his hands, then kissed her with a honeyed eroticism that somehow made her bite back the next moan. He murmured in Greek, bronze eyes like flames as she looked up at him. A ripple of pleasure rewarded her for her stoicism. When she had taken all of him, the burn of his possession faded and excitement quivered through her taut figure.

‘You feel like velvet,’ he told her with hoarse appreciation.

She had neither the breath nor the concentration to find words to describe what she was feeling. Sensual delight made her strain up to him, desire licking through her in a hot, feverish surge. He sank into her again and again with long, measured strokes. Sensation piled on wonderful sensation, stoking her excitement to incredible heights. Trembling with need, she cried out, her entire being caught up in the frantic climb to satisfaction. At a spellbinding peak, melting ripples of ecstasy consumed her in an explosive climax. Lost in the sweet drowning pleasure that followed, she lay in his arms in a daze.

A virgin, Lysander savoured with admiration, and pressed a kiss on her smooth brow. He was conscious of a rare sense of well-being and an even greater sense of satisfaction with her. It was the most extraordinary sensual experience he had ever had. He knew virginity shouldn’t count in the balance of her sins but somehow it did. Whatever other faults she might have she didn’t sleep around. All of a sudden marriage felt less like a trap and more like an indulgence. It was quite some time since his sex life had delivered the satisfaction he had once taken for granted. Women had become a faceless interchangeable blur, all too similar in type and behaviour, he acknowledged grudgingly. His bride was, at least, an original. He laughed huskily, thinking how easy it was to turn a negative into a positive. All it took was a creative and innovative mind.

That soft masculine laugh thrust Ophelia rudely back to reality at the same time as Lysander lifted her over him with easy strength and draped her across his chest like a rag doll. Shifting to a cooler spot in the bed, he kicked off the sheet. Oh, my word, what have I done? Ophelia asked herself in guilty horror. A one-night stand, she reminded herself, but thememory of that insane piece of self-justification only made her want to cringe with embarrassed self-loathing. She had surrendered to the enemy and he would never take her seriously again. She could have screamed with vexation.

‘I need a shower … and then …’ Lysander murmured thickly, running an intimate hand down over the curve of her bottom.

Ophelia rolled off him as though she had been assaulted and flipped round. ‘And then … nothing!’ she stressed in a tight undertone. ‘This was a one-off. A colossal mistake. Please don’t ask me to explain myself.’

Lysander regarded her with scientific interest and considerable amusement. He would not have dreamt of asking a woman to explain herself, especially one with as much to say for herself as Ophelia. He had discovered that her Achilles’ heel was her essential lack of sexual experience and being Lysander he was unlikely to overlook that vulnerability. Ebony lashes low over glittering metallic eyes, he murmured wickedly, ‘You were so hot—’

‘Shut up—don’t you dare gloat! I don’t want to talk about this ever!’ Scarlet to the roots of her tumbling golden hair, Ophelia scrambled off the bed and went in frantic search of something to wear.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to my own room.’

‘That’s not allowed.’

Clutching his jacket in front of her to shield her naked body, Ophelia flung him an irate glance. ‘None of that stuff counts now. I don’t have to go along with this marriage, if I don’t want to. I’m sorry, but you must see that everything we agreed to is redundant now.’

In a lithe lazy movement, Lysander leant up on one elbow.

Sprawled naked in the tangled sheet, he was a magnificent vision of bronzed masculinity. He regarded her with level dark-as-midnight eyes and a curious little chill ran down her spine. ‘We have a deal,’ he reminded her very softly.

Ophelia wrapped both arms round his jacket to hold it in place and couldn’t help wishing she’d picked up something more appropriate. ‘Yes, but that—’

‘No argument, no compromise possible,’ Lysander cut in with ruthless bite. ‘Before the wedding you agreed that if our marriage went public you would act the part of my wife. It’s too late to change your mind.’

The cold implacability of his gaze took Ophelia aback but she refused to back down. ‘I’m sorry things aren’t turning out the way you expected but that can’t be helped. I’m afraid you can’t make me go along with the pretence that our marriage is real if I don’t want to.’

‘We have a deal. If you try to break it, I’ll destroy you. You promised to live up to that ring on your finger and you will,’ Lysander asserted with chilling cool, while he wondered what the hell she was playing at. ‘There is no alternative, glikia mou.’

Ophelia was clutching his jacket so hard her hands were hurting. ‘I don’t react well to threats.’

‘If you cross me, I will go to court over the two wills and keep you tied up there for so long that when you finally sell Madrigal Court you’ll owe all the money you make on legal bills. Complex lawsuits can drag on for years and the expenses of a court battle will bankrupt you. Is that what you want?’

Every scrap of colour had drained from Ophelia’s face by the time he had completed that speech. He had totally shocked her. It had not occurred to her that if she refused to honour their previous agreement he might be prepared to drag her intoa courtroom to contest the will. Moreover, the scenario he painted horrified her. The inheritance she hoped to share with her sister would be eaten up within months. Nobody would profit from that denouement.

Lysander was on full alert, reading every nuance and change of expression on her delicate features. He had assumed she had played an active role in ensuring that the paparazzi exposed their marriage because only publicity could gain her full access to his rarefied world of exclusive privilege and luxury. Now he was no longer so sure.

Dark eyes sardonic, he sprang off the bed and straightened to his full intimidating height. ‘You have to respect ground rules with me,’ he spelt out. ‘Keep your word and you will have nothing to fear. You’re my wife and I will treat my wife like a princess. But if you choose to step out of that charmed circle, beware because it’s a cruel world out there.’

‘You can’t do this to me!’ Ophelia snapped with a vehement shake of her head.

‘I’m going for a shower. When I return, I still expect you to be in this room as befits a bride on her wedding night,’ Lysander informed her lazily. ‘And tomorrow we’re leaving on our honeymoon.’

Ophelia glowered at him in frank disbelief. ‘A honeymoon … you’ve got to be joking! This is my home. I’m not going anywhere. And what about my plants? Who’s going to take care of them? The busiest season of the year is coming up for me. You can’t expect me to leave.’

‘You’re creasing my jacket,’ Lysander told her gently.