Читать книгу The Contaxis Baby - Линн Грэхем, LYNNE GRAHAM - Страница 7

AS SEBASTEN approached the table where Lizzie had been seated, his bodyguards, who Lizzie assumed were bouncers, shifted the people about to take it over with scant ceremony. Two waiters then appeared at speed to clear the empty glasses.

Watching that ruthless little display of power being played out before her, Lizzie blinked in surprise. Was he the manager or the owner of the club? Who else could he be? The bar was heaving with a crush of bodies but the bouncer types only had to signal to receive a tray of drinks while others less influential fumed.

Looking across the table as her companion folded down with athletic grace into a seat, Lizzie still found herself staring: he was just so breathtaking. His lean, bronzed features were framed with high cheekbones, a narrow-bridged classic nose and a stubborn jawline. He had the kind of striking bone structure that would impress even when he was old. Luxuriant black hair curled back from his forehead above strong, well-marked brows, his brilliant, deep-set dark eyes framed by thick black lashes. Her heart hammered when he smiled at her again but she could not shake the lowering sensation that his choice of her with her less obvious attractions was a startling and inexplicable event.

‘I’m Sebasten,’ Sebasten drawled, cool as glass. ‘Sebasten Contaxis.’

His name meant nothing to Lizzie but, as what she had already seen suggested that she ought to recognise the name, she nodded as if she had already recognised him and, having finally picked up on the sexy, rasping timbre of his accent, said, ‘I’m Lizzie…you’re not from London—er—originally, are you?’

Taking that as a case of stating the obvious with irony, Sebasten laughed. ‘Hardly, but I’m very fond of this city, Lizzie? Short for? The obvious?’

‘Yes, after my mother…it’s what my family and closest friends call me.’ As Lizzie met the concentrated effect of those spectacular dark golden eyes, a frisson of feverish tension not unlaced with alarm seized her: he was not the sort of straightforward, safe male she was usually drawn to. There was danger in the aura of arrogant expectation he emanated, in the tough strength of purpose etched in that lean, dark, handsome face. But perhaps the greatest threat of all lay in the undeniable sizzle of the sexual signals in that smouldering gaze of his.

‘I take it that you saw at one glance that we were likely to be close,’ he said in a teasing undertone that sent a potent little shiver down her taut spine.

Her breath snarled up in her throat. Caution urged her to slap him down but she didn’t want him to walk away, could not, at that instant, think of clever enough words with which to gracefully spell out the reality that she was not into casual intimacy on short acquaintance. But for the first time in her life, Lizzie realised that she was seriously tempted and that shook her.

In surprise, Sebasten watched the hot colour climb in her cheeks so that the freckles all merged, the sudden downward dip of her eyes as she tilted her head to one side in an evasive move that was more awkward than elegant. For a moment, in spite of her sophisticated, provocative appearance, she looked young, very young and vulnerable.

‘Smile…’ he commanded, suddenly wondering what age she was.

And her generous mouth curved up as if she couldn’t help herself in an entirely natural but rather embarrassed grin that had so much genuine appeal that Sebasten was entrapped by the surprise of it. ‘I’m not the best company tonight,’ she told him in a tone of earnest apology.

Sebasten rose in one fluid movement to his full height and extended a hand. ‘Let’s dance…’

As Lizzie got up she caught a glimpse of the staring faces at that table of ex-friends that she had been avoiding all evening and she threw her head back, squaring her taut bare shoulders. It felt good to be seen with a presentable male, rather than being alone and an object of scornful pity.

Just as it had once felt good to be with Connor? Lizzie snatched in a sharp gasp of air, painfully aware that Connor had smashed her confidence to pieces. She had thought that he was as straight and honest as she was herself. When he had made no attempt to go beyond the occasional kiss, she had believed his plea that he respected her and wanted to get to know her better. In retrospect that made her feel such an utter and naïve fool, for his restraint had encouraged her to make all sorts of foolish assumptions, not least the belief that he was really serious about her. When she was forced to face the awful truth that Connor had instead been sleeping with her much more beautiful stepmother, she had been devastated by her own trusting stupidity.

A strong arm curved round Lizzie and tugged her close in a smooth move that brought her into glancing collision with Sebasten’s lean, muscular length. A shockwave of heated response slivered through her quivering body.

‘What age are you?’ Sebasten demanded, an aggressive edge to his deep, dark drawl, for he had seen the distant look in her eyes and he was unaccustomed to a woman focusing on anything other than him.

Putting that tone down to the challenge of competing against the backdrop of the pounding music, Lizzie told him, ‘Twenty-two…’

‘Taken?’ Sebasten prompted, a primal possessiveness scything up through him at the sudden thought that she might well be involved with some other man and that that was the most likely explanation for her total lack of flirtatiousness.

He was holding her close on a floor packed with people all dancing apart but as Lizzie looked up into his burnished lion-gold eyes she was only aware of the mad racing of her own heartbeat and the quite unfamiliar curl of heat surging up inside her.

‘Taken?’ she queried, forced to curve her hands round his wide shoulders to rise on tiptoe so that he could hear her above the music.

Indifferent to the watchers around them, Sebasten linked his other arm round her slender, trembling length as well, fierce satisfaction firming his expressive mouth as he felt the tiny little responsive quivers of her body against his. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re going to be mine…’

And with that far-reaching assurance, retaining an arm at the base of her spine, Sebasten turned her round and headed her up the wrought-iron staircase.

You’re going to be mine. Men didn’t as a rule address such comments to Lizzie and normally such an arrogant assumption would simply have made her giggle. She got on well with men but few seemed to see her as a likely object of desire and her male friends often treated her like a big sister. Perhaps it was because she towered over most of them, was usually more blunt than subtle and never coy and was invariably the first to offer a shoulder to cry on. Until Connor, her relationships had been low-key, more friendly than anything else, drifting to a halt without any great grief on either side. Until Connor, she had not known what it was to feel ripped apart with inadequacy, pain and humiliation. Sebasten—and she had already forgotten his surname—was just what her squashed ego needed most, Lizzie told herself fiercely.

He took her up to the VIP room, the privilege of only a chosen few, and her conviction that he owned the club increased as she spread a bemused glance over the opulence of the luxurious leather sofas, the soft, expensive carpet and the private bar in the corner.

‘We can hear ourselves think up here,’ Sebasten pointed out with perfect truth.

Lizzie stared at him, for the first time appreciating that his more formal mode of dress had picked him out as much as his looks and height. His superb grey suit had the subtle sheen of silk and the tailored perfection of designer-cut elegance.

‘Do you own this place?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Sebasten glanced at her in surprise.

‘Then who are you that you get so much attention here?’ Lizzie enquired helplessly.

‘You don’t know?’ Amusement slashed Sebasten’s lean, bronzed features, for not being recognised and known for who and what he was was a novel experience for him. ‘I’m a businessman.’

‘I don’t read the business sections of the newspapers,’ Lizzie confided with palpable discomfiture.

‘Why should you?’

Lizzie coloured. ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m an airhead.’

A tough, self-made man, her father had refused to let her take any interest in the family construction firm. As a teenager she had told him that she wanted to study for a business degree so that she could come and work for him and Maurice Denton had hurt her by laughing out loud at the idea. But then, that he had done well enough in the world to maintain his daughter as a lady of leisure had once been a source of considerable pride to him.

‘I think you’re beautiful…especially when you blush and all your freckles merge,’ Sebasten mocked.

‘Stop it…’ Lizzie groaned, covering her hot face with spread hands in reproach.

He lifted a glass from the bar counter and she lowered one hand to grasp it, green eyes wide with fascination on his lean, strong face. Did he really think she was beautiful? She so much wanted to believe he was sincere, for she was more used to being told she was great fun and a good sport. Her fingers tightened round the tumbler and she drank even though her head was already swimming.

‘Very beautiful and very quiet,’ Sebasten pronounced.

‘Guys like talking about themselves…I’m a good listener,’ Lizzie quipped. ‘So what was the most exciting event of your week?’

Sleek black lashes lowered to partially screen his shimmering dark eyes. ‘Something someone said to me after a funeral.’

Lizzie’s soft lips parted in surprise and then sealed again.

‘Connor Morgan’s funeral…’ Sebasten let the announcement hang there and watched her tense and lose her warm colour with quiet approval. He was no fan of cold-hearted women and her obvious sensitivity pleased him. ‘Did you know him?’

Lizzie’s tummy muscles were tight as a drum but she kept her head high and muttered unevenly. ‘I’m afraid that I never got to know him very well…’

It was true: she had barely scratched the surface of Connor’s true nature, had been content to accept the surface show of the younger man’s extrovert personality, had never once dreamt that he might lie to her and cheat on her without an ounce of remorse.

‘Neither did I…’ Sebasten’s dark, deep drawl sent an odd chill down her spine.

‘Let’s not talk about it…’ Taut with guilty anxiety over the near-lie she had told, Lizzie wondered if he was aware of the rumours and if he would have approached her had he known of her previous connection with Connor.

Aware he ought to be probing for some first-hand information on the voluptuous little blonde who had ditched his half-brother, Sebasten studied Lizzie’s taut profile. However, his attention roamed of its own seeming volition down over her long, elegant neck to the tiny pulse beating out her tension beneath her collarbone and from there to the delicate curve of her breasts. By that point, his concentration had been engulfed by more libidinous promptings. Below the fine fabric, her nipples were taut and prominent as ripe berries and the dull, heavy ache at Sebasten’s groin intensified with sudden savage force. Without hesitation, he swept the glass from her grasp and reached for her.

As she was sprung with a vengeance from her introspection, Lizzie’s bemused gaze clashed with his and the scorching heat of his appraisal. She trembled, her body racing without warning to a breathless high of tension. Excitement, naked excitement flared through her, filling her with surprise and confusion. Dry-mouthed, pulses jumping, knees shaking, she felt his hand slide from her spine to the fuller curve of her behind and splay there to pull her close. She shivered in contact with the lean, tight hardness of his muscular thighs, every inch of her own flesh suddenly so sensitive she was bewildered, embarrassed, shocked.

‘This feels good…’ Sebasten husked, revelling in the way she couldn’t hide her response to him. He could feel every little quiver assailing her, recognise the hoarseness of the breath she snatched in, read the bright luminosity of her dilated pupils and the full enticement of her parted lips.

‘I hardly know you.’ Lizzie was talking to herself more than she was talking to him. But that attempt to reinstate her usual caution didn’t work. Being that close to him felt like perching at the very top of a rollercoaster a nanosecond before the breathtaking thrill of sudden descent and she was incapable of denying herself the seductive promise of that experience.

‘I’ll teach you to know me…’ Sebasten framed with thickened emphasis, the smouldering glitter of his pagan golden eyes fixed to her with laser force. ‘I’ll teach you everything you need to know.’

‘I like to go slow…’

‘I like to go fast,’ Sebasten imparted without hesitation, letting a lean brown hand rise to stroke through a long silken strand of her amber-coloured hair before moving to trace the tremulous line of her mouth with a confident fingertip. ‘So fast I’ll leave you breathless and hungry for more.’

Mesmerised, her very lips tingling from his light touch, Lizzie couldn’t think straight. He might have been talking a foreign language, for right at that instant her leaping hormones were doing all of her thinking for her. She just wanted him to kiss her. In fact, she was so desperate to have that wide, sensual mouth on hers that she had to clench her hands to prevent herself from reaching for him first and, since she had never felt anything quite like that shameless craving before, it felt as unreal as a dream.

But when his mouth found hers, teased at her tender lips with a series of sensual little nips and tantalising expertise, no dream had ever lit such a powder-keg of response in Lizzie. Suddenly she was pushing forward into the hard, muscular contours of his powerful frame, hands flying up to link round his neck to steady her wobbling knees and from deep in her own throat a tiny moaning, pleading sound emerged as frustration at his teasing built to an unbearable degree.

He reacted then with a hungry, satisfying urgency that pierced her quivering length with the efficacy of a burning arrow thudding into a willing target. Suddenly he gave her exactly what she had wanted without even knowing it. As he drove her lips apart in a devastating assault of erotic intensity, her very skin-cell seemed to spontaneously combust in the whoosh of passion that shockwaved through her. Her own excitement was as intoxicating as a drug and all the more dangerous because raw excitement in a man’s arms was new to her.

‘Theos mou,’ Sebasten groaned as he lifted his arrogant dark head. ‘You’re blowing me away…’

Bereft of his mouth on hers, Lizzie blinked in confusion. Only then conscious of the urgent tightness of her nipples and the pulsing ache between her thighs, she was surprised by the painful effect of both sensations. Her body didn’t feel like her own any more. Her body was sending out frantic signals that the only place it was happy was up against him.

Sebasten flipped her round, curved her back to him again and let his hands glance over the pointed invitation of her sweet breasts, feeling her jerk and shiver and gasp as though she was in the eye of a storm. He eyed the nearest sofa. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted her here, now, fast and hard to ease the nagging throb of his aroused sex. Sleazy, his mind told him while his defiant and fertile imagination threw up various explicit scenarios that threatened that conviction. No, he preferred to take her home to his own bed, where he could take his time, and he already knew once wouldn’t be enough.

On fire from sensation, Lizzie broke free of him and dragged in a great gulp of oxygen. It was an effort to walk in a straight line to the table where he had set her drink. Lifting it with a shaking hand, she tipped it to her swollen lips, needing to occupy herself while she came to terms with the amazing feelings gripping her. She wanted to know everything about him from the minute he was born. She wanted to know him as nobody else had ever known him and a crazy singing happiness filled her when she looked back at him over the rim of her glass.

‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ she whispered with an edgy laugh that screened her discomfiture.

‘I don’t want to hear about how it felt with anyone else.’ Burning golden eyes slammed into hers and he extended a commanding hand. ‘Let’s go…’

Lizzie moved and let him engulf her fingers in his. ‘Are you always this bossy?’

‘Where did you get that idea?’ Sebasten purred like a very large and amused jungle cat because she had just leapt to do as he asked without even thinking about it. But then women always did. In his entire adult life, Sebasten had never met a woman who was not eager to please him.

He swept her back down the stairs, past a welter of curious eyes and on towards the exit. Her nerves were jumping like electrified beans. She relived the bold caress of his sure hands over her breasts and her cheeks flooded with hot self-conscious colour. Not the sort of familiarity she normally allowed. What was she doing with him? Where on earth was he taking her? He thought she was beautiful. He wanted to be with her, she reminded herself with feverish determination. Nobody else did, not her father, who had cut her out of his life, not a single one of her friends.

On the wet pavement outside, a uniformed chauffeur extended an umbrella for their protection and hurried to open the door of a long, opulent silver limousine. Lizzie was impressed and she got in, refused to think about what she was doing and turned to look at Sebasten again. The dizzy sense of rightness that had engulfed her only minutes earlier returned. ‘Where were you born?’ she heard herself ask.

In the act of tugging her close, Sebasten grinned at what struck him as an essentially feminine and pointless question. ‘On an island the size of a postage stamp in the Aegean Sea…and you?’

‘In Devon,’ she confided, heart skipping a beat over that incredible smile of his. ‘My parents moved to London when I was a baby.’

‘How fascinating,’ Sebasten teased, lacing his fingers into her hair and kissing her. She drowned in the scent and the taste of him, head falling back on her shoulders as his tongue darted in an erotic sweep between her lips and made her gasp with helpless pleasure.

At some point, they left the limo, climbed steps, traversed a low-lit echoing hall, but true awareness only returned to Lizzie when she swayed giddily on the sweeping staircase she found herself on. His hands shot out to steady her. ‘Are you OK?’

‘These stupid shoes…’ Lizzie condemned in mortification and she kicked off her spike-heeled sandals where she stood as though her unsteady gait had been caused by them.

‘How much have you had to drink?’ Sebasten enquired with lethal timing, a dark frown-line forming between his ebony brows.

‘Hardly anything,’ Lizzie told him breathlessly while making a conscious effort not to slur her words. She was taut as a bowstring, suddenly terrified of receiving yet another rejection to add to the many she had already withstood.

As he received that assurance Sebasten’s tension evaporated and he swept her on into a massive, opulent room rejoicing in a very large and imposing bed. She was jolted by the sight of the bed and a rather belated stab of dismay made her question her own behaviour. She barely knew Sebasten and she was still a virgin. But then she had never been tempted until she met Connor and she had expected him to become her first lover. As the degrading memory of finding her boyfriend and her stepmother in bed together engulfed Lizzie afresh, she rebelled against her own moral conditioning. After all, hadn’t her old-fashioned principles let her down badly when it came to men? A more experienced woman would have been suspicious of Connor’s lack of lusty intent.

Eyes flaring like emerald-green stars on that bitter acknowledgement, Lizzie spun round and feasted her attention on Sebasten. He was gorgeous and tonight he was hers, all hers, absolutely nobody else’s. She had never met anyone like him before. He was so focused, so sure of himself that he drew her like a magnet and the heat of his appreciative appraisal warmed her like the sun after weeks of endless rain.

Lizzie tilted her head back, glossy marmalade hair tumbling back from her slanted cheekbones. ‘You can kiss me again,’ she informed him.

With an appreciative laugh, Sebasten claimed her parted lips in a long, drugging kiss that rocked her on her feet. Lifting her up into his arms with easy strength, he brought her down onto his bed. What was it about her that made her seem so different to other women? One minute she was quiet and mysterious, the next tossing an open challenge, glorious green eyes telegraphing pure invitation.

Lizzie surfaced from the mindless spell of her own response and stared up at him. ‘Are you as good at everything else as you are at kissing?’

Sebasten tossed his jacket on a chair, enjoying the wide, wondering look in her face as she watched him. ‘What do you think?’

That she could barely breathe when those shimmering dark golden eyes rested on her and her mouth ran dry as a bone when he unbuttoned his shirt. From his broad shoulders to his powerful, hair-roughened pectorals and flat, taut abdomen, he was all sleek, bronzed skin and rippling muscles.

‘That you’re very sexy,’ Lizzie confided helplessly.

‘We match…’ Sebasten strolled lithe as a hunting animal and barefoot towards the bed.

‘Do we?’ Her heart hammered behind her ribs. She felt like an infatuated teenager confronted without warning by her idol: butterflies in her tummy, brain empty, teeth almost chattering with nerves. Every lingering strand of caution was urging her to acknowledge her mistake and take flight but those prudent promptings fell into abeyance at the same instant as Sebasten rested shimmering dark golden eyes of appreciation on her.

‘Ne…’

‘No?’ Lizzie was confused.

‘Ne…is Greek for yes.’ Sebasten came down on the side of the bed with a smile that lit up his lean, strong face and melted her.

‘You’re Greek?’

‘Ten out of ten,’ Sebasten gathered her close and threaded lazy hands through her tumbling mane. ‘I love the colour of your hair…but I still don’t know your surname.’

In the expectant silence, Lizzie tensed. Fearful of his reaction were he to recognise the name of Denton, she heard herself quote her late mother’s maiden name. ‘Bewford.’

‘Now I can’t lose you again,’ Sebasten asserted.

‘Would it matter if you did?’ Heart racing so fast now that she could barely speak and keep her voice level, Lizzie curved an uncertain hand round his arm.

‘Absolutely, pethi mou.’ Sebasten reflected that he might even make it to the three-month mark with her, a milestone he had yet to share with any woman. Unsettled by that uninvited and odd thought, he kissed her again.

He made love to her mouth with devastating virtuosity, plundering the tender interior she opened to him. Lizzie pressed forward, unsteady hands linking round his neck, fingers uncoiling to rise and sink into the depths of his luxuriant black hair. It was sweeter and wilder and more intense than anything she had ever known. He bent her back over his arm so that her bright hair trailed across the pillows and let his lips seek out the tiny pulse going crazy beneath her collarbone.

Lizzie quivered in surprise and what little grip she had left on reality vanished. When he then located the tender pulse spot below her ear, her body thrummed into a burst of life so that not one part of her was capable of staying still. She was not even conscious of the deft unsnapping of the clasps on her halter top, only of the air grazing her distended nipples and cooling the swollen sensitivity of her flesh. He eased off her stretchy skirt to leave her clad in only a pair of white lace panties.

‘You’re perfect,’ Sebasten groaned, cupping the ivory-pale rose-tipped mounds he had unveiled with possessive hands, easing her back against the pillows to direct his attention to the tender tips straining for his attention.

Capturing a throbbing peak between his lips, he flicked it with his tongue and she moaned out loud at the surge of tormenting sensation that made her tense and tremble and jerk beneath his ministrations. Nothing before had ever felt so good that it almost hurt and she was lost in the shocking intensity of her own response. She was breathing in fast little pants, aware of her body as she had never been before, feeling the charged readiness of wild anticipation, the crazed race of her own pounding heartbeat, the damp heat pulsing between her thighs.

‘Talk to me…’ Sebasten urged.

‘I…can’t find…my voice,’ Lizzie tried to say after a bemused hesitation in which she had to struggle just to force her brain to think again. Even to her own ears, the words emerged sounding indistinguishable and slurred.

Sebasten stilled and, scanning her dismayed face, he removed his hands from her. ‘You’re drunk…’

As that harsh judgement came out of nowhere at her, Lizzie flinched. Bracing herself on one awkward hand, she sat up. His lean, powerful face was taut, stunning golden eyes betraying angry distaste.

‘I’m—’

‘Out of your skull on booze…not my style!’ Sebasten incised, springing upright to his full intimidating height.

Dragged with little warning from the breathtaking hold of unbelievable passion, Lizzie found herself in need of a ready tongue. But there was nothing ready about her tongue when her brain was in a haze of confusion. ‘Not your style?’ she echoed.

It was a terrible strain for her to try to enunciate each word with clarity. She reeled off the bed in an abrupt movement, suddenly feeling horribly naked and under attack.

As he watched her stagger as she attempted to stay vertical Sebasten’s wide, sensual mouth clenched even harder, his whole body in the fierce grip of painful frustration while he questioned how he could possibly have failed to register the state she was in. ‘The consent issue,’ he breathed with icy restraint. ‘No way would I even consider bedding a woman too inebriated to know what she is doing!’

Her toes catching in her discarded skirt where it lay, Lizzie tipped forward and only just managed to throw out her hands to break her own fall. As she went down with a crash, punctuated by a startled expletive from Sebasten, she just slumped on the soft, deep carpet.

With a mighty effort of will, Lizzie lifted her swimming head again and focused on Sebasten’s bare brown feet. Even his toes were beautiful, she thought dimly as she tried to come up with something to say in a situation that had already gone far beyond embarrassment. ‘Do you think…do you think you could sober me up before we continue?’ she muttered hopefully.