Читать книгу Possession - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 12

‘I ALMOST forgot,’ Aristandros remarked, striding into a book-lined room off the imposing hall and leaving Ella to hover in the doorway.

Ella watched him lift a small shallow case from the desk. Her smooth brow pleated.

‘Come here,’ he urged with his usual impatience. ‘You can’t go out without jewels.’

‘I don’t have any,’ she confided with an uneasy laugh.

‘I’m starting off your collection, glikia mou.’ Aristandros detached the glittering diamond necklace from its velvet bed as she approached him on stiff legs. ‘Turn round.’

‘I don’t want it!’ Ella told him sharply for, while she had tolerated the clothing, a dazzling river of diamonds felt too much like the biblical wages of sin. Her principles had already taken enough of a hit.

‘But it is my wish that you wear it,’ Aristandros spelt out, purposeful fingers curving to her shoulder to flip her round. The jewels felt very cold against her skin. She shivered as his fingertips brushed her nape. He spun her back round and, with a satisfaction undiminished by her bleak expression, surveyed the glittering tracery of jewels encircling her throat

Ella was surprised by the crush at the gallery opening. She had never dreamt that she would see so many well-dressed people and famous celebrity faces grouped in the same place. Nor had she ever received quite so much personal attention for, the moment she entered the room by Aristandros’s side, every female head seemed to swivel in their direction. An audible buzz of conjecture accompanied their passage through the crowds. While Ari was engaged in discussing a sculpture with its creator, Ella strayed across the room. She was studying an enchanting painting of the seashore when she was accosted by a tall, leggy redhead whose perfect body was adorned by a tiny white satin dress.

‘So, you’re my replacement!’ the woman snapped, settling her furious and accusing green gaze on Ella. ‘Who the hell are you? Exactly when did Aristandros meet you?’

Ella knew exactly who the beautiful redhead was. Her name was Milly, she was a top model and probably Aristandros’s most recent ex. Ella said nothing, for she had seen the tears in the other woman’s eyes and recognised her distress.

‘You won’t get any warning that it’s over. One day you’re in, and the world’s your oyster, and the next you’re out and there’s nothing you can do about it. He doesn’t take your calls any more,’ Milly recited chokily. ‘Every door slams in your face!’

‘There has to be many safer and more rewarding options for a woman as young and beautiful as you are,’ Ella told her bracingly. ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that you care.’

Milly studied her in wide-eyed bewilderment. ‘You’re being nice to me? Aren’t you jealous?’

‘No,’ Ella declared with innate dignity. ‘I’m not the jealous sort.’

Too late, she saw that the redhead’s attention had shifted from her.

‘Milly.’ From behind Ella, Aristandros greeted the other woman politely.

‘You’re not jealous?’ Aristandros queried in near disbelief as his ex-girlfriend vanished speedily back into the crush, unnerved by his ice-cold appraisal.

‘Of course not,’ Ella assured him, thinking of the seven years she had spent reading about his exploits with countless other women. Familiarity, she was convinced, had brought tolerance and common sense to her outlook. Everywhere Aristandros went, he was a target for ambitious women. That was a fact of life, and as long as he remained fabulously rich and gorgeous, the situation wasn’t likely to change any time soon.

Dark eyes sardonic, Aristandros guided her back to the landscape of the seashore. ‘It reminds me of Lykos … the beach below the house,’ he remarked, inclining his imperious head to the gallery owner hovering a few feet away. ‘We’ll take it.’

Aristandros had inherited the Greek island of Lykos from his mother’s side of the family. Once Ella had had a picnic there with him, and suddenly the years were rolling back inside her head and she was remembering how the breeze had whipped wildly at her hair while they ate. Wrapped up warm for the winter temperatures, she had listened with interest while Aristandros had outlined his plans to revitalise the island’s failing economy and prevent the population from falling any further. His sense of responsibility for the small, isolated community living on Lykos had impressed her a great deal.

‘Where will you hang the seascape?’ Aristandros asked as they left the gallery.

‘Where will I hang it?’ she stressed in confusion. ‘Are you saying that you are buying it for me?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want you buying stuff like that for me; the way you’re splashing out cash on me is indecent!’ Ella hissed frantically under her breath as they headed across the pavement to the silver limousine awaiting them. Crash barriers prevented the gathered members of the press from getting too close.

Her spine rigid, Ella blinked like an owl while cameras went off all around them, and questions and comments were hurled at Aristandros. Uppermost were the demands to know the identity of his new companion. But, in every way, Aristandros remained gloriously impervious to the media presence, settling into the limo beside her, ‘Of course I’m going to buy you things; get used to it!’

‘I’m only here with you because of Callie. Contact with her is the only reward I want,’ Ella proclaimed, uneasy fingers brushing the diamond necklace in meaningful emphasis of the point.

The smooth planes of his lean features took on a cold, sardonic light, his brilliant gaze narrowing. ‘No man wants to be told that his only attraction is an eighteen-month-old baby, khriso mou.’

Ella lifted her pale head high. ‘Even if it’s the truth?’

‘But it’s not the truth, it’s an outright lie for which you should hang your head in shame,’ Aristandros traded without hesitation, his beautifully shaped mouth curling with derision. ‘You want me as much now as you wanted me seven years ago. Don’t make the child your excuse.’

Ella had lost colour. ‘It’s not an excuse. I may occasionally find you … attractive, but I wouldn’t have done anything about it.’

‘Too spineless?’ Aristandros sent her a contemptuous glance. ‘I didn’t meet your narrow-minded requirements, so the fact that you wanted me and I wanted you meant nothing to you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous … of course it meant something!’ Ella flashed back. ‘But you wanted me to be something I couldn’t be.’

Aristandros closed a strong hand over hers to force her to turn and look at him. ‘I only wanted you to be a woman, not a strident feminist—’

Ella sent him a flaming look of bone-deep resentment. ‘I was never strident. I was sensible. We wanted totally different things out of life. It could never have worked.’

‘No doubt time will tell,’ Aristandros fielded very drily, releasing his hold on her hand.

The silence that laced their return to the penthouse gnawed at Ella’s nerves. She was already wishing that she didn’t speak first and think later. They were about to share the same bed, and she could barely believe that, never mind accept the idea in the mood she was in. ‘If the painting’s to be mine, I’ll be hanging it here somewhere,’ she told him abruptly, surrendering to a sudden need to bridge an atmosphere filled with tense, uneasy undertones. ‘Because I don’t have anywhere else to live at present.’

Aristandros sent her a sudden, satisfied smile, as if that bleak assurance was a heart warming plus on his terms. ‘You live where I live now.’

An involuntary shiver ran down her taut spine as the level of dependency that that statement suggested continued to chill Ella and her independent soul to the marrow.

The tall, powerful Greek closed his hands over hers to turn her back to face him. Brilliant golden-brown eyes assailed hers. ‘Don’t fight the inevitable, glikia mou. Embrace these changes in your life. You might even find that you come to enjoy them.’

‘Never,’ Ella swore in a fierce undertone.

‘I hear words on your lips that no other woman has ever dared to confront me with,’ Aristandros confided, his deep drawl silky with indulgence. ‘You are truly unique.’

Recognising his triumph at the position he had her in, Ella shut her eyes tight. So, when his mouth came down on hers without warning, her only weapon was her rage. But even as she braced her hands to his chest to push him angrily away she thought better of that move. She had made a devil’s bargain, and now payment was due. While Aristandros kissed her, she stood like a statue, unresponsive as stone. But he played with her mouth, soft one moment, teasing the next, and then hot and male and hungry, until her thoughts were no longer clear and her resistance was breaking down, sensual response beginning to quiver through her treacherous body in an ever-swelling tide.

With a masculine growl of approval, Aristandros bent down and lifted her, swinging her up into his arms with easy strength to carry her into the master bedroom.

Her heart was racing so fast she couldn’t catch her breath. When he set her down, she kicked off her shoes. A soft glide of air brushed her backbone as her dress was unzipped. His sensual mouth was like a brand on hers. The slide of his tongue between her parted lips was an indescribable aphrodisiac that sent darts of heat and tingles of excitement quivering through her entire body. For an instant she was shattered by the awareness that she wanted him as fiercely as she wanted air to breathe. Guilty unease filtered through her, cooling her head for a moment as she tasted the bitter truth that she was weaker than she had thought she would be.

‘Stop it,’ Aristandros growled, scorching dark-golden eyes raking her troubled face.

‘Stop what?’

‘Thinking whatever you’re thinking which is suddenly giving you all the animation of an Egyptian mummy.’

Discomfited colour bloomed across her cheekbones.

‘In fact, don’t think at all,’ Aristandros urged forcefully. ‘This is sex. You don’t need to carve it up into little intellectual nuggets to be studied below a microscope. Be spontaneous … natural.’

‘Natural?’ Ella hissed at him tempestuously. ‘This is the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done!’

His blue-shadowed jawline clenched. ‘Only because you’re fighting everything I make you feel.’

That he recognised her struggle, ineffective though it was, shook Ella, for it had not occurred to her that he might understand her that well. His impatience unconcealed, he dumped her down on the bed. ‘This is sex’, he had said with a detachment that ran contrary to her every instinct. But if their arrangement was to work, she reasoned, she had to stop judging him and wanting and expecting more than he was ever likely to give her. She had passed the last deadline: it was crunch time.

‘How many guys did you say?’ Aristandros enquired silkily, watching her shimmy beneath the sheet until only her shoulders could be seen.

Ella sat up, delicate facial bones tightening defensively. ‘I didn’t say!’

The silence stretched. A sardonic edge to his expressive mouth, Aristandros undressed, taking his time, every movement fluid with a grace that caught her eye no matter how hard she tried to avoid that side of the room. From the whipcord muscles of his shoulders to his beautifully defined torso, he was a vision of sculpted masculine perfection. He was also very well endowed and fully aroused, she could not help noticing. Her mouth ran dry and her heart began to pound.

‘Less than fifty?’ Aristandros asked casually.

Ella shot him an aghast glance.

‘Definitely less than fifty,’ he decided for himself.

‘It’s none of your damned business!’ Ella launched back at him furiously. ‘Stop making a production out of it!’

‘Come out from below the sheet.’

In a series of violent movements, Ella kicked off the sheet and reclined back against the pillows in the exaggerated pose of a glamour model, with her spine arched to thrust out her chest. ‘Satisfied?’

Aristandros raked his appreciative gaze over the voluptuous swell of her breasts in the turquoise bra. ‘Not yet. Take it all off, glikia mou.’

Her blue-as-sapphire eyes rounded. ‘Everything?’

Aristandros inclined his handsome head in a confirmation that was a clear challenge. For a split second, Ella was rigid with rejection, and then she scrambled off the bed. Taking up a defiant stance, she peeled off her bra and discarded her knickers.

His attention nailed to her, dark eyes flaring hungrily over her pale, slender curves, Aristandros strode forward and snatched her up into his arms. ‘I already feel like I waited a lifetime for you!’ he growled, claiming her soft mouth with savage possessiveness even while his hands moulded to the pert mounds of her breasts and kneaded the swollen pink tips between his fingers.

Her body came alive with almost painful immediacy. Needles of bittersweet longing arrowed from her breasts to her pelvis, and awakened a hollow feeling that was swiftly followed by a sharp stab of desire that made her tummy muscles contract. His mouth on hers suddenly became a fierce necessity. The pressure of his hard, masculine lips and the erotic exploration of his tongue went some way towards satisfying the craving taking charge of her. The stimulating passage of his hands over her sensitised body made her push against the unyielding contours of his hard muscular torso. He backed her down on to the bed. Heat and restlessness had entered her bloodstream. All of a sudden she was alight with a need that she had known only once before. Then, as now, the power of that sexual hunger scared her with its unnerving strength. Of their own volition it seemed, however, that her hips lifted and her thighs eased apart, seeking ever more intimate contact with him.

Aristandros lifted his tousled head to look down at her, his smouldering gaze scanning her flushed cheeks and the swollen contours of her mouth. ‘You’ll enjoy yourself much more when you let go of that rigid self-control—’

‘Don’t taunt me,’ Ella warned him grittily.

‘I wasn’t.’ He frowned. ‘I want this to be an unforgettable night.’

Her body a playground of tingling, energised responses, all of which seemed beyond her control, Ella shivered, so wound up with tension that it was an achievement just to think. She registered that this was Ari, the ultimate alpha male at his most driven, and seemingly sex was not quite as casual an event as he had made it sound. Even between the sheets he was set on scoring the highest possible results. At the same time, he was so beautiful that just looking at him turned her heart over. He shifted, the hair-roughened skin of his chest scratching against her jutting nipples and sending a scorching dart of extreme awareness down to the swollen heat and moisture at the very heart of her. In a movement that was utterly instinctive, she sank her fingers into his luxuriant black hair to drag him down to her and urge his mouth back onto hers again. He dealt her a frank look of surprise.

‘You talk too much,’ Ella told him baldly.

Laughter rumbled in his chest and then he kissed her. Complaint was the last thing on her mind, for in that department he had no equal. He kissed with an unholy passion. The all-encompassing hunger surged again and she clung to him, excitement taking over and overwhelming her final defences.

‘Se thelo … I want you,’ he bit out, studying her with dark-golden eyes that smouldered with appreciation. ‘When you respond like this to me, it blows my mind, khriso mou.’

She writhed in whimpering reaction while he explored the slick, wet flesh between her thighs. She was so tender and he was so skilled that both stillness and silence were impossible for her. Sensation engulfed her with exquisite pleasure as he teased the tiny bud below the pale curls screening her feminine mound. All restraint was gone. Her entire being was centred on the throbbing need he had awakened and the wickedly tormenting expertise of his technique. The yearning hunger got stronger and stronger until it felt as though her whole body was primed on a knife-edge of intolerable tension and longing. When he finally tipped her off that edge into climax, it was as if an explosion began low in her pelvis and slowly, wonderfully, roared in wave after glorious wave through the rest of her.

She was still awash with wondering bliss and stunned by the intensity of the experience when Aristandros slid between her thighs and sunk his hands below her hips to raise her. His iron-hard shaft probed her lush opening, and she gasped at the strangeness of a sensation magnified by the incredible sensitivity of her tender flesh. He attempted to plunge deeper, but for an instant her body seemed to resist him. With a stifled exclamation he tipped back her knees to ease his entry. Her untried feminine sheath finally stretched to accommodate him, and she cried out at the sudden shockingly sensual pleasure of his penetration. Her heart was racing as he delved deeper into her, and she arched up, on fire with excitement and renewed hunger. Nothing had ever felt so amazing. She was spellbound by the heady exhilaration of his masculine dominance and the extraordinary pleasure that was building inside her again. Just moments later she surged feverishly to another sexual peak which shattered her like glass into a hundred glittering pieces and flung her into the sun. Stunned by the explosive intensity of the pleasure, she was better prepared when it happened yet again, before he achieved his own release.

In the aftermath of that wild rollercoaster experience, Ella was in shock and as physically weak as a newborn kitten, drained by her own extravagant response.

‘My every dream comes true,’ Aristandros purred as he stretched like a jungle cat in the heat of the sun. Rolling back to her, he dropped a kiss on her brow and studied her with unashamed satisfaction. ‘A multi-orgasmic woman who sets my bed on fire, khriso mou.’

Ella was hugely embarrassed at having been so wildly responsive. She could not deny that sex with him had proved to be an extremely pleasurable activity. But, whether it was fair or otherwise, she pretty much hated him for the fact that he had made her enjoy herself. Her lovely flushed face bleak as a wintry day, she evaded his keen scrutiny because she felt she had let herself down. After all, she had planned just to tolerate his love-making, not leave him with the impression that he was an amazing lover.

‘And so beautiful,’ Aristandros remarked, trailing caressing brown fingers lazily through the silken tangle of white-blonde hair lying across her slim shoulder. ‘But remarkably inventive with the truth.’

Her hackles rose instantly. Given the excuse, she pulled away from him and snapped, ‘Meaning?’

‘You said you’d had a lot of lovers. But I don’t think there was even one.’

‘Well, you’d be wrong!’ she hissed furiously.

Aristandros captured her hand to imprison her when she began scrambling out of the other side of the bed. ‘I’ve never shared a bed with a virgin before, but you felt as tight as one,’ he imparted softly.

Affronted by the intimacy of that comment, Ella wrenched her hand out of his. ‘Wishful thinking, eh?’ she jibed, high spots of colour burning over her cheekbones. ‘You’re Greek to your backbone, aren’t you? You’ve slept with scores of women but you don’t want one who’s enjoyed the same freedom. In fact, your ultimate hypocritical fantasy is a virgin!’

‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ Aristandros intoned with an icy bite to his words.

‘Se miso; I hate you!’ Ella spat at him.

Stalking across the bedroom, Ella took refuge in the bathroom. She was trembling and her eyes were scratchy with the tears she was fighting back. He had become her first lover, but she would sooner have cut out her tongue than admit that fact to him. She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction—the knowledge that she hadn’t got really close to any man since he had walked out of her life seven years earlier, telling her that she would regret turning him down until her dying day. She had met other men, but sadly nobody who had had the same effect on her as Aristandros Xenakis. Having loved and lost him, she had been determined not to settle for anything less. And those high standards had ensured she’d stayed single and alone.

Recognising just how far she had now fallen from her own ideals hurt. Ari made her feel vulnerable and threatened. She already felt as though he had turned her inside out. She got into the shower to freshen up, still shaken that he should have noticed that she was something less than experienced. After years of athletic activity and the egg-donation process that had resulted in her sister conceiving, Ella had been confident that he would have no reason to ever guess the truth. Her pride utterly denied him any right to that truth.

She was wrapped in a towel when a knock sounded on the door. She flung it open. ‘What now?’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Aristandros demanded rawly. ‘We’re good together. Tomorrow you meet Callie. What’s wrong?’

The sound of her niece’s name, the tacit reminder of their agreement, steadied Ella. ‘Nothing’s wrong. It’s been a long day, and I suppose I’m tired,’ she muttered, sidestepping him to leave the bathroom.

In the dressing room she selected a strappy nightdress and got back into bed, scolding herself for her loss of temper and control. She was being stupid. Antagonising Aristandros was pure insanity. Bitten, he would bite back, and she had the most to lose. She was not necessary to him and far from irreplaceable. Any number of women would be happy to assume the role of mistress, and none of them was likely to shout at him or insult him. He wasn’t accustomed to that kind of treatment and he wouldn’t tolerate it.

At dawn the following morning, she listened while Aristandros showered and dressed and left the room before she drifted off to sleep again. A maid wakened her a couple of hours later and told her that Aristandros would breakfast with her when she was ready. Aware that within a few hours at most she would be meeting Callie, Ella leapt out of bed with enthusiasm and rushed to get dressed. Breathless and unbelievably tense, she entered the elegant modern dining-room.

‘Good morning,’ she breathed stiltedly, every skin cell in her body jumping as Aristandros cast down his copy of the Financial Times and rose to his full, commanding height.

Having sex with him had increased her awareness by a factor of at least a hundred. Uneasily conscious of the intimate ache between her thighs and the still-swollen contours of her mouth, she felt the hot blood of embarrassment engulf her face with uncomfortable warmth even before she met his brilliant dark-golden eyes. He gave her a steady look that betrayed nothing beyond his rock-solid assurance and cool.

For some reason she remembered their first date seven years back, when he had wakened her whole family by arriving unannounced at an early hour to take her out sailing on his yacht. Her stepfather, had fawned on him to a mortifying degree while her twin half-brothers had hovered, unsure whether to approve or disapprove of a mega-rich Xenakis with a bad reputation taking an interest in one of their sisters. Only her mother had had reservations. Ella hadn’t really appreciated just how rich, powerful and well-known Aristandros was until she saw the way other people treated him.

She was surprised by how much of an appetite she had, and she ate a good breakfast before asking tautly, ‘Is Callie on her way here?’

‘No. She’ll be waiting for us on Hellenic Lady with her nurse. We’re sailing home to Greece,’ Aristandros informed her.

Like all of his family, Aristandros was never happier than when he was on a boat. Susie had complained bitterly about Timon’s love of the water, which she had not shared.

‘I hope she likes me,’ Ella muttered before she could think better of revealing that admission of insecurity.

‘Of course she will.’ Aristandros shot her a lingering look redolent of very male appreciation.

Her cheeks warming, Ella stirred her coffee.

‘She’s also very lucky I let you get out of bed this morning,’ he husked.

Ella dealt him a startled glance from her vivid blue eyes.

Aristandros rested a lean-fingered brown hand on her slim thigh and urged her round to face him. ‘I wanted to keep you awake all night. Moderation isn’t my style, koukla mou.’

Wildly conscious of the unashamed hunger that had flared like liquid gold in his intense gaze, Ella found herself leaning forward to speed up the meeting of her mouth with his. She could not have explained what prompted her to make that encouraging move. But that spontaneous kiss was indescribably sweet and intoxicating, and it sent every nerve-ending jumping with vibrant energy and response. A quickening sensation thrummed low in her pelvis. A moment later, his hand was meshed in her hair, holding her to him, and a moment after that he had lifted her right out of the chair into his arms. Excitement blazed through her like solar flares as he carried her back to the bedroom …