Kitabı oku: «Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks», sayfa 19
The wariness slowly dissipated as she held his gaze and finished her drink. Something new dawned in her glittering gaze—a satisfaction, and his breath rattled. One long leg stretching in front of her, her stance loosened. Her slender shoulders squared, her nostrils flared.
“I would let you think that if I thought it would hurt you. I would do anything right this moment if I thought it would make you bleed.”
He found himself walking toward her, found himself straddling the lounger to face her. It was as though the combination of pain and fury in her eyes tugged at him.
She looked glorious, infinitely breathtaking.
She had already somehow pierced him, the truth lingered on his lips. The thought of that vulnerability, of sharing that much with her made his gut clench.
Clasping her cheek, he lifted her to face him, his pulse pounding in his veins. The sound of her sharp breath was like a balm to him. “Are you so thirsty for my blood then, pethi mou?”
“Yes.”
Her resounding answer sent a shiver through to his very bones. It was as though seeing Giannis had peeled off that facade of hers.
“Are you satisfied, Stavros? Have I risen in my worthiness in your eyes?”
The thunderous roar of his heart, the curling heat in his muscles made it harder for him to whisper the one question that had been battering at him all day. He felt as if a huge truth was within his grasp, as if the real Leah was within his reach. And in that moment, he would do anything to have it.
To have her, to know her, to feel her…
If he had her, would the strange turmoil inside him stop?
“When has my opinion of you begun to matter, Leah?” he whispered softly, the words burning on his lips.
He felt her instant recoil in the stillness of her form, in the way the very air around her seemed to suspend and freeze.
A violent energy burst from her limbs. Lifting the hem of that heavy, voluminous dress away from her legs, she faced him. A flash of a toned thigh met his gaze and he looked away guiltily, the depth of his hunger for her shredding his control.
Her hair whipped around her face, the swish of her dress adding to the harsh exhales of her breath.
The uncaring mask back in place, she mocked him with that practiced glare in her eyes, with that biting edge to her tone. By hiding from him what he so desperately wanted to see.
“You know what, Stavros? Scratch that answer. I don’t care whether I could hurt you or not. I don’t give a damn about you. I did what you asked of me, I made sure Giannis is happy. I played the part of an heiress and his loving granddaughter to the hilt. Which means I’m one step closer to achieving my freedom. That’s what I care about.
“Tell me what will make the next month go faster so that I can see the back of you. Tell me what is next so that I never have to talk to you ever again.”
A dangerous fire burst in his belly.
How dare she put on this mask again? How dare she deny him even the merest hint of the real her? How dare she sink under his skin and yet deny him the same satisfaction?
How dare she turn him into this man teetering on the edge of his control, and walk away so blithely?
Before she could get to her feet and escape, because he had no doubt that she was about to escape, he clasped her wrist and tugged her down.
She fell onto her haunches, her shoulders knocking against his chest. For the first time in his life, Stavros gave in to every irrational urge, every desperate want. “What are you afraid of, Leah? Me or yourself?” he taunted.
Primal satisfaction pounded through him, the increasing frenzy of her movements telling him he had hit the mark. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, twisting her upper body to get away from him. Ended up torturing him further with the slide of her body against his.
“Then face me, Leah,” he whispered, driven by some reckless urge to prove that his opinion mattered to her, that he mattered to her.
Just as she was beginning to matter to him…
She couldn’t let him touch her, she couldn’t let him kiss her.
If she let him touch her tonight, if she let him hold her tonight, something inside her would break. She would pour out the whole wretched truth, she would blurt how lonely she had been…
If she let him see the real her, she would have no shield, no armor against him. And even in the fragility of her emotions, Leah knew she couldn’t let Stavros close.
“Why are you acting like this?”
Her arms ached with the effort it took to hold herself so stiffly in the circle of his body; every inch of her hurt to stay unaffected in the warmth of his rough embrace.
“Like a man acts with his wife?”
She fought back stupidly hot tears, knowing that she didn’t stand a chance against that claim.
When she pushed against his wrists again, he grabbed her hands this time. Laced her fingers through his and pulled her forward. Her hip touched his rock-hard thigh and she bit down on her lip.
Giving up her struggle, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “What do you want from me?”
“All I’ve ever wanted is the truth, pethi mou.” His fingers circled her nape with a possessively delicate touch. Her heart thudded as if it would thunder out of her chest as she raised her head. Molten heat filled his eyes. “But you won’t give me that. So, I will claim what I can of you.”
Somehow she shook her head, even mesmerized by how low and silky he sounded, by how astonishingly expressive his face was.
How had she always seen only one facet of Stavros?
There were so many sensations—the rough texture of his hands against hers, his bruising grip on her wrists, the sudden heaviness of her breasts as they jutted against him, the beckoning hardness of his thighs against her hips—she should have expired from so much sensory input. It was as though her body was one pealing, pulsing mass of sensation…
He was everything she ever wanted and yet she couldn’t give in. “I don’t want this. I…”
“In this, you’re not a good liar.” He placed a finger on the pulse at her neck, feral satisfaction filling his gaze. “Your pulse betrays you…your darkening eyes betray you.” With every word he said, his accent became thicker, her breaths came faster. “Even your mouth betrays you…” His long fingers framed her cheeks, pulling her closer.
Her hips nudged his thighs apart, and the hottest sensation zigzagged through her. His thighs were so hard and powerful, his touch possessive and potent.
How was she supposed to resist him when he looked at her like that?
“I will not be your wife soon. I won’t—”
He smiled then, and the sinful curve of his mouth, the dark laughter in his eyes undid the last layer of her willpower. “Now, tonight, in this moment, you’re still mine, yineka mou. One kiss for all the trouble you have caused me, Leah, one kiss for everything you deny me…”
He had turned her life upside down, and now he was doing the same to her heart.
Even as he staked his claim, he didn’t take the kiss. Long lashes hiding his gaze, his arm around her waist a heavy weight, he paused. But sinking under a deluge of emotions, Leah stared, transfixed, at the bow shape of his leanly sculpted mouth, felt need trump every fear.
Covering the last millimeter, she pressed her mouth to his. His savage growl shocked her as much as the incinerating texture of his lips…
His mouth was hot and hard, and a million sparks exploded under her skin.
With erotic strokes, he left her no air to breathe, gave her no room to think. Sensation exploded as he slanted his lips this way and that, his fingers in her hair holding her immobile for him. Teeth bit into her lower lip and punished. When she moaned, he softly blew at the spot before nipping again.
One hand slid over her hips, moved possessively over to her buttocks and then pulled her closer until she was straddling him. But not close enough for her to feel the part of him that she wanted to…
Even that, he controlled.
Her breasts felt full and aching as he crushed her against the wall of his chest with a palm at the base of her back. She panted, her breath balling up in her throat. Trembling, she ran her fingers over her mouth, and her cheek where his stubble had scratched her skin.
That mouth that could lacerate her with words, God, it could weave such erotic magic…those hands that had dumped cold water on her, they could evoke such heat in her; the cradle of his arms, it made her feel so alive…
He didn’t kiss softly, he didn’t seduce, he didn’t cajole.
He wrung the response out of her as he did everything else with her. Impinging his will on her senses, imprinting his hard muscles over her soft ones… The way he ruled her life, the way he decided what she needed.
She could have spent the next hundred years wedged against his hardness, lost in his kiss, delirious with the pleasure he brought her. But not let him tell her what she needed, not accept what he deigned to give her.
No!
In that, she couldn’t let him decide her fate, couldn’t let fear rule her.
Determined to give him a fight, determined to demand her due, she pulled her mouth away from his, trailed it along that hard jawline, buried it in the crook of his neck. Tasted the salty tang of his skin. An insistent pull began at her sex, and she moaned against his bristly jaw.
His grip loosened in her hair, his other hand loosely anchoring her against him as she caressed him roughly, learned every muscle and sinew.
She touched him everywhere, reveling in the tensile hardness of him. Traced up his rock-hard thighs, up toward his groin. And her palm found his erection—hard and long and so utterly arousing… Her breath jerked in her throat.
She had done this to Stavros. The harsh rhythm of his breath in her ears, that incredible stillness of him around her…
Goaded by a clamoring instinct, she shaped him with her palm, moved her finger down the length of him, a shiver spewing in her own muscles.
A guttural sound fell from his lips as he bucked against her hand. It lasted an infinitesimal breath but she knew he had almost surrendered then, that he had lost his rules, his very control then.
Only a second but it was still a victory.
He clasped her wrist in a vise-like grip. She looked up at him and smiled, feeling dazedly powerful, painfully glorious.
In this moment, with him…any pain would have been worth it.
Dark color filled his cheeks, his gaze haunted, agonized. “Why do you push me to the very edge, Leah?” His accent was coarse and uneven as he breathed the words into her temple. “Why do you fight me, deny me every step of the way?”
“Did you not like how I responded, Stavros?” she said shivering, and for a second, he clasped her in his warmth. If he had showed her tenderness…no, this was better. “You forced me to…to respond, just as you force me into everything. That kiss was about domination, not desire, not about taking tenderness.”
He studied her, his own gaze curiously empty. “And if I had asked?” Shaking his head, he stepped away from her. As if he didn’t want her answer. When he met her gaze again, his expression was shuttered. “You’re not wearing your ring.”
“It’s somewhere in my jewelry.”
“As long as you’re still bound to me, you will wear it.”
She stared in stunned silence.
“It would please Giannis too. And that matters to you, doesn’t it, Leah? So I don’t have to worry that you would talk about our little deal with him.”
“And when I’m…when I win our deal?” she forced the words out through the knot in her throat. That she would never see him again was like a lead weight in her chest.
“You will not abandon him, I know that.” Retribution, if she did, rang in his tone. “And I will continue to take care of the one man who means the world to me.”
Stavros left Leah without looking back, the image of her swollen mouth and dazed eyes burned into his brain forever. If he stayed another minute, he didn’t know what he would do.
He was unknown to himself the way he had reached for her, the way he craved her. In that moment, he had so desperately needed to claim something of her. Shuddering with frustrated desire, he wondered if she had given him anything that he hadn’t taken, wondered why it mattered so much, now.
One of these days, he would be releasing her from their marriage. He knew it as surely as the taste of her still floated on his lips.
Yet, instead of anticipating his freedom, all he suddenly knew was a keen urgency.
To understand Leah, to steal a part of her for himself even as she denied him.
CHAPTER NINE
WHY HAD HE kissed her?
The question haunted Leah endlessly.
What had driven her into giving in so easily?
If she closed her eyes, she could still hear his harsh breath, his softly spoken words…
Her fingers shook and her scissors slipped on the fabric. With a frustrated cry, Leah threw the scissors across the room and fingered the silk gently.
The sheer tulle she was cutting for the underskirt of the wedding gown was the most expensive fabric that she had ordered for her collection. At least, the amount of cloth she had ruined was minimal.
Carefully, she folded the fabric and tucked the tissue wrapping around it. She wasn’t going to get anything that needed focus done today.
More than a week had passed since the night of the party. The next evening, Stavros had left. She had had a feeling he had left because of the kiss.
There was something new—an intensity to his gaze now when he looked at her.
Walking to the rack, she took a cocktail dress in deep red. Threading the needle, she sat down on the couch and began piping the hem.
She was glad she had persuaded Stavros to have most of her materials packed and sent to her grandfather’s estate. Her grandfather tired easily and without her work to keep her busy, she would have driven herself mad thinking of Stavros the whole time.
The sheer arrogance of the man, the clinical coldness with which he had made her respond—she had whimpered like a dog, for God’s sake… Even that couldn’t stop her from trembling every time she remembered the feel of his rough mouth, the bite of his teeth into her lower lip, the way his large hands skimmed and molded her body…
It had been her first kiss and it had been an exercise in… What? A war of wills? A balm to his ego? Or had he been as powerless as her?
Frustration carved through her.
She wanted to hate him, she did hate him for that cold resolve…but he also made her feel so alive. Lost in his kiss, drowning in his arms, there had been no place for fear, no place for hiding.
Nothing but living…
When he looked at her with such glittering desire in his tawny eyes, when he looked at her as if she could unlock something inside him…it was so easy to believe that he saw her as an equal.
Which was the stupidest thing ever given that he was with his lover in Athens attending a charity event right now… He was probably back in her bed too, she thought nastily and gasped as she pricked her finger with the needle.
The good thing was how much work she had gotten done and the time she had spent with Giannis.
After an excruciating couple of days, Giannis had finally taken pity on her and asked her to show him a dress from her collection. He had pronounced her dress beautiful and her, an extremely talented designer who would take the fashion industry by storm. Making dresses was in their blood, he had said with pride. While his praise had been extravagantly effusive, it had still filled her with warmth.
So every day, she took breakfast and lunch with him, then accompanied him on a short walk around the house. Sometimes, they played a board game that he taught her, and sometimes, they discussed her designs. They carefully kept away from talking about Stavros and the state of her marriage.
After being afraid for so long, after training herself to not get attached to him, forming such a strong emotional bond should have been hard to do in just a few days. But spending one of those yawningly long Greek afternoons chatting with Giannis, or just sitting together in comfortable silence, or the times he would nap and she would sit with her sketchpad on the back terrace, had become incredibly precious to her.
Her grandfather was irreverent, naughty, and kind.
As the sweltering days gave way to cooler nights, her fears melted away and like the leaves slowly changing color, an incredible sense of joy pervaded her. It was so alien that she had taken to staring at herself in the mirror, wondering if it made her look different.
As her cell phone chirped, she realized it was time for lunch with Giannis.
The time that Stavros had stipulated she spend with Giannis was rapidly coming to an end, and suddenly, saying goodbye to her grandfather, even temporarily, was the last thing Leah wanted to do.
Stavros was avoiding her, she knew as surely as her heart thumped when he called every evening and asked about Giannis.
Something had changed between them that night, whether for good or bad, she didn’t know.
Her footsteps clicking on the outer courtyard, Leah sighed. She could hate him all she wanted for forcing her to this, but she wouldn’t have had this wonderful week with Giannis if not for him.
Leah joined Giannis at the table laid out on the back patio that offered an unending view of the shoreline. The raised porch provided shade from the Greek sun. Reaching Giannis, she kissed his papery cheek and sat down.
The small table groaned under the weight of a colorful and mouthwatering array of dishes. “I didn’t know that we were having a feast today,” she said, spreading her napkin on her lap. “I would have skipped breakfast and run a few more miles.”
“Eat,” Giannis said. “No man likes his woman so thin that it could hurt him if he embraces her.”
Popping a piece of a juicy, thick-crusted pie into her mouth, Leah shook her head. “Since no man is actually intent on embracing or otherwise expressing love for your granddaughter,” she continued in that same irreverent tone, “no worries there.”
It had become a bit of a game this past week between them, about who could say the most outrageous thing. The smile disappeared from Giannis’s face. “He is your husband, child. Are you denying him rights?”
Leah coughed, choking on the flaky piece of pastry. Recovering, she took a sip of frosty lemonade. “I don’t want to ruin the afternoon by talking about it.”
“Your mother is gone. Calista is gone. I learn from Stavros that you keep to yourself. Maybe talking to an old man will help, ne?”
His overtly sweet tone made her smile. “I do not want to talk about his rights, or how subservient I have to be because I’m his wife, grandfather.”
“You want a modern marriage. I understand. But I have concern for you. You are very lonely. I see it in your eyes.”
She was lonely, she had been for so many years now. That’s why she had capitulated so easily to Stavros’s touch.
She could almost fool herself into believing that.
“Leah?”
Leah didn’t have the heart to push his concern away. It was so strange that she couldn’t be angry with Giannis when he was the one who gave Stavros all the power over her, yet she could hold a grudge against Stavros himself.
Somewhere along the line, it had become a shield, she realized. A shield that was slowly beginning to get holes. That’s what had changed.
Her grandfather clutched her fingers and she returned the pressure, feeling a sudden thickness in her throat.
“What Stavros and I have…it’s too complicated. How can I think of him as my husband or anything else respectful for that matter if he continues to treat me like a child?”
“It is his nature to protect the people he considers close.”
I’m not close to him, the juvenile taunt rose to her lips.
She didn’t care that she wasn’t, she decided resolutely.
“I have a feeling that’s all he knows how to do. He…I have never seen him laugh, never need anyone. Never seen him vulnerable.” And yet, he had looked so different that night they kissed, almost vulnerable…to her touch, to her words even. “He was probably born fully formed with a set of rules about how life should be lived, in his hand.”
Something flickered in Giannis’s gaze and Leah swallowed the rest of her words. “Stavros does not ask, or take anything for himself. Only gives.”
There was such truth in her grandfather’s words that Leah stilled. She had never seen him ask, or demand anything for himself. It had only ever been about her, or Calista or Giannis, or even Dmitri sometimes. But never about himself.
Still grappling with that, she made her voice casual and gripey again. “For all I know, he does not need anything like normal people do. He will probably order the cook to not serve me if he learned I eat my dessert first.”
A twinkle appeared in Giannis’s eyes. “You speak like this to him?”
When she nodded, he laughed, the flimsy sound bursting out of him. It shook his frail frame, and alarm crashed through her. Sensing her anxiety, he sobered. “Laughing with you is good for me. I still believe in the rightness of your marriage. You are precisely what Stavros needs in his life. And you—” something too close to the truth lingered in his eyes “—him. I wish you would give it a real try. You will find him to be an honorable man.”
Beneath his rigidness, beneath his tunnel view of the world, she hated to admit, Stavros’s actions had always been driven by good intentions.
What would it be like to trust him with her fears? What would it be like to give herself over to him? To really give their relationship a try? To be the woman he shared himself with?
Feigning a nonchalance she was far from feeling, she looked at Giannis, who watched her curiously. She had seen the questions in his eyes, had seen him hesitate. And suddenly, she couldn’t bear to go away with Giannis not knowing the truth.
Abandoning her food, she clasped his hand. “I didn’t take drugs that night. I have never touched that stuff in my life. I know I have pained you but I…”
A catch in her throat, she pinned her forehead to his hand.
How could she put her irrational fear into words?
The sound of a soft tread, the way her skin prickled, she instantly knew.
Without turning, she let go of Giannis’s hand and leaned back in her seat.
Stavros was back.
He believed her.
The realization stopped Stavros in his tracks. As powerful as the sun beating down on him, as simple as the feeling in his gut.
Just as she would never have gone to the media with her story, would never have dragged Giannis and him into a dirty scandal to facilitate a divorce.
She had been bluffing that day.
And he had fallen for it.
He had believed every lie Leah had ever told him, had spun his own theory of how she had led Calista astray, that, somehow, she had convinced his naive sister to try something dangerous…
But if Leah hadn’t been the one that had pushed Calista to it, then what had happened? That Leah had lived while Calista had died of a drug overdose that night, he had chalked it up to pure chance.
But it wasn’t.
Whatever choice she had made that night, his sister had made it of her own accord.
His head pounded with the questions it let loose; his entire world tilted.
Had he not really known Calista either?
“Come, Stavros,” Giannis beckoned him with a smile before he could disappear with his shifting thoughts.
Stavros looked up, zeroing in on Leah with a stinging hunger.
On her way to the other side of the table, she stilled without looking at him. Her fingers slipped on the serving spoon, the sound clanging in the patio.
Slowly, she moved her head and met his gaze. The impact of it rocked through him, the picture she presented ripping through the semblance of control he had fooled himself into achieving over the past four days.
An off-shoulder, black, cutoff blouse showed a strip of her back, indented by the line of her spine, an outlandish article of clothing if he had ever seen one, and yet it suited her to perfection, with the long, gray skirt that billowed around her legs.
A soft breeze pushed it against her legs, outlining the lean, toned length of them.
Heat thrummed in every pore, his arousal painfully instantaneous.
He wanted to see if she was just as silky everywhere, he wanted to see that glorious hair, right now piled atop her head and falling from it, spread against his pillows, he wanted to feel that mouth against every inch of him…
Leah affected him like no other woman ever did, or could. Whether it was because she was his wife or because she was inherently Leah—beautiful, demanding, lively—he wouldn’t know.
All he knew was that she was destroying every assumption he had made of her, inching toward her goal, once again, changing his life irrevocably.
But he couldn’t let her go, not until he knew the truth about Calista. Not until he knew everything there was to know about Leah.
Not until he had tasted that luscious mouth one more time.
Just this once, he would reach for what he wanted, he would take what he craved and damn his sense of duty.
The strangest expression glittered in Stavros’s eyes. Her gaze followed the corded length of his thighs as he chose the chair wedged against hers. The memory of how hard and welcoming he had been beneath her suffused her face with warmth. Hoping they would think it was the sun, she smiled pleasantly for Giannis’s benefit.
Giannis slowly got up from his chair, and both Stavros and she rose from theirs. Grabbing his walking stick, he waved them off. “It is time for me to rest. You both sit,” he said with such a teasing twinkle in his eyes that Leah sighed like a deflated balloon.
How would Giannis face it when Stavros finally set her free? Would Stavros tell him?
The moment Giannis was out of sight, she stood up too, the very joy she had found this morning evaporating under her own conflicting emotions.
His fingers clamping her wrist, Stavros looked up. “Stay, Leah…please.”
The edgy request warned her not to argue.
Increasingly aware of the high-pitched chirp of a bird in the olive groves, the rustle of leaves, and the painful thud of her own heart, she studied him under the guise of bravely facing him.
As always, he was dressed in formal clothes but the shirt was unbuttoned, and his hair looked like he had messed it up quite a bit.
From the arch of his eyebrows to the straight line of his nose, from the way his mouth tilted up on one side when he smiled to the blunt nails of his long fingers, he was painfully familiar to her now…a desperate longing awoke in her, to trace that austere face, to taste him in tenderness, to just once meet him as his equal without lies and fears.
“How is your collection coming along?”
Blinking, she searched for an answer. “Very well. I finalized the design on the last dress. I’m terrified that it might not be as breathtaking as I think it is.”
“The wedding gown?”
The smile came naturally then. “Yes. I have to do the cutting on it. I’ve been taking the fabric, laying it all out and then just staring at it for hours… I can’t afford to…”
“You’re nervous?” he said with such genuine warmth that she flushed.
“It’s the prize of my collection but it means so much more to me. A wedding dress, as much as it has become a symbol of status and wealth and showing off in these days, it means a lot to a woman, right? It’s the one day she gets to be what she longs to be all her life.”
Somehow, he had moved closer to her. Her hand lay in his loosely, the pad of his thumb tracing the top of it gently. “What is that?”
“Beautiful, special, loved.” Pulling her hand away from him, she smiled to herself. “No matter what age, that day, she is the center of the whole universe for this one man…that day, it’s a new beginning, a fresh start, a promise she cherishes that her life will hold meaning to someone else. It’s the first day of a whole new way of life, of the most important, intimate relationship she’s ever going to have…and the wedding dress… it symbolizes all those hopes and dreams she’s ever cherished.”
Sensing his stillness, she turned and saw the lacerating pity in his eyes.
It was like the most vulnerable part of her, the part she even hid from herself, had been ripped open.
Shutting her eyes to stop the heat building behind, she saw what he remembered.
She had married in a ghastly cream silk dress that had been too tight on her chubby body. With a stone-faced Dmitri as witness while Giannis lay in a hospital bed. Drowning in guilt over Calista, numb that she always seemed to be saying goodbye to loved ones, terrified about what Stavros intended, and hating herself…
That bleary day had been about punishment and penance, about duty and fear. Just as the moment after when he had pressed his mouth to hers, had been.
Even then she had been eager for his kiss, had clung to him in her shame when he had put her away from him, and wiped his mouth.
“At least, that’s the statement I want this collection to make, you know.” Her blasted voice wouldn’t stop quivering. “Like you said, it’s a career saturated with so many fresh faces that you can disappear in a second… You have to be able to put a new spin on your collection, present it almost like a story so that your consumers will fall in love with it, and that’s how—”
Clasping her chin, he turned her toward him. From casual to a vehement intensity, his expression changed in mere seconds. “Don’t, agape mou.”
