Kitabı oku: «Savage Seduction»

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, HELL!’

Jade made the husky imprecation as she emerged from the gin-clear water, to see that the two would- be Romeos from her home city of London had none too subtly moved themselves even closer to her towel. She shook the droplets of water from her long hair, feeling decidedly disgruntled at the prospect of having to tell them politely to go away. Again.

The droplets of water had already begun to dry on her skin. The sea had been the temperature of warm milk and as soon as she’d left it the relentless heat of the sun had started beating down on her without mercy. But that was Greece for you.

The most exquisite place she’d ever visited—with sky which was bluer than a denim shirt and sand the colour of cream and the texture of caster sugar. Add to that the heady scents of lemon mingled with pine, the wine-dark sea and the drowse-inducing mass chorus of the cicadas, and you could under- stand why when people discovered Greece they felt they’d stumbled on Paradise.

If only it weren’t so darned hot!

She picked her way over the burning sand, and one of the Romeos sprang to his feet, the sun glinting off his fair hair.

‘Hi, there, beautiful,’ he said, somewhat unorig- inally. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘No, thanks,’ answered Jade coolly, wondering what it was about some men which made them so dense in picking up the distinctly negative vibes she was sending out.

‘How about—’ He raised his eyebrows sugges- tively, as his glance strayed to her sopping bosom, and Jade felt a sudden stirring of apprehension as she picked up her sarong to cover the tiny yellow bikini she wore.

His leer increased. ‘—if I rub some sun-cream into your back—?’

‘How about,’ came a deep and softly menacing voice from behind Jade’s back, ‘if you left this beach and never returned?’

And Jade whirled round to see the man from the restaurant, her throat immediately drying with the powerful impact of his darkly rugged good looks.

The Londoner was foolishly attempting resist- ance. ‘What’s it to do with you?’ he demanded belligerently.

‘Move away from here,’ came the flat and delib- erate statement, ‘before I am forced to remove you myself.’

There was something in his dark eyes which brooked no argument, and the two men blanched beneath their tans. Jade watched while they gathered their few possessions up into their arms and crept away like chastened dogs.

She stayed watching them go, unaccountably ex- cited by the man’s presence, yet oddly unsure of what to do next, and it was a moment or two before she could bring herself to look up at her rescuer, who stood silently surveying her, as though it was his every right to do so. He was a stranger, yes, and yet she recognised him instantly. A man once seen, never forgotten—with the kind of fiercely dominant presence which would imprint itself on any woman’s psyche, as it had on Jade’s. And yet they hadn’t even exchanged a word when she had seen him at the taverna yesterday…

Jade had walked into the local village to buy her provisions, and as usual it had been baking hot, absolutely baking. She had scooped her hand back through her thick fair hair as she’d looked over longingly at the shady canopy of lemon trees in the taverna. Through the air she could scent the lamb smouldering on the barbeque with its big bunches of thyme strewn all over it. She saw the tentacles of the octopuses dangling over a line, awaiting their ritual dousing in lemon juice before cooking. She wasn’t fond of eating alone in the restaurants where tourists abounded, but this one looked full of fam- ilies, and, more interestingly, full of Greeks. It must be good, she’d thought as she made her way to a shaded table.

She had ordered Greek salad, a beer and a plate of olives and was sitting enjoying them until when a small child, all dark curls and heart-shaped face, waddled over to her table. The mother called the child back in Greek, but Jade turned and shook her head, smiling, and starting to play ‘peep-bo’ with the toddler, who eventually climbed on to her lap and began to pick up a strand of her blonde hair in wonder. Jade pulled a funny face at the little girl who immediately giggled back as she continued to play with the blonde hair. The feeling of having the child in her arms was a new and rather enjoyable experience, and Jade couldn’t help hugging her, delighted when the little girl nestled back quite happily.

Jade had sensed, rather than seen, that someone was watching her. Well, in fact, most of the res- taurant were. They were enjoying the little inter- play between the child and the young tourist.

But this sensation was different… Little hairs at the back of her neck began to prickle with some nebulous excitement.

She narrowed her eyes, looking into the dim air- conditioned interior of the restaurant, and through the gloom she saw a table, where a man sat sur- rounded by three or four others. A man in a white shirt and white jeans. A man to whom the others listened. A man with eyes as black as olives and as hard as jet. Eyes which gleamed and narrowed, frozen in a stare as they captured her gaze over the head of the child. For a stunned moment Jade stared back, unable to look away—her mouth sud- denly dry, her heart pounding erratically and an unfamiliar excitement stealing over her as she gazed at the man, some unfamiliar and primitive longing sweeping over her as their eyes locked.

The man whose quietly menacing authority had driven away the two tourists, and who now stood on the beach in front of her.

The stranger was Greek; he could be nothing else. He had the proud bearing and the superbly shaped head of his ancestors. But he was tall for a Greek: a couple of inches over six feet, she hazarded. His skin was coloured a luminously soft olive, the kind of colour which made the sales of fake tan rocket, and it gleamed very slightly, the slight sheen em- phasising the ripple of muscle. His hair was as black as tar, rich and thick—a mass of unruly waves worn just slightly too long. Today he was wearing nothing but a pair of sawn-off denims; very faded and very scruffy. Those and a pair of beaten-up sandals. She swallowed at the sight of so much naked flesh on show. She should have been frightened, and yet fear was the last thing on her mind as she returned his gaze. She stared into eyes as cold and forbidding and harsh as jet. Narrow eyes that glittered; eyes which studied her with a detached and yet strangely intense appraisal which was almost intoxicating in itself.

And all of a sudden, it happened again: a replay of the sensations she had experienced the last time she had seen him. She felt her senses clamour into life, felt her heart accelerate painfully, accepted the flood of colour to her cheeks and the almost debili- tating dryness of her mouth as she battled to compose herself.

‘Why are you here on your own?’ came his terse interrogation.

The question floored her; she was so outraged at its implicit chauvinism. ‘Because I like my own company,’ she answered coolly.

He didn’t respond to the inference. ‘Well, do not do so again.’

Jade’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. ‘Don’t do what?’

Jet eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Do not put yourself at risk. This beach is too isolated; a woman is too vulnerable.’

He spoke, she thought suddenly, like a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed.

‘Who—are you?’ she asked suddenly, in a voice which seemed to have deepened by at least an octave.

He stilled, his ebony eyes narrowed with sus- picion. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! If I knew then I wouldn’t be asking, surely?’

‘No.’ He was examining her face intently, like a man newly given sight, and that slow inspection stirred some answering response deep within her. He looked, she thought dizzily, like a king—there was something stately and proud in his bearing. And yet how could he when, to judge by his ap- pearance, he was obviously a beach bum? She had been reading far too many romantic novels on this holiday—let that be a lesson to her!

‘My name is Constantine Sioulas,’ he replied, in a gloriously deep voice, with only the faintest trace of an accent, and again the black eyes pierced her with their intense scrutiny.

Constantine. She tested the name in her mind; found it the most beautiful name in the whole world, which was really rather appropriate, as the man in front of her was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on.

‘And you?’ He lifted an enquiring eyebrow. ’What is your name?’

‘It’s Jade,’ she said rather breathlessly, as though she’d just stopped running. ‘Jade Meredith.’

‘Jade.’ He nodded his head, thoughtfully. ‘Yes. It suits you,’ he pronounced. ‘Your eyes are the colour of jade.’

And her cheeks were now the colour of rubies, she thought ruefully as she blushed beneath the slow scrutiny of his gaze, revelling in the approbation on his face, and yet despising herself for the way she was behaving. Why not just fall down in rever- ence at his knees and kiss his feet, Jade!

‘No, they’re not,’ she lifted her chin in a defiant little gesture. ‘My eyes are pale green. Jade is darker.’

He shook his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he contra- dicted. ‘The Chinese say that the colour deepens and intensifies as the wearer acquires wisdom. It would be an interesting experiment—to see whether that is true.’ He gave a small almost reluctant smile, like the smile of a man not used to smiling. ‘Shall I buy you jade, Jade Meredith?’ he said softly. ’Jewels of jade for you to wear next to that pale, pale skin? Together we could watch it growing darker day by day.’

His words were so inappropriate considering that they’d only just met. And yet he spoke them with a coolly assured confidence which only renewed the throbbing of blood to her pulse points.

‘My skin isn’t pale,’ she protested. After nearly three weeks in the sun, it had turned a pale golden colour—she was quite proud of it!

‘Most certainly it is,’ he contradicted, in the rich, glowing voice overlaid with its barely discernible yet totally seductive accent. ‘Pale as milk—at least when you compare it with mine.’

And at his words she found her eyes drawn irre- sistibly to the dark olive of his bare chest and shoulders, the strong forearms, and the equally strong thighs. Her mind responded to his suggestion with frightening clarity as she pictured her lying on a bed with him, his dark limbs tangled with hers, strong brown thigh against a thigh as pale as milk… Jade had to close her eyes briefly to blot out the tantalising image, but it didn’t work.

‘Shall we?’ he whispered silkily.

‘Shall we what?’ she echoed huskily, lost in some misty erotic world of her own.

He smiled, and it was a suddenly ruthless smile. The smile, she recognised with an unquestionable certainty, of a man who was used to getting whatever it was he wanted.

‘I was referring to buying the jade,’ he said softly. ’But we should have to go to the mainland to do that, and I don’t want to waste precious hours doing that, not when there are so many more attractive alternatives.’ He smiled. ‘Come, I shall walk you back to your house.’

It was most definitely an order. Jade bristled. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘On the contrary,’ he answered smoothly, but there was a steely quality to his voice now. ‘I insist.’

Most annoyingly, she found the arrogant protec- tiveness in his assertion extremely attractive, but a lifetime of paying lip-service to feminism couldn’t be banished overnight! She met his gaze steadily. ’I said no, thank you.’

‘I heard what you said, but it doesn’t change a thing.’

Jade shook her head from side to side in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. ‘Do you always insist on getting your own way?’ she demanded.

He grinned then, the most heartbreakingly gorgeous grin imaginable, and that was her un- doing. ‘I always get my own way,’ he murmured. ’Though not always by insisting. I don’t usually have to,’ he added arrogantly.

That she could imagine! Jade had to try very hard to suppress a smile as she watched while he bent down to retrieve her bag and her towel and tucked them under his arm with an old-fashioned courtesy—which she certainly wasn’t used to. She knew she was fighting a losing battle here, and what was more, she was quickly discovering that it was a battle she didn’t particularly want to fight anyway. ’Then I’ll take you up on your offer of walking me home,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ And she saw from the slight elevation of his eyebrows that he hadn’t missed the sarcastic emphasis.

‘My pleasure.’ His eyes were mocking. Then. ’Those tourists—do not worry about them. They shall not bother you again.’

There was something about the grim, gravelly undertone to his voice which made it sound vaguely threatening. Jade swallowed; she hadn’t thought that men like this existed outside films! ‘Er—you wouldn’t hurt them?’ asked Jade anxiously. ‘They weren’t really doing anything.’

‘Because I arrived.’ His eyes glittered like coals from hell. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you.’ He made a terse exclamation in Greek.

Jade swallowed. Had she been blase about the danger? She saw the hard, formidable lines in the handsome face, saw the ruthless glitter in the black eyes, and she knew a fleeting feeling of sympathy for the two hapless tourists. ‘You won’t—hurt them?’ she whispered again, and was relieved to see a half-smile lift the corner of his mouth.

‘What did you imagine I would do—beat them into pulp?’ he queried softly, and then he gave an amused smile. ‘Do not be concerned, little one. I shall merely speak to them—that will serve as suf- ficient deterrent.’

Feeling as though she’d been caught up in a sudden time warp, Jade stared curiously up at him. ’Do you always over-react like this?’ she quizzed him, forcing her voice to be light.

He shook his head. ‘It is not over-reacting at all.’ Some feral light sparked at the depths of the coal- dark eyes. ‘In Greece, you see,’ he told her, ‘we are protective of our women.’

He made her feel very small and very fragile, not a bit like her rather lanky five feet nine, and Jade couldn’t repress a shiver of excitement. Put like that it sounded so darkly atavistic, so—well, so thrilling, the idea of someone like this black-eyed and powerfully built man actually protecting her. Be- cause hadn’t protection been in very short supply in her life up until now?

The sun beat down on their bare heads as they walked up from the beach to the narrow track which was masquerading as a road. Jade could see the heat shimmering hazily upwards into the endless blue of the sky.

‘Put your hat on,’ he said.

She obediently crammed the battered straw down on her head. ‘Shouldn’t you?’

He gave a little shake of his head. ‘I am used to the sun.’

And hair that thick, that black, thought Jade, would surely protect him from its fierce rays?

Lizards ran swiftly along the sun-baked road, and he named them for her, pointing out tiny scrubby and fragrant plants that she’d never noticed before. His accent was entrancing; it lulled her into a dreamy sense of well-being, and when they arrived at last at the small house she was renting she stared up at him, aware of the disappointment thudding through her. I don’t want this day to end, she thought suddenly.

‘You want to know what we should do next?’

Could he guess so easily what she was thinking? she wondered dimly. Did her reluctance to see him go show on her face? ‘I…’ Her voice tailed off in hopeless confusion—she who everyone always said could talk her way into the record books!

‘We have a number of choices,’ he mused, as though this were the kind of bizarre conversation he was used to conducting every day. Was he? ‘You could offer me some of your water and we could sit together and drink. Or we could walk down to the village and take some refreshment there. Alternatively, I could initiate what we both most want to do?’

And only the biggest fool in the world would have replied, ‘Which is?’

‘Why, to kiss, of course,’ he replied, his voice a velvet caress which would have melted ice. ‘That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?’

Now she could feel her cheeks blanch—heaven only knew what harm this man was doing to her nervous system! He was virtually making love to her with his eyes. Jade Meredith the fearless re- porter took stock of the potentially dicey situation she was in, and astonishingly still felt no fear. She used the gritty voice with which she’d fired ques- tions at soap stars and the unsuspecting wives of footballers.

‘Just who are you?’ she demanded. She’d met confident men in her life before, yes, men who were arrogantly sure of their effect on women, yes—but never one who was this confident!

At the question, his eyes narrowed and he stilled, watching her intently from beneath dark, luxuriant brows. ‘I told you.’ His voice was a slumberous caress. ‘My name is Constantine.’

‘Yes—but…’ Her voice trailed off helplessly. What could she say? Yes, you’re right, you delec- table man—I do want you to kiss me? More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life? She was breaking every rule in the book by even standing here listening to him. What about all that assertiveness training she’d undergone? Did women allow men to change their minds for them? No, they most certainly did not! She gave him a conven- tional and dismissive nod. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life. ‘It was very kind of you to accompany me—but I think you’d better leave now.’

He smiled again. ‘In time.’

He had moved closer now, and when he moved it was like poetry in motion. You could see the muscles moving in perfect symmetry beneath the olive perfection of his skin.

He really wasn’t that tall, she reminded herself; plenty of men were taller than six feet, and she was only a few inches shorter herself. Yet there was something about the width of his shoulders and the magnificent breadth of a chest with its dark, dark whorls of hair. Something, too, about the powerful thrust of his thighs—as solidly carved as the trunk of an oak tree. All these things combined to make him seem the biggest man she had ever seen. She suppressed another little shiver of excitement.

He was smiling now as he let her give him the once over, again with that curiously cold smile- as though laughter was a stranger to his life. ‘You aren’t afraid of me.’ It was a statement of fact; he sounded amused.

‘No.’ Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She knew that Greek men were notoriously old- fashioned. Would he have preferred it if she’d started backing away from him, white-faced and trembling? Oh, come on, Jade, she chided—why should you care what he’d prefer?

‘Not even a little afraid?’ he quizzed her softly. ’And yet you terrify me.’

Jade swallowed. Now he was talking in riddles. ’No, I’m not afraid of you,’ she said firmly, and held her chin up stubbornly. ‘But I happen to have a black belt in judo, just in case you’re getting any ideas.’

This provoked a laugh, a low, rich chuckle, and Jade stupidly felt as though she’d just won the first prize in a raffle. ‘Very commendable,’ he re- marked. ‘But you know that your—black belt—in judo wouldn’t do you any good at all?’

Such arrogance! Such amazing arrogance! ‘Let me enlighten you,’ she said quite calmly, which was astonishing considering how fast her heart was hammering away in her chest. ‘Size has nothing to do with it.’

‘Oh, really?’ he teased softly, and her comment became something else completely. The black eyes glittered with mischief, and Jade coloured to the roots of her hair. Now what had she said?

‘I mean comparative size,’ she said firmly, re- fusing to back down or be intimidated. ‘You are taller and obviously stronger than I am, but judo isn’t about brute strength—it’s all to do with control and balance, of observing your opponent and waiting for the right opportunity.’

‘I know. And that isn’t what I meant.’

‘Oh? And just what did you mean? You implied that I’d be unable to defeat you.’

‘Absolutely,’ he said softly. ‘And do you know why? Because I think that once we made contact…whoosh!’ He lifted the palms of his hands in front of that magnificent bare chest in a flam- boyant gesture that an Englishman could never have got away with.

Jade’s heart had renewed its hammering. She shouldn’t be letting him talk to her like this; didn’t Greek men notoriously think that Englishwomen were easy? Well, he was about to discover that Jade Meredith was not among that merry band of women who fell swooning into the arms of handsome islanders for two weeks of holiday bliss before being put firmly on the plane with a load of lies about writing. ‘Is this your normal chat-up line?’ she asked cuttingly. ‘Because it if is I’d give you nought out of ten for subtlety!’

The dark brows knitted together. ‘Chat-up line,’ he mused. ‘Considering that English is one of the most perfect and complex of languages, that phrase is rather—inelegant, wouldn’t you say?’

It was rather shaming that someone to whom English was not a first language could express himself so eloquently, Jade thought with a touch of irritation. She had expected that to put him in his place, not to start some highbrow discussion about semantics!

The ebony brows remained knitted together. ‘And if we’re going to continue this—fascinating dis- cussion—might I suggest that we do it in a little more comfort?’ He looked pointedly at the table where the empty water jug sat. ‘Shall we sit down?’

Excitement vyed with prudence. ‘Why should we? I don’t know you,’ she said stubbornly.

‘But you know enough to know that I won’t hurt you?’

Jade stared at him. Enough, yes, to know that he would never physically hurt her, but… as she looked into those glittering black eyes, observed the slash of jaw and the high cheekbones, she suddenly felt some terrifying fear icing her skin. A knowledge that, yes, this magnificent creature with the cold smile and the eyes of jet could hurt her. That through him she could learn the real meaning of pain; indescribable, unbearable pain… She started to shake uncontrollably, a violent tremor which ran through her body like wildfire.

He saw her tremble. A warm hand was placed on her chilled forearm and she felt his strength like a warm embrace.

‘Fear not—I will not hurt you,’ he said quietly.

You will, she thought suddenly. Oh, this was rid- iculous! Had three weeks in Greece had turned her into a clairvoyant? She shook him away inel- egantly, but he captured her hand in his, raising it to his mouth where it stayed just centimetres away from the proud curve of his lips.

‘Do you not know that in Greece it is customary to offer the traveller refreshment?’

Her breathing was inhibited, shallow, painful. She awaited the brush of his mouth on her hand.

In vain.

His eyes gleamed and he let her hand go, but somehow he had regained supremacy, and Jade was angry. Angry with herself for wanting him to press his lips on to her hand, and angry that he had not chosen to! And she wasn’t sending him away with him thinking that she was some kind of desperado! She straightened her shoulders and gave her most English smile, spoke in her most chillingly polite tone.

‘Then you must sit down and have a drink.’

‘Thank you.’ In response, he deepened his accent, his eyes sparking with mischief, and Jade found herself wanting to giggle. So much for icy polite- ness!

‘I’ll fill the jug and fetch another glass,’ she said hastily.

And she scrambled inside as he pulled out one of the wooden chairs, which now looked hopelessly insubstantial if expected to accommodate that large, muscular frame.

Jade filled the jug with water and ice and found the glass with fingers which were still trembling, her eyes lifting reluctantly to the small spotted mirror which hung on the whitewashed walls. A wild-eyed, fey stranger stared back at her. Her pale green eyes were almost unrecognisable as her own, the colour almost completely obscured by the deep ebony of two dilated and glittering pupils. Her mouth looked swollen and throbbing and redder than usual—had she been chewing it while talking to him? she wondered. Even her hair—baby-fine but masses of it—which she hadn’t had a chance to brush since he’d disturbed her; it had dried into a thick, pale cloud—shimmered like an uncontrol- lable halo around her head. The sun had bleached it almost blonde. Did Constantine, she thought suddenly, like women with blonde hair?

She took the jug and glass back outside, half afraid that he might have disappeared, but he hadn’t. He had spread those long olive legs beneath the table and was watching her return.

Walking suddenly seemed a skill she hadn’t yet acquired, and she would have stumbled if a strong hand hadn’t shot out and caught her. She managed to get the jug down on the table, but the tumbler slipped from her grasp; the sound of the glass shat- tering on the grey stone of the courtyard sounding piercingly loud to her ears.

‘Oh, hell! Now look what you’ve made me do,’ said Jade unreasonably, and, crouching down, she began gingerly to pick up the larger fragments.

He was beside her in an instant. ‘Be careful,’ he told her, but it was too late, a shard had pierced her forefinger, and crimson blood began to well and to drop in dark starry splashes on to the grey stone.

Her finger went up to her mouth, but he deliber- ately took it before it reached its destination, the black eyes fixed on hers as he put it into his mouth and sucked the blood away.

If there hadn’t been glass all around them, Jade thought that she would have keeled over. She felt the blood drain from her face as she stared into the night-dark eyes.

‘You—shouldn’t have done that,’ she said shakily.