Sale or return bride Page 8

  She was wondering frantically what to do when Sebastien took control and, with a smooth shift of his powerful frame, he rolled her under him and lowered his mouth to hers. Instantly her body erupted and with a whimper of helpless excitement she realized that he was so used to being in charge that all she had to do was to lie there and he'd make all the moves. He'd show her the way.

  It was her last logical thought before she fell deep into his kiss—

  Just like the time before, she forgot everything. She felt the erotic slide of his tongue in her mouth, the hotly sexual exploration that sent shivers through her whole body and had her arching against him. She felt his hand move downwards, dragging over one sensitized nipple and resting on her hip.

  And her head started to spin. Nothing felt straight or clear.

  Her heart hammered, her pelvis burned and her senses tan­gled and swirled in an exotic dance, fired by the sensual thrust of his tongue.

  Just when she thought she was definitely going to pass out, he dragged his mouth away from hers. With a reluctant groan he trailed his mouth down over her neck, her throat, until finally he lingered on her breast.

  At the first casual flick of his tongue she cried out in shock, driven wild by the intensity of the sensation, and as he sucked her into his mouth she shifted her hips in a desperate attempt to soothe the wild burning in her pelvis.

  'You have amazing breasts’ he groaned, turning his atten­tion to the other one. ‘ It was virtually the only thing I noticed about you when we first met'

  Some deeper part of her brain registered that remark but she wasn't capable of any reaction other than a pleading whimper.

  She wanted more— something —

  'Sebastien—' She breathed his name on a sob of desper­ation and he gave a wolfish smile of male triumph.

  'And the other thing I like about you,' he murmured hus­kily as he slid further down her frantically writhing and ex­cited body, ‘ is that underneath that prim, restrained exterior you are so hot. How could I ever have thought that you were cold and English?'

  Alesia couldn't even respond because at that moment he spread her legs in a ruthlessly possessive gesture and con­centrated his attentions on an entirely different part of her body.

  Torn between shock at being exposed to a man's gaze for the first time and a sensual pleasure so terrifying in its inten­sity that she could hardly breathe let alone think, Alesia bit back a moan of denial. Resisting her feeble attempts to close her legs, he held her firm and used his tongue with an erotic mastery that made her writhe and sob in an ecstasy that she hadn't even dreamed existed before this moment. She just couldn't believe that he was doing these things to her and that she was encouraging him.

  'Sebastien—' Confused and overwhelmed by the sudden explosion of sexual need that she didn't properly understand, she arched her back and curled her fingers into the sheets. 'Sebastien —'

  He slid up the bed in a fluid movement, his eyes scanning her flushed cheeks with ill-disguised satisfaction. 'Definitely not cold’ he murmured, his hand closing over her wrist as she reached to pull the sheet up. 'No way. You never cover up until I say so and I haven't finished looking at you yet.'

  His gaze made her feel hotter still and he slid a hair-roughened thigh over her legs as she writhed against the sheets in an attempt to relieve the burning need that threat­ened to consume her whole body.

  'Something the matter?' he taunted her softly, his eyes shimmering dark with barely restrained passion. Is there something you want from me other than my money, agape mou'

  Her body throbbed and ached from his all too skilled se­duction and she was just desperate for him to finish what he'd started.

  ' Say it,' he said harshly, shifting his weight so that his powerful body covered hers, teasing her further. She felt his silken arousal hard against her and curled her legs round him, arching in mute invitation.

  Still he held himself back, his gaze faintly mocking as he looked down at her.

  'Lose that English reserve. Tell me what you want, agape mou' he commanded and she lay looking up at him, totally in his control, her heart beating rapidly and her body con­sumed by a powerful craving that she just had to satisfy.

  ‘ You,’ she groaned softly, writhing under him in a wanton attempt to get closer. 4 You. I want you. Please.'

  With a growl of masculine satisfaction, Sebastien slid an arm under her hips, lifted her in a decisive movement and thrust into her with barely restrained masculine force.

  Shocked by the power of that alien invasion, Alesia gave a sharp cry and her eyes flew wide and clashed with his.

  She saw the sudden speculation in his sultry, sexy gaze and kept her expression blank. She didn't want him to know. The brief pain faded, extinguished by her driving need for physical satisfaction, and she moved her hips under his. His eyes still holding hers, he lowered his head and captured her mouth, teasing and tasting with his tongue until her whole body was burning hot and writhing under his.

  Only then did he move again, this time incredibly gently as if he was trying not to hurt her. And his unexpected ten­derness made the whole experience unbearably erotic. Alesia clutched at his broad shoulders and slid her hands down his muscular back, feeling the degree of strength and power that he'd so carefully leashed on her account.

  Without moving his mouth from hers, he lifted her with a strong arm, shifting her position, and ripples of excitement exploded through her sensitized body as he changed the an­gle.

  How did he know?

  How did he know to move in a certain way, touch her in a certain way?

  How could he make her feel like this?

  She gasped his name against his mouth and he gave a growl of satisfaction low in his throat and thrust hard, each stroke long and deep as he controlled her and drove her to completion. She shot into orgasm with a strangled cry of disbelief, her body convulsing around his in waves and waves of pulsing ecstasy that refused to end.

  It was wild and uninhibited and totally outside her control, her body just exploding in a frenzy of raw sexual excitement.

  She heard him mutter something rough in Greek and then with a harsh groan he grabbed her hips and buried himself deeper still, not even giving her a chance to escape from the storm that was overtaking them.

  She felt his hardness and his heat and then felt his muscles bunch as her frantic convulsions propelled him to his own climax. She felt his fingers dig into her scalp, felt the liquid pulse of his release as he powered into her, driven over the edge by the living force they'd created between them.

  Locked in the throes of pleasure which refused to diminish, Alesia slid a hand over his muscled back, feeling the heat of his skin, the vital masculinity of the man, as he struggled to control his breathing.

  His weight crushed her to the bed, his body still locked with hers in the most intimate way possible, and it crossed her mind that this was the closest she'd ever felt to anyone in her life. They were connected in every sense of the word.

  For a long moment Alesia lay still, utterly stunned by what had happened.

  Never in her wildest dreams or fantasies had she imagined that it would be like that.

  That two human beings could be so close.

  With a brief frown of confusion she lifted a hand hesitantly and touched his bronzed shoulder.

  What had happened?

  She'd started out hating him, and now—

  She swallowed hard and tried to make sense of what had just happened. Sifting through her tangled emotions, sud­denly she couldn't find the hatred any more. How could you share such intimacies with someone and hate them?

  And surely he couldn't hate her, either? How could some­thing so perfect have been created out of hate? It wasn't possible—

  She felt something inside her melt away, leaving her ex­posed and vulnerable but she didn't care. She'd discovered something that she hadn't known existed. Something amaz­ing.

  Guilt and confusion mingled inside her They'd shared
something really honest and yet she'd told him such lies. What would he say if he knew the extent to which she was deceiving him?

  Maybe she should tell him—

  After what they'd shared, she needed to be honest.

  Sebastien lifted his dark head and stared down at her flushed cheeks and bruised mouth for a long moment. Then he rolled on to his back and covered his face with a bronzed forearm.

  Feeling suddenly awkward, Alesia lay still, suddenly im­possibly shy, not wanting to be the first to speak. For a short time they'd been as close as two people could be. They'd shared something special and the whole world had shifted. Everything seemed different. He had to feel it too.

  They had to speak about it. She had to tell him the truth.

  Surely he'd say something in a moment.

  'It looks as though I'm going to get my money's worth.' His tone was cool and matter-of-fact.

  Without so much as a glance in her direction, he sprang out of bed with the lithe grace of a jungle cat and strolled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, leaving her rigid with shock.

  Sebastien stood under the shower trying to recover from what had proved to be the most explosive sexual encounter of his entire life. His usually sharp mind was foggy and his body throbbed in a state of almost agonized arousal. Breathing heavily, he eyed the door of the bathroom, torn between a primitive need to satisfy his libido and a desire to regain some sort of control over his unusually scattered emotions.

  He wasn't used to feeling like this.

  With an exclamation of disbelief he thumped the button on the wall and turned the water into an icy blast. He gritted his teeth and let the water sluice over his thoroughly over­heated body, seeking relief from his state of almost intoler­able discomfort.

  It was either that or return to the bed and make love to her again and again and again and that wasn't what this mar­riage was about.

  He hadn't expected to derive much pleasure from the ex­perience.

  Irritated beyond belief by her total obsession with money, he'd taken her to bed to make her feel cheap, to see if he could trigger any signs of conscience.

  He hadn't expected her reaction to him to be so totally uninhibited. Hadn't expected the chemistry between them to be so powerful.

  And he hadn't expected her to be a virgin.

  Cursing fluently he turned off the water, swept a bronzed hand over his face to clear his vision and reached for a towel. He was a man who was used to always being in control and while he'd been in bed with Alesia he definitely hadn't been. The knowledge that his loss of control had been with a woman whose values he despised made his response even more reprehensible in his opinion.

  Or did it? Was it really so surprising that he'd found the encounter almost unbelievably erotic? he wondered. The women he usually spent time with moved in the same circles as him, were sophisticated and sexually experienced. Sebastien gave a wry smile of self-mockery as he wrapped the towel around his lean hips. At what point had he lost sight of the truth? That, when all was said and done, he was, in fact, a very traditional Greek male and like all traditional men he preferred exclusivity when it came to women.

  It hadn't occurred to him that his new wife might be a virgin and the truth was that her innocence in the bedroom had somehow served to heighten the emotional and physical experience. Given that it wasn't an encounter he intended to repeat in the near future, he didn't need to worry.

  Having rationalized his response to his satisfaction, Sebastien glanced warily at the door that led to the bedroom.

  He'd get on with his own life, leaving her to spend his money. And if she wasn't already pregnant then he'd sleep with her again at some point.

  It was a good job that he was likely to be kept extremely busy for the foreseeable future.

  Alesia laid still, eyes tightly closed, physically drained and enveloped by a humiliation so acute that she could barely bring herself to address what had happened.

  How could he be so hurtful?

  And to think she'd almost told him the truth.

  She groaned as she remembered her own reaction to him. She'd had no idea it would be like that. That she was capable of such intensity of feeling. None of the limited experience she'd had before had prepared her for such a scenario.

  How could she have responded so wildly to a man that she didn't even like'!

  She covered her face with her arms.

  And how was she ever going to look him in the face again?

  For him it had clearly just been sex, whereas for her— Remembering how she'd sobbed his name and virtually begged , she gave another whimper of disbelief. There was no escaping the fact that she'd inadvertently given him yet more ammunition to feed his already monumental ego.

  She lay in the bed, listening to the sound of the shower, dreading the moment when the water stopped. She didn't want to be here when he came back. Didn't want to give him the chance to humiliate her still further.

  But before she could move the bathroom door opened and he strolled out, wearing nothing but a narrow towel tucked loosely around his lean hips.

  Now what?

  Was he planning on returning to the marital bed?

  Against her will, her eyes fastened on the dark hair on his chest and travelled downwards, knowing exactly what excit­ing secrets the towel concealed.

  Her mouth dried and she felt the immediate response of her own body.

  She ached in places she'd never ached before and when he casually dropped the towel on the floor and strolled to­wards her, a vision of bronzed, masculine perfection, her heart thundered in delicious anticipation.

  Unable to drag her eyes away from his magnificent body, Alesia struggled to breathe. How could she not have noticed before how staggeringly good-looking he was?

  And how could he be so relaxed and at ease when her entire body was humming with tension?

  Didn't he feel it too?

  He strolled to the edge of the bed, cast her a sweeping glance from under thick black lashes and then reached for his Rolex which he'd left on the bedside table.

  It was only when he turned away from her that she realized she'd been holding her breath.

  She stared at him as he walked back across the room and started to dress and the question spilled out before she could stop it. 'Are you coming back to bed?'

  'To what purpose?' His tone was bored and he didn't even glance in her direction as he finished dressing. This was business, remember , and for now at least that part of our business is concluded.'

  'And that's it?' Her voice was barely a whisper as she sat up, clutching the silk sheets to her breasts. 'That's all you're going to say?'

  He paused in the doorway, his lean, strong face displaying not one flicker of emotion as he studied her in brooding con­templation. 'Let me know if you're pregnant.'

  With that he strolled out of the room and let the door swing closed behind him.

  Soaked in humiliation, Alesia sank back against the pil­lows.

  How could he be so totally cold and unfeeling? Such an utter bastard?

  Almost screaming with anger and frustration, she rolled over to try and ease the maddening ache in her body and gritted her teeth.

  It didn't matter what he said or how he touched her, she was never letting him back in her bed again!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two weeks later Alesia was in the enormous kitchen at the far end of the house when Sebastien came striding into the room, simmering with barely restrained masculine aggres­sion, a thunderous look on his handsome face.

  'What the hell are you doing in here?' In raw frustration he raked lean bronzed fingers through sleek, dark hair and inhaled deeply. ‘I have been searching everywhere for you. No one had a clue where you were.'

  Sexual awareness shot through her body and Alesia dug her nails into her palms.

  Two weeks.

  It had been two whole weeks since she'd last laid eyes on him and, like a young puppy seeing his master after a long sepa
ration, her quivering, yearning body just exploded with excitement.

  One greedy, tentative glance at that lean, handsome face with its fierce, dark eyes and blue-shadowed jaw was enough to make Alesia's stomach drop and her pulse rate double. One glance and she remembered every frantic, hot, seductive moment of the way this man made love. And, if that wasn't bad enough, her whole being just lifted with happiness be­cause he was finally, finally home.

  Appalled by the strength of her reaction to him, she turned towards the fridge, hiding her face. She couldn't help the way she felt about him but at least she refused to give him the satisfaction of showing him, she thought grimly. He'd al­ready made his thoughts on the subject clear, having slept with her once and then absented himself for two whole weeks. Clearly their one sexual encounter had bored him in the extreme, whereas her complete lack of experience and sophistication meant that she'd left him in no doubt what­soever that he was a God in the bedroom. The knowledge that she'd held nothing back made her squirm with bone-deep humiliation.