‘Or did you imagine I’d be turning cartwheels for joy because the mighty Draco Viannis had sex with me today.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Would you have wept if Draco the fisherman had taken you that day on Myros?’
‘He didn’t exist,’ she said. ‘So how can I know?’
‘You could always—pretend.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s been too much pretence already. Now we have a business arrangement.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said softly. He removed his jacket, tossed it over the arm of one of the sofas and sat down, loosening his tie.
He smiled at her. ‘Then perhaps you would take off your dress—strictly in the line of business.’
Her skin warmed again, hectically. ‘My—dress?’
‘To begin with.’ His tie followed the jacket, and he began, unhurriedly, to unbutton his shirt.
She said, ‘You—you actually expect me to strip for you?’
‘It is hardly a novelty.’ His tone was dry. ‘After all, Cressida mou, the first time I saw your beautiful breasts it was your own idea.’
Her voice trembled. ‘I—hate you.’
He laughed. ‘That should add an extra dimension to the way you remove your clothes, my lovely one. I cannot wait.’
She said, ‘But someone might come…’
He grinned at her. ‘More than one, I hope, agapi mou.’
To her fury, she realised she was blushing again. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And why do you think I gave the housekeeper leave of absence? Precisely so we should not be disturbed. Now, will you take off your dress, or do you wish me to do it for you?’
‘No.’ Her voice was a thread. ‘I’ll do it.’
She unfastened the long zip, slid the dress from her shoulders and let it pool round her feet.
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘If we’d been married, would you have degraded me like this?’
‘And if we’d been on our honeymoon, Cressida mou, would you have expected either of us to remain fully clothed for very long?’
‘You,’ she said bitterly, ‘have an answer for everything.’
‘And you, my lovely one, talk too much.’ Draco leaned back, watching her through half-closed eyes. ‘Now take off the rest—but slowly.’
They lay together on the thick rug in front of the fireplace, his hands making a long, lingering voyage of rediscovery.
This time, she thought fiercely, she wouldn’t let it happen. She wouldn’t become some mindless—thing, subject to his every sexual whim. She had a will of her own and she would use it.
But it wasn’t easy. Not when he was kissing her slowly and deeply, his tongue a flame against her own. Not when her breasts were in his hands and the tight buds of her nipples were unfurling slowly under his caress. Or when he was stroking her flanks, cupping the roundness of her buttocks in his palms.
And not when she needed him so desperately, so crazily, to touch her—there—at the very core of her womanhood.
He whispered against her lips. ‘This time you have to ask, agapi mou. You have to tell me what you want.’
Her voice cracked. ‘Draco—please…’
‘Not good enough, my sweet one. Is it this?’ He kissed her breasts, taking each soft, scented mound into his mouth in turn.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No. Oh, God…’
‘Or this?’ His fingertips brushed her intimately, as lightly as a butterfly kiss and as fleeting.
Her only answer was a soft, involuntary whimper of yearning.
‘Or even—this?’ His voice sank to a whisper as he bent his head and his mouth found her.
She cried out, and for a moment her body went rigid, all her inhibitions rearing up in shock.
But her one prim attempt to push him away was unavailing. He simply captured her wrists in one strong hand and did exactly as he wanted.
Which, Cressy realised, as her whole body began to shake in sudden wanton delight, was exactly what she wanted too.
The last vestiges of control were dissolving under the warm, subtle flicker of his tongue. She was going wild, her head twisting from side to side, the breath bursting hoarsely from her lungs. Pleasure was filling her like a dark flame, driving her to the limits of her endurance. And beyond.
Her whole being seemed to splinter in a rapture so intense she thought she might die.
As awareness slowly returned, she realised she was kissing him, her parted lips clinging to his in abandoned greed. She had marked him too, she saw. There were small crescents on the smooth skin of his shoulders that her nails had scored in those final fainting seconds.
She felt bewildered—and ashamed that her resistance could be so easily and swiftly destroyed. And she was angry, too, because she didn’t want to be Draco’s creature, locked into this—sexual thrall.
He raised his head and looked down at her.
He said, his voice slurred, ‘I couldn’t concentrate at my meeting for thinking of your loveliness—your sweetness. I should be at a dinner tonight with a group of other bankers, but I had to find you—to be with you…’
She turned her head, avoiding his gaze. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’
‘No,’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘Just willing.’
He lifted her hips towards him, and smoothly and expertly joined his body to hers.
She could not fight him physically—she was no match for his hard, virile muscularity—but she could close her mind against him. Force herself to lie passive and unresponsive beneath him—refuse herself the delicious agony of consummation that his powerful body was offering her once more. That, she discovered with shock, her own sated flesh was incredibly, impossibly eager to accept.
And Draco knew what she was doing. Because he too was holding back, deliberately tempting her to abandon her self-denial and join him on the path to their mutual delight.
His mouth touched hers, softly, coaxingly, then brushed her closed eyelids. His lips tugged at the lobe of her ear and explored the vulnerable pulse in her throat. He whispered her name almost pleadingly against her breast.
And, in spite of everything, her iron resolve was beginning to falter, her aroused body making demands she could no longer ignore.
But Draco’s patience had cracked too. He was no longer teasing, or even very gentle. Instead, he was driving himself with a kind of grim determination towards his own climax.
At its height, he cried out something in his own language, his voice harsh, almost broken.
When it was over, he rolled away from her and lay, one arm covering his eyes, as his rasping breath slowly returned to normal.
Cressy sat up slowly, pushing her hair from her eyes. She supposed she had scored a small victory, but it seemed a barren, sterile thing, especially when her newly awakened body was aching for the fulfilment she’d spurned.
She felt cold, and a little frightened. She didn’t dare look at him, or say anything, even when, a long time later, he got to his feet and walked to the sofa and his discarded clothing. A brooding silence enclosed them both.
At last he said, ‘You made me use you. Why?’
She said, ‘I assumed you wished to be repaid for my father’s medical bills. You can’t always choose the currency.’
He