and by the end of the evening he knew she was an unattached nineteen-year-old student on holiday abroad for the first time in her life with her sister Chloe who had rented the villa.
Eloise had hated lying to him, but her mother had insisted no one should know they were mother and daughter, and it had seemed a small price to pay to spend time with her mother. Eloise knew her mother loved her in her own way; she had proved it when after the funeral of her parents Chloe had not even minded that they had left all they owned to Eloise, including the house. Eloise had felt terrible, and it had taken all her powers of persuasion to get her mum to at least take the money from the sale of the house. Even so her mum suggested she set up a joint account and they could share the proceeds. Eloise happily agreed, but never touched the account until after her mother’s death.
Stirring restlessly on the bed, Eloise ran the tip of her tongue over her full lips; it seemed like only yesterday she had felt the touch of Marcus’s lips on hers for the first time. Sighing, she rolled over on her stomach and buried her head in the pillow, the memories coming thick and fast.
Before Marcus had finally left, well after midnight, he’d gathered Eloise gently into his arms and kissed her, and from that moment she knew she was in love.
At ten the next morning Marcus had turned up in an open-topped sports car, and whisked her away to the other side of the island.
‘Come on, sweetheart.’ Marcus stopped the car only a few feet away from the edge of a cliff, stepped out and was holding open the passenger door with one hand and a picnic basket in the other with a blanket over his arm. ‘We’re going to have a picnic.’
‘Here?’ Eloise glanced around the rocky outcrop not more that a yard square.
‘Trust me.’ Marcus grinned, and she did.
The steps were cut deep into an almost vertical cliff, with an old rope strung along the cliff face as a handrail. It was the scariest walk Eloise had ever experienced in her young life, and when she finally stepped onto the smooth sand at the base of the cliff her legs were trembling. Marcus dropped the hamper and the blanket on the white sand and gathered her into his arms.
‘All right?’
Fighting to steady her erratic breathing, whether it was from the descent or the sensation of being enfolded against his hard, lean, scantily-clad body, she did not know, Eloise looked around and then up into his grinning face. ‘It’s perfect.’ It was a totally secluded horseshoe shape of sand that led down to sparkling blue sea.
After a swim, they shared a meal of cold meat, chicken, salad, and fresh crusty bread, washed down with champagne.
‘You’re spoiling me.’ Eloise sighed, lying back on the blanket, replete and perfectly happy.
Propped up on one elbow, Marcus’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement and something more as they met hers. Suddenly the clear summer air shimmered with tension. ‘This is nothing to what I would like to do for you,’ he murmured huskily, the index finger of one hand gently outlining her lips. ‘For your mouth,’ he husked; the finger trailed down her throat, and lingered for a moment on the pulse beating madly there. ‘For your elegant neck,’ and then lower to the valley between her breasts. ‘For your luscious breasts.’ His voice thickened.
Eloise felt as though she was touched by fire, every nerve-end in her body tingling with vibrant life. She linked her hands around his neck, her fingers tangling in the silky black hair of his head. Marcus raised his head and moved so he was straddling her trembling body, and then gently brought his mouth down on hers, the tip of his tongue outlining her lips and, as her mouth opened, plunging deep into the moist sweet depths. Electric excitement thrilled through her, the rub of his thighs against the outside of her hips incredibly erotic, and as his mouth followed the path his finger had so recently taken, her excitement built higher and higher.
He buried his head in the valley between her breasts, and somehow her bikini top was no more. She trembled violently as he murmured something huskily in Greek, before his tongue licked across the crown of her breast, and very gently suckled the rosy tip in his mouth.
A lightning flare of response struck her without warning, and her body arched up against his hard, lean frame, brushing his groin in helpless response.
Marcus lifted his head, and gazed down into her dazed green eyes. ‘You like that,’ he husked. With one hand he stroked down from her breast to the tiny waist to lay flat on her belly. ‘Tell me what more you like, my Eloise?’ he demanded throatily, while his mouth found her other breast and repeated the sensual assault.
Eloise had never experienced anything like it before, yet somehow it all seemed natural—Marcus, the kiss, his touch. Tremor after tremor coursed through her veins as his other hand swept down the length of her body, from hips to thigh to calf and back up. His touch scorched her sensitive skin like a brand, and her breasts ached with a pleasure that she did not know existed, creating a need for more and more of the miraculous sensations.
His long fingers effortlessly slipped under the last scrap of material covering her nakedness, and suddenly Eloise tensed in innocent fear of where her wild emotions were leading. Her hands fell to push against his chest. ‘No, no.’ He was going too far, too fast…
Marcus jerked his head back, and her hands dropped to her sides. ‘No. You say “No,” but you want me.’ His keen gaze raked the full length of her near-naked body, the pointed tips of her breasts, and then back to her eyes.
She stared up at him, her lips parted to speak. She did want him, but… Her green eyes huge, she glanced past him to the sea.
‘You’re not a tease, I hope?’ his deep voice demanded hardily and she glanced back at him. ‘I abhor women who lead a man on, lie with their body.’
‘No. No.’ Eloise could not bear him to look at her so cynically. ‘It’s just, I… Well, I haven’t.’ She could feel her skin getting even hotter but it was not with excitement, it was with embarrassment. He was a twenty-nine-year-old sophisticated man of the world; how could she tell him…? ‘I’ve never, I haven’t—’ She lowered her lashes over her too revealing eyes, and swallowed hard. ‘I’m a virgin.’
‘A virgin?’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re not protected.’ His black eyes widened in stunned amazement, and then narrowed at her guileless face, the blush that suffused her skin, and a slow smile parted his sensual mouth. ‘Ah,’ he murmured and from that moment on his whole attitude changed.
Marcus was transformed from a sophisticated sensual male on the make, into a tender, caring companion. The rest of the day he treated her like some rare species of the female sex, though he could not stop touching her. But his touch was light on her silken skin, the few kisses they shared undemanding. When they parted later that night with a promise to meet again the next day, the kiss he pressed on her soft lips started as a gentle good night and quickly developed into a passionate embrace. But with iron self-control he ended it with a curse in Greek and a softly mouthed promise. ‘I am going to make everything perfect for you, Eloise.’
Eloise went to bed that night with a head full of dreams of love and marriage, and the next morning Marcus arrived and told her his father was ill, he had to leave, she had been sad, but not unduly worried, as he’d promised to return.
Yawning wildly, Eloise rolled over onto her side and burrowing deeper under the duvet. March in England was cold. Not like Greece, she thought wryly. But then her Greek dream had ended long ago and she would do better to forget the memories, and get on with her life today. She would go out to dinner with Marcus for old times’ sake, but that was all it would be, all it could be, now…
‘We’ve done it, girls.’ Harry came dashing into the basement workroom, with Jeff hot on his heels, waving a bottle of champagne, and a grinning Ted Charlton bringing up the rear.
Eloise looked up from her drawing board and Katy put the soldering tool down carefully on the workbench and slowly stood up, her eyes flicking from Harry to the older man.
‘You’re sure, Mr Charlton? Aren’t you supposed to be looking