and again. A push here, a whisper there, and the Barbery fortunes had taken a tumble, especially since the old man’s illness—but he had not intended to involve the girl. He was not like the Barberys. He was not like Peter Barbery, who had seduced, impregnated and abandoned Althea with so much cold calculation. He refused to be like the Barberys! But then, he could not have predicted that his arch-enemy’s sister would approach him in this way.
Or—more intriguing and far more dangerous—that she would tempt him to throw away the iron control he had worked so hard to maintain. He was not averse to using her or any other tool he could find that might lead to her family’s destruction. But he could not have anticipated that he might want her—desire her—in spite of it all.
“I believe you may be right,” he said quietly. Her bold expression faltered, just for the barest of moments, but Nikos saw it. And something in him roared in triumph. She was not as unaffected as she pretended to be. He did not care to explore why that should please him.
He reached over and slid his palm around to cup her nape. The contact sent electricity surging through him, desire and a deep hunger following like an echo. Her eyes widened, and her hands came up to rest on the hard planes of his chest.
He let the moment draw out, aware of the interested eyes on them from all corners of the yacht’s entertainment deck, knowing that no matter what game she thought she was playing, she had no idea who she was dealing with. She had no idea what she’d set in motion by approaching him.
But he knew. He had already won this long, cold battle. She was simply the final straw that would destroy the Barbery empire once and for all, just as they had nearly destroyed him once upon a time.
He had finally done it—and yet instead of reveling in his hard-won victory, his attention focused solely on the rich, lush curve of her lips.
He pulled her to him and fit his mouth to hers.
Chapter Two
FIRE!
Tristanne would have screamed the word if she could.
Instead she kissed him. If that was the word for the slick, hot meeting of their mouths. If that was why every alarm in her body rang out danger, her stomach in knots and her skin ablaze with sensation, as if it was too small or she had grown too big to wear it any longer.
She had not thought too far beyond the simple request—she had not imagined what it would be like to kiss this man. Or, more precisely, to be kissed by him. He was elemental, untamed. He took. He demanded. He possessed.
And she could not seem to get enough of him.
He angled his mouth against hers, exploring her lips, tasting her tongue with his, with an assertive, encompassing mastery that made Tristanne shudder with want. With need.
It was so carnal, so naked—and yet she remained fully clothed. His hand on the back of her neck radiated heat, and something far too like ownership. He tasted like expensive liquor and salt, intensely masculine and frighteningly addictive. Tristanne clutched at his shirt, but her hands melted against the steel-packed muscles of his chest rather than push him away.
A million years passed, a thousand ages in that same impossible fire, and then, finally, he raised his head, his dark gold eyes glittering with an edgy need. Tristanne felt the echo of it kick at her, making her legs feel weak beneath her.
She fought the urge to press her fingers to her mouth—to see how completely he had ravaged her, to feel how totally he had claimed her. Her own lips felt as if they no longer belonged to her. As if he had marked her, somehow, as his. Something inside her, low and deep, sang out at the idea.
Idiot.
She should have known better than to play such games with a man like this, a man she knew with a sudden implacable certainty, as his dark eyes bored into hers and she felt herself shiver where he still held her, she could never control. Never. She was not even sure she wanted to.
She was in terrible, terrible trouble.
She had to remember why she was doing this! She had to think of her mother first!
“I trust that was sufficient?” There was an odd light in his eyes—it made her skin draw tight and prickle in warning. He set her back from him, and drew his hand away from her nape, slowly, leaving brushfires in his wake.
She forced herself not to tremble. Not to shiver in reaction. She knew somehow that he would use her responses against her. She knew it.
“I think so,” Tristanne managed to say, though her voice sounded packed in cotton wool. Her breasts were taut and full, and she longed to press them against his hard chest. It was as if he had somehow turned her own body against her. She ordered herself to stop, to breathe, to contain the hysteria.
But this was why she had chosen him. This, exactly.
“You do not know?” His full mouth curved slightly, making him look both delicious and amused. “Then I cannot have done it correctly.”
Tristanne realized then that she was still touching him. Her head spun and her breath had gone shallow, but her hands still lay against the granite planes of his chest. She could feel the heat of him rise through the cloth of his shirt, and the time had long passed to let go, to step away—and yet she still held on as if he was the only thing keeping her from tilting off the edge of the world.
Get a hold of yourself! she ordered herself, desperately. She thought of Vivienne’s pale, too-slender form; thought of her racking cough and sleeplessness. She had to keep her head about her, or all would be lost. She had no choice.
She dropped her hands. As she did so, she thought his half smile deepened, grew more darkly amused. Somehow, that made it possible for her to straighten her spine, to remember herself, remember what she must do. And for whom.
“You were perfectly adequate,” she told him, trying to sound unaffected. Almost bored, even, while her heart galloped and her stomach twisted.
He did not react to her remark in any way that she could see—yet sensed a certain stillness in him, a certain focused watchfulness, that reminded her of some great predator set to pounce. The dragon, perhaps, a moment before letting loose his fire.
“Was I, indeed?” he asked coolly.
“Certainly.” Tristanne shrugged as if she felt nonchalant, as if she could not feel the heat that burned in her cheeks. As if he had not turned her inside out and wrecked her completely with one kiss. One complicated, unexpected, mindaltering kiss.
But it was not the only thing she could feel. And as intoxicating as Nikos Katrakis was—as deliciously unnerving as that kiss had been—now that it was over she could also feel Peter’s fury. Her brother had moved closer, and was now standing near enough that he was, no doubt, eavesdropping on her conversation with Nikos. This time, she did not look over. She did not have to—she knew exactly how Peter would be scowling at her, with that anger burning in the eyes that should have looked like hers, but were too cold, too cruel.
“Perhaps it requires further experiment,” Nikos suggested, in that velvety caress of a voice that heated her from within. She put Peter out of her mind for the moment. She felt a heavy, sensual fire bloom in her core, and begin to spread outward. “I am happy to extend the favor. I would not wish to disappoint you.”
“You are magnanimous indeed,” she murmured, dropping her gaze—afraid, somehow, that he could see too much. That he could see exactly how much he had affected her.
“I am many things, Miss Barbery,” Nikos murmured, his voice soft though his gaze, when she dared meet it, was hard. “But I am not magnanimous. I have not one generous bone in my body. I suggest you remember that.”
She knew what she had to do. She had decided, even before Peter had laid out his disgusting conditions, that she was prepared to do whatever it took to emancipate her mother from Peter’s control—to save her. What did she care if the Barbery fortune and financial empire collapsed