and I’m hiring a marine ecologist to advise me on the best way to preserve and nurture it. All the sports will have to be outdoors, but to be honest there probably isn’t room for a tennis court. Plus it would require a hard surface—again, out of keeping. We’d run beach volleyball maybe,’ he finished.
He found himself on the receiving end of an old-fashioned look. ‘Well, that would be popular as a spectator sport—for the male guests, certainly,’ she commented drily.
Max’s riposte was immediate. ‘It would be popular with me if you were taking part, even more certainly.’
The sweep of his long lashes over his revealing glance gave him the satisfaction of seeing her dip her gaze as his compliment registered. He followed through seamlessly.
‘So, does it tempt you to come out and check over the place yourself? Try everything out before the first guests arrive later in the season?’
Ellen stared at him. ‘Go to the Caribbean?’ she said, as if he’d suggested a jaunt to Mars.
Max lifted a hand nonchalantly. ‘Why not? You’ve got time before term starts again, haven’t you? Plenty of time to cross the Atlantic.’
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Gave a slight shake of her head as if that was all she could manage. He let it go. He’d planted the idea—he would harvest it later. When the time was right.
He started to talk about coral reef conservation. It was as good a subject to pass the time as any. He was enjoying the meal, enjoying spending this convivial time with her—no doubt about that. And there was even less doubt that he was looking forward to what he wanted to happen afterwards...
* * *
The elevator, when they walked into it some time later, seemed too small, too empty. And as it whooshed them up to the top floor of the hotel Ellen could feel her stomach dropping away. But it was not just from the effect of the lift. No, it was caused by the man she was sharing it with.
He stood a few feet away from her and gave her a quick smile as the doors opened, waiting for her to emerge. The soft, deep carpet of the penthouse-level corridor muffled all sound. It was completely deserted. A strange sensation of electricity started to run in her veins, along her nerve fibres, just as it had throughout dinner, in little jolts and quivers, every time she’d let her eyes rest on him.
Inside the suite, only a table lamp was lit, creating an atmosphere that was...intimate.
‘Nightcap?’ Max asked, strolling towards the drinks cabinet.
For a second—just a second—Ellen heard in her head the answer that she could give—should give. Thank you, but no. It’s been a long day. I really must turn in. But instead she heard her voice saying, ‘Lovely.’
She walked to the sofa. She could feel her heart thumping in heavy slugs, feel that electric current setting off again, humming through her veins. Carefully she lowered herself down, deliberately kicking off her shoes, tucking her legs under her and resting her elbow on the sofa’s arm. A moment later Max was placing a small measure of liqueur on the coffee table in front of the sofa and then lowering himself on to the far end, his free hand cupping a cognac glass. It was a large sofa, but it suddenly felt very, very small.
She took a tiny sip of the sweet, orange-scented fiery liquid—no more than a sip, for it was strong, she knew, and she’d already drunk wine at dinner. A supreme sense of self-consciousness filled her—but not like anything she’d ever known before. This was nothing like the embarrassingly awkward consciousness of her ungainly body, her unlovely appearance that she was so bitterly used to feeling.
No—this was utterly different.
A lioness—that’s what he called me last night!
And that was what she felt like—with her lithe body toned and honed, not an ounce of excess fat on it, yet rounded and womanly. She was supremely conscious of the way her hip was indenting the cushions of the sofa, the way the soft jersey of her dress was stretched over her breasts. Breasts that seemed fuller, somehow...heavier.
She felt the alcohol creaming in her bloodstream, heating it. Making her feel different...oh, so different. Free...bold...daring.
Daring enough to sit there with the devastating homage to manhood that was Max Vasilikos, whose lidded eyes were resting on her, whose sensual smile was playing around his mouth. His long lashes were veiling but not concealing the expression in his deep, dark eyes. That thrill came again in her...electricity crackled along her nerve fibres. She was no longer the person she had been—she was someone else now. Someone new.
Someone a man like Max could desire?
Because why else was he sitting there so close, so intimately, his eyes holding hers as if by a silken thread that was drawing her towards him, closer and closer yet? Why else—unless he desired her?
Wonder and hope welled up in her. Was this truly happening? All those long, lost years when she’d been trapped in despising her body, her face...were they really over? Was it possible that she could now reach out and take what was surely every woman’s right—could taste and enjoy the sensual pleasures of the flesh?
A memory pressed at her of her time at university, studying sports science, when all about her everyone had been pairing off, partying...and she had not dared. She’d felt excluded, forbidden from trying to join in. Had drawn back and hidden away, feeling herself unworthy—for who could want a woman like her? Men could only possibly want women like Chloe...who was the total opposite of herself.
I banished myself—did not dare to try and claim the place that every other woman was claiming.
But now—oh, now she did dare! She did dare to lean back into her end of the sofa, to relax and take a deep, easing breath.
And the absolute proof of her right to dare was the expression in Max Vasilikos’s eyes now, as he twined his gaze with hers. The dim light cast shadows, created an atmosphere that was as heady as the liqueur she was sipping. She felt relaxed, languorous. And yet that low electric current was humming all the time, fuelling the charge that was building up in her, circuit by circuit.
Desire quickened in her veins. Desire made her eyelids heavy. Her breathing was shallow, her awareness of the sheer, raw physicality of Max becoming heightened...super-aware, ultra-aware.
I want this! I want what is to happen. I want it with all my being. To taste what I have denied myself so long...what I have never dared to take...
Yearning filled her, fusing throughout her being.
He moved first.
Wordlessly he placed his cognac glass on the table. Wordlessly he reached to remove her glass from her hand and do likewise. Wordlessly he curved his hand around the nape of her neck. Silently, his heavy-lidded eyes lambent upon her he drew her lithe, pliant body towards him.
And as his mouth closed over hers in the sweet heat of his kiss there was only one conscious thought left in her head.
If Max Vasilikos desires me, then I am desirable indeed!
And then all conscious thought fell from her.
Now there was only sensation—sensation so strong, so overpowering, so arousing, so incredible, so blissful, so pleasurable, so fantastic that there was room for nothing else at all in her entire existence. His kiss was as skilled as it was consuming, unhurried—leisurely, even—as touch by touch, graze by graze, his mouth explored hers, slowly at first, skimming her lips, then deepening moment by expert moment, deepening until she was lost, yielding to what he was arousing in her, igniting in her, as each touch of his lips set new fires within her. Fires that he stoked, and stroked as his fingertips explored the nape of her neck, grazed the tender lobes of her ears, as his mouth moved to nuzzle at them softly, sweetly, arousingly.
She felt her breasts engorge and strain, and then a hand was cupping one, and a whole explosion of sensation ignited within her. A soft gasp sounded in her throat as he coaxed her cresting nipple to exquisite arousal. Her hand pressed against