…’ His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile. ‘Or you could always come over here and say hello to me properly.’
Was that a subtle dig that she hadn’t already done so? Rebecca was aware of some unknown emotion hovering in the air about them—something unspoken and dangerous. Instinct told her that she was playing with fire if she continued to moan about his lateness. And an even stronger instinct made her badly want to kiss him.
Letting her handbag slide to the floor, she crossed the room and went over to him, bending her face to brush a light kiss against his lips. A kiss could wipe everything away, she thought longingly, her hands reaching up to his shoulders. Oh, Xandros.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘Oreos. Do it some more.’
She kissed him again. And then again—only deeper this time and more intently—until he groaned and reached for her so that she let him pull her down onto his lap. ‘Xandros!’ she gasped.
‘Touch me,’ he urged, his mouth against her ear, his nostrils inhaling her light, flowery scent and feeling the silken spill of her hair next to his skin.
‘Wh-where?’
‘Where ever you want, agape mou.’
Oh, the choice was dazzling. Where did she begin? With his face—and all its shadowy contours, its contrasting lines and curves? She let her fingers caress his cheeks, running them along the luminously gold skin as if she were measuring the high angles of his cheekbones until she encountered the rasp of the dark new growth around his jaw.
‘You didn’t shave today,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you know what they say about men who need to shave a lot?’
‘No. What do they say?’
‘What do you think they say?’ he taunted. ‘They say that he is a real man. Shall I prove it to you?’ Taking her hand, he guided it down to between his legs and Rebecca felt the rush of blood to her cheeks as she felt the unbelievable hardness of him stretching the fabric of his elegant trousers. ‘Ne,’ he groaned. ‘Touch me there. Right there.’
‘Like that?’ she whispered, cupping him in the palm of her hand.
‘Ne. More. Do that some more.’
She drifted her fingers teasingly over the rocky shaft of him, and his soft moan became an impatient imprecation. His ebony eyes were sparking pure passion and fire and his voice was unsteady as he stroked the silken skin above her breasts. ‘I haven’t seen this dress before.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No. I want to tear it from your body.’
‘Don’t do that, Xandros—it’s new.’
‘Then why don’t you take it off for me?’
Suddenly she felt shy, the doubts which had been assailing her all day coming back like spectres to haunt her. Was this an acceptable way to be treated by a man—to be made to feel insecure with him and then for him to ask you to perform a striptease, while he was still seated at his desk?
‘Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?’
He gave a short laugh, but he was so hard and so hot for her that he doubted he would be able to make it to the door and this sensual power which she always seemed to exert over him made him want to wrest back control. ‘Isn’t it a little soon in our acquaintance for convention to rear its ugly head?’
Rebecca froze. Acquaintance. What kind of a word was that?
He saw her mouth tremble and he licked the tip of his tongue over it to cease its shiver, his hands slipping around her waist, fingers splaying over its slim indentation. ‘Take it off,’ he urged thickly.
She wanted to say I can’t, but then he might ask her why, and how could she possibly answer that? Telling him that she wanted him to respect her and not just treat her as a sex object might sound like emotional blackmail. Respect had to be earned, not demanded—and, besides, maybe this was the kind of high-octane way in which billionaires conducted their love affairs.
And wasn’t there a part of her which was revelling in her newly discovered ability to thrill him, to make his body rigid with tension, the black eyes opaque with a kind of helpless desire? Wasn’t this the only time she felt that she had any real say in the relationship—in that emotionally and physically fraught time just before a couple had sex?
She stood up and lifted her hands to her hair, scooping it up between her fingers, before letting the whole heavy mass fall around her shoulders, watching his black eyes following the movement almost hypnotically. She knew he loved her hair. He had told her that the first time she’d met him—he’d said it was the colour of the setting sun before the night sky swallowed it up, whole. And when he had said it, he had looked as if he would like to swallow her up whole.
Hadn’t it been his almost poetic way with words which had disarmed her just as much as the dark, good looks and the hard, lean body? The idea that a man could be the embodiment of all that was masculine and yet be unafraid to express himself in the way which would make a woman melt?
But hadn’t that just been part of his well-practised seduction technique? How long had it been since he’d told her that her eyes were like the violet-blue flowers which scrambled in among the arid rocks and bloomed during a Grecian spring? Or that her skin was pure cream, and that was why he liked to lick it?
She shivered. Pride told her she should not strip for him and yet she knew that the evening would start off badly if she started playing games by refusing.
Peeling off her dress with one slow, sweeping movement, she dropped it on the desk, right in the middle of all his papers, daring him to object—wanting him to object. To somehow make this powerful man feel as helpless as she did. ‘I do hope that won’t interfere with your work,’ she said, thinking no such thing at all.
‘Rebecca,’ he said unevenly.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
‘Turn around,’ he said huskily. ‘Turn around and let me feast my eyes on you.’
She made him wait. The only time she could—and then she began to walk to the other side of the desk.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Do you mean like this, Xandros? Do you want to see my bottom?’ Slowly, she turned around and gave a flamboyant little wiggle and heard him laugh, but the laugh was tinged with a small groan as he saw the unbelievably alluring scarlet briefs and the matching bra over which her breasts spilled.
‘Ne. Just like that.’
He loved her bottom, as well as her hair. He had told her that, too, insisting that the pert globes be covered in nothing but lace, wanting to buy her sets of lingerie from one of the most exclusive stores in London—but she had refused. She would not be bought, even though sometimes he made her feel like a possession—just like one of his sleek cars or the fancy apartments he owned.
She began to slide the panties off, but her hands were trembling as she hooked them off over each foot and as she turned around, she crumpled them angrily between her palm and threw them at him.
Catching them effortlessly, Xandros raised his dark brows, and then—very deliberately—he lifted them up to his face and closed his eyes as he breathed in their scent.
Rebecca felt faint. What did he do to her? What power could he wield that could make her feel so utterly abandoned and wanton when she was with him—and yet leave her feeling abandoned in quite a different sense when he wasn’t there?
‘Delicious,’ he murmured. ‘Now the bra. Take it off.’
‘You take it off.’
‘But I can’t reach.’