‘You bet I am.’
Laughing softly, he rose to his feet and walked towards her with the slow stealth of the certain predator. And then, without warning, he snaked his arms around her and crushed her into his arms into a kiss of such hard—almost brutal—passion that she lost her balance.
But Xandros had her held firmly in his arms and he continued to kiss her, luxuriating in the softness of her body, enjoying the little cries she was making. For a woman who had made him wait longer than any other—his victory was almost complete.
‘Still want to go to the bedroom?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away from hers. ‘Or did you have somewhere else in mind?’
She no longer cared, but she was damned if she was going to tell him that. Or to give into him yet again. He wanted her now and he wanted her here and he could damned well wait as he had made her wait for him to turn up tonight.
‘B-bed,’ she managed. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Everything with him was a battle—but this was one she was going to win. She didn’t care if it was conventional to want to go to the bedroom—at least it wouldn’t be insultingly convenient to have him take her there and then on the floor as he had done so many times before.
But he scooped her up in his arms as she had known he would—and all her angry thoughts melted because this bit was her fantasy come true. Her darkly virile lover taking his willing captive off to experience the perfect pleasures of his body. Wasn’t that the stuff of every woman’s secret dream—to be mastered and dominated by such a powerful man?
Rebecca kissed his neck as he carried her down the long corridor of the suite he rented whenever he was in London—which took over the entire top floor of the Park Lane hotel. She remembered the first time she had seen the bedroom—and had been rendered speechless.
Photo-spreads in glossy magazines could easily show luxury—but she’d been unaware that a single room could be so spacious. This one had a bed which was only slightly smaller than her entire bedroom back home—and everything else seemed to be controlled at the push of a button.
There was a giant TV screen and a small fridge, stocked with champagne and fancy chocolates as well as cut-glass bowls of flowers strategically placed to scent the room. There was even a bookcase and a rack which held all the international newspapers. But there was only one thing which she and Xandros did once they crossed the threshold of this room…
Xandros put her down on the bed and began to unbuckle his belt, watching her face as he did so, seeing her eyes darken in anticipation, as they always did. ‘You want me to strip for you now?’ he questioned softly.
‘Yes. I-I insist on it,’ she said unsteadily, but for her it was less of an erotic turn-on than the fact that she wanted to see him vulnerable—or as vulnerable as he was capable of.
But there was nothing remotely vulnerable about watching Xandros take his clothes off. First, he loosened his shirt, button by button—an interminable amount of buttons, or so it seemed to her.
‘Want me to go faster?’ he mocked as he saw her tongue snake out to moisten her parched lips.
Rebecca shook her head as he slipped the garment from his broad, bare shoulders and let it flutter to the floor like the white flag of surrender—except she knew that he didn’t have a surrendering bone in his body.
Rebecca saw him give a mocking wince as he slowly slid the zip of his trousers down and it said much for his self-possession and steely control that still he did not hurry it, despite the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
How could he possibly look both elegant and sexy as he removed his trousers and draped them over the back of a chair? His feet were bare, so all that remained were the silk boxer shorts which gave his body the look of a taut and supremely fit athlete. He kicked them off and for a moment just stood before her—completely naked and thrillingly aroused—his eyes glittering with an irresistible and arrogant challenge. And in that moment there was something so daunting—almost forbiddingly masculine—about him that Rebecca’s heart thumped with something which felt more like fear than desire.
‘Shall I come to you now, agape mou?’ His voice was a caressing tease. ‘Is that what you want?’
She wanted to tell him to promise not to break her heart, and she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything in her life—more than breath itself. Was he aware of that? Or that sometimes he made her feel emotionally raw—as if he had seared away the top layer of her skin, leaving her cruelly exposed to his analytical eye? And what did that eye see? Someone who lived the way that plenty of other young women did—yet one who was dating a man way out of her league.
‘If you want,’ she answered, as if she couldn’t care less.
He gave a low laugh of delight as he climbed onto the bed beside her. ‘Come here.’
‘No.’
‘Ah, Rebecca. Rebecca mou.’ Reaching out, he pulled her trembling body into the hard heat of his own, his thumb reflectively circling one puckered rose nipple so that it seemed to push insistently against him. ‘You are still angry with me for being late?’
Tell him. Tell him! ‘You could have let me know. I just don’t want to be taken for granted, Xandros. I thought that you—’
His kiss silenced her, but then it was the most effective silencer in the world where women were concerned—and if all she was intending to do was to subject him to the age-old complaint about how a woman wanted to be treated, well … He had heard that grievance more times than he cared to remember.
This was better. Just this. The feel of skin against skin, the growing warmth of their ardour making their bodies closer still—as if they were glued together. In his arms, she was everything he could want from a lover—a little inexperienced, it was true, but he liked that. He had no time for women with lots of different party tricks to try out—for they were little better than hookers. A sense of wonder was fine by him, and, for however long the affair lasted, he would enjoy teaching her everything he knew.
He enjoyed the mental battle he engaged in during sex. He liked to test himself—to bring the woman to the near-height of pleasure over and over again, while denying himself until he could deny it no longer.
‘Oh, Xandros,’ she pleaded, with a frantic little cry of pleasure.
‘Mmm?’
‘Please!’
‘Please, what, agape mou?’
‘Now!’
How eager she was! How quickly she reached her peak! He lifted his dark head from where he had been suckling at her breast and moved over her, his black eyes glittering, before thrusting into her long and hard and deep, with a little groan of pleasure.
Sometimes he liked to watch a woman bloom and flower, but Rebecca was reaching her hands up to his shoulders, pulling him down so that their mouths met, and she groaned with pleasure as she writhed beneath him.
Tangled and gasping, she wrapped her limbs around him like a soft, white octopus, moving her hips in abandon until he felt the control slipping away from him. His orgasm came with a strength and a power which surprised him, but it had been like that with her since the very first time, and he couldn’t quite work out why.
Because she had made him think the unthinkable—that he was actually going to fail to get her into his bed?
Her head lay against the stilling thunder of his heart and he stroked her hair, missing the absence of her warm breath as she turned her head away to stare at the wall, saying nothing.
Ironically, this was when he liked her best—when she was retreating from him, like the tide moving away from the ever-distant shore. Xandros only wanted something when it was beyond his reach. Because once he had possessed it he wanted to move on, as he had been moving on all his restless life.
‘Do you