Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  With an effort he forced his heavy eyelids open and found himself looking straight into those same beautiful sea-coloured eyes. The eyes of the woman in his dream. Eyes that were watching him with a look of wary apprehension in their smoky depths.

  And the taste of betrayal was terrible and sour in his mouth.

  ‘Rebecca!’

  No one said her name quite like Andreas, Becca reflected privately. No one else put quite that exotic intonation onto the syllables, making it sound like a totally different word. And no one else had ever put such an icy tone into his use of her name, a freezing fury that made her feel as if she had suddenly stepped onto the most dangerous black ice.

  ‘My darling wife—what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I—should have thought that that was obvious.’

  She regretted the words the minute she had spoken them. Regretted the stupid attempt at flippancy in her tone, the even rasher gesture of her hand that indicated the rumpled bed on which they lay, the disorder of the sheets, the crumpled pillows. It also, to her deep mortification, drew attention to her naked state, brought those frozen black eyes to skim over her body, seeming to sear the delicate skin as they went so that hot colour flooded her cheeks and in a moment of pure embarrassment she reached desperately for the nearest sheet.

  ‘I think it’s a little late for that now,’ Andreas drawled in cynical contempt. ‘Now that I remember my past, I have no recollection of immediate events … so …’

  His eyes narrowed, his tone darkening.

  ‘Are you going to tell me just what happened here?’

  ‘You know what happened!’

  He did—didn’t he? Andreas had recognised her; he had called her his wife with that appallingly savage note in his voice. Somehow, something that had happened had jarred loose whatever had been blocking his memory and while he was asleep the scattered jigsaw pieces had been falling into place. But how complete was it? Did he remember everything?

  And what picture did the completed jigsaw show?

  ‘We—we made…’

  ‘We had sex,’ Andreas interrupted harshly as she stumbled over the words, unable to say ‘made love’ when confronted by his darkly scowling face, the contempt that blazed in the jet-black eyes. ‘That much is obvious. What I mean is just what are you doing here in the first place? I told you to get out and stay out.’

  ‘I know you did—but I—couldn’t.’

  ‘And why not? Don’t tell me that you’ve come back to say you’re sorry—that—’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Becca’s total rejection of his challenge rang in her voice. How could he think that she had anything to apologise for? Andreas was the one who had declared to her face that he had only married her for sex.

  ‘I thought not.’

  Andreas flung himself off the bed and stalked across the room to where the black swimming shorts he had discarded with such eagerness—and her willing help—such a short time before lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Snatching them up, he pulled them on, every rough, brusque movement speaking of hostility and aggression without a word needing to be spoken.

  ‘Much as I love the image of you curled up in my bed with only a sheet to cover you, I think I would prefer it if you put some clothes on,’ he flung into Becca’s ashen face. ‘I’d like to have this conversation without any unnecessary—distractions.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Becca couldn’t allow her thoughts to dwell on the idea that the sight of her naked body could still ‘distract’ Andreas. It wasn’t the effect she wanted to have on him. Or was it? Her body still sang from the sensual effect of his lovemaking—his attentions, she amended painfully. Her blood was still hot, her skin prickling with sensitivity so that just the feel of the finest cotton of the sheets against it was almost too much to bear. Her body ached in places, there were tiny bruised spots in others, but they were aches and bruises she didn’t mind at all.

  Her nipples were still tender, and the intimate spots between her legs still pulsed faintly with the aftershocks of passion. The thought of having to pull on the close-fitting Lycra swimsuit was frankly unbearable.

  ‘The only thing I have to wear in here is that …’

  An unwary wave of her arm towards where the lavender swimming costume lay in a similar state to his shorts let the sheet slip and she snatched it up again, clutching it to her as if it was a shield against those black, accusing eyes. She saw Andreas’ mouth twitch in an almost-smile of the darkest humour, and shivered when she realised how bleak and stony his eyes remained, no light in them at all.

  ‘In that case I prefer the sheet.’

  No, he didn’t, Andreas told himself reprovingly. The sheet was almost as bad as nothing at all. The fine cotton lay lightly over the slender lines of her body, clinging to the curves of her hips, the rise and fall of her breasts, defining them in a way that made his throat dry. And even beneath the white material, the faint dark shadow between her thighs was visible, reminding him of the way those curls had felt against the most intimate, most sensual parts of his body. Just recalling it made the roar of blood thunder in his head so that he could barely think straight.

  OK, admit it, he told himself, you don’t want to think at all. What he wanted was to throw himself down on the bed beside her, rip the sheet from her body and start to make love to her all over again. The taste of her lips, of her breasts was still in his mouth, her scent was on his skin, blending with his own into the most intoxicating perfume he had ever inhaled. It went straight to his head like the most potent ouzo, clouding it and making it spin.

  When combined with the heat of pounding lust, it was a brutally lethal combination, making him feel as if his head was a volcano where red-hot lava was just pushing to the top, waiting to explode.

  No. He needed to keep a grip on himself, on his temper. He had to think clearly. His body, his senses, might be thrilled to see Becca again but common sense warned him to tread very carefully. If she was back then it was for her own purposes, and he wanted to know just what they were before he made a foolish move.

  Another foolish move. She’d already got under his guard once, while his brain was scrambled from the accident. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  But just the sight of her made him so damn sexually hungry. After living for almost a year without her, he might have thought that he had forgotten the impact she had on his senses. But it seemed that she had only to walk back into his life and he was a slave to his libido like some horny adolescent in the throes of his first physical affair.

  He might have thought that he’d have forgotten … Hah!

  A harshly cynical laugh broke from him as he realised the bitter irony of what he had just thought. He’d spent the last months trying to force himself to forget that someone called Becca Ainsworth—Becca Petrakos legally, but very definitely not morally—had ever existed.

  And failed miserably.

  ‘Andreas?’

  Becca was watching him—nervously, he could almost swear. He had never realised that she was such a good actress. But sitting there like that, with the sheet twisted tightly round her, those beautiful blue eyes wide in a damnably perfect face, she looked the picture of innocence. So innocent that he could almost believe in her himself.

  This was the Becca he’d tried to push from his mind. But then the accident had done that for him by wiping her from his memory, and in the time that he had been out of it she had walked back in, cool as could be. And lied through her teeth to him.

  And he had been fool enough to let his lust for her drown out all thought of common sense. One tug on the golden chain of sensuality that tied them both together and he had fallen straight into bed with her. Right where she wanted him, it seemed.

  But why? What did she want from him? Not just sex, that was obvious. She had to have something else up her sleeve.

  So what had happened between her and her precious Roy Stanton? Because something must have done to bring her here
, like this, when she had vowed that she would rather die than come back.

  ‘On second thoughts …’

  He turned towards the door, where his black towelling robe hung. Grabbing it, he tossed it roughly in Becca’s direction, not caring that it overshot by several metres and landed on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Put that on. I’ve had enough of the sight of you.’

  Liar, his conscience reproached him. Hadn’t today—the past couple of days—taught him anything? He could never get enough of the sight of her, the feel of her, the taste of her. He doubted if he ever would. The truth was that passion made him a fool where Becca was concerned and that was a feeling he didn’t like one little bit.

  ‘And then we talk. You can start explaining just what the hell you are up to.’

  ‘I’m not “up to” anything!’ Becca protested, struggling to get off the bed and reach the black robe, while at the same time keeping the sheet securely wrapped around her.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It seems that way to me. You surely don’t expect me to believe that you turned up here out of love for me—to beg me to take you back? No—I thought not,’ he added when he saw the way her face changed, her lips pinching tight together. ‘So you’ve obviously come for something, and I want to know what.’

  And when he did know he would take a great delight in throwing his rejection of her request right back in her face, Becca told herself as she tried once more to grab the black robe. She’d really messed up this time. What had possessed her to fall into bed with him like that, forgetting all about the reasons why she was here? She should have known that there was a chance that something like passionate lovemaking—passionate sex, she amended painfully—together with the fact that she’d been wearing the lavender costume that had practically been the last thing he’d seen her in, would be likely to stir his memories, if not actually bring them right back. She would never be able to forgive herself if she threw away Daisy’s chance of the life-saving operation because of her own foolish passion.

  She had the robe in her hand now, but when it came to pulling it on, while still holding on to the sheet that was wrapped round her, she found the situation was impossible. And it was made all the worse by the fact that Andreas stood, dark and devastating, on the far side of the room, watching her through cynically amused black eyes.

  ‘You might have the courtesy to look away,’ she flung at him in indignation, knowing that the struggle she was having was making her face look pink and flustered.

  ‘Why?’ he shot back, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest as he met her furious glare with icy calm. ‘Did you do that for me? Did you look away when I got out of bed—or before that? Did you insist on covering your own eyes then?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it? Then will you please tell me how? I’d like to know why it’s fine for you to ogle me when I’m naked but not for me—’

  ‘I did not ogle!’ she flashed furiously.

  ‘Seemed that way to me. I could almost feel your hot little eyes on me all the way across the room. But then I am not so much of a hypocrite as to pretend to a rush of false modesty so soon after I have been—what is it you say?—rolling around in the sack just a short time before.’

  ‘It’s not a pretence! I—I don’t feel right that way. Not any more.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Andreas echoed darkly and the cynicism of his tone made her tense instinctively, waiting for the brutal lash of his tongue in quick response.

  To her surprise it didn’t come. Instead, Andreas’ face closed up, setting hard and cold until it looked as if his features were carved from granite, his eyes just polished jet.

  ‘My apologies,’ he declared in a tone that made a mockery of the polite words. ‘In that case, I will wait for you downstairs. I think we would both feel more capable of holding this discussion on more neutral territory. I’ll make us some coffee—you’ll be … what? Five minutes?’

  That ‘five minutes’ was an order, not a suggestion, and, leaving Becca still fighting to find a way to respond that didn’t make her look petty or weak, he turned on his heel and walked out.

  She could almost hear the steady ticking of some imaginary stopwatch as she listened to his footsteps going down the landing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE made it downstairs in seven minutes.

  She had been determined not to let Andreas think that he could just click his fingers and she would jump to do as he said. But all the same, stirring it too much by keeping him waiting deliberately was not a clever idea. His temper would only darken by the minute and, as he had already started out with it almost as black as it could be, she didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.

  First she had had to go to her own room to find her clothes and snatch a quick shower. The extra seconds had ticked away while she had dithered over what to wear.

  Just what did one wear to a sort of emotional trial? she wondered on a wave of near-hysteria. A trial in which Andreas was not only judge and jury but also very definitely counsel for the prosecution all at once. The lightweight sun-dress that was her first choice was discarded as being too revealing and frivolous. A white T-shirt and Indian print skirt went the same way when the button on the waistband of the skirt proved suddenly to be somehow too complicated for her unsteady fingers to fasten easily.

  In the end she had kept the T-shirt and pulled on denim jeans to go with it before deciding that enough was enough—she’d made her point without risking him actually losing it completely—and hurrying down the stairs after him.

  Andreas was in the big sitting room that opened onto the pool area. The first thing that Becca noticed about him was that he too had taken a moment to dress and was now wearing a short-sleeved black shirt, hanging open over his tanned chest, and loose black linen trousers that hung low on his narrow hips. Like her, he was barefooted, as he so often was around the house.

  He had opened the patio doors and was standing gazing out at the glorious view of the ocean, but Becca had the distinct impression that he didn’t see anything but was intent on his own thoughts. He had a mug of the strong black coffee he invariably drank in one hand, and another mug containing a less potent version of the drink stood on the coffee-table behind him. He didn’t turn when Becca arrived, or make any sign of having noticed that she was there, but continued to stare, frowning, at the horizon until, after waiting a few moments to see what he would do, she cleared her throat pointedly.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

  His turn was slow, deliberately so, she felt and when he was facing her he let those deep-set black eyes run over her from the top of her head, still wet from her shower, down to her feet, and back up again.

  ‘Déjà vu,’ he murmured on a note of irony. ‘Haven’t we been here before?’

  It was only then that Becca realised that they were in fact both dressed as if for a replay of the dreadful scene on the evening of their wedding day. The scene that had ended their marriage. The recollection was enough to drain some of the hard-won strength from her legs and make her think twice about picking up the mug of coffee for fear that her hand would shake so badly it would give away the way her nerves were tying themselves into tight, uncomfortable knots in her stomach. Instead she perched on the arm of one of the big leather-covered settees, hoping she looked moderately at ease.

  ‘So what are we going to talk about?’

  Andreas took a sip from his coffee, stared down into the mug as if looking for inspiration in the dark liquid. The movement made Becca realise that, like her, he had snatched the time to have a fast shower before coming downstairs, his hair was still soaking too. But, unlike hers, the wet look flattered him, giving the blue-black strands a glistening sheen and a slightly spiky look that suited him, while her own heavily flattened, sodden rats’ tails had quite the opposite effect.

  ‘Why don’t we start with you telling me just what was so important
to you that you were prepared to sell yourself to get it?’

  Becca was glad that she was sitting down. She felt sure that her legs would have gone from under her if she hadn’t, with the cutting force of his attack. But even though she was sitting, she still clung onto the back of the settee for extra support.

  ‘I didn’t—I wasn’t—I didn’t!’

  ‘Oh, so what are you claiming—that you didn’t have sex with me just now, in that bed…?’

  An arrogant tilt of his dark head in the direction of the ceiling and so the bedroom above them emphasised his point.

  ‘I—you know I did.’

  Did he have to keep saying ‘have sex’ in that brutal way? It reminded her too painfully of his cold-blooded declaration that he had married her for sex and nothing more.

  ‘So you must have wanted to use that sex to get something from me.’

  ‘No! No way! I never—I wouldn’t…’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? Well, you do surprise me. So that leaves only one other possible alternative, and I have to say that I really never thought that you’d admit to that.’

  ‘I’m not admitting to anything,’ Becca growled. ‘And what is the only other possible alternative?’

  Andreas flashed her a wide, deceptively innocent look from huge, brilliant jet-black eyes.

  ‘Why, the fact that you were so overcome with need—with passion for me—that you just couldn’t help yourself. That nothing else in the world mattered but that we should come together in bed…’

  ‘It wasn’t that!’

  ‘No? Then—to go back to my original interpretation of your actions—you were using sex to get something from me.’ ‘I wasn’t—no! I didn’t!’

  ‘Oh, please, Rebecca!’ Andreas exclaimed in exasperation. Coming to the table, he slammed his mug down on it with such force that some of the coffee slopped over the side.

  ‘Credit me with a little intelligence. It’s either one thing or the other. What other possible explanation could there be?’