‘I thought you said you couldn’t cook,’ Carrie said accusingly when he’d added the two juicy steaks onto the newly built brick barbecue.
She was sitting at the garden table, lithe legs stretched out, wearing a strapless mint-green summer dress and a cream wrap around her shoulders to stave off the evening chill.
His senses told him she wore no bra under that dress.
‘I can burn meat as well as any caveman,’ he replied with a grin. ‘Why don’t you make yourself useful and get a bottle of wine from the fridge?’
‘Because I’m not your skivvy any more?’ she suggested.
‘Do you not feel guilty that I’m doing all the work while you are sitting there doing nothing?’
‘Nope.’ She looked pointedly at the bowls of salads and rice that had been prepared for them by his new chefs and laid on the beautifully presented table.
The staff had all gone now.
‘Please?’ he asked pointedly.
She pretended to consider then got to her feet. ‘Okay, then. Which wine do you want?’
‘There’s only one variety in the fridge.’
She bounded off into the villa, a spring in her step he’d never seen before.
It occurred to him that her jest about not being his skivvy any more had been the first time she’d alluded to those few days when he’d had her at his beck and call.
They had been on Agon for only three days and the change in her had been incredible. Yesterday they had explored Agon together, admiring the island’s rich heritage and what Andreas considered to be the most beautiful palace in the world. They’d eaten out, their conversation light and non-confrontational but the wariness he’d been greeted with at breakfast had still vibrated from her rigid frame. She avoided his gaze. The few times their eyes had met colour had suffused her face and her top lip would pull in. When they’d returned to the villa she had mumbled a goodnight before disappearing—fleeing—to her bedroom.
He hadn’t touched her once and he hadn’t flirted with her either.
He wanted to make love to her again. He hadn’t thought it would be possible to want it more than he had before but that was how it was, a constant ache, a constant fizz in his blood, a constant awareness of her every movement but her virginity had changed everything.
If they were to make love again Carrie had to make the first move. He needed to know that what they were sharing came from her head as well as her body.
Today, she had greeted him at breakfast with a smile that had been undoubtedly genuine.
That smile had pierced into his chest.
When he had taken her shopping for a dress to wear for his cousin’s wedding, he’d prepared himself for a fight. When he’d explained, keeping his tone even, that she was only attending the wedding because of him and therefore it was only right he pay for her dress she had taken him by surprise by actually agreeing.
She hadn’t let him buy her anything else though, and he hadn’t argued the point. Carrie had a fierce independent streak he admired even if he did find it infuriating. He no longer found it insulting. There was a reason for it and sooner or later he would discover what that was.
She reappeared with the wine at the exact moment he judged the steaks to be cooked.
At the table he put the steaks on their respective plates and sat down, reaching for the wine.
She surprised him again by allowing him to pour her a glass. The only alcohol she had shared with him had been his Scotch the night the truth had come out.
He held his glass out. ‘Yamas.’ At her blank expression, he said, ‘It means good health.’
She chinked her glass to his and took a sip of her wine. Her eyes widened a touch. ‘I’m not a big fan of white wine but this is nice.’
‘I should hope so for the price I paid for it,’ he said drily. ‘I have it imported directly to all my homes. This crate arrived while we were shopping.’
She had another sip. ‘This really is lovely. And you have it imported to all your homes?’
He shook his head self-mockingly. ‘I don’t take drugs, I no longer smoke...good quality wine and Scotch are my only vices.’
‘You used to smoke?’
‘Something else your investigations into me didn’t reveal?’
As he finished the question with a wink, Carrie couldn’t help but smile.
She could hardly believe they’d reached a place where they could joke about her attempts to investigate him. Both of them.
It was all down to Andreas. He’d rumbled her, had his fun while he punished her, then insisted she marry him to put things right but he wasn’t holding a grudge. He wasn’t one to hold a grudge but that, she suspected, was because he didn’t need to. If a problem arose he fixed it straight away with whatever means he thought necessary.
He was no angel but by no means was he a monster like most of the rich men she’d dealt with through the years. When he wanted something done he expected it to be done immediately, patience was not his strong point, but he wasn’t spoilt. Considering the wealth he’d accrued he was surprisingly grounded.
‘I smoked when I was a teenager. I was obsessed with everything American and old seventies movies where the cool heroes always smoked and rode motorcycles. I wanted to be Steve McQueen.’ He burst into laughter. ‘The closest I could afford to a motorcycle was a beaten-up old scooter but cigarettes were easy to come by. I thought I was the coolest kid in Gaios, driving around on that pile of junk without a helmet and a cigarette hanging from my mouth. I turned my poor mother’s hair white.’
His self-mockery and evident amusement were infectious and Carrie found herself laughing at the image he’d painted.
When she had set out on this endeavour she hadn’t suspected for a minute that Andreas could be such good company. Their one conversation on the phone all those years ago had been short and to the point, his tone what you would expect if speaking to a bank manager. That one time she had seen him outside the headmistress’s office he’d oozed menacing power. He’d frightened her.
Yes, Andreas had a dark side but she had come to realise that it only came out when people he loved were threatened.
What would it be like to be loved by this man...?
She would not allow her thoughts to go down that road.
Andreas was rich and powerful. He had charm and looks. He was everything she hated, everything she feared.
But he’d been honest about everything. He wanted his freedom. What they were sharing here, now, was pure circumstance. What she felt for him was a result of the forced proximity she’d been thrown into. When this was all over she would walk away. She wouldn’t give this strange chemistry another thought. He would be out of sight and out of mind.
But right here and now he was in her sight and completely filling her mind.
Putting her knife and fork together, she pushed her plate away, put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. She’d eaten half of the steak he’d cremated for her but had no recollection of it, too caught up in listening to Andreas’s staccato voice. ‘You sound like you were a right tearaway as a child.’
‘I was the bane of my parents’ life,’ he admitted unrepentantly, ‘but also the apple of their eye so I got away with murder.’
‘I was a good girl.’
‘Really?’ He topped their glasses up with more wine.
‘Do you have to sound so surprised?’
He studied her as he sipped his wine, his own plate pushed aside too. ‘No. I am not surprised.’
‘Because I was a virgin?’
There. It had been said. The elephant that had parked itself between them had been acknowledged and the knot in her stomach loosened because of it.
The knot had become like a noose.
‘It doesn’t suggest a wild past,’ he said slowly, his gaze on hers as he put his glass to his lips.
‘I never had the chance to be wild,’ she admitted. ‘My mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was thirteen. I had Violet
to look after—she’s seven years younger than me—so I guess I supressed any teenage hormones that might have been primed to unleash. I comfort ate a lot. I never felt comfortable in my skin. It’s funny because my mum was beautiful. Honestly, she was stunning. She’d be hooked up with drips and machines all around her and the doctors would flirt with her. Mind you, she flirted with them too. Men loved her.’
‘Were you jealous of her?’
‘No.’ She shook her head as she thought about it. ‘No, I felt sorry for her. She was married twice and had a string of boyfriends. None of them treated her well.’
‘And you thought all men were like that?’
‘No. I just thought she had terrible taste in men.’
Andreas laughed into his wine but his eyes read something other than amusement. There was compassion there, and something baser, the same something that had been there from the very start.
Carrie hadn’t spoken about her mother for a long time and it felt good to do so now, brought her memory alive. Her darling mother had been a princess in Carrie’s eyes, a woman who adored her two daughters and never shied from showing her love for them.
‘There are some good men out there,’ she said softly, staring into the hypnotic gaze that no longer frightened her. The meaning she read in it...it was nothing that she too didn’t feel. She wanted Andreas, with a burning yen that had seeped into her soul. ‘My grandfather was a good man. He was poor. Humble. Not flashy like the men my mother went for. She was like a magpie, always wanting the shiny pretty things. She could pick a rich man at ten paces and have him eating out of her hand with the flutter of her eyelashes.’
‘So your father is a rich man?’
‘Actually, he was the only poor one. He didn’t even have a job—they were at school when they got together. Mum gave birth to me when she was seventeen.’
‘You were an accident?’
‘My mum always said I was the best accident in the world.’ She would say it while planting kisses all over Carrie’s face and tickling her ribs until they were both crying with laughter.
Andreas listened to Carrie open up about her life, watched those plump lips talking, feeling as if he had a fist pushed against his chest, pressing against his heart. Her hazel eyes shone in a way he had never seen before, her love for her mother shining through, dazzling him.
What would it be like to have those eyes shining with love for you...?
‘They married when they discovered she was pregnant but split up not long after I was born,’ she continued in that same, slow cadence, those shining eyes fixed on him, an openness in them he had never seen before. ‘My dad moved away after they split up so I’ve never seen much of him but he’s always remembered my birthday and makes a point of visiting a few times a year. I’ve always known he loves me.’ A look of mischief flittered over her face. ‘He’s head gardener at the real Hargate Manor.’
He burst into great rumbles of laughter at this unexpected twist. ‘It is a real place?’
Her lips puckered with sheepish amusement. ‘I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s a beautiful estate.’
Andreas drank some more wine and continued to stare at her. She mesmerised him. She’d mesmerised him from the moment she’d stepped into his office.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said throatily.
She tilted her head and smiled, a smile that stole his breath and made a man feel he could fly to the moon. ‘You make me feel beautiful.’
A long, breathless moment passed between them as he gazed into eyes that shone with a hundred emotions.
Then she straightened, put her hands on the table and pushed her chair back.
She stood up, the wrap that had covered her shoulders sliding off and falling into a puddle at her feet. She didn’t notice, a whole range of emotions flittering in hazel eyes that burned into him.
Slowly she trod towards him.
The air between them thickened in those few small movements and by the time she stood before him it crackled.
Andreas could no longer breathe.
Two elegant hands cradled his cheeks, delicate fingers rubbing against his skin. She leaned forward and pressed the tip of her nose to his.
Her eyelids closed and she breathed him in then her lips brushed his.
‘You make me feel beautiful,’ she repeated in a murmur into his mouth. The sweetness of the wine mingled with the sweetness of her breath and seeped right into his airways and through his veins.
Carrie had a taste that had been designed for him.
And it was all for him, he thought, the thickening in his loins a weighty ache. No other man had tasted her sweetness. And no other man would...
‘You make me feel like a woman,’ she whispered before her lips closed around his and she was kissing him, deep scorching kisses, her fingers sliding to cradle his head, everything a mimic of the night she had kissed him in the Seychelles but everything new.
This time there was no restraint. No pretence, no holding back, no hate, no anger.
Just two people with an unquenchable thirst for each other.
In one motion, he gathered her to him, pulling her onto his lap just as he had what seemed a lifetime ago and as he felt her bottom press into his lap, raw hunger slammed into him.
In a flurry of ravenous kisses her soft, pillowy breasts crushed against his chest, Carrie’s fingers raked over his neck, over his shoulders, her nails scraping over his shirt, her hot tongue trailing over his cheeks and jaw, tasting him, her teeth biting into his skin, delicious jets of pleasure igniting everywhere.
And he touched her back with equal fervour, roaming his hands over the hot flesh that quivered and burrowed closer into him at his every touch, as if she were trying to burn their clothing off through willpower alone.
Somehow, with her chest crushed so tightly to his, she found the buttons on his shirt and opened them enough to burrow beneath the material to find his bare skin. Her fingers splayed all over his chest, nails raking his skin, scorching a trail of burning heat over him with her touch alone, her mouth devouring his again, her breaths shortening.
His mouth found her neck and he inhaled her earthy yet delicate scent, that erotic, womanly smell that was Carrie’s alone.
When she found the waistband of his trousers, she didn’t hesitate to tug at the button but when she couldn’t undo it, cupped her hand over the tightly compressed erection and squeezed over the material.
He groaned into her neck at the constrained pleasure her touch there unleashed, then licked all the way up to her chin and her mouth.
Her eyes were open yet hooded. If a look ever had the power to make him come without a touch, the look ringing from her eyes would be it.
Holding her tightly, he lifted her in one motion and sat her on the table so he was standing between her parted thighs.
She stared at him, desire vibrating from her, then tugged the top of her dress down to her waist.
She wore no bra.
Her plump golden breasts shone under the rising moon. Spearing her hair as he cradled her head to support her, he lowered her back then dipped his head to take one of the pebbled nipples into his mouth.
The gasp that flew from her mouth turned into a moan as he slavered her with his attention, kissing, nipping, licking.
Her legs hooked around his waist, gyrating herself closer to him, her ankles digging into his buttocks as her back arched, her need for him as beautifully obvious as the emerging stars above them.
When he ran a hand over one of her clinging thighs and slid higher to her buttocks, he was the one to moan when he found her hot and damp. She jerked against him, trying to find whatever relief she could get.
Abandoning her breasts, he kissed her hard on her mouth and she matched it, a violent fever spreading between them as he pinched the sides of her knickers with his fingers and she raised her bottom to allow him to pull them down to her hips.
With one final clash of mouth and tongue, he then tugged her knickers down her
legs and past her pretty feet, threw them onto the floor and removed his wallet from his back pocket. As he took the square foil out, Carrie returned to undoing his trousers, this time unbuttoning it with one flick of her fingers and tugging the zip down.
As he took the condom out of its wrapping she tugged his trousers down his hips, freeing his erection.
There was not a moment of hesitation.
Andreas slipped the condom on in one deft movement, hooked an arm around her waist to pull her to him, and thrust himself inside her.
Tight and hot, she welcomed him, pulling him deeper inside her, the look in her eyes as he stared into them sinking him deeper into her spell.
She slipped a hand around his waist and up his shirt, her nails biting into his skin, urging him on, their lovemaking hot and frenzied, tender and hard all at the same time, and then she was grabbing his buttocks to drive him even harder into her, mumbled, sensual words flying incoherently from her lips until her head tilted back. A ragged cry escaped her mouth and then she was thickening around him, clinging to him and Andreas found himself slamming headlong into the ecstasy of his own release, brighter, sharper and more intense than anything he had ever known before.
As he held her protectively, waiting for the shudders vibrating through both their bodies to lessen and the heavy beats of their echoing hearts to subside, a fierce possessiveness grabbed at his chest, words floating in his head he couldn’t shake.
Carrie was his.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CARRIE APPLIED HER mascara for the third time and willed her hand to stop shaking and poking the wand in her eye.
The nerves she was feeling were almost as bad as when she’d waited in the reception room to be taken in to Andreas for the first time.
His cousin was getting married in three hours. Andreas had gone to collect his parents and niece from the airport and drop them at the hotel where the evening reception would be held. The whole family was staying at the hotel, Carrie and Andreas included. Apparently it was a Samaras tradition for the bride and groom to have their first breakfast as a married couple with their family all looking at them and knowing exactly what they’d been getting up to in the marital bed.
A Bride at His Bidding Page 13