by Sarah Morgan
Deciding that if just sex was all that was on offer then she’d make the most of it, Lauranne lifted a hand, her fingers tangling with the dark curls that covered the perfect musculature.
He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, his eyes still locked with hers as he licked her fingers suggestively before sucking them into the heat of his mouth.
Her body throbbed in response and her hips shifted on the bed, her dress riding up to her waist. With a rough groan he raised her up, dealt with her zip and stripped her naked in less time than it took to gasp out his name. Then he threw off the last of his own clothes and came down onto the bed next to her, lithe, handsome and shockingly male.
Her eyes skimmed over him and she felt the sparks of excitement shooting through her hopelessly aroused body. The sexual attraction between them was so breathtakingly powerful that she knew there was absolutely no hope for her. He was magnificent in every way, perfectly proportioned and indecently good-looking.
He kissed his way down her body with a gratifying amount of male appreciation, muttering something in Greek as his mouth found the soft swell of her breasts.
Shaping her with his strong hands, he licked at her nipple with skilled strokes of his tongue, sending powerful darts of sensation coursing through her helplessly trembling body. Then he slid down her body and what happened next was the most shockingly exciting experience of her life. She squirmed and writhed under the touch of his clever mouth, her fingers curling into the sheets as her whole body simmered with a sexual need so strong that it threatened to engulf her.
She felt so frantic that she didn’t recognise herself and she wanted him so badly that she was willing to beg. Finally, when she’d given up and decided that she was definitely going to die of pleasure, he slid back up her body and parted her thighs.
‘You are so sexy, agape mou,’ he husked, simmering dark eyes raking her flushed face with a gratifying degree of male appreciation. ‘And I love the way that you want me as much as I want you—’
Without giving her a chance to reply, he thrust smoothly inside her wildly excited body, trapping her cries of pleasure with his mouth.
She moved against him, desperate to cool the burning fire in her pelvis, aching to reach the fulfilment that only he could give her. But he slowed the pace, thrusting hard and deep, driving her higher and higher until she experienced a climax so explosive that she dug her nails in his back and sobbed his name.
She felt him shudder against her, felt his hard, powerful body deep inside hers and then he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, her damp, breathless body held firmly against his.
And then she knew—
Lying in his arms, she knew without a doubt that she loved him and she always had. That was the reason she’d married him, even though she’d always known that he didn’t love her.
And that was the reason she hadn’t divorced him.
Because she hadn’t been able to. In her heart she would always be married to Zander.
Depressed by the knowledge that she could never enjoy a casual relationship with him, she lay still, coming to terms with the painful realisation that she was heading for a major emotional disaster again.
‘So now are you convinced that I want you?’ he drawled softly, stroking her tangled hair away from her flushed face.
Lauranne closed her eyes, shaken to the core by the intensity of the experience they’d just shared.
She knew he wanted her, but she wanted it to be more than that—
So much more than that.
Determined not to dwell on the impossible, she snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes, making the most of the moment.
For a brief second she felt him tense and braced herself for rejection but surprisingly he didn’t push her away. Instead he hesitated briefly and then dropped a kiss on her damp forehead.
‘That was utterly incredible,’ he groaned hoarsely. ‘The best sex I’ve ever had.’
The best sex—
His words collided uncomfortably with the soppy thoughts she’d been having, but she pushed them away and snuggled closer still, trying to ignore his slight resistance to her affection.
Too tired and sated after his passionate lovemaking to worry about the future, Lauranne felt her eyes drift closed and decided that cuddling Zander was absolutely her favourite way in the world to fall asleep.
* * *
As her soft body curled trustingly around his, Zander lay stiff as a board trying to work out what was happening to him. As a Greek who prided himself on his self-control, he was uncomfortably aware that he’d been displaying very little of it since the day he’d walked into Lauranne’s London office.
Telling himself that the only reason he wasn’t pushing her away was because he didn’t want to wake her up when she was clearly very tired, he stared up at the ceiling and tried to make some sense of the situation.
Bringing her to the island had not been a good idea, he admitted, struggling to explain to himself exactly what had prompted such an uncharacteristically impulsive decision. He was taking a ridiculous and unnecessary risk. She was totally capable of blowing the whole deal for him.
Forced to concede that for the first time in his life his libido had been involved in a business decision, he consoled himself with the thought that it was perfectly natural for a red-blooded male to be occasionally distracted by an exceptionally beautiful woman.
And Lauranne was exceptionally beautiful. And spirited. And clever. And interesting. As the list of her qualities grew alarmingly long, Zander switched tack and concentrated hard on her down points.
After several long frustrating minutes during which all he managed to come up with was the fact that she’d been the one to end their relationship five years before, he decided that maybe that was the key to his current behaviour.
Accustomed to being the one in the driving seat, he’d always been the one to decide when a relationship ended. Which made his current obsession the result of a perfectly understandable masculine desire to be in control. And on top of that the sex was mind-blowing and, as he was a normal male with a healthy appetite in that direction, it was perfectly natural to seek every opportunity to enjoy what was on offer.
But despite his attempts to rationalise his behaviour a tiny, nagging portion of his mind kept reminding him that, no matter how good the sex in previous relationships, he’d always managed to make it to the bed before seducing a woman. With Lauranne he’d barely managed to close the door behind them before subjecting them both to the hottest, most elemental sexual encounter he’d ever experienced.
What the hell was happening to him?
She gave a little moan in her sleep and rolled away from him and Zander waited for the feeling of relief that always came once the necessary post-coital affection was over. Instead he found himself fighting an alien impulse to drag her back against him.
Utterly discomforted by the direction of his own thoughts, he sprang out of bed with a fluent curse and made his way to the shower, turning the setting to cold.
The simplest solution to all this was to get her out of his system as fast as possible, he decided, gritting his teeth as needles of freezing water cooled his decidedly overheated body.
After all, he’d successfully worked every other female of his acquaintance out of his system with remarkably little problem.
Why should Lauranne be different?
Sex and then divorce. No problem. He absolutely wasn’t developing feelings for her.
* * *
Lauranne awoke to find Zander fully dressed and watching her as if she were an extremely dangerous and unpredictable animal.
‘Great. You’re awake.’ He spoke with a disturbing degree of brisk detachment given the intimacies they’d shared only an hour earlier. ‘Now we can go for a walk.’
A walk?
Still groggy with sleep, the pleasurable ache of her body reminding her of the intensity of their lovemaking, Lauranne struggled valiantly to understand his s
udden change in focus.
Had she imagined it, or had she fallen asleep curled in his arms?
Just exactly at what point had he managed to rise, shower and dress without her noticing? And why was he now looking at her as though she was the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life?
A walk?
She sat up in bed and he sucked in a breath and took a step backwards, almost tripping over in his attempt to put distance between them.
Wondering what on earth the problem was, Lauranne frowned at him in confusion.
‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’
But Zander shook his head and backed towards the door, fumbled with the handle and exited onto the terrace with an undignified degree of haste.
Totally at a loss to understand his strange reaction, she took a deep breath and slid out of bed, dressing quickly and reaching for a pretty sun hat that she’d found in her luggage. If he wanted to walk, then they’d walk.
He’d obviously gone totally mad.
Opening the door, she paused for a moment, her eyes on those powerful shoulders as he stood with his back to her, staring down at the beach with an ominous frown on his handsome face.
Hearing her behind him, he turned and she felt her heart bang against her ribs as she collided with those amazingly sexy dark eyes.
She ought to be running a mile, she thought helplessly as she floundered and drowned in the intensity of his gaze. She was an intelligent woman and she knew he was never going to change. So why was she still standing in front of him?
Closing the door behind her, she walked up to him, waiting for him to back away again.
But he didn’t back away.
Instead he hesitated briefly and then caught her against him and kissed her as if he couldn’t help himself and then dragged his mouth away from hers with a savage curse. ‘Two weeks without sex is an extraordinarily long time, agape mou—’
She stared at him dizzily, still reeling from his possessive kiss and wondering why he was trying to find excuses for kissing her. She was just relieved and flattered that he found her so irresistible physically. It was obviously all she could expect of him and she was determined to make the most of it.
‘Are you ready?’ Back to his supremely confident self, he threw her a sizzling smile. ‘I want to show you my island.’
‘You haven’t bought it yet,’ she reminded him and he flashed her a smile.
‘But I will.’
‘It doesn’t cross your mind that you might fail, does it?’
He looked amused, evidently considering her question to be totally superfluous. ‘No. It doesn’t. Come on. We’re going exploring.’
‘Do I bring a swimming costume?’
His eyes gleamed with masculine intent ‘Depends on how brave you’re feeling.’
They strolled out of the villa and he hesitated and then took her hand firmly in his, adjusting his long stride so that she could more easily keep pace with him.
Trying not to read anything into that touch, she forced a casual smile. ‘Where’s the photographer this time, Zander?’
He frowned briefly. ‘Can’t a guy be romantic?’
‘Yes, but you don’t do romantic, Zander.’
He looked taken aback, his grip on her hand tightening. ‘What have we been doing since we arrived at the villa?’
‘That was just sex,’ she said flatly and something flared in his eyes.
‘There’s no just about it. What we share is so good and I love the fact you don’t demand the emotional pretence that often goes with a physical relationship.’
Rendered speechless by his total lack of ability to appreciate the true extent of her feelings, Lauranne failed to manage anything in the way of a response. Stunned into silence, she reminded herself that if she ever managed to get through this and fall in love again then it was going to be with a man who was in touch with his emotions.
Zander was not only severely allergic to her emotions, but he evidently didn’t want to make even a passing acquaintance with his own either.
Finally she found her voice. ‘Emotional pretence?’
Zander shrugged. ‘My father was continually confusing sex with love,’ he drawled, ‘and it was a mistake that cost him a fortune.’
Still reeling from his blind rejection of even the slightest degree of emotion on her part, Lauranne looked at him blankly. ‘Your father?’ Zander had never discussed his family with her before. And he’d certainly never mentioned his father. ‘What about your father?’
Zander frowned. ‘He never learned. One expensive divorce settlement should have been enough to inject him with a healthy degree of cynicism about women, but it didn’t. Every time he met a new woman he thought he was in love and he just gave them everything they wanted.’
‘Oh!’ Lauranne considered this statement thoughtfully. ‘I suppose if you’re seriously rich then it is sensible to show a little more caution in relationships, but I like the fact that he approached each one with optimism. Now that is romantic.’
‘Romantic?’ Zander stopped dead and threw her an incredulous look, the stunned look in his dark eyes almost comical. ‘What’s romantic about being taken for a ride?’
‘But he started each relationship believing that it would last,’ Lauranne breathed, her eyes slightly misty as she contemplated the trusting nature of a man that she’d never even met. ‘Is he happily married now?’
‘He died,’ Zander said flatly, ‘when I was twenty-one, leaving behind him a mountain of debts, a large number of extremely disgruntled employees and investors and some very rich, smug women.’
Lauranne bit her lip, stunned by the revelation and experiencing for the first time a small insight into the complex workings of Zander’s character.
Suddenly she had a brief glimpse of what might have made him the man he was.
‘I really wanted you to tell me that eventually he met someone lovely who was worthy of him.’ She touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry. That must have been so hard for you.’
‘Well, let’s just say I learned a valuable lesson early in life,’ he drawled, a sardonic smile on his handsome face. ‘That love comes with a high price tag.’
Lauranne wondered how his remark could cause so much pain when she knew that he didn’t love her.
‘Only you could produce a balance sheet for a relationship,’ she said lightly and he shrugged.
‘Had my father done the same then he might not have lost everything.’
‘What about your mother?’ Lauranne held her breath as she waited for the answer, but he merely shrugged, showing not one flicker of emotion on his face.
‘My mother was wife number two. She stayed around long enough to give him me, and then she decided to use my father’s generosity to fund her less savoury lifestyle.’
Lauranne winced. ‘That’s awful—’
He shot her an impatient look. ‘Don’t start performing amateur psychology on me, agape mou. I don’t even remember her, so I can hardly blame her for my shortcomings.’
But she had to be at least part of the reason that he was so emotionally detached, Lauranne reasoned, struggling to keep pace with him as he lengthened his stride along the path that led to the beach.
Deciding that the time had come to change the subject, she cast him a wary look. ‘Are you angry that Kouropoulos invited you here and then vanished?’
Zander laughed. ‘He is playing games, Lauranne. And no, I’m not angry. I’m relieved. It will be nice to have some time together, just the two of us.’
She swallowed, refusing to allow herself to read anything into that comment. He was talking about sex again, nothing else.
They walked across the beach and then onto a narrow path that led away from the beach and she suddenly realised that he was walking with a sense of purpose and direction.
‘Where are we going?’
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. ‘There’s something I want to see.’
The path climbed u
pwards and soon Lauranne was breathless in the heat. ‘Slow down.’
He stopped immediately and shot her a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. We’re here.’
Where was here?
He slowed his pace and the path curved to the right and suddenly she found herself staring down at a perfect crescent-shaped beach. The soft golden sand curved in an arc around a clear blue sea.
‘Oh.’ Lauranne stopped dead in surprise and delight. ‘It’s totally idyllic. So gorgeous. Like something out of a travel brochure.’
Next to her Zander was silent, a strange look in his dark eyes. ‘Yes.’ His voice was slightly roughened and she sensed a tension in him that hadn’t been there before. ‘It’s called Blue Cove Beach because the colours are so intense. The island is named for this beach.’
‘I’ve never seen anywhere so lovely. And look at the house.’ She gazed in awe. ‘What a fantastic position. I wonder if anyone lives there now.’
‘No one lives there.’
Something about his tone made her hold her breath. ‘But they used to?’
‘Many years ago.’
And then she remembered what he’d said in the car. ‘This is it, isn’t it? The house you used to stay in as a child—’ It was a wild guess but the instant tension in his powerful frame told her that she was right.
He didn’t speak, a strange look glittering in his dark eyes as he stared at the pretty whitewashed house.
The silence stretched and stretched and Lauranne held herself still, feeling as though she was intruding on something intensely private.
‘That’s why you want the island, isn’t it?’ She spoke softly, as if whispering would give him the choice of ignoring her words. ‘That house is the reason.’
A muscle flickered in his rough jaw. ‘Yes.’
She bit her lip and glanced first at him and then at the house. ‘Do you want to go down there? To the beach?’
The change in him was barely perceptible but she sensed his indecision. ‘No. Not today.’
Lauranne looked at the house again and then took his hand. It was a gesture of comfort, of closeness, and for a tense moment she wondered whether he’d reject her. Reminding herself that what they shared was physical not emotional, she braced herself for the inevitable withdrawal on his part.