by Julia James
As she stood gazing around the opulent apartment, her eyes widening as she took in an Impressionist painting on the wall—clearly assuming, Markos noted with suppressed amusement, that it was a mere copy, not the priceless original it really was—he strolled across to the eighteenth-century cabinet that had been converted to a modern drinks cabinet inside, and took out a chilled bottle of vintage champagne.
The soft pop of the cork startled her.
‘Oh,’ she mouthed, her eyes widening still more as he approached her with a pair of foaming glasses. She took the long flute gingerly as he proffered it to her.
‘I already drank wine over dinner,’ she said.
‘Champagne cannot make you drunk.’ Markos smiled. ‘It’s far too exquisite to have anything coarse in its effects.’
She looked at him uncertainly. Markos tilted his glass against hers a moment, then lifted his towards his lips.
‘To us, Vanessa,’ he said softly.
She did not drink. Only stood there, her hair like a living flame around her head, cascading over her shoulders in the simple pale green frock she wore, her eyes wide and lambent.
Nor did she speak, only gazed at him, her eyes as eloquent as her voice was not, telling him, as if he needed to know, that she was his—his for the touching, the taking, the possessing.
‘Taste the champagne, Vanessa,’ he said, even more softly.
Obediently, she raised the glass to her lips and took a small, hesitant mouthful, then lowered her glass again. She was still gazing at him helplessly, mutely.
‘And now taste me,’ he murmured, and as he spoke he lowered his head to her and at last, after so many days, did what he had wanted to do the first moment of seeing her.
Touch and taste the sweet honey of her lips.
He felt them tremble beneath his own as he grazed them softly, felt them ripen, it seemed, as with the merest tip of his tongue he touched them. She trembled again, in her whole body, the finest quiver shimmering through her, and he heard the softest sigh in her throat.
‘Vanessa,’ he breathed, and at the slight parting of his lips to say her name he parted hers as well, and tasted her finally—finally to the full.
His kiss was long and deep and leisurely. Exploring all the sweetness, all the nectar of her mouth. The moment was exquisite, and he savoured it.
Without her realising it he had deposited his champagne flute and then relieved her of hers, and now, hands untrammelled, he drew her soft, slender body against his.
He felt the quiver come again, vibrating through her as his arms slid around her, moulding her pliant body to him. The swell of her breasts against him shot its own tremor through him, and he felt his body surge.
His kiss deepened, turning from exploration to desire, quickening its own appetite.
He gave her no time to speak, no time to utter the bemusement he knew was sweeping through her as he swept her up into the plane of sensuous existence he was already occupying.
His hands slid up along her spine, spearing into the glorious tresses of her hair. He felt himself quicken, his sweet plunder of her mouth deepen. A low, soft moan escaped her, and he felt her lean more against him, the ripening swell of her breasts pressing him.
He was full and ready for her, but she, he knew, was not ready. He could tell from the bemused wideness of her eyes that she was bewildered by what was happening to her, that he was taking her to a place without her conscious realisation. Yet her body was taking her; each quivering reaction to his touch, his caress, was bringing her closer. Now all that was needed was to wake her to what was happening to her.
He drew back a little, easing from her, and gazed down at her. Her lips were parted, like sweet ripe strawberries, and her pupils distended and huge.
He drew a single finger down her cheek, feeling her quiver. She could not speak, was beyond speech, and it pleased him with a deep, primitive pleasure that this exquisite creature should be so helpless to his touch.
His finger drew across her mouth, feeling the gliding moistness he had aroused, and then continued down the tender line of her throat to graze the now straining swell of her breast, cupped in its simple bodice. He drew the material down with him, hearing the soft, shocked intake of her breath as her swelling breast was displayed for him.
A soft murmur of Greek escaped him, speaking of ripeness and sweetness and beauty. For a moment he simply looked at the exquisite bared breast, and then, his lashes sweeping down over his eyes, he lowered his head to her.
He felt the peak harden in his mouth as he drew on it. Heard again the low, shocked, helpless moan sound in her throat. Felt her hand lift and touch his hair, trembling. He drew again on the ripe succulence, teasing it between his lips, and felt her trembling increase, the low moan of shock and pleasure come again. His body hardened more, blood surging in him. His teeth closed over her, grazing at her, sending, he knew, shooting, sensual flares through her that made her moan again, made her fingers tremble in his hair…
When he released her, taking one last long caress of his tongue to do so, he did not hesitate. He swept her up into his arms, glorying in the closeness of her body cupped against him. Her arms wound about his neck as he carried her.
‘Markos—’ Her voice was low, and breathless, and her eyes were wide with bemusement still, but more than that—with a longing in them, a desire for him that she could no longer hide, but which feasted on him, gazing up at him.
And she continued to gaze helplessly up at him as he lowered her down on the silken covers of his bed, as he shrugged off with rapid, practised fingers the clothes that were now nothing more than an impediment, and then as he came to her where she lay, her hair a living flame, her body indenting the softness of the pillowed bed, one ripe, rounded breast displayed for him, the hem of her dress riding up over one thigh.
His breath caught even as his body surged. God, but she was exquisite, beautiful, the image of desire.
And yet not wanton. There was an innocence in her unconscious, helpless sensuousness that speared through him as she gazed up at him, the longing, the yearning, the bemusement rich in her gaze.
Slowly he came down beside her, fingers brushing the hair like an aureole around her beautiful face.
He heard her speak, wonder and disbelief in her voice.
‘Is this a dream? Is this really happening?’
A smile parted his lips, and he lowered his mouth slowly to hers.
‘No dream,’ he assured her.
He tasted once more the sweet nectar of her mouth, and then, with infinite patience, infinite pleasure, moved on to taste the sweetness of all her body—her milky rounded breasts, their ripe and straining peaks that he teased and flamed with lips and tongue and teeth, her silken flanks, the slender moulding of her hips, the slim length of her legs that he smoothed and caressed. And then his hands caressed her soft thighs apart, to seek and find the secret satin flesh between, that made the low gasps in her throat come again and again as his skilled, gliding fingers drew from her the honeydew of her aching pleasure until she was trembling and straining beneath him, her body arching to his as he readied her for his possession. The soft moans she gave, the glistening ripeness of her silky folds, the yielding contours of her body, all told him that now, now she was at the moment of his long-awaited fulfilment of his desire, and he lifted himself over her.
For one long, last, exquisite moment he denied himself, and then no more.
With slow, absolute possession he filled her.
And discovered, when it was far, far too late to do anything other than reap the exquisite fulfilment of everything he had wanted of this extraordinarily alluring girl, that he was the first to taste that ultimate sweetness.
‘Are…are you angry with me?’
Her voice was so tentative, so diffident, it made him tense a moment.
Her face shadowed. ‘I should have told you,’ she said quietly, her voice stricken.
Something in it, in the expression in her eyes, stabbed at
him. If, ten minutes ago, anyone should have asked him if he’d wanted to take a virgin to bed, he’d have given a short, unequivocal answer. No.
But now—
He looked down at her as she lay beneath him.
His breath caught. She was so beautiful—just so beautiful.
But it was more than beauty—he didn’t know what it was, but it was there. There in the wide, clouding eyes—something that reached to him. He did not know what, or how; he only knew, with sudden, absolute certainty that he did not care that she had been a virgin. It simply did not matter. All that mattered was that she was as different from the women he bedded as a glittering diamond from a hidden pearl. That was her allure. That she was like no woman he had ever possessed.
And when the moment of full possession had come, after the momentary shock of realising just how inexperienced she was, when his body had surged within hers and the last vestige of consciousness had been drowned in a tide of sensation that had swept over them both, as he’d known from the sudden clenching of her body around him, from the cry that had come from her throat, the taut arching of her neck, the blaze of shocked, incandescent awareness in her eyes—then he had experienced a pleasure so exceptional, so rare, so complete that it had consumed him, searing through him like a brand, sating him so that he knew he had never before felt anything as intense, as absolute as this, with any woman.
That strange, unknown emotion reached to him as she lay gazing up at him, her expression shadowed and anxious, welling through him again.
He drew himself down to her, entwining her body with his, holding her close to him, feeling the softness of her body, the sweetness of it in his arms. And he knew with that same certainty that he had made exactly the right decision when he had followed his impulse that day outside Nôtre Dame.
He kissed her softly, on her mouth and on her eyes.
‘You were perfect,’ he told her, his voice low and husky. ‘Quite, quite perfect.’
As he lifted his head away and gazed down smiling at her, he saw her face light up as if the sun had come out in her eyes—a radiance that filled her being.
It pleased him.
Pleased him very much.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SNOW WAS crisp beneath Vanessa’s ski boots, the air crystalline in her lungs. She stood at the foot of the piste, gazing anxiously up the steep mountain slope, already shadowing at the end of the Alpine winter’s afternoon. Almost beyond her vision she could see a dot moving, dark against the glittering snow, heading downwards in swift, powerful sweeps.
Anxiety bit at her, and she had to force herself to be calm. Markos was a superb skier, she knew that, and he could handle a run of this severity with ease. But her novice eyes saw only the plummeting drop, the deadly rocky outcrops, the hairpin turns.
Please let him be all right!
The plea was automatic, urgent. If anything happened to Markos she would die.
As she watched with bated breath, him drawing closer to her, she found herself wondering yet again how it was that this extraordinary miracle had occurred.
How could she ever have thought, the morning she went out to explore Paris for the very first time, that her life would change for ever on that very day? She had not known it—not that first day, nor any of the magical days that followed—until that wondrous fairytale night when he had swept her away and made her his.
And then she had known, completely and utterly, with a certainty that had flooded through her, consuming her and possessing her and overwhelming her.
She was in love.
In love with the most wonderful man in the world.
She had never been in love before. How could she have? She had lived at home, quietly and sedately, occasionally going out with young men she worked with, or friends of friends—men who were safe, that her grandparents had felt her to be safe with. She had experienced some kisses, nothing more. Nothing to make her want more, nothing to melt her like ice in a searing flame the way Markos’s kisses melted her, the way his touch inflamed her, the way his eyes caressed her, his arms held her, his body possessed her.
She felt weakness flooding through her just thinking of him. And wonder—above all, wonder.
He chose me—from all the women he could choose from, he chose me!
Every day, every night, the miracle that that choice had brought about for her consumed her. She had been chosen by the man she adored.
She still could not really understand why. Now that she knew his lifestyle, where he could have anything and anyone he wanted, it made it all the more miraculous that he was so content with her.
And she was content just to be with him. Wanting nothing else. The past had ceased to exist, and the future too. Nothing existed for her except the perpetual now of being with Markos, only with Markos. Going where he went, doing what he wanted, being what he wanted.
Nothing else existed.
Only Markos—and his wanting her, and her loving him so much, so very much…
He filled her world.
And it was enough—oh, more than enough. It was everything to her.
He slewed to a snow-spraying halt in front of her, jabbing his ski poles deep into the snow and lifting his visor. His eyes went to her immediately.
‘Did you think I’d kill myself?’ he asked, a grin dazzling in his face.
Numbly she nodded, sick with relief that he had made his descent of the black run safely.
He gave a laugh for answer. ‘You’ll be doing black runs yourself soon,’ he told her, removing his helmet and shaking out his dark hair.
Vanessa paled.
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t—really.’
He laughed again, handing his helmet across to Taki, who had stepped forward to take it.
‘How was your lesson?’
She made a face. ‘Poor Christian was very polite, but he knows I’m useless.’
Markos’s dark eyes glinted. ‘Would you prefer another instructor?’
Vanessa looked rueful. ‘It’s not the teacher that’s the problem—it’s the pupil, I’m afraid.’
The laugh came again, as Markos stooped to unlatch his skis and step free. He left them where they were for Taki to sort out, and wrapped an arm around Vanessa’s shoulder.
‘Perhaps I should give you personal lessons.’ His head bent lower. ‘After all, I’ve been a good teacher in other respects, no?’
There was a huskiness in his voice that brought colour flaring out along her cheeks. The sight of it never failed to amuse Markos. Though she had been with him for five months, she could still be astonishingly reserved. Even a casual comment like this, reminding her of how much he had taught her about sexual pleasure, could bring it on. Not that he objected. It was one of the reasons she still continued to have such intense charms for him—the novelty of having a mistress who was so entirely unlike any other had still not yet worn off.
Nor were there any signs of it doing so.
He walked towards the waiting Jeep, his arm still around her shoulder. Both of them were padded with ski-jackets, and her body seemed frustratingly buried. The hard, demanding run had been exhilarating, storming him with the adrenaline needed to handle it, and he knew exactly what he wanted next. The twenty-minute drive down to the schloss would be punishingly long.
Once there, though, he would whisk Vanessa up to their suite, the damn ski jackets would hit the floor and that vast monstrosity of a four-poster bed could justify its existence.
He shook his head as he climbed into the Jeep after Vanessa. His cousin Leo must have been nuts to buy that place! He’d spent a fortune doing it up, but the best plan would have been to turn it into a hotel, not a private residence. Still, he mused, that was his cousin all over—making grand gestures, just like he was doing now, inviting the world and his wife to this razzmatazz launch of the Levantsky collection of Tsarist jewels.
Markos’s eyes wandered to Vanessa. She’d thrown back the hood of her ski-jacket, unzipping it in the warmth of the Jeep, an
d yet again Markos was struck by her beauty.
How the hell had he been the first to possess her? It still astounded him to think about it. Most English girls lost their virginity early, yet Vanessa had been untouched at twenty-four. But, as he’d found out about her hitherto restricted life, he’d realised that she had simply never had the opportunity.
But with him—oh, she had opportunity all right. Opportunity, and the total inability to resist him! She had gone to his bed without the slightest demur, the slightest hesitation, had gone with ardour, melting into his embrace, accepting his caresses, breathless beneath his kisses, yielding to him absolutely, completely, consumingly.
Perfect, he had called her—and she was. Completely perfect for him.
Possessiveness flared through him, powerful and potent. He had set his seal on her and she was his.
And she basked in it, he could tell. Even now, after five months together, her face still lit when he came up to her. Every time. Oh, his cousin Leo could be as cynical as he liked, but what did that signify? A mocking smile came to his mouth as he compared Vanessa to the sable-haired beauty whom Leo had his eye on, and who was giving him such a hard time. That was Leo’s problem. As for himself, right now life was just fine. And having Vanessa gazing up at him with that bemused, adoring expression on her face was a good, good feeling.
He waited impatiently as Taki finished loading the ski-gear onto the roof of the Jeep and climbed in beside Stelios in the driver’s seat. The engine revved and they moved off slowly over the snowy trackway.
He turned to Vanessa.
‘Is all the photography finally over now?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, thank goodness.’
A frown drew his eyebrows together. ‘You did not enjoy it?’
There was a guarded note in his voice, and Vanessa bit her lip. It had been entirely Markos’s idea that she should be the fourth model for his cousin Leo to use to publicise the Levantsky jewellery collection. Her objections that she had never modelled in her life had been swept aside. So had her observation that the photographer might prefer to work with a professional model, not some amateur.