by Abby Green
But, as if disconnected from her mind, a radiating heat was taking over, spreading upwards from a very secret part of her. A core she’d never acknowledged before. A core that had never been touched.
Aristotle was pulling her closer. Those big hands were still around her waist, spanning it now, fingers digging into soft, yielding flesh. He was warm and firm, and as he brought her flush against his body she realised just how hard he was. How tall, and how strong. He was huge, and she had the distinct impression for the first time in her life of being…somehow delicate. No one had ever made her feel like that.
He moved one of his hands upwards from her waist, skimming close to her breast which tingled in reaction, the peak tightening almost painfully. But then he speared that hand through her hair, around the back of her head, angling her towards him more. She was aware of the rush of disappointment that his hand hadn’t lingered, cupped the weight of her breast.
His mouth was insistent, but something inside Lucy was like ice amidst the heat, still protecting her from fully feeling. It was a wall of defence she’d erected over a long time…and yet even as she thought that she suddenly visualised that defence crumbling.
As sensation got stronger, igniting an alien urgency, panic surged. Aristotle could have no idea of what was happening inside her, how cataclysmic her reaction was, but at that moment he took his head away and looked down into her wide eyes. Somewhere Lucy was dimly aware that she wasn’t pushing him away…which she could. But she felt so heavy, so deliciously lethargic, and she couldn’t think when he was so close and looking deep into her eyes like this.
He said gutturally, ‘Lucy…I can feel you holding back. You’re shaking with it.’
And then she became aware that she was shaking—like a leaf, all over. Reality exploded around her. She was in her boss’s arms and he was kissing her! The feelings rippling through her were intense to the point of overwhelming her completely, more intoxicating than anything she’d ever experienced, or thought she could experience. With that thought sanity tried to break through: she didn’t respond to kissing in this way. And yet…she was.
Aristotle chose that moment to kiss her again, and Lucy was caught between two worlds, defenceless and vulnerable, conflicting desires whirling in her head, making her dizzy. Making her weak against this far too seductive attack on her senses. One hand was curled against Aristotle’s chest, and as his mouth moved over hers once again her fingers unfurled, like the petals of a flower opening to the sun. When his tongue traced along the seam of her tightly closed mouth the sensation made her open her lips minutely, some dark and distant part of her wanting this, wanting to experience this, and Aristotle took immediate advantage, opening her mouth, forcing her to accept him. And to respond.
When his tongue-tip touched hers it set off a chain reaction in her body. Suddenly she was feeling for the first time, and it was too strong to resist—like a flash-flood carrying her downstream. She moved closer to Aristotle’s body and felt his growl of approval. His tongue stabbed deep, exploring and coaxing hers to touch and taste. The hand at her waist brought her even closer, and the evidence of his arousal pressing into her soft belly elicited a deep craving feeling not of disgust, but of desire to experience union.
Her fingers tangled in surprisingly silky hair; she could feel her back arch wantonly towards him. He shaped the indent of her waist and hips and Lucy didn’t feel self-conscious, she felt exultant. When his hands moved to cup her buttocks and pull her even tighter into the cradle of his lap her breath caught.
Aristotle tore his mouth away and looked down at her. Their bodies were still plastered together. Their breath came swift and uneven, and he didn’t take his eyes off hers as he reached one hand down between them and found where her hand was still tightly clenched over the rent sides of the dress. He loosened her fingers and, helpless, Lucy could only look deep into his glittering eyes as she felt the dress fall apart and his hand smooth up over her thigh, then between her legs, climbing higher and higher.
He was looking at her. His eyes were on her…studying her. While his hand—
‘You’re so beautiful. Why do you hide yourself away, Lucy?’
It wasn’t his hand climbing to such an intimate place but his words that broke her out of her sensual stasis: so beautiful…
She wasn’t beautiful. She’d heard those words a million times before. Not directed at her—never at her. But at someone else. Someone who had craved them; someone who had spent her life being defined by men’s opinion of her.
The shock of everything suddenly hit her, and made Lucy jerk back violently, knocking his hand away and pulling her dress together again. She had the mortifying image in her head of wantonly pressing as close as she could, and the shame of her reaction to that made her feel nauseous. Between her legs she throbbed and tingled.
Her voice was shaking and thin, too high. ‘This is completely inappropriate. I’m your assistant.’
Aristotle’s face was uncharacteristically flushed. ‘You’re also the one woman I can’t stop thinking about and wanting. And it’s a bit late to put on the injured virgin act.’
He raked a hand through his hair in frustration, leaving it gorgeously unruly.
Lucy shook her head in rejection of that, trying to ignore the way her mouth felt so full and plump. She felt anything but virginal right now. In a few seconds he’d managed to blast to smithereens the knowledge that she’d comforted herself with ever since she had lost her virginity: she was frigid.
‘No. I’m your assistant. This is not possible.’ More shame rushed through her as she said, ‘If you think I gave you some indication that I might welcome…’ She couldn’t even say it. ‘You’re just…bored or something. You can’t possibly—’
‘Can’t I?’ he interrupted harshly. He stood with hands fisted at his sides and glowered at her. ‘I saw you changing the other morning and I felt like a schoolboy watching a naked woman for the first time. No woman has ever reduced me to that. And you want me too, Lucy. You’ve just shown me that.’
Embarrassment washed through her in a wave of heat. He had seen her. She’d known it…but to hear him confirm it nearly made her mind short-circuit. And along with the embarrassment came another feeling, one of illicit pleasure, when she remembered seeing his face. She shook her head again, even fiercer this time, both hands clutching the dress.
Just at that moment the phone rang shrilly. Lucy jumped. She was starting to shake; reaction was setting in. ‘That’s the taxi. Get out right now.’ When he didn’t move she said, ’Please.’
Aristotle finally strode over to pick up his coat and, flinging it over one shoulder, he walked to the door. He looked back at her for a long moment, hugely imposing and dark in her plain little apartment. Men like him weren’t meant for scenes like this, she thought.
The phone had stopped, but now started again.
‘I’ll see you on Monday, Lucy. This isn’t over—not by a long shot.’
And then he was gone. Lucy stood stock still and could barely breathe. When the phone impacted upon her consciousness again she went over and picked it up. ‘He’s on his way down,’ she said.
When she was certain he had gone, Lucy undressed and had a steaming hot shower, thinking perhaps it might eradicate the painfully intense feelings Aristotle had aroused in her when he’d touched her and looked at her. She dressed in her oldest and comfiest pyjamas and made herself a hot chocolate, dislodging the bra she’d hurriedly hidden as she did so from the cupboard. Heat rose upwards again, but she resolutely ignored it and went into the sitting room and sank onto the couch, cradling the hot cup in cold hands.
She reached up and took down the photo of her and her mother and tears filled her eyes as emotion surged upwards. She felt incredibly raw after what had just happened.
Her mother had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s two years ago. It had come on the back of her growing ever more forgetful and irritable, prone to mood swings and dramatics. It had been so unl
ike her usually sanguine mother that Lucy had insisted she go to be checked out by a doctor. They’d run some tests, and as soon as a diagnosis had been made her mother’s condition had worsened by the day—almost as if naming it had allowed it to take hold completely.
At first Lucy had been able to look after her in their small townhouse near Holland Park, but when she’d come home one day to find her mother wailing inconsolably in a flooded kitchen, with all the gas rings of the cooker on and alight and no idea how or why she’d done it, Lucy had known she couldn’t fight it on her own any more.
She’d started with home help—the cost of which had rapidly eaten up all their savings. Her mother had never worried about money too much beyond making sure Lucy was provided for, and there had invariably been a new rich lover more than happy to provide. However, in recent years Lucy’s mother had been coming to terms with the harsh realities of aging in a world where youth and beauty were a more potent draw to powerful men. The protection of rich lovers had all but disappeared.
Lucy’s mouth compressed as her finger ran over her mother’s image in the picture. She supposed in the nineteenth century her mother might have been considered one of the most famous courtesans of her time. But in this lifetime she’d been a famous and much sought after burlesque dancer—a true artist. Lucy’s mouth tightened even more; her mother had simply got used to the attention of very rich, very powerful men.
She’d craved the control she’d had over them—her ability to reduce them to ardent lovers, desperate to please her in any way they could. Her allure and beauty had been legendary. Her powerful lovers had funded their lives, and unwittingly helped put Lucy through the best schools all over the world. She couldn’t denigrate her mother’s memory now by judging her over where that money had come from. Her mother had simply used all the tools at her disposal to survive.
Her father had been one of those men. When he’d found out Maxine was pregnant and refusing to give up her baby, he’d paid some maintenance but hadn’t wanted anything to do with Lucy. When Lucy was sixteen he’d died, and maintenance had stopped abruptly—because of course he hadn’t told his family about her.
What had upset Lucy more than anything else was the lack of confidence and self-esteem her mother had suffered that only she, as her daughter, had been privy to. While on the one hand her mother had been in control, using those men as they used her, on another, much more vulnerable level she had craved their affection and approval. She’d used her beauty to enthral her lovers, but she’d been broken in two every time they’d walked away, leaving behind nothing but costly gems, clothes—things.
It had been shortly after finding her mother so distraught in the flooded kitchen that Lucy had discovered the house they’d lived in—a generous present from another lover—had never been signed over to her mother, despite assurances at the time. The man was a prominent politician who’d just died. Lucy’s mother’s solicitor had advised that Lucy should not contest ownership of the house when the family had discovered its existence, as obviously they had no idea of their father’s secret affair. The family had debts to clear on the death of their father, and Lucy had had no option but to let the house go. The precariousness of their situation had forged within Lucy a deep desire for order and her own financial independence.
About a year ago they’d moved into her current small apartment. Lucy had still hoped that home help would be enough, but the cost of it had barely left her with enough to buy food at the end of each week. Her job at Levakis Enterprises was the only thing that kept them afloat. And now with her increase in wages, it was the only thing giving her mum the opportunity to have decent care.
Lucy stared unseeingly down at the picture, and suddenly an image broke through—Aristotle standing right here in this room, holding her close, his hand between her legs. She could remember the way she’d throbbed and burned for that hand to go even higher, to where she ached. To where she still ached. Lucy shifted so violently in reaction that the picture fell from her lap to the wooden floor and the glass smashed in the frame. With a cry of dismay she put down her cup and picked it up carefully. As she did so, something hard solidified in her chest.
She knew exactly how to handle this situation, how to handle Aristotle Levakis and make sure everything returned to normal. She couldn’t contemplate how her decision would impact her mother just yet. All she knew was that she had to protect herself—because she’d never felt under such threat in her life. She would make sure her mother was safe and cared for. She would. She just couldn’t do it like this.
On Monday morning, early, Ari stood at the window of his huge office, with its commanding view out over the city of London and all its impressive spires and rooftops. From the moment he’d been placed in charge of Levakis Enterprises at the age of twenty-seven, on the death of his father five years previously, he’d moved the power centre of the business here to London, his adopted home.
He’d told himself it was for strategic reasons, and certainly the business had thrived and grown exponentially since he’d moved it here, but it was also a very distinct gesture from him to his family, to say he was in control, not them. They’d shunned him enough over the years. No way was he going to play happy families back in Athens. And while he had left the original office there, which his half-brother now oversaw, they all knew that it was just a symbolic front for the business. Ari controlled its beating heart, and it lay here, under the grey and rain-soaked skies of London.
But today his main focus was not on business; it was on something much more personal and closer to home. On something so exquisitely feminine and alluring that he didn’t know how he’d managed to control himself for the past weekend and not go back to that small dingy apartment, knock down the door and take Lucy hard and fast, before she could draw up that faux injured virgin response again. He could still feel the imprint of every womanly curve as he’d held her close to his body. She’d been more lusciously voluptuous than any fantasy he could have had.
His hands were clenched to fists deep in his pockets now, and his jaw was gritted hard against the unwelcome surging of desire. His assistant was causing him frustration of the most strategic kind.
She wanted him. And he couldn’t understand where her reticence came from. No woman was reticent with him; he saw, he desired, he took. It was quite simple and always had been. An alien and uncomfortable feeling nagged him as he acknowledged the dominant feeling he’d had the other night. He’d felt ruthless as he’d coaxed and cajoled a response from Lucy. When she’d finally capitulated, even for that brief moment, it had been a sweeter conquest than any victory he could remember. He didn’t usually associate ruthlessness with women—that was reserved for business—and the fact that such a base emotion was spilling over into his personal life was—
Ari heard a noise come from the outer office—Lucy’s office—and his body tensed with a frisson of anticipation, all previous thoughts scattered to the winds.
He wanted Lucy Proctor and she would pay for making him desire her by giving herself up to him, wholly and without reservation, until he was sated and could move back into the circles in which he belonged. He vowed this now, as he heard a sharp knock on his door, and waited for a moment before turning around, schooling his features and saying with quiet, yet forceful emphasis, ‘Come.’
Lucy took a deep breath outside the heavy oak door. As soon as she heard that deeply autocratic ’Come’ her nerves jangled and her heart started racing. Just before she opened the door, her hand clammy and slippy on the round knob, she prayed that the make-up she’d put on that morning would hide the dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept a wink all weekend.
Steeling herself like never before, she opened the door and stepped in. Aristotle was standing with his hands in his pockets and his back to the huge window. Waves of virile masculinity seemed to radiate from him and Lucy’s throat went dry. For an awful second her mind seemed to go blank and be replaced with nothing but heat…but as her hand clenched o
n the envelope she gave an inward sigh of relief and reminded herself that she’d soon be out of this man’s disturbing orbit.
She walked further into the office and tried to ignore the way Aristotle’s narrowed gaze on her was making her even more nervous. She came to a halt just a few feet from the desk.
She cleared her throat. ‘Sir, I…’ Heat washed into her face. ‘That is…Aristotle…’ She stopped. She was already a gibbering wreck.
‘I thought I told you there was no need for you to wear your glasses.’
Lucy’s hand went reflexively to touch the sturdy frames. She cursed herself for having told him she didn’t need them, and bristled at his high-handed manner. The sharp edge of the envelope reassured her.
‘Well, I feel more comfortable wearing them. The fact is that—’
‘Well, I don’t.’ He was curt, abrupt. ‘You work for me, and I don’t want to see them again. And you can also stop tying your hair back as if you’re doing some kind of religious penance.’
Lucy gasped. She could feel the colour washing out of her face, only to be swiftly replaced by mortified heat.
Knowing that she had nothing to lose, she didn’t curb her tongue, but her voice when it came was slightly strangled. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to comment on while you’re at it?’
Aristotle leaned back against the window and negligently crossed one ankle over the other, crossed his arms over that formidable chest. His eyes took on a slumberous quality that made Lucy’s breath falter and a tight coil of sensation burn down low in her belly.
‘Have you thrown out that skirt yet?’
Lucy’s hands clenched. She didn’t feel the edges of the envelope any more, or remember what she was here to do. Right now she was being subjected to the lazy appraisal of a man who, she told herself, was just like every other man who had traipsed in and out of her mother’s life. The fact that her predominant emotion wasn’t the anger she’d expected made her feel very vulnerable.