Shackled by Diamonds

by Julia James

  She was making not the slightest attempt to look alluring.

  It hadn’t worked in the least. Anna Delane would have looked alluring in a sack. Her body had a long-limbed grace that could not be disguised, and the bones of her face had been constructed with a natural artistry that meant make-up or hair-style was an irrelevance.

  Oh, yes, Anna Delane had an allure that she could not suppress. Leo gave a mocking, inward smile. Even when she was doing her best to be sullen and monosyllabic, as she was now.

  He took a mouthful of champagne and contemplated her. A sliver of irritation wormed its way under his amusement. She really was a piece of work—sitting there as stiff as a board and twice as hostile. He’d caught her red-handed, a proven thief. But was she abashed? Guilty? Contrite?

  The words were unknown to her, clearly.

  Shameless. That was the only word that fitted her.

  He took another mouthful of champagne and washed off the irritation. Well, there was an expression in English that perfectly captured Ms Anna Delane’s forthcoming fate—riding for a fall.

  And she would do it, very, very satisfyingly, in his bed.

  Anticipation eased through him. He was going to enjoy Anna Delane, every last exquisite drop of her—and the greatest enjoyment would be her enjoyment of him. However galling it was to her.

  He reached out a hand and scooped some more beluga with his spoon.

  Numbly, Anna took another forkful of grilled fish. Somewhere in her mind she knew it was delicious, but it didn’t register. Nothing registered. She wouldn’t let it. Must not. Instead she just sat there, eating grilled fish and salad like an automaton, without will or feeling. Resolutely refusing to look at the man sitting opposite her.

  He’d abandoned attempts at talking to her, and she was glad. It allowed her to keep her mind blank—as blank as her expression. She was well trained in that—it was like having to stalk out onto a runway, features immobile, not a person at all, just an ambulatory clothes-horse, walking, posing, stopping, going, all at the direction of other people. No will of their own.

  Just as she now had no will of her own.

  She set her fork aside, having consumed enough. She reached for her champagne and took a small, measured sip, then set her glass back. She’d contemplated getting drunk, but decided against it. Alcohol lowered your guard. Made you stupid. Weak.

  And weakness was something she must not allow.

  It was far, far too dangerous.

  She’d known it, known it with a hollowing of her insides, as she’d walked out on to the terrace this evening.

  And set eyes on Leo Makarios again.

  A jolt had gone through her that had been terrifying in its intensity. A jolt that had nothing to do with him thinking her a thief and everything to do with the sudden, instant quickening of the blood in her veins, the surge of emotion dissolving through her, the debilitating weakening of her knees.

  She’d taken in the presence of Leo Makarios.

  Waiting for her.

  And almost, almost, she had turned and run.

  But she’d forced herself to go forward. She couldn’t run. There was nowhere to run to.

  So she’d steeled herself, drained all expression from her face, all feeling from her mind, sat herself down and stared out to sea.

  Not looking at Leo Makarios. Not looking where he sat, lounging back with lazy, dangerous grace, the open collar of his shirt revealing the strong column of his throat, the turned-up cuffs showing the lean strength of his wrist and hands, the taut material over his torso emphasising the breadth of his chest.

  And not looking, above all, at his face. The wide, sensual mouth, the dark heavy-lidded eyes.

  Eyes that pressed on her like weights.

  With all her strength she sat there, impassive, indifferent, while her stomach contorted in hard, convoluted knots.

  Praying for the strength to get through the ordeal ahead.

  But she could not, dared not, put into words what she was praying for.

  The meal seemed to go on for ever. She refused dessert, desultorily picking at a slice of mango and sipping mineral water, her champagne abandoned. Leo Makarios, it seemed, was in no hurry. He’d eaten a leisurely first course, a leisurely main course, and had made a considered selection from the cheese board.

  Finally he leant back, brandy swirling slowly in his glass, a cup of coffee at his place, eyes resting on her contemplatively.

  ‘Tell me something,’ he said suddenly, his tone conversational. ‘Why did you steal the bracelet?’

  Anna’s head turned. Her eyes looked at him, widening slightly as the meaning of what he’d just asked registered. The question seemed extraordinary.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she returned repressively.

  For a moment Leo Makarios just stared at her, as if he did not believe what she’d just said. Then a thread of anger flashed in his eyes. Next it was gone.

  He leant back in his chair and gave a laugh.

  It was an incredulous, disbelieving laugh, with not the slightest trace of humour in it.

  ‘You really are a piece of work,’ he said slowly. His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me it was for your sick grandmother, or something? To pay for an operation?’ His voice was jibing.

  She looked at him levelly. ‘No.’ Her voice was expressionless, but inside emotion was running. Thank God she had not tried to throw herself and Jenny on his mercy—his taunt just now showed exactly how he’d have received her plea. No. Her face hardened. There was only one way out of this, and that was the way Leo Makarios had given her in his office.

  Oh, God, just let it be over and done with!

  She just wanted it over and done with. That was all she wanted.

  Suddenly, tension spilling out of her in words, she spoke.

  ‘Look, what’s with this stupid inquisition? You gave me the choice of the police or you—and here I am. So what are you waiting for? You’ve had your dinner—why hang around? Just get it over and damn well done with!’

  Her voice was terse.

  For a moment he just went on looking at her, his face suddenly unreadable. Then, abruptly, he set down his brandy and got to his feet.

  ‘Very well. Time for bed, Ms Delane. Let the reparation begin.’

  Was there mockery in his words? She couldn’t tell. Didn’t know.

  Didn’t care.

  This was it, then. No more tense, fraught waiting. No more prevarication.

  She was going to go to bed with Leo Makarios.

  Right now. Now.

  And have sex with him.

  Carefully Anna got to her feet. Her heart, she could tell, seemed to have gone strangely numb as well. Just like the rest of her.

  She could only be grateful.

  It was the best way to get it over and done with.

  She just had to keep her nerve, that was all. Endure. Let him take what he wanted and it would be over.

  At least for now. Tomorrow night she’d have to go through it all again, but that was tomorrow. She’d think about that then. Now she just had to focus on getting through tonight.

  She walked into the villa ahead of him, every footstep, his and hers, falling heavily on the marble floor, and let him guide her up the shallow flight of stairs into a room that was not hers.

  His, evidently.

  She stood for a moment in the middle, not sure what to do. There was a large bed in here, just like in her bedroom, but this one was not a four-poster, and it did not have yards of muslin draped. The air was cool from the air-conditioning, but not as chilly as the setting in her room. On either side of the bed low lamps provided the only illumination, making the room shadowed, intimate.

  ‘Wait there.’

  She did as she was told. Leo Makarios disappeared into his en suite bathroom. She heard the sound of water running. Anna went on standing there, immobile. Her brain was frozen, her mind empty. She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. She was standing in Leo Maka
rios’s bedroom, waiting for him to emerge from his bathroom and take her to his bed. It was impossible, outrageous.

  And yet it was happening.

  Now.

  Tonight.

  She should be feeling something, she knew—but she felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  Only the hard, heavy thumping of her heart in her breast, the tautness in the line of her jaw told her that, numb though her mind was, her body was registering the anxiety, the tension in her psyche at what was going to happen.

  Tonight.

  Now.

  She went on standing there. Not looking. Not thinking. Not feeling.

  Completely numb.

  The bathroom door clicked open and Leo Makarios reappeared. He was wearing a white towelling robe. Short. To the knees. Belted tight. The whiteness made his Mediterranean skin tone even darker in the subdued lamplight.

  Anna felt some kind of emotion prickle out across her skin.

  She watched him as, scarcely glancing at her, he went across to the bed, drew back the covers, and lounged down against the pillows, propping them up behind him. His long tanned legs stretched out bare on the white sheets.

  He settled his gaze on her.

  Time seemed to stop. Stop completely. As if the world had stopped turning.

  His eyes were dark, unreadable. His face immobile.

  But something in his eyes made the prickling intensify across her skin.

  A pressure started to build.

  Inside her—outside her. In the room, in the space between where she was standing, motionless, numb, in the middle of Leo Makarios’s bedroom, and where he was lounging back on his bed.

  Looking at her.

  Waiting for her.

  For one endless moment the silence held.

  Then he spoke.

  ‘Come here,’ he said softly.

  For the space of a single heartbeat—which lasted an unbearable agony of time—Anna did not move.

  Could not move.

  Somewhere deep in her head words were forming. She could hear them, very low. They were telling her to run. To yell. To shout abuse at the man who lounged back against his pillows like some eastern pasha, waiting for his slave woman to come and pleasure him…

  But even as she heard the muffled, vehement words they were stifled. Extinguished.

  She could not listen to their siren call. Must not.

  If she did, Jenny would be doomed.

  Slowly, like a puppet, Anna started walking towards him. Feeling nothing, she stood beside the bed.

  Docile. Compliant to his will.

  Holding down with iron force the voice that was trying to speak deep inside her head. The pressure that was building, molecule by molecule, inside her veins.

  It wanted to get out, she knew. She must not allow it.

  Must not.

  She went on standing there, motionless beside Leo Makarios’s bed, with him lounging back against the headrest.

  Looking at her.

  There was something in his eyes, dark and hooded, something that made the prickling in her skin intensify again, as if the voltage applied to her flesh had just been increased.

  She felt her breath quicken and tried to suppress it.

  His eyes washed over her.

  Her heart started to slug in her chest; her veins dilated.

  Desperately she tamped it down.

  Leo’s voice was murmuring. Slow, and low, with a creamy, sensual timbre.

  ‘Oh, Anna Delane, you have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy this.’

  His voice was soft and heavy. His eyes slumberous with desire.

  He reached a hand out to her, taking hers in his. Her hand was limp, inert.

  He drew her down on the bed and she sat there, half twisted towards him. Looking at him. Nothing in her eyes. Nothing at all.

  She was a doll, a puppet. Capable of no feeling at all…

  Slowly, never taking his dark, slumberous eyes from her, he lifted his hands to her hair, pulling out the pins. Her long black hair tumbled down over her shoulders, cascading over the jade-green silk.

  Leo spoke again, his Greek accent low and heavy, his lashes sweeping down over those dark golden eyes.

  ‘You come to me like a sacrificial virgin.’ His hands sifted through her hair. ‘Laying down your virtue for me. Pure, unsullied, innocent.’ Something shifted in the depths of those eyes. Shifted, and hardened.

  Like his voice.

  ‘How extraordinarily deceptive appearances can be.’

  The words drawled from him.

  She did not respond. Did not speak. Did not do anything except go on sitting there as his long, sensual fingers sifted through her hair. Her body was like marble—motionless, insensate. It had to be—it had to be—she must not be anything else! Must not let herself feel his fingers in her hair, feel the myriad pressure points in her skull sending a soft, shivering sensation through her. She must not feel that.

  Must remember she was only a puppet. Feeling nothing. Nothing at all.

  His fingers stopped, then slid through her hair to stroke the back of her neck. Slowly, sensually…

  And suddenly, out of nowhere, sensation started to flow through her. She tried to stop it, tried to remember why she was there, with no feelings, no thoughts, no will, merely a mindless doll that Leo Makarios could touch and stroke, and she would let him, because that was what she had to do…

  But it was impossible.

  She could not stop herself. Could not stop the sensation rippling through her as his fingers played with the sensitive skin they were touching.

  She felt her eyes close. Heavy, slumberous.

  Slowly, his fingers tautened around her nape. Leisurely he drew her down towards him. She let him do it. She let him brush her lips with his, slide his tongue within and start to caress her.

  She let him slip her top from her, the silky material sliding away, let him pull her over him, let her bared, braless breasts graze against the towelling of his bathrobe, let his hands slide beneath the waistband of her silk trousers, mould over the soft roundness of her bottom. Even as he started to slide off the material, down her thighs she let him do it, wanted him to.

  Anna let him go on kissing her, moving his mouth on hers, let the hard shaft of his manhood probe at the juncture of her legs, let his hand palm her breast in slow, rhythmic circles as its peak ripened under his touch.

  She let herself lie there, spread across him. His hand was at the nape of her neck, the other at her breast, and his mouth was on hers, his thighs hard beneath hers, his shaft strong and seeking.

  She had no will, no emotion, only total, absolute submission to sensation—sensation he was arousing from her, stroking from her, caressing from her. A slow, spreading fire started to lick through her. A long, low pulse started in her veins, and in every cell of her body a warm, dissolving heat began to steal.

  She felt herself move, press her body along his, felt the hardness of his hips, the lean strength of his smooth, muscled chest. Felt her mouth move, move over his, felt herself start to kiss him back, to seek his tongue with hers. Felt the hunger start, deep, deep within her. Felt her hands curl over his strong, sculpted shoulders, revelling in the touch of his skin beneath her kneading fingers.

  The fire was licking now, like flames at dry grass, spreading through her veins. She could hear low, aching moans, and knew they were coming from her throat, but she could not stop them. She had no will, no power.

  Something had taken her over. Consumed her so completely, so absolutely, she was helpless in its thrall, in its overpowering, overwhelming need.

  A need to move her body over his, touching, seeking, questing, with her thighs tautening, hips lifting slightly, so slightly, but just enough, just enough…

  She wanted…

  She wanted…

  She wanted to feel his hand on her breast, palming it, scissoring rhythmically, pulling at her inflamed, jutting nipple. Wanted the other breast to feel the same. Wanted more, more—much mor
e.

  The fire was coursing through her, hungry for more to feed it with. The low, aching moans were coming again, need and ravening hunger.

  Hunger for him. For the lean, hard body beneath her. For the silky moistness of his mouth, the sensuous gliding of his tongue, the rich velvet of his lips. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.

  Fire licked again, all through her veins, but with a new focus, a new urgent source of heat.

  She wanted…

  She wanted…

  She twisted her hips, feeling the long hardness of his shaft at her belly.

  She wanted…needed…

  Again she lifted her hips, straining down on him with her thighs, her hands pressing on his shoulders, her breast ripe in his hand, as she writhed against his body.

  She felt the tip of his shaft against her, and the fire flamed within her. She reared up, hands pinioning his shoulders, her thighs over his, hair tumbling over her back. And with a last, low, rasping moan in her throat she caught his tip at the vee of her legs, lifting and positioning it just where it had to—had to be.

  He let go her mouth, let go her nape, and she threw back her head, rearing up over him. Her eyes were blind, shut, her body one single writhing twist of flame.

  His hand glided down her back in a single smooth sweep, splaying over her bottom.

  Words came from him. She could not hear them. Could only feel the tip of his probing shaft at the entrance to her inflamed, aching, flooding body.

  And she wanted it. Needed it so much that not having it was a torment, a hunger, a desperation.

  So she took it.

  Took him into her.

  His hand splaying across her guided her down on him, slowly, infinitely slowly, and he filled her, stretching and moulding her.

  A long, low exhalation breathed from her. He was solid inside her. Solid, and hard and full. For a long, timeless moment she just stayed there, half-reared over him, feeling his fullness inside her, filling her, filling her so completely that she could only stay completely, absolutely still.

  Then slowly, very, very slowly, she moved. Indenting her hips, pressing forward.