by Julia James
Electricity cracked through her, the charge arcing across to his eyes.
Telling him exactly, exactly, what he wanted to know…
‘No.’ Her voice was low. ‘No!’
She jerked to her feet—the way every tense, coiled muscle was impelling her to.
Leo followed suit, his hand impatiently, imperiously beckoning for the bill. When the waiter glided over, Leo had his card at the ready. As he handed it over, scrawling his name on the chit, he said something in a low voice to the man, who nodded without a flicker of his eyes. He glided away with the credit card while Anna stood, tension racking through every limb, then returned, handing back the card to Leo—and something else besides. She did not see what it was and did not care. She knew only that she must, must get out of here. It was imperative. Essential.
‘Let’s go,’ said Leo, and headed off. His voice sounded harsh, but Anna ignored it. She just wanted to get out of there, the quickest way, and she followed his rapid stride from the dining room without complaint.
But he didn’t lead the way back out to the front of the hotel. Instead he went down into the gardens. Shrugging mentally, Anna followed him. She could see palm-fronded beach cottages artfully sited amongst the banana trees and cultivated vegetation, and beyond them the white of the beach backed by the azure of the sea… Without realising it, she saw that she had followed Leo along a paved path and up to the door of one of the cottages. He held the door open for her.
Did he want to change for a swim? she wondered, stepping inside. She could do with one—maybe it would help to drain off this relentless feeling of edgy, restless tension netting her body. She turned to tell him that her swimsuit was in the car.
And froze.
Leo was looking at her.
Looking at her through heavy-lidded eyes focused totally and absolutely upon her. With an expression in them that told her that swimming was the very last thing on his mind.
And instantly, like an electric arc between them, she felt her body flaring. Her heart-rate surged and her breath came raggedly as the hunger she had been fighting all morning suddenly, urgently, took her over. Completely, absolutely.
She couldn’t move. Could only stand there, frozen, as he pressed the door shut with the palm of his hand and moved slowly, purposefully, towards her.
He didn’t speak, nor she. He only stood for a timeless moment in front of her, and then his hands were spearing into her hair, either side of her head, and his mouth was slanting down over hers.
She opened to him, blood igniting, hunger and desire leaping in her as she twined her mouth with his.
Oh, God, it was bliss! She wanted more, more of him. Now—right now. Her body pressed against his, her breasts swelling and tautening, and she could feel his body respond. The excitement of it ripped through her.
‘Christos—Anna—’
Leo’s voice was harsh, jagged, and then it was cut off as his mouth returned to devour hers. She gave a low moan, wrapping her arms around him, feeling the glory of his hard muscled back beneath her cleaving fingers. She wanted him. Wanted him so much, so intensely, that she felt faint with it. Her body was starving, ravenous for him—deprived of him, of what he could do to her, for a whole agonising long day and night.
Her nipples were hard against his torso, and the sensation aroused yet more and more wanting in her. She pressed her hips against him, feeling his surging masculine response, and she moaned again low in her throat as her mouth mated with his in avid, ravening hunger. Desire and excitement were ripping through her, tearing like a knife, demanding to be sated and slaked on him—him—Leo Makarios, whose body she craved, needed, now…right now…
Leo’s hands had left her hair, had slid down her flanks, curving around the soft mounds of her bottom, lifting her into him so that he could intensify the sensation at the vee of her legs, pressed against his strong, erect manhood. Instinctively she lifted her knee, using her thigh to caress his, winding her foot around his calf, rubbing his leg with hers, her skirts hoisting high.
He was moving her, twisting her around, backing her towards the wide, inviting expanse of the bed, where he could take her, free their bodies of their useless restricting clothes and slake their devouring need for physical satiation.
For a few blinded seconds she surfaced for air, taking a deep, gulping breath to fill her ragged lungs, blood coursing hotly through her veins, her body on fire with desire for him, desperate for him, starving for him…
A shadow of movement stilled her. In the dim light of the shaded interior she suddenly saw a pair of figures outlined in the silvered mirror on the wall.
Writhing, abandoned…out of all control except for the urges of their raw sexuality.
It was like a douche of cold water over her heated body.
She wrenched away, staring, appalled, at the reflection.
Cold, sick horror drenched through her.
What am I doing?
The words seared in her head, and she did not need a translation.
She took a stumbling step backwards.
‘Anna—’ Leo was reaching for her again, his voice hoarse.
Her eyes flared.
‘Don’t touch me!’
His expression darkened. ‘What the hell—?’
She took another step back.
‘I said, don’t touch me.’
Mortification was flooding through her, and hot, humid shame. Oh, God, had it come to this? Being bundled into a hotel room for a quick, urgent session of sexual satiation? A room hired by the hour. And afterwards, when he’d slaked himself on her, he’d tell her to get dressed again, and he would do likewise, body sated, and then he’d walk out beside her, his hand under her elbow—the woman he’d just had sex with in a hotel room after lunch—and put down his credit card at the desk to pay for his pleasure, rented by the hour…
She couldn’t bear it.
Anguish sheared through her. And shame and anger.
He stepped towards her, his hands reaching out for her.
She stepped further away.
‘I don’t want this.’
Her voice was high, staccato. Strung on a wire, pulled taut. Unbearably taut.
Something moved in his face.
‘Liar—’
His voice was low, eyes intent. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her.
‘Anna Delane—you are a liar to tell me you don’t want this. Don’t want me.’
Leo’s hand closed around her wrist, drawing her to him.
She could not resist him. Her breathing quickened again, eyes dilating, heat flushing through her. Oh, God, she wanted this all right! Wanted him…
Leo felt her relax, felt the resistance ebb from her. Felt her go weak, the way he wanted her to be—weak with desire for him. Only for him. Now. Right now.
He started to slide his hands around her waist, to take her back in his arms, feel her soft, slim body pliant against his.
The blow took him entirely by surprise. And in that moment, as Anna drew her arm back with whip-like reaction from where the side of her hand had impacted on his upper arm, she pulled away from him.
Leo stared, disbelieving. She was standing there, in a martial arts fighting pose, balanced on the balls of her feet, one arm drawn back, elbow crooked and her hand fisted loosely at her hip, the other arm extended, warding him off, palm facing him.
‘I said no,’ she told him.
Her face was set. Only her eyes flared. Showing something in them he would not recognise. Refused to recognise.
‘What the hell,’ Leo said slowly, ‘are you doing?’
She drew her breath in sharply.
‘I don’t want this. I don’t want sex with you now. I don’t want sex with you now, here, in a hotel room that you’ve just tipped a waiter to open up for you. Just because you’re in the mood—’
His mouth twisted. ‘Anna. Do you think you faked your reaction just now? Like hell you did. You want it, and you’ve wanted it since last night, when yo
u said no to me and then regretted it and were too damn stubborn to admit it. You’ve been wanting it all day—that’s why you lit up like a volcano just now. The way you always do—always have done with me—every, every time. So don’t come the hypocrite with me, Anna Delane, because we both know you want me—you want everything I give you! Everything you give me!’
Leo took a step towards her. Deliberately. Clear intent in his face.
Anger stabbed through her, like a knife slicing through a curtain. Vicious and violent. It had come out of nowhere, like a summer storm boiling out of the sky.
Taking her over.
Taking her over completely.
She felt its power surge through her, coruscating, burning. Released like a tiger, pouring through her.
‘I don’t give you sex at all!’ she hissed back at him. ‘You take it! You take it! And I won’t. I won’t be reduced to having quick, sordid sex like you want now!’
Dark eyes flashed in unleashed fury.
‘Sordid?’ Leo snarled. His face blackened. ‘Do I have to remind you,’ he bit out—and there was something in his voice that suddenly made Anna feel sick—‘why you are here at all on this island, with me? You’re a thief—a criminal!’
‘And so are you.’
‘Are you insane?’ he demanded.
It was his incredulity that did it for her. Sent the anger searing through her again. She knew she should not let it take over. Knew that, poised like this, her body both her weapon and her defence, she should hold the calm, the dispassion, the control that her sensei would insist on.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t control anything.
Let alone her anger. It was coursing through her—destructive, burning.
‘You’re blackmailing me into sex with you, threatening me with jail, and that makes you a criminal.’
His hand slashed through the air.
‘Thee mou—I keep you out of jail and you call that threatening you?’ There were white lines incised around his mouth. His eyes were hard, hard as iron. Black iron. ‘I will not have you twist the truth into your own fantasy!’ Greek burst from him, staccato and rabid. ‘I have taken all I am prepared to take from you. Your stubborn, shameless refusal to show the slightest sign of guilt, or remorse, or contrition for what you did. You spit and snarl at me, refusing to acknowledge your crime. And now, now you dare to try and accuse me of criminal behaviour?’ More Greek broke from him. And a mask came down over his face. She could see it happening. Control. Total self-control of his emotions.
‘Put your shoes on. Pick up your bag. We’re going.’
He strode to the door, yanking it open. Anna could hear him striding down the path with heavy tread.
Slowly, very slowly, she came out of her blocking stance. Her body was starting to tremble. She felt cold and shaky.
Her breathing shallow, she stooped to gather her bag, her sandals, and then, with a strange, eerie sense of complete emotional dissociation, she left the cottage.
They drove back to the villa in silence. A silence so tangible it could have been cut from a knife.
At the villa, he pulled up at the front entrance.
‘Go in,’ he instructed.
She got down from the car, but had hardly closed the door when it took off again, pounding back down the drive towards the gate in a swirl of gravel. Slowly she started to move towards the front door.
‘Miss Delane?’
The voice that spoke came from one side, and she turned. A man was walking up to her. He had a steady gait that was somehow menacing. A stab of unease went through Anna in her heightened state of excess emotion.
‘Who wants to know?’ she countered. She looked to the villa. There was no one around—not even a gardener in the gardens. The man approaching her was a stranger.
A car started moving from where it had been parked, in shadow, at the place where the drive swept away round to the garages at the side of the villa. It was black, with tinted windows.
‘You will come with me,’ the man approaching her said.
Anna backed away. Fear was running in her. What the hell was going on? Why were there no house staff around? She made to turn and run inside, to find someone—anyone.
Her arm was seized. A vice lock.
Automatically she lashed out, striking down at the man’s open side. But even as the side of her hand impacted he moved, coming round the back of her and striking her with a blow that all but knocked her out. Before she could recover she was being pushed, head-first, inside the car, thrust face down on the floor, so she could scarcely breathe, hardly think, hardly believe what was happening to her. There were voices—harsh, urgent—the car jerked forward, its engine revving. She tried to surface, fight through the terror buckling through her, but she was thrust back down again, a foot painful on her neck. Darkness rolled over her.
Leo stood, staring out to sea. He was on a rocky headland, where a rough track led to the ruins of an eighteenth-century British fort.
He could still feel anger coursing through him.
Of course it was anger. What else could it be? It was the only thing he was feeling. Burning, biting anger.
Anger at Anna Delane.
Criminal. Thief. Hypocrite.
Who had dared, dared to smear her crime on him. Dared to accuse him—him—of being a criminal—a blackmailer. Dared to look down her hypocritical nose and accuse him of being sordid.
Just because he’d wanted her so much, needed her right away—
She wanted it as much as I did. Thee mou, can I not tell exactly when she is aroused, and how much, and—?
His mobile phone went off. Impatiently he yanked it from his hip pocket and answered it.
‘Yes?’ he bit out.
He stilled totally as the caller started speaking.
The knife-blade glinted in the light. The man holding it looked at it, and then at Anna.
‘You know, Miss Delane, you would be well advised not to withhold the information I wish to have.’
He rotated the blade, so again it caught the light streaming through the windows.
‘You are very beautiful,’ he said in his accented English. ‘It would be a great pity to ruin that beauty. Now, consider your answer carefully. I ask you once again—where is your friend, Jennifer Carson?’
‘I don’t know.’
Anna’s voice was a thread. She had read in a thriller one time that fear was something you had to experience to believe. And now she believed.
The boat she was on rocked slightly over a wave as it continued to head out to sea, and the man holding her arms behind her back shifted his weight to rebalance. The movement caused renewed pressure on her joints, her shoulders. She felt faint again with the pain, her head muzzy, her brain fogged.
And the fear.
It was in every cell of her body. Like a cancer. In every cell.
The man interrogating her had eyes without expression in them.
‘I—I told you,’ she said again, her voice almost inaudible. ‘She went back to London when I left Austria with Leo Makarios. I don’t know where she is now. I don’t know anything.’
The man twisted the knife in the sunlight again and it flashed. Anna stared at it with a sick terror.
‘I am sure, Miss Delane,’ said the man with no expression in his eyes, ‘that that is an answer you should reconsider.’
He walked up to her, lifting the knife to her cheek and laying the blade flat. She could feel it pressing against her skin.
‘All I have to do,’ he told her, ‘is twist the blade inwards.’
The sickness churned in her stomach. Her eyes were distended, incapable of focus. Her brain was incapable of thought.
Only of terror.
The man holding her said something to the man with the knife. The latter gave a coarse laugh and pulled the blade from her face. He said something to the first man, and they both laughed. Then the first man looked at Anna again.
‘Marking you would lower the price we’
d get for you—but there are other ways to make you tell us what we want to know. Pain that will not scar…’
The pit of Anna’s stomach dissolved.
‘I don’t know any more than I’ve told you,’ she whispered. Her eyes were blind with fear.
Then, in the mindless terror that possessed her, she heard something. A faint roaring sound in the distance, over and above the noise of the engine of the boat she was on.
Coming closer.
The man with the knife swore, throwing more words at the man holding Anna, and then strode out onto the open rear deck of the motor yacht she’d been taken aboard by her captors.
Then another sound penetrated her stricken brain.
The steady thud-thud-thud of helicopter rotors.
The man on the stern deck jerked his head upwards, staring around to locate the source. Then his eyes went back out to sea.
Anna fought to try and make her eyes focus, but she couldn’t make her muscles work. She couldn’t make anything work. Terror was eating at her, taking over her body, shutting out everything else.
The man on the stern deck turned and shouted something to the man holding Anna. The noise of a powerboat engine came closer, and so did the thudding of the helicopter rotors. Anna felt the cruiser they were on start to rock more as the approaching helicopter started its descent, whipping up the waves.
The man with the knife spoke to Anna sneeringly.
‘Don’t get your hopes up, whore. No one can touch us. Not if they want you alive, that is.’ His face changed, become a mask of hatred. ‘We’ll put you to work in a brothel, where you belong!’ He strode up to her, and with a sudden violent movement his hand closed over the material of her dress at the bodice and tore it down, exposing her completely. He gave an ugly laugh.
Then suddenly an amplified voice was booming down over the yacht. Anna could not hear the words. Even if she had not been half-dead from fear and pain, she could not have made them out.
The man with the knife strode back to the stern deck and threw his head up, yelled something up at the hovering helicopter.
Out beyond the cruiser’s wake, Anna could see another boat approaching. Was that the power boat she had heard? It was closing fast, curving out and round, on an intercepting course to head off her abductors. It was coming closer now. Her eyes twisted to the wide windows lining the side of the cabin. She could see what could only be uniformed police aboard, and then the boat was forcing the yacht to shift to port. She felt their speed slow, jolting her sideways, and the jerking movement on her pinioned arms sent new waves of black pain through her.