by Annie West
Callie marshalled her resolve. She would be strong. Damon would never realise how profoundly he’d affected her.
How for a short time he’d reawakened naïve, girlish dreams of happily-ever-after with a man who seemed perfect for her. Caring and patient when she was in pain. Tender yet powerful and outrageously seductive in bed.
Spinning threads of wonder and ecstasy that stopped her thinking straight.
Allowing her control. The right to choose. She blinked furiously. How precious that had seemed last night.
Yet there’d been no choice. She’d been utterly ensnared by his potent seduction. Unable to escape. And he knew it.
The man she’d fallen for was a fantasy. He was not Damon. She had to remember that.
Callie would go her own way as soon as she could. Carve a future for herself. Despite her lack of qualifications or work experience, she’d find a job and save. No matter how many years it took she’d earn enough to start her business, achieve her dream. She’d live her own life.
It would be all right.
Why, then, did her eyes mist with hot, prickling tears as her hand slid over that empty pillow? Why did her lip wobble so she had to bite down hard to keep it still and stifle the wrenching sob of pain that rose in her aching throat?
This was what she’d feared. Not the physical intimacy, though she’d known moments of doubt last night as Damon led her down paths, to experiences that were completely new. It was the sense of being swamped, overwhelmed by a force stronger than herself, that threatened to steal her identity.
The force binding her to Damon was stronger than blackmail. Her craving for tenderness had become a shackle, tying her to a man who would never care for her.
Callie would resist it. She refused to be a victim any longer.
Damon whistled softly between his teeth as he towelled his hair. Even the cold shower, necessary to keep his libido in check long enough to get out the door to the office, hadn’t doused his buoyant mood.
She was his. At last Callie was his. She was as delicious as he remembered.
More. She was…more.
He’d never felt so jubilant after a night with a lover.
His hands stilled as the thought flashed into his brain that Callie wasn’t like his previous women.
He ignored the idea. It was simply the result of supreme sexual satisfaction. Sex had never been this good. Callie was more than anything he’d ever imagined.
It had been tempting to stay in bed, consigning his morning’s meetings to oblivion.
Far too tempting.
Damon prided himself on his willpower. He hadn’t got where he was by getting sidetracked. He didn’t intend to start now. Especially when, for all her sweet abandon, he knew remaining would be a measure of her power over him.
No woman had that sort of power.
He turned to drape the towel over a rail then froze as a thought lodged.
He felt more pleasure, more excitement finally having Callie where he wanted her than at acquiring Manolis Enterprises. That had once loomed above him like an unreachable goal.
A woman, this woman, meant more than the goal that had sent him into business all those years ago.
Hair prickled his nape and a twist of something like apprehension coiled in his belly.
Impossible!
Swiftly he dressed, holding at bay the subversive snippets of thought that threatened to distract him.
How his lust for business success had faded this last year or two.
Outstripped now by his lust for one woman.
No! He wasn’t a one-woman man. Not yet. Not till the time came to settle down and start a family.
How Callie had been everything he’d expected, yet different.
Unexpected. In some ways almost innocent.
Could it be? After years of marriage? After the way she’d come to him the first time: so easy and uninhibited?
No, it was a tactic she’d used to excite him. Her apparent surprise and inexperience in the shower just showed she could pander to a man’s fantasies—playing the role of shy ingénue to complement her obvious sensuality.
Yet his hands slowed on his shirt buttons, remembering the look on her face as he’d knelt before her: trepidation mixed with excitement.
She’d acted like an inexperienced virgin.
He knew for a fact she was anything but that.
Deftly he tucked in his shirt and reached for a comb. The surge of heat in his groin, the warmth in his chest slowly dissipated.
Had she conned him again? Didn’t she know he wanted her just as she was? The real her. Not some carefully constructed persona like the one she’d created at her uncle’s behest.
He preferred she didn’t play such masquerades. He was a straight-down-the-line sort of guy. That was what he expected from her.
Honesty. Was that too much to ask?
‘There’s no need to pretend you’re asleep.’
Damon’s voice came from too close. Callie had hoped he’d leave her, apparently sleeping, when he departed. She needed time to pull herself together before she faced him.
Perhaps he wanted to gloat. Men enjoyed revelling in their triumphs.
For a fleeting time she’d thought perhaps with him it could be different.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes. He stood beside the bed, fully dressed, his hair sleek from the shower. He was tall, dark and utterly gorgeous.
Her throat closed on a convulsion of emotion and her chest ached as if too full. She wanted to stroke her finger down the proud, skewed line of his nose, taste the heat of his lips with hers, feel his hands on her body.
His next words remedied that desire.
‘Every morning you pretend not to be awake when I leave. That stops now.’
Guilty heat shot through her, yet she said nothing.
‘I refuse to be ignored. Especially in my own bed.’ His lips curled in a satisfied smile. ‘Especially after last night.’
Suddenly Damon looked like a particularly hungry, particularly dangerous cat. And Callie felt like a tiny cornered mouse. She shuffled back from the edge of the bed, sitting up and drawing the sheet over her naked breasts.
She should have dressed while she had the chance.
He stepped closer till he was up against the bed, looking down.
‘A kiss would be an excellent way to say goodbye before I leave for the office.’
Yet his deep voice, his hooded gaze told her he was considering more than a kiss.
He wanted her again.
In the light of day that scared her more than ever. His passion sucked her under, obliterating every defence she had. It made her vulnerable.
‘Is that part of the job description for mistresses?’ Defiance was her only defence.
His head jerked back, his shoulders stiffening as his lips turned down in displeasure.
‘After what we’ve shared, you would begrudge a kiss?’ Anger underscored his suddenly cool tone.
‘No.’ Callie’s defiance ebbed.
It was a losing battle, trying to resist Damon when her body clamoured for him. What she wanted was to melt in his embrace and let him seduce her away to that fantasy paradise they’d discovered together.
She looked around for a robe but there was nothing to cover her nakedness. Instead she tugged the sheet loose and pulled it round her as she rose to her knees.
Damon’s palm was warm on her cheek, his breath sweet temptation against her lips as she stretched up towards him.
She wanted this as much as he. It did no good to pretend otherwise. Her heartbeat accelerated in anticipation.
‘Better, much better,’ he murmured. ‘But there’s no need for the display of false modesty.’
His other hand curled round the sheet at her breasts and yanked.
Horrified, she grabbed the fine linen and sat back on her heels, securing the cloth tightly around her.
‘What are you talking about?’
An expression she couldn’t read flitted
across his face. His mouth hardened.
‘You needn’t pretend to be so innocent. I don’t need games like that to pique my interest.’
His eyes glittered, scorching a trail down to her empty belly and lower, where an insidious pulse of excitement started beating.
‘I’m not playing a game,’ she responded, bewildered. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Abruptly Damon sat on the bed and reached out to her, his hand cupping her chin so she couldn’t evade him.
‘You act like you’ve never let a man see you naked.’
‘Is it a crime to feel modest about baring my body?’ Indignation snaked through her.
‘All I’m saying is you can drop the pretence. I know who I took on when I accepted you as my mistress.’
Despite the warmth of his hand against her skin a chill engulfed her.
That sounded remarkably like an insult. As if he was magnanimous admitting her into his presence.
‘You’ve lost me.’ Her chin tilted higher.
He jerked his head up impatiently, his hand dropping away. Yet his gaze held her snared like a bird before the hypnotic eyes of a deadly predator.
‘Last night you pretended you’d never had oral sex. That you were inexperienced in quite a few things.’
Despite the disapproval in his eyes, Callie didn’t miss the flare of heat as he remembered what they’d done together in the bathroom and here, in his wide bed.
Embarrassment was a swirling wave engulfing her, making her skin glow.
She wanted to look away but hiding wasn’t the answer.
‘As it happens, I hadn’t. Is that a crime?’
The shock on Damon’s face would have been ludicrous if it weren’t so insulting.
What did he think she was?
Then she remembered exactly what he thought of her—some unprincipled socialite whose time was spent shopping and having affairs.
The last of the sweet, piercing joy she’d discovered as Damon made love to her through the night splintered and vanished.
Good, she decided over the soundless keening of her bruised soul. It had been a mirage anyway. Better she face that fact now than spin hopeless dreams.
‘I told you, there’s no need to act the innocent.’ His jaw jutted belligerently. ‘If I want you to play games in bed I’ll let you know. In the meantime, don’t lie. I don’t like it.’
‘I’m not lying.’ Her voice trembled with an indignation so fierce she strove to control her larynx. ‘I did what you wanted, didn’t I? That’s enough.’
More than enough. The bliss she’d found in his bed was tarnished. She felt unclean.
‘And I find your attitude insulting,’ she added between clenched teeth.
Bad enough when he’d misjudged her before. But now, after the intimacies of last night, the pain of his mistrust carved right through her.
She’d been right not to read too much into what had after all been just sex.
The trouble was the experience was still so overwhelming for her. She hadn’t been able to shake the ridiculous idea that there’d been something special about the connection between them.
Damon was probably just as ‘special’ with all his lovers, she realised bitterly.
Yet she felt betrayed.
‘My attitude?’ He rose to his feet so swiftly she got dizzy. He towered over her, dominating the bed, but at least now he wasn’t so close that he overwhelmed her. ‘I think you need to consider your own first.’
‘What, do I need to consult some Mistress’s Handbook of Etiquette? I suppose I’ve broken an unwritten rule.’ Callie found refuge in sarcasm, hoping to hide the raw hurt of his accusations.
‘Don’t tell me I didn’t satisfy you,’ she jibed before he could respond.
‘That would be a lie. You were well-satisfied. Several times.’
Even if she was incompetent as a lover, his expertise had more than made up for it. In her naïvety she’d assumed her eagerness had pleased him as it had that first time on the beach. Clearly she’d been wrong.
‘What are you saying?’ He crossed his arms over his chest. Even in a dark silk shirt and tailored trousers he looked dangerous, as if civilisation was the thinnest veneer to the untamed, primitive man beneath. ‘That I seduced an innocent that day on the beach? Even after you’d been married for six years?’ His expression of disbelief made her bristle. ‘I don’t believe in fairy stories, Callista.’
His tone, his attitude, the echo of her uncle’s disapproving use of her full name: it was the final straw.
After years bottling up the truth and the pain of her disastrous marriage, it was too much. Raw fury, white-hot and overwhelming, rushed through her, obliterating all else.
Deliberately Callie turned and made a production of plumping up the pillows behind her. Then she leaned back, feeling his eyes on her but pretending not to notice.
‘Don’t worry,’ she purred in the deadly saccharine tone that only true disgust could conjure. ‘I didn’t claim that I came to you a virgin.
Someone else had that pleasure.’
She paused, remembering with a jolt just how little the gift of her innocence had meant to her first lover.
The first man to betray her.
A tremor of dark emotion ripped through her and she folded her hands tighter across her breasts, angling her chin in what she hoped was an unconcerned attitude.
‘However, I’m not quite the tart you imagine. My sexual history isn’t quite as…adventurous or as extensive as you seem to expect. I haven’t had a lover in a long time.’
‘Lover…husband, don’t play semantics.’ Damon’s gravel tone indicated his displeasure.
‘I mean…’ she paused and turned to meet him eye to eye. By rights he should burst into flames and shrivel up before her, such was the concentrated dislike in her glare ‘…my husband was impotent. The marriage was never consummated.’
She let him absorb that for a moment.
His eyes widened and sparked with surprise.
‘And,’ she continued, with the perfect, cut-crystal diction of outraged virtue, ‘I was faithful to my marriage vows. Unlike the women you apparently mix with, I never took a lover to my bed while I was married.’
The silence thundered with the rush of blood in her ears, with Damon’s unspoken questions and the echo of her words.
‘You ask me to believe all that?’ His voice had a hoarse edge that told her she’d finally unsettled him. But she was beyond feeling triumph at such a petty victory.
‘Frankly, Damon, I don’t care what you believe. You accused me of lying, so I set the record straight.’
Let him think what he liked. She was beyond caring.
After years of her being pilloried as a gold digger, and by her suspicious husband as an adulteress, it was incredibly liberating to blurt out the truth.
A burden lifted from her shoulders, as if by sharing just that one aspect of her disastrous marriage she shed some of the cramping pain that had filled her for so long.
Maybe forging a new start would be easier than she’d imagined.
Perhaps she just had to reach out and grasp what she wanted. She shifted her gaze to the new daylight edging the curtains.
The thought gave her courage.
‘Since it seems I don’t satisfy you, Damon, I think we should end our arrangement.’ She darted a sideways glance, taking in lowering dark brows and his preternaturally still form. He looked as if he’d had the shock of his life.
‘I’ve given you what you wanted,’ she continued. ‘I kept my part of the bargain.’
She pressed back against the pillows. Once she was away from here, once she’d escaped the coils of desire that ensnared her when Damon was near, she’d start anew.
‘I’ll leave today.’
Tousled blonde hair framed her face and flirted around her breasts and bare shoulders. Wrapped in a sheet, looking thoroughly bedded, she shouldn’t wield the authority she did.
Yet she was breathtakin
g: far too sexy yet curiously austere.
As superb as a warrior queen, issuing a royal decree.
His libido leapt into overdrive. He’d never before come across a woman who had that delicious combination of decisive, demanding female with a take-no-prisoners attitude and warm, seductive lover.
There was a power about her, a potent vitality that had been missing earlier. Even at her most haughty, sparring verbally with him over the past few weeks, she hadn’t been this mesmerising.
Guilt engulfed him. Was she telling the truth? Instinct said she was. That he’d ruthlessly pursued a woman who, though not innocent, was far from the sexually experienced partner he’d assumed.
That didn’t negate her manipulative plot with her uncle or her mercenary first marriage. Though if she’d spent her married life without her husband in her bed that perhaps explained her breathtaking enthusiasm for sexual pleasure.
But it altered the situation enormously.
Had Damon demanded too much? Too fast? He’d been insatiable and had given free rein to long-thwarted desire.
Yet despite her occasional hesitance, she’d been willing. So willing just the thought of her in bed threatened to blow the lid off his control.
More, the knowledge that what they’d shared was somehow right…more right than anything he’d had with any woman, overcame his pangs of conscience.
He couldn’t let her go. Not yet.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ His voice was thick with the desire that filled every pore, strained every sinew.
She swung her head round, staring at him with the eyes of a seductress, a sorceress. Surely she’d bewitched him. Desire consumed him, obliterating all else.
No evidence now of any vulnerability in her. Not the innocent nor the anguished woman he’d held in his arms aboard the Circe. The woman who’d evoked all his protective instincts.
The memory of her last night, the sight of her now, proud and defiant and alluring, ripped the oxygen from his lungs.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Damon’s lips quirked in appreciation. She really did have attitude. So superior. So irresistible.
‘I said you’re not leaving.’
Even the moue of surprise on her soft pink lips tugged at his control.