He glanced at his watch, and then strolled towards the en suite bathroom. ‘We’re running seriously late, so I’ll have to wait until tonight for the pleasure of taking you to bed,’ he drawled. ‘As for shopping—I will be paying for your clothes. Think of it as one of the perks of being my mistress,’ he said in a harder tone, when she opened her mouth to argue. ‘I want to see you in sexy clothes that flatter your gorgeous body. Not in an outfit that makes you look as though you are auditioning for a role in The Sound of Music.’
Dinner was the ordeal Tahlia had expected. In ordinary circumstances she would have enjoyed the stunning décor and the ambience of the Artemis’s gold-star restaurant, where a celebrated French chef had prepared four superb courses. But from the moment Thanos led her over to the table where his guests were already seated and introduced her as his ‘companion’ she felt so painfully self-conscious—everyone must have guessed she was his mistress—that she could do no more than toy with her food.
As well as the dignitaries from Mykonos, three of Thanos’s top executives were also present, and although everyone spoke in English rather than Greek, her attempts at conversation with them were stilted. They clearly thought she was a bimbo, and one of the executives, a man Thanos had introduced as Antonis Lykaios, watched her avidly throughout the meal, trailing his eyes over her as if he were mentally undressing her.
Tahlia was torn between longing for the evening to be over and praying that it would last for ever—because what was to come next was certain to be a hundred times worse, she brooded. Her eyes were drawn to Thanos. He looked breathtaking tonight, in a black dinner suit and a white silk shirt, his dark hair swept back from his brow and the flickering light from the table’s centrepiece of candles highlighting the sharp edges of his cheekbones. He was urbane, sophisticated, and no doubt a skilful lover, she thought, feeling a rush of shaming heat flood through her when he looked across the table and their glances locked.
The voices around her faded, and she was reminded of the first time she had seen him at the art gallery, when she had felt as though they were the only two people in the universe. She watched his eyes darken with a sensual promise that made her mouth run dry, and butterflies leapt in her stomach. It was not Thanos she was afraid of, she acknowledged bleakly; it was herself and her pathetic inability to resist him. It was utterly ridiculous to feel so drawn to a man who openly admitted that he despised her, but when she had first seen him at Rufus Hartman’s exhibition—before she had learned that he blamed her for his sister’s accident—she had felt an emotional bond with him which defied logic or common sense. A voice in her head had whispered that he was the ‘the one’ she had been waiting all her life to meet.
‘Would you like more wine, Tahlia?’ Antonis Lykaios leaned towards her, proffering a bottle of Chardonnay, and Tahlia was so grateful for the excuse to drag her eyes from Thanos that she forgot how her skin had crawled when Antonis had leered at her and smiled at him.
Across the table Thanos fought the urge to rearrange his junior executive’s handsome face with his fist—before continuing the caveman tactics by throwing Tahlia over his shoulder and carrying her off to his bed. How dared she flirt with Lykaios in front of him? he thought furiously. But what had he expected? In recent months the British tabloids had regularly reported on her energetic love-life with Z-list celebrities. Clearly she would flirt with any man under seventy.
He gave a brief nod to his chief executive, indicating that it was time to bring the evening to an end, before his gaze strayed back to Tahlia. His initial opinion that her outfit was unflattering had been wrong, he thought irritably. At first glance she looked chaste and demure in the high-necked blouse, but look closer and it was possible to see the outline of her breasts beneath the sheer material. His fingers itched to unfasten every one of those tiny buttons and slowly reveal her delectable body. With her pale red-gold hair falling in a silky curtain around her shoulders and a subtle pink gloss on her lips she looked incredibly sexy, and he was infuriated by the knowledge that he was not the only man at the dinner table who could not keep his eyes off her.
The dinner party eventually came to an end, and Tahlia stifled a sigh of relief when the guests stood up from the table. Antonis Lykaios seemed to have taken her smile as a sign that she was interested in him; twice she had had to forcibly remove his hand from her thigh beneath the tablecloth, and she forced herself not to flinch now, when he lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them in a theatrical farewell gesture. She saw Thanos’s brows lower in a slashing frown, and her sense of foreboding escalated when they crossed the marble vestibule to the lift and he surveyed her in a brooding silence as they travelled to the top floor.
‘I realise that you automatically flirt with anyone in trousers,’ he drawled as followed her into his suite, discarding his jacket and tie and flinging them carelessly over the back of a chair. ‘But Antonis Lykaios is engaged, and I will not allow you to sink your predatory claws into him.’
‘I pity his fiancée,’ she snapped, her temper flaring at the undisguised contempt in his voice. ‘Your executive was flirting with me, and I’d be grateful if you would tell him to keep his sweaty hands to himself in future.’ She closed her eyes against the pain stabbing at her skull, aware that her headache was due as much to the two glasses of wine she had drunk although she had eaten very little dinner, as to her rising nervous tension. Thanos was heart-stoppingly sexy, with his dark hair falling onto his brow, but he also looked grim and forbidding, and the prospect of giving her virginity to him when he had made it plain that he despised her was suddenly unendurable.
She lifted a hand to massage her temples, and pleaded shakily, ‘Thanos, can we talk?’
His dark brows lifted in an expression of arrogant amusement. ‘Talking is the last thing I have in mind for tonight.’ He strolled towards her and drew her hand away from her face. ‘We made a deal, Tahlia,’ he reminded her, his voice suddenly harsh and his eyes glittering with cold indifference. ‘And now the time has come for you to honour your side of it.’
Her heart was thudding so hard that it hurt to breathe. ‘Please…’ she cried urgently. ‘I swear I had no idea that James was married to your sister…’
She was prevented from saying any more when Thanos placed his finger across her lips. ‘Save your lies—and your tears.’ He surveyed her over-bright eyes dispassionately, and brushed away the single tear that slipped down her cheek with his thumb. ‘I’m not taken in by either,’ he said savagely, and lowered his head, capturing her mouth in a punishing kiss that sought to dominate as he forced her lips apart with a bold flick of his tongue.
Once again he had moved with the speed of a panther, pouncing for the kill, and once again Tahlia was unprepared for the molten heat that swept through her the instant he touched her. What was wrong with her? she wondered despairingly. Pride dictated that she should remain stiff and unresponsive in Thanos’s arms, but he intoxicated her senses so that she could not think logically, and she was conscious only of the slight abrasion of his cheek against hers, the tingling sensation in her breasts as he crushed her against his chest.
Thanos finally lifted his head and stared down at her, his eyes gleaming when she unconsciously traced her tongue over her swollen lips. ‘This madness is not mine alone. You feel it too,’ he grated, his fury and frustration palpable—and yet Tahlia sensed that his anger was directed as much at himself as her, and she knew that, like her, he was startled by the intensity of the sexual chemistry which blazed between them. ‘You are like a fever in my blood,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I wanted you from the moment I saw you, and now I cannot wait any longer.’
‘Thanos…no!’ She gave a shocked cry when he moved his hands to the neck of her blouse and wrenched the fragile material apart, so that little pearl buttons pinged in all directions. Before she had time to react he reached around and unsnapped her bra, casting the delicate scrap of lace to the floor so that her small pale breasts were exposed to his heated gaze.
He was breathing hard, and Tahlia watched in fascination as dull colour flared along his magnificent cheekbones. The feral hunger in his eyes made her tremble with a mixture of apprehension and an unbidden shivery excitement. No man had ever looked at her the way Thanos was doing now, and she instinctively tried to cover her breasts with her hands.
He caught her wrists and tugged them down to her sides. ‘Don’t hide yourself from me,’ he said harshly. ‘I want to feast my eyes on every inch of your delectable body.’
His words made Tahlia tremble—not with fear, she acknowledged, but with a feverish excitement she could not deny. Her heart slammed in her chest when he pushed her hair over her shoulders, then slid his hand down her body and curled his fingers possessively over her breast. She tensed, expecting him to be rough, but his palm was warm on her bare flesh, and when he stroked his thumb-pad across her nipple in a feather-light caress she gasped as exquisite sensation arced through her.
‘Not just beautiful, but delightfully responsive,’ Thanos drawled.
She blushed scarlet at the undisguised satisfaction in his voice, but her body seemed to have a will of its own, and she could do nothing to prevent the dusky nipples from swelling into taut peaks. He moved his hand to her other breast and rolled the swollen nipple between his thumb and forefinger, sending another lightning bolt of sensation spiralling down to the pit of her stomach. She caught her breath when he tugged her backwards and lowered his head to the slender arch of her body.
He flicked his tongue back and forth over her nipple, building her pleasure to a level that was almost unbearable, and she gave a choked cry when he finally desisted in teasing her and clamped his mouth around the provocative peak. The sensation of him suckling her was so breathtaking that her lashes drifted down and she gave herself up to the storm he was creating, gasping with pleasure when he moved to her other breast and laved the throbbing peak with firm, wet strokes of his tongue.
She was dimly aware of Thanos dragging her skirt over her hips, and he muttered something in Greek in a hoarse tone when he eased away from her and trailed his eyes down from her pouting breasts to her flat stomach, then lower to her black lace knickers and gossamer-fine black stockings. Tahlia held her breath when he placed his hand on the strip of creamy flesh above her stocking-top, and she felt liquid heat flood between her thighs. Was he going to take her here and now? Drag her to the floor and spread her beneath him on the carpet?
Tension gripped her. Until now she had always believed that she would only ever make love when she was in a loving relationship. She had loved Michael, but their gentle romance had still been in its early stages when he had been snatched from her; she had thought she loved James, but he had lied to her, and she was glad she had discovered his treachery before they had become lovers. Maybe it was time she gave up on love, she thought bleakly. There was no love between her and Thanos. Just mistrust and dislike and a searing passion that obliterated every logical thought and demanded to be appeased. She had agreed to have sex with him in return for her parents’ financial security and she would not back out now. But it was only fair that she tell him she was not the experienced seductress he believed.
Thanos stared down at Tahlia’s semi-naked body and drew a ragged breath, his nostrils flaring as he fought to bring his raging hormones under control. The delicate skin of her inner thigh felt like satin beneath his fingers, and the urge to move his hand higher and slip it beneath her lacy knickers was so strong that it took every ounce of his formidable will-power to deny himself the pleasure of touching her intimately. His brain acknowledged what she had done—how she had hurt Melina—but his body did not seem to care that she that she was an immoral slut, and it was on fire for her.
‘Thanos…I have to tell you…’ Her voice shook, but he ruthlessly hardened his heart against her.
‘But I don’t have to listen—and certainly not to more of your lies and excuses,’ he said harshly, disregarding her startled cry as he swept her up into his arms and strode towards the bedroom.
Tahlia was shaking so badly she was sure Thanos must feel the tremors running through her body. Perhaps he thought she was trembling with excitement? She could not bear to meet his gaze and see his familiar mocking expression, so instead she curled her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his shoulder while he carried her. It was not too late to stop this, a voice whispered in her head. She could tell Thanos she would rather sell her soul to the devil than trade her body for hard cash. But what about her parents? another voice screamed inside her. How could she allow them to lose their home and the worry-free retirement they deserved?
Thanos shouldered open the door of the master bedroom, strode over to the bed, and laid Tahlia down on the peacock-blue satin bedspread. Her glorious hair fanned across the pillows in a halo of shimmering gold. He could not resist winding a long silky strand around his fingers, and heat surged through him as he lowered his eyes to her breasts and feasted on their milky-pale beauty.
Why Tahlia? he asked himself angrily. He had never wanted any woman the way he wanted her. His desire was mindless, desperate, an irresistible force clamouring to be assuaged, and his body shook with need as he stretched out beside her and pressed his mouth to the fragile line of her collarbone. She tasted of ambrosia, her skin as soft as rose petals beneath his lips, and he could not resist tracing them down her body, pausing at each breast to anoint its blush-pink tip, relishing the feel of her nipples swelling inside his mouth before he moved lower still.
Her sweetly puckered navel invited him to explore it with his tongue. He felt the tremor that ran through her, but she made no effort to touch him, and lay passive while he caressed her, as if she were somehow detached from her surroundings—from him. Anger coiled inside him. Did she think she could simply lie there, as unresponsive as a marble figurine while he took his pleasure? When he had finished with her would she wash herself clean of his touch? Believing that the price she had paid for her parents’ house had been worth soiling herself for? He did not want a sacrificial offering, he thought grimly. He wanted her warm and willing in his bed, and he was determined that soon she would be begging for his possession.
Tahlia stiffened when she felt Thanos’s hand slip between her thighs. Until the moment he had laid her on his bed she had been cocooned in a curious sense of unreality. It seemed impossible to believe that she had actually agreed to have sex with him, that he really would make love to her. But the feel of his hands and mouth on her skin, moving ever lower down her body, had catapulted her back to reality, and now fear churned in her stomach at the prospect of giving her virginity to him.
Hysteria formed a bubble in her throat as she imagined his reaction if she asked him to be gentle. He was convinced that she had been his brother-in-law’s mistress, and she could hear his scathing laughter if she told him that this was her first time. He would not believe her. And if he did—if he realised that she was innocent—he might well reject her and call off their deal. She could not risk that happening. She was going to have to put on the act of a lifetime, she thought numbly, and pretend that she was as experienced as he assumed.
His palm felt warm and faintly abrasive on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and she forced herself to relax as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her knickers and slowly drew them over her hips.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured, his voice thick with sexual tension. She felt his hand brush gently through the triangle of gold curls, and her heart slammed in her chest when he ran his finger lightly up and down the lips of her vagina, so that they swelled and opened like the petals of a flower, moist and sweetly scented with her arousal, ready for him to explore her. He leaned over her to claim her mouth in a slow, drugging kiss that lit a flame deep inside her and banished her fears. His lips no longer sought to dominate but were gently persuasive, decimating her resistance so that she opened her mouth beneath his and kissed him back with hungry fervour.
Her breath hitched in her throat when she
felt him gently part her, and she heard his low growl of satisfaction when he discovered the slick wetness of her arousal. She felt boneless, mindless, and she allowed him to spread her legs wider, excitement cascading through her when she felt his finger probe her velvet folds and slip between them. How could it be wrong when it felt so utterly and exquisitely right? she wondered dazedly. Instinctively she arched her hips so that he could slide his finger deeper into her, and she could not hold back a moan of pleasure when he stretched her wider and inserted another finger, moving his hand with delicate skill so that she writhed with the pleasure he was creating.
‘Undress me.’
The starkness of his command sent a jolt of trepidation through Tahlia, but her apprehension was mixed with irresistible sexual curiosity. His wickedly inventive fingers had aroused her to a fever pitch of desire, and she wanted…She did not know what she wanted, she acknowledged as she shifted her hips restlessly. This was all new to her. Her body felt tense and strung out, and only Thanos could soothe the dragging ache deep inside her.
She fumbled with his shirt buttons, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, but finally she spread the material aside and skimmed her hands over satin skin overlaid with crisp dark hairs. She could feel the heat emanating from him, and her senses flared as she inhaled the sensual musk of his cologne mingled with the subtle perfume of male pheromones. He dominated her mind and captivated her soul so that the world faded and nothing existed but Thanos, and the erotic glide of his hands and mouth over her trembling body.
Her lashes had drifted down, as if she could blot out the reality of what she was doing, but she was aware of him easing away from her as her skin quickly cooled, bereft of the warmth of his powerful body. She opened her eyes to discover that he had stripped down to his underwear. His black silk boxers could not disguise the jutting strength of his arousal, and when her gaze flicked upwards to his face the feral gleam in his eyes caused her heart to miss a beat. There was no going back; the message thudded in her brain, and she licked her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue as he stepped out of his boxers and stood before her, his bronzed, muscle-bound body as beautiful as a work of art, his powerful erection jutting proudly forward as he strode purposefully over to the bed.
Proud Greek, Ruthless Revenge Page 8