by Maya Blake
His gaze hooded, he shrugged. ‘Satisfying your curiosity isn’t on my agenda, so you’ll just have to keep wondering. Eat.’
I toyed with refusing the order. But I was starving. And, really, he didn’t have to feed me. With one quick call he could have Wendell tossing me out. Staying might grant me the opportunity to make another plea for mercy.
I placed two beautifully wrapped vine leaves onto my plate, then added a couple of spoonfuls of Greek salad. About to lift my fork, I paused when his eyes narrowed again, this time on my plate.
‘You haven’t eaten all day and that’s all you’re having?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded at one of the many platters. ‘The kopanisti won’t keep. Don’t let it go to waste.’ He picked up serving tongs and caught up a dish of salad, roast peppers and an orange paste laid in between two crisp flatbreads. ‘Try it,’ he said.
Tentatively, I picked up the large morsel and bit into it. Sensations exploded in my mouth as the orange paste, which turned out to be the most incredible aged feta, combined with everything else immediately became the best thing I’d ever tasted—which in turn triggered a groan of appreciation before I could stop myself.
Perhaps my vivid imagination was playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn Neo swallowed hard at that moment, and I felt his tension ramping up.
Abruptly, he spooned several more items onto my plate, then reached for the wine bottle. ‘Would you like some wine?’
The chance to try the jaw-droppingly expensive vintage, especially considering that my fate hung in the balance, was too much to resist. ‘Just a little, please.’
After pouring two glasses, he chose steamed white cod and a spoonful of salad himself, which he polished off with a military efficiency that spoke of fuel intake rather than enjoyment. Then he simply sat, slowly twirling the stem of his wine glass, lifting it occasionally to his lips as he watched me eat.
Self-conscious, and reluctant to broach the ultrasensitive subject of my crime, I stilled my tongue in favour of enjoying the most exquisite meal I’d had in a long time, all the while painfully aware that his gaze hadn’t shifted from me.
‘Which university?’
I started. ‘What?’
‘Your marketing degree,’ he expounded.
I named it, and again caught the faintest hint of surprise in his eyes as he slotted the information away, his long fingers still twirling his glass.
‘Do you like aeroplanes?’ he asked abruptly, after another stretch of silence.
‘Who doesn’t?’
His lips tightened and his gaze dropped to my empty plate, then shifted to the platters of lamb cutlets, grilled meatballs, roasted vegetables and bread.
Sensing he was about to push more food on me, I sat back. ‘That was delicious. Thank you.’
He frowned, then lifted the lid off a dish set apart from the main courses. The scent of spun sugar and warm pastry washed over me, almost eliciting another groan. I’d been cursed with a sweet tooth—one that needed constant attention.
‘Dessert?’ he offered gruffly, pushing the baklava directly in front of me.
The sight of the perfect little squares of delight was too much to resist. At my helpless nod, he placed four pieces on a fresh plate and slid it in front of me, again seemingly content to simply sit back and watch me eat.
Perhaps this was Neo Xenakis’s method of torture. To feed me until I burst.
At that mildly hysterical thought, I let my gaze flick up to meet his. Again that spark flared in his eyes, and the charge seized me, causing tingles from my palms to my toes.
‘If it wasn’t for this wholly unfortunate situation, I’d think you didn’t want me to leave,’ I mused. Then immediately cursed my runaway tongue.
He froze, his grey eyes turning as turbulent as a lightning storm. His hand tightened around his glass, his fingers turning white.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he interrupted, his voice low, rough and raw, as if scrabbled from a pit of utter despair. ‘Maybe I don’t want you to leave. Maybe I need you sitting there in front of me as a reminder of what has happened. Of the fact that the nightmare you brought to my doorstep isn’t one I can wake up from.’
The utter bleakness in his tone launched a lump into my throat. My fingers tightened in my lap as the need to reach out, to lay my hand on his or cup that rigid jaw, powered through me. I did neither, sensing it wouldn’t be welcome.
‘Is it really that hopeless? Is there no chance that things can be salvaged?’ My question was a desperate one. But the thought that things could really be so dire for a man so incredibly masculine and virile looking seemed unthinkable to me.
‘Excuse me?’ he rasped icily, his eyes turning almost black with the strength of his emotions.
I pushed my plate away and forced myself to answer before I lost my nerve. ‘I... Surely it doesn’t surprise you that I’d wonder why a man who looks like you—’
‘Looks like me?’ he grated.
I wetted suddenly dry lips, suspecting I’d strayed into dangerous territory but unable to locate the road map to take me out of peril.
‘You’re not blind. You look like the poster-perfect image of virility. Is it beyond the realms of probability that I’d wonder why you’d need to use a facility like the Phoenix Clinic?’
His eyes slowly rose. ‘Did you not admonish me for judging you based on your outward appearance?’
Even as my face heated, something inside me reacted sharply to the notion that I might have ended this man’s line with my mistake. Something that utterly rejected that thought.
‘Please answer the question, Mr Xenakis,’ I urged, aware of my escalating desperation.
‘Why? Are you distressed by the thought that a man who “looks like me” might be impotent or infertile?’ he drawled.
He was goading me, pure and simple. I should’ve looked away. Backed down.
‘Are you?’
He rose and stepped away from the island. ‘Come with me,’ he grated.
Something raw and intense pulsed in his tone, warning me that whatever he had in mind would decimate me emotionally.
‘And if I refuse? Is this where you threaten—’
He slashed one powerful hand across my argument, his lips flattening into a displeased line. ‘A word to the wise, Sadie. If you have any desire for self-preservation left in that body, be wise and stop defying me at every turn. I’m a man who faces adversity head-on. Right now, I’m this close to tossing you out the door and letting the authorities deal with your crimes. But, again, the choice is yours. Leave and face the consequences or indulge the man you’ve so gravely wronged. Which is it to be?’ he asked, his eyes pinning me in place.
‘I... Fine. I’ll do what you want. For now,’ I tagged on, simply because that self-preservation he’d mentioned was kicking in wildly, doubling my thundering heartbeat. ‘I reserve the right to leave any time I want.’
He left the kitchen without responding.
I followed, striving not to breathe in his intoxicating scent and failing miserably.
Senses jumping, I watched him stroll over to the plush sectional sofa, sit down on it in a deceptively relaxed pose, one long arm lazily stretched out on the top of it. He rested one ankle on his knee, and lifted his wine glass to take a liberal sip.
‘If you wish. But why postpone the inevitable? And why annoy me further by forcing me to carve another appointment into my schedule when we can settle this one way or the other tonight?’
Because I needed the headspace to think straight!
But Neo Xenakis would be equally imposing and breathtaking tomorrow—and most likely every day from now until eternity.
So why delay the inevitable indeed?
With legs turned rubbery, and nigh on useless, I appr
oached him.
‘Let me give you the broad strokes of the consequences of your actions. I come from a large family. Perhaps not your conventional Greek family, but we adore babies without reservation, regardless of how they were conceived,’ he said, his hooded gaze on the contents of his glass. ‘Which means that from a relatively young age, certain obligations have been required of me. Obligations I had every intention of fulfilling at some point in the future. Do you understand what that means?’
My nod was jerky at best. ‘Something along the lines of keeping the family name going?’
‘Exactly so. And I take my duty seriously. So what do you think you owe me for effectively ending my chances of fulfilling my obligations?’
‘But...have I really?’ I asked, unabashed curiosity getting the better of my tongue.
The turbulent emotion in his eyes receded for a moment, replaced by an equally arresting gleam as his gaze raked my face before resting with quiet ferocity on my mouth.
‘I see we’re back to that little nugget you can’t let go of. Are you asking me if my equipment works, Sadie?’ he drawled.
There was a layer of danger to his tone that should have frightened me but instead caused the blood to rush faster through my veins, pushing a flood of colour into my cheeks.
‘I can’t help thinking...it would help to know if the situation is as dire as all that...’
God. Stop talking.
‘And if it isn’t?’ he rasped. ‘Are you hoping that with one simple answer you’ll be absolved of what you’ve done?’
God, we were really discussing his...his...
‘No. Maybe. Yes...’ I whispered.
‘My ability or inability to engage in intercourse is not the issue here,’ he said.
‘Answer the question anyway,’ I blurted, attempting to keep my mind on the important subject at hand and losing the battle in favour of racy thoughts of the exploration of his mouth-watering body first-hand.
Growing stupidly breathless, I scoured his face, his sculpted cheekbones, the hard angles of his jaw, the shadowed enticement of his strong throat and...dear God...the sensual curl of his lower lip, currently curved against his glass as he took another lazy sip.
The way he simply...lounged in his seat, was deceptively calm in a still-waters-run-deep manner. I wanted to dive into those waters, lose myself in them until I was completely sodden.
A different sort of heat pummelled me, low and insistent, charting a path of ravenous need directly between my thighs. Against the lace cups of my bra my nipples tightened, and each breath drew urgent attention to the decadent craving coursing through my body.
‘I could tell you—but should I? I owe you nothing. You have no right to answers. But if you truly want to know if I can get it up, I invite you to find out for yourself,’ he rasped thickly, his hooded gaze announcing that he knew every single yearning crashing through me.
My tongue thickened in my mouth, and that same acute urge to test where this alternative route would take me rammed unadulterated temptation through my bloodstream.
Sweet heaven. Surely he wasn’t really suggesting what I thought he was...? And surely I wasn’t truly considering it.
Was I?
CHAPTER THREE
MY BREATH BURST from between my lips, the wild, dizzying leap of my pulse a damning testament to the fact that his words had exhilarated me for one blind nanosecond before reason reasserted itself.
He can’t truly mean that. He’s just toying with you.
Even if he wasn’t, the proposal was absurd.
‘Is this a joke?’
‘Do I look amused, Sadie?’ he returned.
No, he didn’t. That raw confession in the kitchen returned, and the looming possible result of my actions—that I’d deprived not just him and his immediate family but the larger Xenakis clan of his future descendants—hit me with powerful force.
Helpless despair wove through me, and my chest tightened as I watched him, attempted to see beneath the taut mask of his face. Was this all because he truly didn’t want to be alone to confront the dire position I’d put him in?
If so, was this his answer?
I shook my head. ‘I...I’m not sure what this is all about.’
He shrugged. ‘You want me to provide spoilers for a story you seem very interested in. I invite you to peek beneath the cover. Or are you all bluster?’
‘Just so we’re clear, I’m not making any so-called reparation in the form of sex,’ I blurted. Simply because my imagination was threatening to take flight again, and the look in his eyes was sending my senses into free fall once more.
I grappled them down—hard.
One mocking eyebrow elevated. ‘You jump to conclusions with the same careless abandon that I suspect landed you in this predicament in the first place. Perhaps you should wait until you’re invited to my bed before you respond in one way or another.’
His censure smarted, regardless of the fact that I’d agreed to give him a little leeway in the perpetrator-versus-victim scenario.
‘I’m not stupid, Mr Xenakis. I can read between the lines. And whatever you think is going to happen here, it isn’t,’ I stressed, although the caution was equally for me as it was for him.
‘Has no one told you to quit while you’re ahead?’
Many times. But I never went against my instinct.
‘I believe in laying my cards on the table.’
Slowly, his relaxed stance altered. His arm dropped from the sofa, his body leaning closer as he pinned me with his gaze. With the width of the sofa between us, he wasn’t crowding me. But he didn’t need to. His presence filled every square inch of space, proclaiming his power and glory in ways that were hard to define and impossible to dismiss.
‘Do you? Well, hear this. If I wanted you in my bed you would come—and willingly. Not because of the unfortunate circumstances you find yourself in.’
‘If that’s some sort of dare, I promise I won’t be taking it,’ I stated firmly, despite that insidious temptation striking deep. Deeper. Making my every breath strain, making my nipples tingle and peak and yearn.
God, what was wrong with me?
He shrugged again. Drawing my eager attention to the firm, bronzed expanse of his throat. Striking me with a fervent need to place my hand right there...where his pulse throbbed powerfully beneath his skin.
I averted my gaze, but the lingering look he gave me said he’d caught me staring. I needed to get up. Leave. Put some distance between myself and the turbulent temptation that oozed out of him. But doing so would send another weakening message. He’d invited me here. I’d lobbed the ball into his court. So I waited for his move.
The muted sound of a door opening heralded the arrival of a butler, bearing a silver tray with more drinks on it. While I was a little startled, Neo looked unruffled, as if nothing unusual had happened to interrupt his normal after-dinner routine.
He accepted a glass of cognac, then glanced at me. ‘Nightcap?’
I shook my head, surprised at his cordial tone. Then I snapped my spine straight. I couldn’t afford to lower my guard. He still hadn’t spelled out the parameters of my reparation. Nor given me a straight answer to my question...
With a few words Neo dismissed the butler. The moment we were alone, he discarded his untouched drink and turned his piercing gaze on me.
My eyes connected with his as if pulled by invisible magnets. As much as I was reluctant to admit it, the man was a superb specimen. His impossibly broad shoulders demanded attention, and the gladiator-like synergy of sleekness and power combined with an animalistic aura impossible to dismiss.
The look in his eyes intensified, sending the distinct message that now we were getting down to the heart of whatever was on Neo Xenakis’s mind.
‘Come here, Sadie,’ he ordered, confirming my frenzied thoughts.
>
Get up. Walk out. He can’t stop you.
But temptation could. It wrapped its sinuous vines around me, hard and fast, left me breathless and speechless.
This was theory testing. Curiosity satisfying. Nothing else.
My life had taken a left turn this morning. Not that things had been rosy before... My mother and her gambling problem, my landlord’s growing threats, my jobless state... My life and plans were a world removed from what I’d imagined for myself back in the idyllic days when I had the illusion of a solid family. When a fulfilling career, perhaps eventually a family, wasn’t a laughable, ephemeral prospect.
The dismaying sensation in the pit of my stomach that had arrived along with my father’s callously dismissive postcard and stayed all these years later, the sensation that mocked and questioned and poisoned my dreams, claimed I was as worthless as my father had deemed me, was very much present now, questioning my audacity to remain here, reaching for this temptation.
Step back, it said. This isn’t for you.
But I wasn’t ready to step back into my life just yet. I craved more time in this peculiar bubble with Neo Xenakis. Just for a little while longer.
Before I could stop the motion, I swayed towards him.
He didn’t reach out. Simply lounged against the velvet seat, the king of his shiny castle, awaiting his due. And, like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t resist the danger, the excitement, the otherness he offered.
One taste. Then I could end this any time I wanted.
One minute, then I could get back to why I was here, perhaps armed with the confirmation that he wasn’t impaired in any obvious physical way.
The thought that I was attempting to slot this beneath the banner of research drew a hysterical chortle, quickly smothered beneath the pulses of lust swelling through my system.
Before I knew it, my body hovered next to his, almost horizontal on the sofa as I heeded his command.
‘Here I am,’ I replied in a voice that sounded nothing like mine.
Storm-tossed eyes traced every inch of my face, lingering longest and fiercest on my mouth.