by Pippa Roscoe
And on that cryptic note, she drew Byron away towards the back of the yacht, where he could see a smaller speedboat had slunk through the barrage of press boats following in their wake, up behind the yacht, and was being frantically moored out of the way of the jet stream of the engine.
Célia looked up at him, the concern clear in her face, and he couldn’t help himself. He needed it, he needed her. His lips crashed down on hers, shocking them both, each feeding off the adrenaline, drawing strength and more from the heady impact of the kiss.
CHAPTER NINE
DUSK HAD FALLEN, casting the sea about them in an inky darkness that was pierced by the bright lights strung overhead. The deck was still full of guests, though the staff weaving through them with silver trays of champagne and canapés had lessened in the last hour as Célia and Loukis’s departure grew closer.
A boat was to meet them and ferry them to Loukis’s island home while the yacht returned the guests back to the port at Piraeus. Célia drew the silk wrap around her shoulders to ward off the sea breeze, undeterred by the large heaters placed strategically across the deck. She wasn’t sure what had passed between Loukis and his mother, but ever since they had left, her fiancé-for-now had been distant. Oh, he’d played his part well, smiled and laughed with the guests, pronouncing him the happiest man, the luckiest. But that kiss had been full of so much more than expediency or efficiency to communicate their ‘engagement’. It had shocked her, the ferocity of need that whipped through her, that she felt from him. Had it not been for the wolf whistles that had cut the kiss short, she would have been lost. Lost to him and to whatever it was that he had called forth.
And since then, he’d remained just out of reach. Never staying long in the same circle she was, hovering some distance away, ready with some excuse to withdraw. Having become so accustomed to his touch, his presence, the feel of him at her side, Célia felt strangely adrift. As if she’d done something wrong. As if she was being punished, or denied something, without explanation or understanding. It had nestled into the space she kept reserved for her father and her ex. And she hated it.
Had he too realised what she had? That they had spent the entire evening lying to their friends, their loved ones? That the happiness of the guests had started to grate because they were celebrating something that was not to be? Célia’s heart ached a little at the thought and she chastised herself for it.
One of the reasons she had been happy to agree to Loukis’s demand was because she would know where she stood. That he would not demand anything more than appearance. That there were clear lines that neither would broach.
But she wouldn’t lie to herself. Not now. She knew her body’s reaction to Loukis. She knew that she had somehow come to want him more than anything she had ever experienced before. In the last few weeks she had understood, appreciated and even liked him more for his need to protect his sister. The kind of protection that had never been afforded to her. She wanted to know what that was like. To be able to rely upon a man so strong in his conviction, so powerful, so...enthralling.
She had come to want to be the woman he saw. The proud, accomplished, driven woman who was just as powerful as he. And as she tried that woman on for size she was surprised to find how intoxicating that sense of power was, how...hedonistic.
It was with painful irony that she realised this just as Loukis seemed intent on withdrawing from her and she now looked upon their retreat to his island estate with trepidation. She knew what she wanted...but would he give that to her? She was not naïve. She knew that she had seen the flame of arousal and need in him. Knew that he was affected as she had been, not just by the kiss earlier, but each touch and caress that drew them inexplicably towards a point of no return. But she could also sense the barrier between them. The one that held him on one side and her on the other—an immovable wall that she wanted to tear down. But could she risk it? Could she give into her desires, but still protect her heart?
Her heart wasn’t involved, she told herself sternly. It wasn’t what Loukis wanted and it certainly wasn’t part of the deal. The irony was that although he needed the perfect fiancée, it wasn’t real...so perhaps she didn’t need to be so perfect. And it was precisely that which gave her desires, her wants, free rein.
A smartly dressed man in a Captain’s uniform appeared at her side, informing her that it was time. Célia knew he meant that the boat had arrived to whisk her and Loukis away from their guests, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was also some internal battle cry. That it was time. For her finally to ask for what she wanted, to demand it from him.
The guests laughed as Ella gave Célia one last hug, shouting demands to Loukis to bring her friend back safely, as if they were going on a holiday or, worse, that he might actually keep her. For ever.
The words hung in Loukis’s mind, taunting him. He shouldn’t have done it. The kiss had been over three hours ago now and he could still taste her. Feel her lips beneath his, the spike in his adrenaline washing away the bitterness of his encounter with Meredith, consuming all his thoughts and focus on the sensual delight Célia offered. She had returned his kiss with a fervour that had both shocked and aroused. Until the wolf whistles of the guests on the yacht had cut through the moment of madness.
He hadn’t touched her since. Not even in the little ways he had become accustomed to doing, in the name of...he had been a fool. Lying to himself. Those touches had nothing to do with her getting used to him and had been only about him laying a hand on her. Teasing himself, testing himself, trying to prove to himself that he wasn’t the playboy any more. That he could resist temptation.
In the last three years he had resisted the temptation of many beautiful women. He was most definitely not the reckless playboy of his youth. The problem was Célia. Not him. She had called to him like a siren from the very beginning. Even now, as he waved goodbye to the guests from the speedboat moored beside the yacht, he remembered their first encounter. She had presented an unusual challenge and, despite the hideous beigeness of her T-shirt at the time, he had still seen the beauty she worked so hard to hide.
But the challenge had morphed in the last few weeks, until the bright point of its edge had cut through the sensual miasma between them and he’d realised that the real threat would be to act on his desire for her.
The way you look at her...
His mother’s voice taunted him even as he did take his fill. The yacht’s Captain had taken her arm and was helping her down into the speedboat beside him. He observed a brief glimpse of smooth pale skin between the high skirt and the cropped top she wore, the way her hips swayed as she took her first steps towards him and the smile across her features and a thrill in her eyes he wanted to turn away from. For it was not excitement at the boat ride towards his island home, but something else. A deeper, darker pull, tempting him. Taunting him.
But the risk was too great. Hadn’t Meredith shown that tonight? Nothing could come between himself and his custody of Annabelle. Not even the woman coerced into helping him get that very thing.
As he pulled down on the throttle of the boat he was piloting himself, he relished the roar of the engines, hoping that in some way they would burn away the ferocious need that held him tight in its grip.
They had moored at a jetty after about forty minutes on the speedboat. The noise from the twin engines making any form of communication impossible. Not that Célia had tried. She might know her own body’s desires, but she could also tell his. Loukis had built a wall between them ever since that kiss. One that she wanted to tear down.
It was as if a line had been drawn in the sand—one she would readily cross, yet he remained on the other side. But it was his fault. He had started this, he had drawn this impossible need from within her and now she was angry. Angry that he was seemingly walking away.
Once again, his automatic sense of chivalry had been lost as he forged ahead up the dark path, leaving
her to follow in his wake. Célia had been shut out before, so many times that the feeling was painfully familiar. But she wouldn’t have it. Not this time.
As Loukis opened the front door to a sprawling estate, she saw none of the beauty and opulence she had come to expect from Loukis. She saw nothing but his back as he walked further into the property she really couldn’t care less for.
‘Don’t do this. Don’t ignore me,’ she called after him as he stalked through the dark rooms offering only shapes in the gloom to identify their use.
‘The bedroom is upstairs. There’s no one here, so you can—’
‘Don’t. Ignore. Me.’ The words held a barely leashed anger that had been brewing long before she had met Loukis.
‘What do you want from me?’ he demanded, spinning to turn on her. The moonlight glinting through impossibly large windows picking out the harsh lines of anger on his features.
‘I want you to stop playing. I want you to stop hiding.’
‘Hiding?’ he breathed out on a harsh laugh. ‘You accuse me of hiding?’
‘Yes. Right now, I am. Because you are hiding.’
He shook his head. ‘Go to bed.’
‘I’m not some child you can easily dismiss. I will not be sent to bed.’ Her breath caught before she issued a demand of her own. ‘Unless you are in it with me.’
‘No.’
‘Really? You were the one who said—’
‘I know what I said,’ he interrupted as if not wanting the reminder of his own demands. ‘But I was wrong.’
‘That must have hurt.’
‘What?’
‘Admitting that you were wrong.’
‘Don’t be—’
‘Crass?’ It was Célia that interrupted this time.
‘Naïve!’ he countered with anger. ‘Do you think I can risk this? Meredith showing up tonight—’
‘Has nothing to do with what is going on between us. So. Next?’
‘Next what?’
‘Next excuse to avoid what is going on between us.’
Loukis shook his head again, wondering how on earth Célia managed to oscillate between proud and determined and fearful and shy. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t stand here and see her like this, because she was simply magnificent. Demanding what she wanted, powerful and righteous. And it was the most devastatingly attractive thing he’d ever seen.
She was a siren. Calling to him, calling for him. But he just couldn’t. The risk was too great.
‘There is nothing going on between us, other than a fake engagement.’
‘Liar.’
She stalked towards him, capturing his gaze as the silky material unfurled around her legs, as the sensual pull in her eyes demanded, cajoled, taunted. She reached him, her head lifted towards his, the scent of her perfume soothing as much as enticing, the feel of her body’s heat crashing against him more forcefully than the waves he’d battled to reach the island.
‘Kiss me.’
He said nothing.
‘Kiss me. Without the paparazzi watching. Without being on display. Show me, prove to me that there’s nothing between us,’ she demanded.
‘I’m not playing this game.’
‘This,’ she said, reaching for his fiercely clenched jaw, ‘is not a game any more.’
He didn’t move. He couldn’t. Because everything in him wanted to act, touch, taste. And there would be no turning back from that. So he stayed stock-still, as if made from marble. He had to.
She reached up on tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. He resisted the gentle pressure at his neck from where she had reached, guiding him to her, deeper into her, hating that it must have felt like rejection to her, but unable to give in to her demand.
But a hint of the sweep of her tongue against his lips pierced his defences. Kiss after kiss, her mouth opening further in fractions that made him mad with need. The warm press of her breasts against his chest, her thighs against his within millimetres of where his hands had fisted by his sides.
And then, as if sensing his reluctance, she pulled away. And the look in her eyes crushed the air in his lungs. The raw yearning, need, and sadness in the large amber orbs was too much. His hands flew to her face, holding her, stopping her retreat and at the precise moment he should have walked away, he stepped forward, his mouth crashing down on hers and greedily taking everything she had to offer.
He breathed her in, his tongue demanding entrance, glorying in the feel of her beneath his lips and hands. He drew her to him as if he could consume her, as if he could steal something from her and keep it with him.
Need became a primal roar, echoing throughout his body, crying more, crying now. Only the soft moans Célia made cut through the raging pulse in his ears causing him to stop, to try and pull back the control he had lost so shockingly easily.
Their harsh breathing echoed between them. He saw the flash of her white teeth digging into a bottom lip he had just thoroughly ravished. It was too much. He wanted it for himself. And that was the problem. This wasn’t about the custody battle, the press, or even his mother. He needed Célia for himself. And that was untenable.
‘Is that what you wanted, Célia?’ he demanded. ‘To bring me to my knees? To make me beg?’
He made to turn away, the words bringing forth shocking images of exactly what he wanted to do to her, for her, but her hand reached for him before he could.
He had expected words, pleading, impassioned perhaps. But instead the silence remained as she lifted his hand and placed it high on her breast, covering her heart where he felt her pulse rage against his palm. A beat that echoed within him just as incessant, just as demanding, just as out of control.
‘I am the one on my knees. I am the one begging,’ she said resolutely.
‘You should never have to beg, Célia. You are worth more than that.’
‘I know my worth. I know yours. And I know what I want.’
The heat from her body beneath his hand wrapped around him, drawing him towards her, even as he fought every inch of it.
‘I know what is at stake, Loukis. And I promise you, I would not jeopardise that. Ever.’
‘This isn’t about Annabelle, Célia. It’s about you,’ he said roughly. ‘I am not capable of giving you what you deserve. Not now. Not ever.’
He had to say the words. Force them to his lips. It was the truth, the deepest truth he’d ever spoken to a woman. Célia deserved so much more than this. She deserved a future and he couldn’t give her that.
‘I understand.’
He had thought that would do it. That she would finally walk away, but instead, she placed her hand over his, where it still rested against her heart.
‘And it doesn’t change a thing.’
Célia’s pulse sped under the heat of his palm secured by her own. She knew what she was saying, what she was asking him for. Neither of them were ready or willing for anything more than perhaps just this night. But she would not walk away from this easily. If, for even a second, she thought this heady, half-mad desire was one-sided, she never would have raised it. But she knew. She knew he felt what she did, wanted what she did. It was as if acknowledging, owning, the truth of their desire was the only thing that could save her from the precipice she was hurtling towards. As if he were the only thing that could save her from it.
He searched her gaze as if hunting for a flaw, a contradiction, a doubt in her mind. But there was none.
She became so aware of his hand on her chest, resting beneath her own, as if that one point of connection bound them together on the brink of action or inaction. Her body overly sensitised, wanting more, desperate for more. But he had to choose this. She couldn’t force this on him no matter how much she felt he wanted it.
This time she turned away, feeling as if she had lost the battle. Until his fingers wrapped
around her arm, drawing her back to him in a kiss that obliterated the memories of all other kisses.
She opened her mouth to the pressure of his lips, his tongue, let him angle her head to where he wanted it, because it was so impossibly good. Everything in her rose to cry yes. This was what she had wanted. Loukis, unfettered, let loose amongst the pleasure they were seeking.
As his hands released their hold and travelled across her body, Célia revelled in the heat of them through the material, and then, when they reached the expanse of uncovered skin at her waist, his fingers hooking at her hip and pulling her against him roughly.
Gone was civility, gone was propriety, gone were the rules that had both bound them together and kept them apart. Every touch, every kiss made her feel worshipped. As if he were gaining as much from her own pleasure as she was.
It was a feeling she had never experienced before. The riotous cascade of sensation, desire, was hedonistic. Beneath her palms his chest was firm, as she fisted his shirt in her hands and drew him closer. It wasn’t enough. She feared, silently, that it might never be enough.
He stepped back, pulling her with him, until he came up against the wall, imprisoning himself within her embrace. He reached for her knee beneath the silky folds of the skirt, hooking it over his hip and bringing her core against the hard ridge of his arousal.
Instinctively she arched against his chest, her hands moving upwards to frame his face, exulting in the feeling of his palms against the skin on her shoulders and arms, the warmth and security she experienced as he wrapped an arm around her and held her to him. It was an anchor in the storm of emotions that threatened to wash her out to sea. Because she trusted him.
The thought took her by surprise, momentarily stopping her. Loukis pulled back, releasing her from his hold, his breathing ragged, his eyes whispering concern.
‘You want to stop—’
‘No,’ she said hastily, interrupting him. Never, she thought silently.