‘With your enthusiasm, I’m sure you will be very successful.’ Marcus let go of her hand and, picking up the champagne bottle, refilled their glasses. Black lashes dropping down over his brilliant eyes, he added, ‘A toast to your success and may you get everything you deserve.’
Eloise picked her glass up, and watched his strong brown fingers curl around the stem of his glass. He had wonderful hands, large but lean and powerful, and for a moment she had a vivid mental image of lying on a beach, and those same fingers tracing over her naked breasts. Her face suffused with heat as Marcus’s voice broke into her erotic thoughts.
‘And to a friendship rekindled.’ Marcus touched his glass to hers, his gaze unwaveringly direct on her scarlet face.
‘To success and friendship.’ She smiled tentatively up at him, her green eyes wide and guileless. But it was a toast and a threat if she had but known it.
Marcus raised his glass and drained it. He could almost be fooled by her naïve innocence, her pleasure in the meal and the champagne. Damn it! She confused him like no other female. Once he made a decision he usually stuck by it, and yet he had changed his mind last night about Eloise and he was in danger of doing it again. Either the woman deserved an Oscar for her acting, or she really was unaware of her mother’s trade. But then he recalled the elegant house she owned and, watching her sitting opposite him, she appeared to be modesty personified in a tailored suit that covered her and yet skilfully revealed between the edges of the jacket a glimpse of satin and an amber jewel lying enticingly in the shadow of a cleavage. She blushed like a teenager, while happily discussing expanding her business worldwide, and all these paradoxes made him want to shake her and demand that the real Eloise stand up.
A smile of wry self-mockery curved his firm mouth. Who was he kidding? First he would strip her naked and bury himself in her luscious body over and over again. The memory of her in his arms, the lush promise of her body that he had denied himself, had been a thorn in his side for far too long, and abruptly shoving back his chair he stood up.
Last night he had left a very angry, frustrated Nadine at her door, the picture of Eloise filling his mind. He had a damn good idea he was in for another night of frustration if he called Eloise a crook to her face, and the thought did not appeal.
CHAPTER THREE
ELOISE glanced up in surprise. What had she said wrong? He was towering over her, dark and vaguely dangerous, and she gave an inward sigh of relief when she saw a slow smile quirk the corners of his beautiful mouth. The evening had been magical so far and she wanted nothing to spoil it.
‘There is only so long a man of my size can sit on a tiny gilt chair,’ Marcus said ruefully, and casually he removed his jacket and loosened his shirt and tie, before adding, ‘I need to stretch my legs and relax.’
Eloise swallowed hard. The white silk shirt fitted taut across his broad shoulders; the slightest tracing of dark body hair was visible beneath the fine fabric. His pants fitted snug on his hips and involuntarily her gaze strayed to his long legs. She could feel her temperature rising and it had nothing to do with the warmth of the room.
Luckily a knock on the door heralded the arrival of the waiter with the coffee and it gave Eloise a chance to get her breathing back to normal.
Marcus walked the few steps down to the lounging area, and indicated the low table to the waiter. ‘Here, please, and you can take the rest away; we are finished.
‘Come and join me, Eloise,’ Marcus commanded softly.
Her hesitation was barely perceptible and, telling herself not to be so silly, she rose to her feet and walked down the few steps to join him.
‘Let me take your jacket and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be mum—is that not an English saying?’ he asked, one dark brow arching in enquiry.
She glanced up at him. ‘Yes,’ and she tried for a smile. She felt his hands curve around the front of her jacket and she gave a tiny compulsive shudder, suddenly intensely aware of the intimacy of their surroundings, the rising tension in the air around them.
‘Allow me.’ And slowly he parted the jacket across her body, the back of his hand brushing accidentally across her breasts.
Her reaction was instant, her breasts swelling beneath the fine fabric, and she gasped, shocked by her own response.
The jacket fell to the floor. Marcus felt her tremble and he saw the shadowing of arousal in her wide green eyes, and he did what he’d wanted to do from the moment he had seen her again.
He curved an arm around her tiny waist, his dark head dipped and he captured her mouth with his in a kiss of hungry possession. He felt her sudden tension, felt her lips clamp together in instinctive rejection, and deliberately he made his mouth gentle against hers. Using all his considerable sexual expertise, he slipped his other hand around the back of her head and, deftly unpinning her hair, he tangled it in the silken mass, keeping her head firm while his mouth brushed gently against hers, kissing and licking in a tantalising seduction.
Pressed into the hard heat of his body Eloise was vitally aware of every last lean muscular inch of him, and quivers of sexual tension shot through her body. She felt an insidious weakness stealing through her limbs. She should stop this, a tiny little voice in her head cried. But the fierce pounding of her heart and the sweet touch of his mouth on hers drowned the cry out.
Marcus sensed the instant she relaxed in his arms; she made a whimper of sound and he seized the moment to slip his tongue between her lips. She rose towards him, her arms closed around his neck, and slowly, almost tentatively, she returned his kiss.
The silken softness of her, the scent of her—something light and heady—rose to his nostrils and his body hardened. Reluctantly Marcus finally lifted his head, his breathing erratic, but the smile that curved his sensual mouth as his night-black eyes captured hers held an edge of triumph. He had discovered what he needed to know. Eloise still wanted him. She was his for the taking.
Eloise gazed helplessly up into his darkly attractive face, not knowing what had hit her. She ran the tip of her tongue over her swollen lips and swallowed convulsively. Marcus had kissed her, and she had responded—it was unbelievable, amazing!
‘Do you want coffee or…?’ he breathed against her cheek.
The invitation in the dark eyes that sought hers was explicit. Eloise blinked, her heart thundering in her chest. Dear heaven, she was tempted, very tempted, but something held her back. ‘N-no, yes, n-no,’ she stammered, and nervously jerked back from his restraining arm. The feelings, the reawakening of sexual urges long suppressed, were all too new and she needed time.
With a husky chuckle, Marcus pulled her back into his arms. ‘If you can’t decide, then let me help you.’ He looked into her eyes. She wanted him, and he wanted her, wanted her with an ache, a hunger that blotted every sensible thought from his brain. So what if she was a liar and a cheat? At that moment he did not give a damn, and he brought his lips to hers again.
Slowly, warmth coursed through her veins again, until her whole body was on fire for him. Somewhere in the darkest reaches of her brain she remembered she should be wary, but instead she marvelled at her own response as his mouth moved gently against hers in several nibbling little kisses that threatened to draw the breath from her body.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured, burying his face in her hair. ‘You’re the most perfect woman I have ever seen.’
‘No,’ Eloise murmured but her voice was shaky, and when Marcus brushed the hair away from her neck, and began kissing his way down her neck, lingering on the pulse that beat madly beneath her pale skin, she moaned.
‘Yes,’ Marcus whispered, and kissed her again.
Involuntarily her lips parted to accept the persuasive invasion of his tongue. She trembled, both hands clutching desperately at his broad shoulders, her feminine form reaching out, reacting to the lure of his potent sensuality.
Her breasts were swollen, her nipples tight aching buds, and she writhed against the hard male body, painfu
lly aware of the restriction of the two fine layers of fabric preventing the flesh-on-flesh contact she craved.
His tongue delved deeper in her mouth, and he kissed with a fierce sexual passion that made every cell in her body pulsate in one tumultuous flood of feeling. If he had not been holding her, she would have collapsed.
A sharp whimper of need escaped her as he lifted his dark head; his eyes, black as jet, stared down into hers, and then he deliberately moved against her, letting her feel the hard evidence of his arousal. ‘The bedroom, Eloise.’ One hand slipped round to cup her breast. ‘Say yes,’ he husked, as his thumb stoked the rigid tip through the soft silk covering.
She heard the words and she knew what he was asking; and in a flash of blinding clarity she knew this was her one chance for love. Her one chance to know a man—and not just any man, but Marcus. The only man she had ever loved.
She leant into the hard heat of him, and twined her arms around his neck. ‘Yes,’ she breathed unsteadily, as he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom.
The room was in semi-darkness; only a bedside lamp shed a small pool of light over a large king-sized bed. The bed penetrated her haze of passion and fear flickered in her eyes but, before she could mouth the words of protest that trembled on her tongue, Marcus laid her down on the bed, stripping her skirt and top from her heated body in between kisses with a deftness that left her breathless.
She started to get up and stopped as, with stunning speed, Marcus shed his clothes. Half fascinated, half fearful, she could not tear her gaze away from his naked form. Shaking, she rested on her elbows. He was so perfect, so magnificently male, a tanned, hard, muscular chest with a light dusting of black hair that tapered down over a flat stomach, and lower… She gulped and swallowed hard, her green eyes flying back to his face as he joined her on the bed.
He loomed over her, his handsome face above hers taut, his dark eyes black and gleaming with a passion, a fire that reminded her of the past.
She was nineteen again and reached up for him, and then his mouth was hot, demanding everything with such hungry intensity she knew she should be frightened. But she did not have time to be afraid as caressing fingers curved around her breasts, and then hot hard kisses trailed down her throat, and a hungry male mouth fastened over the peak of one perfectly formed breast. Her back arched and she groaned out loud as he rendered the same treatment to her other breast.
‘You like that,’ Marcus rasped.
Eloise whispered his name as she wound her arms tightly around his neck. Her hands stroked his silken hair, and down over his powerful shoulders. Then he captured her mouth again in a long drugging kiss. When he broke the kiss and reared back, her slender arms fell from his shoulders and she felt bereft. Instinctively, she reached out to rest her hands on his chest. Her need to touch him was uncontrollable.
Breathing heavily, Marcus quickly removed the last barrier of delicate lacy briefs and stared down at her. She was so exquisite, so beautiful, her high round breasts with perfect deep rose peaks that begged for a man’s mouth, the smooth curve of her waist, the feminine flare of her hips, and the red curling crest that he had ached for so long to discover. He wanted her, he wanted to touch, to taste every inch of her, to bury himself deep in the hot moist centre of her, until she cried out his name in ecstasy and she was truly his.
He closed his hands over hers and lifted them above her head, as he slowly lowered his head and kissed her mouth until it opened to his. He rubbed his chest against her breasts, glorying in the friction, and triumphant at her shuddering response. He cupped her breasts in his hands and rolled each taut nipple between his fingers. His black eyes sought hers, and he murmured, ‘Perfect.’
Eloise had never imagined such pleasure existed, and she moved blindly against him. His hand slipped down to her belly and lower to her thighs, and she tensed.
Marcus sensed some resistance beneath Eloise’s headlong response, and he vowed he would wait even if it killed him. He had once promised her it would be perfect and he intended to fulfil the promise. He bent his head towards her and tongued each rigid-tipped breast, and then drew her flesh in his mouth.
Eloise gasped his name, ‘Marcus,’ as his fingers gently stroked between her thighs, slowly, lightly. She felt electric shock-waves of sensation jolting through her body; she wanted him, and she wanted to cry out, but instead she pressed her mouth to his throat and bit down in a fever of frustration.
Marcus stifled a groan and the swift kiss he pressed on her love-swollen lips turned into a savage duelling of tongues, as his long fingers parted the petals of her womanhood and found the hot, damp, velvet flesh throbbing, waiting for him…
He touched her gently, softly, fast then slow, until her hips arched towards him, and her hands dug into his shoulders and she was calling out his name.
Eloise shook violently, a fierce tension she had never experienced before jerking her every nerve and muscle tight, driving every single thought from her head, and leaving only a fiery need that was almost pain. ‘Please,’ she moaned, her head thrashing from side to side. His hands slipped under her hips and lifted her clear of the bed. She felt the velvet tip of his hard male flesh stroke and then with one thrust he was there, where she wanted him to be.
Eloise felt the briefest of pains, and then it happened. Marcus’s great body stilled for a second in disbelief.
She moaned his name and he moved deep and hard, filling her, stretching her, and taking her on a wild journey of almost mystical proportion. She felt the mighty strength of him thrusting, driving her on, until she cried out as her slender body convulsed in a paroxysm of sensation, and he joined with her until she had lost all sense of self, and the two of them became one perfect whole.
Afterwards she lay in his arms and felt the light caress of his fingertips against her sweat-damped flesh, soothing and caressing; he was murmuring husky words in Greek she did not understand. She sighed her delight, then tensed as his fingers found the ridge of flesh forming a scar on her inner thigh.
‘What is this?’ Marcus asked lazily, leaning over her and, by the dim light, let his slumberous eyes sweep over her beautiful naked body to where his fingers had found a small ridge of flesh. One long shapely leg had a scar about four inches long almost at the top.
‘Nothing.’ Eloise tried to cross her legs suddenly embarrassed. ‘Just a scar. I’m sorry if it upsets you.’
‘Oh, no, sweetheart,’ Marcus exclaimed and smiled down at her. ‘It does not upset me; in fact it is rather endearing. A tiny blemish in such perfection makes you seem more human,’ he opined, and brushed her lips with his. ‘But how did it happen? You did not have it when you were nineteen.’
‘No…well…’ She hesitated, and swallowed hard. ‘I was locked out of my apartment and I broke a window to get in, and cut my leg—nothing serious.’
‘Nothing serious,’ he murmured, moving down her naked body; he let his fingers trace the scar, feeling anger for her accident, and fiercely protective. As his woman there would be no more accidents, he vowed, and his lips followed the path of his fingers. This time the loving was slow and tender, but the end was the same, one perfect unity.
Eloise curled up close and wrapped her arms around his neck. She did not want to think about the past. She did not want to think about anything except how much she loved this man. Tonight had been a revelation and, for the first time in her life, she knew what it was to be a woman, and it was all because of Marcus. She hugged him, finally admitting to herself she had never got over him. She had loved him as a teenager, and she loved him now and probably always would, and a contented sigh escaped her.
‘Sighing. I didn’t think I was that bad,’ Marcus prompted and tilted her chin with a finger, his dark eyes gleaming down into hers.
‘That was a happy sigh,’ she speedily corrected him and, lifting a finger, she placed it over his lips. ‘And you know it, Buster. I can see smug male triumph in your eyes,’ she teased back.
‘Chee
ky.’ He grinned broadly. ‘But I…’ Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the loud ringing of the telephone.
Hauling himself off the bed, Marcus picked up the phone from the bedside table, and as Eloise watched the laughing teasing lover vanished and the hard-headed businessman took his place. He was talking in Greek, and when he finally put the phone down he turned to Eloise. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘You really were expecting a call.’ She had had her doubts, and it was nice to know he had not tricked her into his suite, and bed.
‘O, ye of little faith,’ he mocked with a grin. ‘Actually, I have to make another one and, much as I would love to spend the night with you, I’d better get you back before your friends wonder what has happened to you.’
She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘I am a grown woman.’
He planted a kiss on the tip of her nose, ‘And if I stay here much longer I will be a grown man,’ he drawled sexily. Eloise blushed at his innuendo, and Marcus laughed out loud. ‘For a sophisticated lady, you blush delightfully.’
‘It’s the bane of my life,’ she admitted with a grin. ‘The penalty for being a redhead, I suppose.’
Marcus sent her a flashing smile of pure male satisfaction. ‘A natural one, as I now know, but if I don’t make this call my penalty is going to be the loss of a rather large deal.’
‘Heaven forbid, business first.’
He gave her a playful shove. ‘And you can have the bathroom first, and if you’re lucky I might join you.’
Eloise shot him a startled glance and, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she grasped the sheet and pulled it around her. She caught Marcus’s husky chuckle, but she wasn’t brave enough to parade in front of him naked—yet. She walked across to the bathroom door and turned. Her green eyes sparkling, she drawled, ‘Promises, promises,’ with a shake of her beautiful head. She could joke because she felt so great. He hadn’t said he loved her, but she was sure he did, and they had all the time in the world to get to know each other.
The Greek Tycoon's Revenge Page 4
