Bought ForThe Greek's Bed

by Julia James

  He didn’t even register her outburst. His voice was as smooth, as unperturbed as ever.

  ‘No? Not planning on going into that much detail? Not even planning on saying how you whored yourself to me for it?’

  Her hand crashed down on to the surface of the table, shaking the crockery violently. Pain shot up her arm, but it was nothing, nothing, to the tempest inside her.

  ‘It was my money! Mine! You had no right to keep it! No right to it! No right to make me do what you did! I don’t have to feel bad about it! It’s you, you who should feel guilty. You who—’

  He was on his feet. His face was a snarl.

  ‘You shameless little bitch! You committed adultery—without the slightest ounce of shame or remorse or guilt!’

  She stepped back. Her heart was pounding, pounding with fury and outrage.

  ‘Oh, that’s rich—that’s rich.’ Her voice was hollow. She had started to tremble, the way she had when he had eviscerated her that first, hideous time. ‘I committed adultery? God Almighty, every damn day I was here I had women falling over themselves to tell me they’d had affairs with you—’

  ‘Past tense! I never touched another woman while you were here!’

  Her mouth opened, then closed. Then, simply staring at him, she spoke.

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  For a timeless moment there was silence. A silence you could cut with a knife. The snarl left his face.

  ‘Why not?’ he echoed. ‘Because—’ he bit out each word ‘—I was married.’

  Her brows drew together. She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘It wasn’t a real marriage. It was fake from beginning to end. A total sham.’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Are you telling me you never…you never carried on with any of your women? But you must have! It’s ludicrous to think otherwise!’

  He was staring at her. ‘You really thought that?’

  ‘Of course I did! We weren’t really married! It was for show, that was all! Of course someone like you would have gone on having sex!’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Unlike you, I am not in the market for adultery.’ His voice was as cold as ice.

  Something snapped inside her. ‘It wasn’t a question of adultery! Adultery doesn’t come into it!’

  ‘Spare me your moral take on things,’ he shot back contemptuously. ‘And don’t think to worm your way out by using the basis of our marriage to exonerate your behaviour!’ His voice chilled even more. ‘Let alone by trying to make out you were no worse than me! You committed adultery. I did not.’

  Shock was ricocheting round her. Theo had not continued with his affairs while they were married. It was impossible to believe, and yet—

  No wonder he seduced me! He had no intention of remaining celibate…

  He had used her. Deliberately and callously. Used her for sexual relief…

  She felt an anger that surpassed anything that she had felt for him till now. Even when he had thrown at her what he had.

  ‘You absolute bastard,’ she said slowly.

  Something flashed in his eyes. ‘For calling you what you are? Shameless, conscienceless, without remorse or regret! Bringing shame down on your uncle for—’

  Anger leapt in her again.

  ‘You were responsible for that! There was no need—no need at all—to tell him why our marriage had ended!’

  His face darkened. ‘I did my best to avoid telling him. Unlike you.’ His voice was scathing. ‘I wanted to spare his feelings. But he persisted, insisted on knowing why you had returned to England, why our marriage was being dissolved, and in the end I had to tell him the truth. That there had been someone else, another man.’ His eyes lasered into her. ‘Perhaps in London, in sophisticated, liberated circles, adultery means little. Here, there is a different attitude. Your behaviour hurt your uncle very much—something that still completely fails to prick your conscience.’

  ‘My conscience is clear!’ Her retort was instant, vehement.

  ‘How convenient. How very convenient. You go from my bed to his in the space of mere hours! Hours! From sex with me to sex with him before the sun has set!’ His voice whipped her, lifting the flesh from her bones. Remorselessly he ploughed on, each word another crack of his cruel whip. ‘Then, when you get greedy for the money which you think—you really think!—you’re entitled to, you come crawling back to me! You sell your body back to me for cash. And you come here to tell me you are giving it to your oh-so-accommodating lover, seeing no need to tell him how you managed to get it. What a very convenient conscience you have, to be sure. But just how convenient, I wonder?’

  He had started to walk towards her, down the length of the table. His voice as he spoke was smooth, but it caught at her like fine barbs. In all the hideous maelstrom of emotions inside her she could feel, quite suddenly, her heart rate start to quicken, adrenaline start to run. Fear licked through her. He was still approaching her. She started to back away. It was essential, quite essential, to back away—

  His eyes were holding hers, dark and glittering. She felt her stomach hollow.

  ‘How, I wonder, how far will that wonderfully flexible, elastic conscience of yours stretch?’

  He was getting closer. She backed away, backed against the wall. He went on coming towards her.

  ‘Stay away from me!’ Her voice was high-pitched, adrenaline streaming in her blood, fear—it must be fear!—jumping in her veins.

  He did not stop. His eyes still held hers, immobilising her. His voice was smooth, as smooth as the devil’s.

  ‘Stay away from you? But that isn’t what you want, is it, Vicky? You don’t want that at all. This is what you want. You wanted it every night this last week—over and over and over again. You couldn’t get enough of it…’

  He reached his hand out to her. Smoothed down the silken fall of her hair. A shiver went through her, trembling in her body. His hand cupped her face, his thumb stroking along her cheekbone. She felt it in every part of her body.

  No! No—don’t let him! Don’t let him!

  She wanted to move—run, hide. But she could not. She could only stand, paralysed, immobilised, the hard, unyielding surface of the wall behind her. The hard, unyielding figure in front of her.

  ‘This is what you want,’ he said again, and his other hand slid around the nape of her neck, his fingers slowly moving, sensuously, seductively, on the sensitive skin. She felt weak, boneless.

  His eyes caressed her.

  ‘You want this, and you know can have it—don’t you? You don’t even need to tell yourself it’s to get the money you want. And you won’t have to tell your lover because of that convenient conscience of yours—the one that allows you to do this…’

  His mouth lowered to hers. It moved on hers slowly, languorously, devastatingly. She felt her legs give, and in the same moment his fingers at her nape strengthened, holding her head as he took her mouth, opening it to his.

  It was bliss. It was heaven. She could not stop, could not resist, could not do anything except give herself to the sensation firing through her.

  He lifted his mouth from hers. The dark glitter in his eyes shot through her like sparks of fire. Igniting her.

  ‘Still more? Allow me to oblige you—’

  He scooped her up. Her body was boneless, clinging. She didn’t care. Could not care. Could not do anything except lift her mouth to his as he lowered it again, striding through the room into the lounge. He didn’t bother with the bedroom, or a bed. Even as he lowered her to the sofa he was stripping off his jacket, tie, shirt. Swiftly, ruthlessly discarding what was unnecessary for the moment. Then he turned his attentions to her. Her zip was gone in an instant, her dress discarded. Blood pounded in her veins, hunger in her eyes, her mouth. Oh, dear God, she wanted him. Wanted the hard, lean length of him on her, in her. Arousal consumed her like a fire in the undergrowth.

  This was no slow coupling. Urgency burned through her, as if she knew, somewhere dim and dangerous to her, that what
she was doing was madness, folly, a crime so stupid that it would never be forgiven.. But she could not stop. As his mouth suckled her, pulling strongly on the rigid, sensitised peaks of her breasts, she held his head to her, her thighs straining against his. He was hard against her, so hard, and she felt a leap of raw, primitive excitement lunge through her. She writhed against him, hungry and urgent. Wanting him. Wanting him now, right now. His possession, his body in hers, now, right now. She lifted her hips to him, her free hand straining down over his naked back. He was still half clothed, but she didn’t care. Wanted only what he was withholding from her…

  Her hand slid beneath his waistband, and then her other hand was there, too, unfastening him, freeing him…strong in her hands, powerful and potent, so potent. She gave a rasp in her throat, lifting her hips to him as his tongue laced around her nipples, shooting peaks of pleasure through her that she thought she must die from. But it was not enough, not enough. She had to have more…she had to have all…

  ‘Theo—now, now!’

  Her voice was urgent, desperate. His head lifted from her, eyes still burning like lasers into hers.

  ‘Theo!’ she gasped again, and parted for him.

  He drove into her, and she gave a great gasp of pleasure as he filled her. Sensation exploded through her, driving on and on, fire was raging in her. Her hands slid around his back, gripping him to her.

  His mouth swooped on hers, devouring her, and she gave him like for like, as urgent as he, more urgent still. He drove into her again, and then again, and each time the sensation that exploded in her was like a hammer of pleasure. With every thrust the ultra-sensitive zone within her sent more and yet more excitement through her. More and more, over and over, and over again, thrust after thrust…

  ‘Theo!’

  Her voice was a cry, a gasp of incredulity, as a pleasure so intense that she felt it like a white burning heat flashed out from where it had ignited and sheeted through her body, burning down every fibre of her being.

  ‘Oh, God, Theo!’

  She gasped for air, for oxygen, but it only fed the flame, sending yet another wave of even deeper intensity and pleasure through her. Every muscle in her body had tautened, and the extreme tension seemed to amplify what was happening to her. She cried out yet again.

  Then he was surging in her. She could feel him, filling her, engorging her, convulsing into her. His hands were pressing down on her shoulders, his torso rearing over her, his head lowered from his powerful, straining shoulders.

  She clung to him. Clung like a swimmer in a drowning sea, clung to the hard strength of the body over her, clung to him while his body convulsed into hers, and while hers, every nerve inflamed, strained against him.

  The moment went on and on and on.

  And then, at the limits of exhaustion, it died away.

  Leaving her on the shore of the realisation of what she had done.

  His weight came down on her, muscles slackening. His head was at her shoulder, and she could feel the heat of his racing breath on her dampened skin. Her exhaustion was total, as if she’d run a mile. Her heart beat in hard, heavy slugs, her pulse, too.

  She could feel his face against her. Feel his skin cooling, feel the sleek sweat of desire spent draw the heat from her body. Leaving her cold, so very cold…

  His head lifted from her. His eyes looked down into hers. For one moment there was something in them, then it was gone. Quite gone. Now there was only that dark glitter in them again. With long fingers he smoothed the hair back from her sweated brow, a touch that made her shudder deep, deep within, and gazed into her distended eyes.

  ‘Will you tell him about this, your hapless lover? Tell him how you cried out for me as I took you? Tell him how this time—’ his voice changed, cutting like a knife into her ‘—you did not even do it for the money…’

  He levered up from her. Standing there, adjusting his clothing. Picking up his shirt from where it hung half off the arm of the sofa, where it had caught, and shrugging himself into it.

  Then he walked towards the phone on the sideboard and lifted it.

  His Greek was too quick for her, but when he hung up and turned back to her she did not need to understand.

  ‘The car will be waiting for you in the basement. Your flight will be rearranged for when you reach the airport.’ His eyes flickered at him. ‘I suggest you use the bathroom in the guest room to repair your appearance. You’ll forgive me if I make my farewell now.’ He walked towards her, lifting her supine, naked body upright. She sagged, unable to support herself, and his arms held her, his fingers around her flanks, indenting into her ribcage. He looked down into her face a moment. Her hair was tousled wantonly over her bare shoulders, her eyes were wide, distended, her mouth bee-stung from his arousal of her.

  His eyes had that strange blankness in them; his face was a mask.

  ‘So beautiful on the outside,’ he said. ‘So deceptive.’

  He let her go and walked away, heading, she dimly remembered, for the master bedroom, and presumably its bathroom.

  Like a zombie she picked up her clothes. Like a zombie she found the guest bedroom and its en suite bathroom. Some time later, when she was sure the apartment was empty again, she took the lift down to the basement and got into the waiting car. She was driven to the airport where a first-class ticket back to London had been arranged for her.

  She wanted to die.

  Two days later, when she phoned her British bank to ensure the money had been transferred from her Greek account, she was informed that the cheque had been stopped by its issuer.

  Theo had taken his revenge on her yet again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THINGS were not going well for Theo. His business affairs were thriving, as ever. His investment in Aristides Fournatos’s company was returning handsome profits, and he and the old man had formed a consortium to turn the tables on the company that had tried to buy him out. They were very close to acquisition, but Theo was adamant that the directors of the company should not personally profit financially from any takeover bid. He did not like to see the undeserving reap rewards from their misdeeds—whether they were unscrupulous corporate asset-strippers or an adulterous wife.

  But he must not think of that. Must not think beyond the fact that he was now finished with her. Absolutely. Permanently. Stopping the cheque had been the last action he had taken to dispose of her once and for all.

  It had been, he now knew, a mistake to do what he had. He had thrown her from him two years ago, and he should have left it at that. He had known this, but for some insane reason he had been unable to stop himself when she had accosted him in London.

  Bad mistake. A very bad mistake.

  But then his whole disastrous marriage had been a mistake.

  No, that was not to be thought of. Not to be referred to. It was to be put aside, ignored. It was bad enough that he had to live in the same city as Aristides Fournatos, bad enough that he had to look the man in the eye every day and know that he knew the shocking truth about his niece. And that had been another mistake—telling Aristides why their marriage had ended. He should have stonewalled him, refused to explain. But Aristides had been set on trying to patch things up between them, on visiting Vicky, getting her to come back to Athens. Then Theo would have had to see her again…

  And yet he had seen her again, and of his own volition He had succumbed to that unforgivable lapse of judgement after seeing her in his office, outraged at being ignored, fire and ice flashing in her eyes.

  Mistake. Bad mistake.

  And worse to follow.

  Offering her that devil’s deal, so that he could take his revenge for what she’d done to him two years ago. It had been easy to lure her with the promise of the money she was so greedy for. So self-righteously convinced she was entitled to. Adulteress though she was…

  Her words of self-exoneration bleated in his memory—‘It wasn’t a real marriage…’

  He slammed his mind shut. But not befor
e one final memory had blazed inside his head.

  The last, shaming time he had taken her—the ultimate indulgence.

  Ohi! No!

  His fingers curved around the pencil in his hand and snapped it like a toothpick. He tossed it aside and reached for another, continuing with his rapid scanning of a printout of latest sales figures. Sales were up, profits were up. His business affairs were thriving.

  But he, Theo, was not doing well.

  ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine. I’d better make a move anyway.’

  Jem got to his feet. His lanky frame made Vicky’s studio flat seem even smaller than it was. She could have fitted the entire place into the dining room of Theo’s Athens penthouse…

  But then, that was what being rich did for you. Bought you penthouses and private islands, ski lodges in the mountains—and ‘love-nests’ on the coast to take your mistresses to.

  Mistresses galore for Theo Theakis—except when he was married.

  Because then, of course, he’d had a wife to satisfy his sexual needs.

  Like a program running in her brain, thoughts formed in her head as they always did, over and over and over again, without pity, without cessation. So what if Theo had not continued with his affairs during their marriage? That only made it worse—much worse.

  He used me. Used me for the sex he hypocritically refrained from getting from his usual sources!

  Hadn’t it been bad enough thinking he’d seduced her simply as an exercise in his own sexual egoism? Now she had to face something even worse.

  I could have been anyone! Anyone at all! Any woman would have done—any woman who was his wife. There for the purpose. The purpose of being a vessel for his sexual relief…that’s all I was—all my body was.

  Just as her body had been nothing more than a means of exacting his revenge on her. Ruthlessly, deliberately using her pathetic weakness, her criminally stupid vulnerability to him, turning it against her, using it as a deadly annihilating weapon against her.

  Right to the very, very last.

  Cold flushed through her, sickening and shaming.

  Even when she’d been yelling her fury and defiance at him he’d still had to do nothing more than walk up to her, touch her, kiss her…