‘We need to talk.’
Somehow, she knew he was not referring to work any more. ‘Do we? What about?’ To her own ears, Oriel sounded breathless.
‘About what happened on Aegina six years ago.’
Her eyes darted back to his. ‘Why do we need to talk about that? It’s all in the past and forgotten.’
‘Is it forgotten, Calypso?’ His lips quirked at the edges and his voice became soft. ‘Is that what you think? Is that how you feel?’
‘I thought we’d both decided to ignore it,’ she tried to retort haughtily, willing her heart to stop its idiotic racing.
Damian drained his coffee cup and poured himself another before answering. ‘I don’t see how we can.’
‘We’ve managed so far.’
‘We’ve managed so far.’ He repeated the phrase and his deep voice held a hint of buried laughter as if giving it due consideration.
‘Yes, we have,’ Oriel said emphatically, endeavouring to steady her gaze as she met Damian’s moonlit irises, but she flinched and looked away.
‘Your eyes do the speaking for you. They always did.’
‘I don’t deny your attractiveness, Damian … even with that scar you’re the best-looking man I’ve met, or am ever likely to meet. You’ve probably always known that you can have your way with women. Let’s face it, you had your way with me, but then I was younger and naïve, with no experience of men, and you seduced me.’
‘Seduced?’ Damian’s eyes flashed with sudden anger through the smoke of his cigarette. ‘That’s an unpleasant word to qualify what happened between us. Besides, it suggests that I was the first man who ever touched you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Of course you were.’
A smile came and went about his lips. ‘There is no “of course” about it, agápi mou.’ Although his expression didn’t show it, Oriel sensed that he had suddenly become angry and was struggling to conceal it.
‘How dare you! Y-You know full well that I was a virgin.’
‘Ah yes, I admit I could tell that, but there are other ways of making love without allowing the treasure trove to be ravaged. You want me to believe that no man ever enjoyed that delectable body of yours in some way?’
Oriel’s head snapped up and she glared frostily into his glittering eyes. ‘I never …’ Her voice came out in an anguished croak.
Damian reached a hand towards the spray of white tuberoses on the table and Oriel watched as his fingers seemed about to crush the delicate petals. Instead, they fondled with slow deliberation, his skin dark against the snow-like petals, and his gaze swept hers with its outraged look, lingering on her lips and very slowly moving down to her throat, and again to the darker place where the soft curve of her breasts were barely concealed by the cleavage of her dress. His insolent scrutiny sent a flame of colour flooding her cheeks.
‘You never …?’
‘Until I met you, I’d never let a man be anything like that intimate with me.’
The candle flame reflected in Damian’s silver irises, intensifying their dangerous beauty, and the flickering light made a frame of shadows around his face. ‘Really?’ his tone was mocking. He narrowed his eyes then stubbed out his cigarette with a gesture of finality. Pushing his chair back, he stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment.’
Oriel also stood up. ‘I think I should be going back to my room.’
‘Not until I’ve shown you something that you might find very interesting. I won’t be a second.’ He left, the quiet hardness of his tone indicating that he expected her to wait for him and, though Oriel did not feel that she had to bow instantly to this man’s orders, she remained on the terrace and walked to the balustrade.
She looked up at the moon. A missing piece on one side of it showed that its course was almost half run. Down below in the garden, haunted by bats and white moths, the heavy shadows of cypress, ilex and other great trees broke through the darkness, the pattern of leaves printed upon the moonlit walls. She jumped as a long-fingered hand trailed tantalizingly down her bare back; the movement sent a tremor shuddering through her.
‘Is that what you felt when Rob touched you?’
‘Rob?’ Oriel turned abruptly. Her mind went on alert. ‘Who told you about Rob?’
‘I didn’t need anybody to tell me, kouklitsa mou,’ Damian held out his hand. In it was the photograph of Rob and herself in Venice. ‘You look rather cosy, eh?’
Oriel swallowed on dryness. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘You left it on the beach.’
‘And you took it.’
‘Yes, to remind me that women are all alike.’
‘Rob and I never …’
‘You’ll tell me next that the relationship was platonic.’ His tone was taunting, his icy silver eyes cutting into hers. ‘From the way you were looking at each other in the photograph you were just warming up for a playful night.’
Oriel fixed her gaze on the buttons of his shirt, her body tense. ‘The relationship wasn’t platonic. Rob was my fiancé, it’s true, but we … I had decided that I wanted to remain chaste until my wedding night. That night you and I met in Aegina, I had just learnt that he was marrying my best friend, who was pregnant by him.’
Damian was silent for a moment, as if digesting this information, and placed the photo slowly down on the balustrade in front of her. He gave her a hard stare. ‘In other words, he dumped you.’
‘You could have put it in a more elegant way but, yes, he left me.’
‘And you still haven’t learnt that the thirst of desire cannot be quenched by the cold wine of chastity. I despise that word. It is an insult to the Creator and an abomination to man and beast.’
She raised an eyebrow at this dramatic turn of phrase. ‘Well, if it’s chastity that offends you so much, you shouldn’t have a problem. I gave myself to you that night, and I don’t feel that I have been denying you much since my arrival here.’
Damian ignored her dry remark and lit another cigarette. ‘So you came to me on the rebound, as you say in English, eh?’
‘I really don’t know why I’m answering all your questions. Who are you to judge me? We had a one-night stand a very long time ago and, anyhow, you went off next morning without a second look.’
He glanced at her, running a hand through his hair. ‘I was going to stay on a few more days so we would have a chance to get to know each other, but then I found the photograph and so I left.’
‘Fine, you left, and we’ve each lived our life. What’s your problem?’
‘You are my problem, zoi mou. Purity and passion.’
‘Meaning?’ Oriel stared at Damian as the smoke played over his face in a sort of thin haze that made his eyes seem more mysterious than ever. She sensed the tension coiled in him like a quivering spring as he towered over her.
‘Theé mou! A woman of your beauty and intelligence and passion. What good are your conventional notions if you aren’t being true to yourself?’
‘Would you be saying such things if I were your daughter, or your sister?’
‘Maybe not if they were part of this island. It’s harder for women here. Emancipation has not yet touched Helios, but the day will come when there’ll be an end to this chastity-worship and everyone will realize the stupidity of such unhealthy repression of natural human drives.’
‘This might be your philosophy, but what you really mean is a hedonism that serves only you, isn’t it?’ Oriel fought her emotions, wanting to believe there was something deeper than Damian’s libido that drove him to pursue her in this relentless way. ‘But since that’s the way you think, why me? I’m sure there must be hundreds of women out there who would be only too pleased to satisfy your needs.’
He didn’t answer her immediately. ‘You’ve understood me wrongly, Oriel. I’m not promoting promiscuity, no, quite the reverse. But a woman’s body, like a man’s, needs warmth and care to bloom and flourish. If not, it shrivels up like a wintry tree, alive but stripped of its splendour.�
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Oriel gazed at him, unable to summon the words she knew she should be saying to parry his.
‘What are you thinking, agápi mou? Those innocent eyes of yours are like a pool that hides things beneath a cool surface.’
‘You make me sound secretive, Damian. What have I got to hide?’
‘I wonder …’ He remained silent a few moments. Then again he stirred. ‘Don’t you find it strange we should meet again, eh? What happened between us was special, though incomplete … unfinished business. And being Greek, I believe in the unsuspected manoeuvres of the Moirae.’
‘Well, being English, I don’t.’ Oriel was trying to ignore the frantic thud of her heart. ‘As I’ve told you before, this doesn’t mean that I’m not attracted to you and I’m not saying I regret that night, because I don’t … not in the least.’
‘You’ve made my day.’ A mocking inflexion edged his voice.
Oriel went on the defensive. ‘Believe it or not, one-night stands are not my style. After that night I didn’t make it a habit.’
He lifted a dark brow sceptically. ‘Really? So tell me, Calypso, what is your style? Maybe I’ll be able to accommodate.’
‘I believe that making love is something sacred, to be cherished.’
He leaned closer to her. ‘And I don’t dispute that. The body is a subtle instrument to be played upon in every conceivable way. It’s made to be sensitive to pleasurable impressions … like a harp.’
A husky sensuality had crept into Damian’s tone as he whispered the last three words. Oriel stared at him, remembering instantly the last time he had said that to her in this very same spot and an erotic urgency sang through her blood. The smouldering blaze of his eyes was dwelling with open passion on her face. Their magnetic grey held her, though she wanted more than ever to run away. Still, she could not bear to move away from him even as she knew that she was playing with fire.
With each minute that passed, the need to touch grew stronger. It wasn’t enough to talk or to look as it only fed the desire for greater intimacy. Now, as they couldn’t tear their eyes from each other, silence fell between them, a silence that grew tense with unfulfilled passion.
‘How much longer will you live in denial, agápi mou?’ Damian’s voice stroked over Oriel like silk. His face was so close that she collided with the icy fire of his irises as it glittered over her. Clutched by the nettling vibrations from his powerful frame, his potent sexuality and the disturbing intimations of desire she’d read in his gaze, the base of her spine dissolved. Although she knew he was trying to keep a check on his libido, he looked saturnine, very much a fallen angel, all pride and arrogance.
Damian turned away and faced the darkness of the starlit sky. He raked a tanned hand through his inky hair. His expression became unfathomable. Still, the closed mask of his features was hard, his mouth tightly controlled, only the irregularity of his breathing hinting at the depth of passion he kept leashed. They stood close to each other, still sharing a silence pregnant with unspoken words, tasting the absolute serenity that enveloped the atmosphere. The whole night felt as if it were simmering with hidden intensity, like Oriel herself: a tranquil, sweet, languid night with its scented air, its heart throbbing imperceptibly with hushed undercurrents. Every now and then, a toad calling to its mate uttered its treble love note, and the dry cicadas kept up their endless rasping. The breeze held a caressing quality, sighing with anticipation.
Damian smoked his eternal Gitanes; Oriel’s eyes followed the line of his white cuff for a few moments, the lift and fall of the glowing cigarette end and the blue smoke that spiralled into the darkness. She could only see his profile, his good side. She wondered what he was thinking – he seemed so far away, as if he had forgotten her presence, and yet she knew he had not because of the electric awareness that rippled between them.
A shooting star with a long tail, in the shape of a tadpole, left its place in the heavens and shot across the canopy of stars to find a new dwelling.
‘A shooting star again. It’s said they only appear to lovers.’ Damian pointed it out, his arm brushing against her cheek. ‘Did you see it?’
‘Yes,’ she breathed.
He turned towards her. ‘How swiftly it fell, and how quickly it died. Is the spark that flared between us that night as transient, do you think?’
Oriel met the regret in Damian’s eyes but couldn’t find the right words to answer him.
His gaze intensified. ‘Are there only black ashes left of the fire that burned so strongly between us, or are the embers still glowing, waiting for the right moment to burst into flame again?’
He fell silent a moment and stood, studying her face in the moonlight. ‘I went away at dawn that morning, as though I’d left an enchanted girl lying on the bare rock in a cave, her beautiful wheat-coloured hair cloaking her naked body, who would stay there forever until I returned to kiss her awake.’
‘But you didn’t return,’ Oriel murmured huskily. Her face was raised to him, gravely intent.
‘Circumstances, a misunderstanding, tried to part us but we met again. Why is that, my beautiful, doubting Calypso? Because an unbreakable cord of love binds some people from birth, and a mysterious force exists to ensure that nothing, not time, distance nor anyone, can keep them from finding each other and uniting.’
Oriel’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest. She struggled to believe what he was saying, her eyes dwelling wide on his lean, powerful face, but still she didn’t answer.
‘You feel the same as I, agápi mou, I know you do. You have eyes that speak and an expressive body, and they reveal rather more than you would wish, perhaps.’
At once she dropped her lashes, unable to look at him, but Damian took her chin between forefinger and thumb and lifted her face, forcing her to meet his burning gaze. She was lost for words – they seemed locked in her throat; the soft night breeze could not cool her cheeks as the silver irises appraised her, and her body appeared gripped by a strange and helpless feeling. It was like a dream …
How much longer could she resist this overwhelming desire to give in to everything that she felt for this man? This longing to stroke his coppery satin skin, to press her lips to his muscled body. It was sheer hell pretending she didn’t want him when every molecule of her being was longing for his touch. It had been building up all evening, this need for him. She had known it, even though she had pretended it wasn’t there. And so, after the first struggling moment, she couldn’t deny herself the relief of pressing her face to his shoulder and breathing in his masculine scent of clean, sun-heated skin, and the smoke of the Gitanes that clung to him.
Damian threw away his cigarette. Then all at once, with a growled oath, he gathered Oriel in his arms and lifted her to him, clasping her body so tightly that she thought her ribs would break.
Oriel gasped, flooded with riotous heat. She should stop him; she should want to stop him! She should push him away, not spread her hands caressingly across his powerful chest. His breath was warm against her forehead. She could feel his heart hammering beneath her fingertips through the thin material of his shirt, pulsing its intimate message to her, holding her captive; igniting her with the same fire that was burning inside him.
CHAPTER 8
Damian carried Oriel to the far end of the terrace through the archway of tall double doors into an airy white-walled room. It was lit by two large candelabra, placed on each side of the only piece of furniture that adorned it: a queen-sized carved-oak bed with a mirror set in the ceiling above it. An explicit nineteenth-century engraving by Félicien Rops, Le Diable au Corps, was hanging over the headboard, featuring a man and woman entwined naked, simultaneously performing oral sex on one another. Carpeted in tawny oriental colours, the rest of the room had a warm, sensual glow and an unreal dreamlike feel.
Oriel stared at the striking face above hers as Damian’s powerful arms flexed beneath her and she linked her hands around his neck, her heart racing. ‘You’re the most perfect creatu
re, with a lovelier, more graceful body than any other woman alive!’ he murmured. His eyes were like pewter now, his pupils expanded and dark with desire as they swept over her. ‘I know how soft and warm and sweet it can feel. Even though I can remember it in every little detail, there’s a terrible ache inside me to see how lovely it can look, and not with this around it.’
With these few words, Damian was exciting her to such a dizzying peak of longing that Oriel was becoming lost, a prisoner of his passions. Wings seemed to be fluttering inside her; more than ever she felt that her body needed to be warmed, needed to be desired, needed to be appeased – by him and him alone. Her eyes flickered to the enamoured couple in the engraving over the bed, their limbs entangled, leaving nothing to the imagination, which served only to enflame her further with pulsating lust.
Damian laid her down slowly on the ruby damask eiderdown and in the confusion of the next few minutes of touching and breathing and pulling, they were both naked: her willowy, fair frame and his muscular golden body two contrasting beautiful sculpted figures reflected in the glass above them. Her eyes took in the proud arousal piercing the curly black hair that formed a glistening dark nest between his lean, toned thighs, mirroring the hunger and frantic need that raged in her core.
Oriel looked up again and saw her eyes shining with desire, wider and greener than she had ever seen them; her pink tongue passing over her parched lips, asking to be kissed; her swollen, firm breasts with their dusky rose areolae and hard twin peaks clamouring to be touched, and her parted thighs so wantonly inviting an erotic invasion. This unexpected confrontation with an image of her unashamed desire was a total shock to her but, strangely enough, seeing herself as Damian saw her only strengthened her need for him to touch her intimately. Oriel’s pulse rate tripped into a quickening beat and her gaze turned to the silver irises surveying her with slow deliberation.
Damian’s expression lingered on her, now edged with amusement: ‘Not so innocent, Calypso, eh? It excites you already to see, to watch. A bit of an exhibitionist, maybe?’ he taunted softly. ‘The way you made me feel that night, I always knew you had the imagination to match a natural appetite.’ His voice was low and husky.
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