Savage Seduction

by Sharon Kendrick

  And excited her beyond belief.

  ‘I’m almost ready,’ she said again, foolishly.

  ‘Ready for what?’ he queried softly. ‘For this?’ He bent his head to plant a soft, soft kiss on her neck, and her body was drawn towards his with a trembling yearning.

  ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘But you want me to. You’re ready for me.’ One finger trickled with sensitive awareness to find the tip of her breast, and he pressed it with delicate precision, drawing attention to the fact that it was hard and hot and ready for him. Just as he’d said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ And then he did take her in his arms, but he didn’t kiss her, just held her very, very tightly with his arms wrapped around her shoulders, imprisoning her, and Jade had never felt so safe in her whole life. She shut her eyes against his shoulders, recognising one of the truths behind his attraction for her.

  That was it; the secret of how he physically over- whelmed her with such ease. It was because the in- security and chaos of her upbringing had left her feeling rootless, and because she had never met a man like him before. Someone so strong; so sure. Someone you could depend on; lean on.

  But she couldn’t lean on him, not really. He was motivated to marry her not by an urge to protect her, but through some outmoded concept of ’honour’, and a physical ache for her.

  That was all.

  She should pull away, but the powerful warmth of his embrace held her to him more securely than any chains of metal could have done.

  ‘Let me go,’ she whispered weakly against his neck.

  ‘Not yet. I have a much better idea. Let’s go to bed. Let me undress you again. God, how I want to do that. It is too long since I’ve seen you naked, Jade. Just twenty-four hours and yet not a second has gone by when I haven’t thought about how it felt to have you naked and helpless beneath me, gasping with delight as I filled you—your body arching as you cried out your climax. Do you know, I didn’t sleep at all last night for thinking about it, not at all. It was like a fever,’ he whispered in a voice husky with hunger. ‘I want to make love to you as with no other woman.’

  Jade swallowed; unbearably and shamefully tempted. ‘But your brother and chauffeur are outside waiting in the car.’

  ‘Let them wait!’ He pulled her closer. ‘They can wait all night for all I care.’

  She could feel the hard throb between his legs, and oh, she wanted to reach out and touch him there, she wanted to know and explore every gorgeous inch of him. ‘But they’ll know exactly what we’re doing—’ Her own voice sounded husky.

  ‘I don’t care!’ he murmured against her hair. ‘I care for nothing other than making love to you’

  She pulled away from him, her green eyes lighting with triumph as she saw the ache of frustration etching lines onto his handsome face. ‘But we didn’t make love yesterday! Did we, Constantine? We had, as you so charmingly put it, “good sex”, and do you know, I regret every single minute of it! For two pins I’d like to have the gumption to call your bluff and tell you to get the hell out of here, be- cause I honestly can’t imagine that anyone would threaten the livelihood of a group of old men by sacking them’

  ‘Try me,’ he taunted softly.

  Jade shook her head, saw him watch the blonde hair shimmering in angry tendrils over her shoulders. ‘No, I shan’t bother. You aren’t just anyone—you’re ruthless enough to do anything. But let me tell you one thing—we haven’t made love and we aren’t going to make love, either—and if that makes you frustrated, then that’s great!’

  He gave her a cruel, mocking smile. ‘Want to bet?’ he queried softly, as his eyes alighted on her strained, pinched complexion. ‘I’m not the only one feeling frustrated around here, am I, Jade?’

  Ignoring that, Jade drew her shoulders back and continued to berate him. ‘And let me tell you something else—that good sex might be enough for you, Constantine, but it certainly isn’t enough for me! And now, if you’d like to pick up my suitcase, I really don’t want to keep Stavros and your driver waiting any longer!’

  And, so saying, her nose held as snootily aloft as she could manage, Jade swept out of the flat.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JADDE followed Constantine into the Garden Suite, keeping her eyes deliberately averted from the butter-coloured sofa. Talk about an ever-present reminder of her appalling surrender to his cold- blooded lovemaking; it made her cheeks flame just to think about it! And her heart race with humiliat- ing irregularity.

  She glanced down at her bright blue wristwatch. It was now almost five o’clock, and she was as weary as could be.

  He loosened his tie and went to pour himself a glass of mineral water. ‘Would you like one?’

  Jade shook her head. ‘No, thank you,’ she answered stiffly.

  He drank half the water and surveyed her slowly over the rim of his glass, from the tip of her head to her bare feet in their strappy sandals. ‘I expect you’ll want to freshen up. That’s your room.’ And the dark head was arrogantly nodded in the direc- tion of a closed door. ‘Over there.’

  Let’s hope there’s a key to lock it, thought Jade. ’Thank you,’ she replied automatically.

  ‘I’ll take you for dinner downstairs later. The food is excellent. Be ready at eight.’

  It sounded far more tempting than it should have done, but she fought it. She remembered her as- sertiveness training. Start as you mean to go on. Maybe if she showed him her notoriously stubborn streak he might think twice about marrying her! ’That won’t be necessary,’ she said.

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘So watch me eat.’ The white teeth were bared and Jade shivered, reminded of a caged predator she’d once felt sorry for at Chessington Zoo. But this predator she didn’t feel in the least bit sorry for!

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Slivers of ebony glittered with menace. ‘So be it,’ he said, in a voice so soft that she should have been reassured, and yet needles of ice were scraped with pinpoint accuracy up a spine which was suddenly cold and clammy. ‘I’ll allow you to play your little games with me, Jade—perhaps you look on it as some form of revenge at being forced into such an ill-conceived marriage to keep me at arm’s length, when you know it causes us both nothing but frustration…’

  Swine!

  ‘But after the ceremony,’ he vowed silkily. ‘When you’re legally mine… don’t consider for a moment that I intend to let you play your shrinking virgin act with me—especially when we both know what a farce that particular act is.’ He ended the sen- tence with a look of mocking contempt, but before Jade could even formulate an angry retort Constantine completely took the wind out of her sails by sauntering into his own room and shutting the door behind him, leaving her staring after him, her mouth hanging open like a stranded fish, feeling completely outmanoeuvred.

  She went into her bedroom and quickly set about hanging her clothes up in the wardrobe, unable however to stop herself from admiring her sur- roundings. The room was just lovely, with an un- mistakable air of quietly restrained luxury.

  After she’d had the longest, most luxurious bath of her life, Jade deliberately stayed in her bedroom, determined to remain there all evening if necessary. She heard Constantine moving around next door, then the sound of the door closing at around eight. Then silence.

  She should have been pleased that he’d taken her at her word, had left her alone and gone out to dine, but in reality she was absolutely seething! Which infuriated her.

  Because why on earth was she wasting her time wondering just who he was dining with? What did she care?

  Then she started to get very hungry indeed. It was all very well making a point, but Constantine wasn’t even around to see her making it! And she hadn’t eaten for what seemed like hours.

  Jade resisted the temptation to chew on her fingernails. In books the heroines always seemed to go for days without food, so why couldn’t she be like that? Any minute now, if she didn�
��t get something in the way of sustenance, she might just be tempted to start gnawing at the hearth rug!

  She picked up the telephone.

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Er—is it possible to order something to eat?’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ Did the voice sound amused, or was she just getting paranoid? ‘Mr Sioulas said that you’d probably be feeling hungry.’

  Swine!

  But after a steak sandwich and the most expens- ive half-bottle of claret on the menu Jade felt a good deal better, good enough to find herself whis- tling a little tune as she hurled herself under the duvet, wearing her best pair of black cami-knickers, and the flimsy little top which accompanied it- just dying for the opportunity of fighting Constantine off when he came in from dinner.

  Her next recollection was waking up at mid- morning and throwing on a matching black satin wrap to wander mid-yawn into the drawing-room, her hand raking back through the tousled blonde disarray of her hair to find Constantine, fully and immaculately dressed, as though he was going to an appointment in the city.

  And Jade couldn’t help the powerful pang which wrenched at her heart at the sudden and utterly devastating sight of him first thing in the morning.

  The olive face was impassive, the black eyes se- cretive, but there was no mistaking the flash of hunger which lit them as they alighted on her semi- clothed state. ‘Good morning. You slept well, I trust?’

  Was that a twitch of amusement she saw at the corners of his mouth? She found herself wanting to demand what time he’d come in, why he hadn’t come in to… oh, for heaven’s sake, was she mad!

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  ‘I’ve rung for some coffee.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m afraid that I shan’t be able to join you, as I have a meeting to attend.’

  Jade shrugged, feigning nonchalance, trying to convince herself that if he had joined her she’d be eager for him to be away. He was just using subtle psychology, that was all, probably following that old adage—what was it they said? ‘Treat them mean, and keep them keen’. Well, he was in for a shock if he thought she was going to fall for that one!

  He left minutes later, and Jade was left to fill up her day. In the event she had a wonderful day. All the time she’d lived in London and she’d never even been to St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Tower…so she set off sightseeing with a vengeance.

  But when she arrived back in the suite at just after four o’clock it was to find Constantine waiting for her, pacing the floor like an expectant father and resembling a caged panther even more strongly. As the door closed behind her, she saw the two big hands clench beside the muscular shafts of his thighs, the knuckles white, as though it were only through the most supreme effort that he didn’t physically manhandle her.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded, before she’d barely closed the door behind her.

  Jade knew enough about people to know when they had reached the end of their tether. ‘Sightsee- ing,’ she answered, frowning.

  ‘Sightseeing?’ He made it sound as though it warranted a gaol sentence. Black eyebrows knitted together in two formidable dark slashes. ‘How?’

  ‘Well, first you buy your ticket, and then you—’

  ‘Silence!’ he bellowed. ‘I mean—how did you get there?’

  Jade stared back in confusion. ‘Well, by Tube, of course!’

  He swore long and profoundly in his native tongue; incomprehensible to Jade, but it wasn’t difficult to get his drift. ‘You little fool!’ he ground out in English, just in case she’d missed the message.

  Jade looked up at him, her green eyes troubled. He sounded seriously worried. ‘What have I done?’ she asked in confusion—had she forgotten to pull the door shut? Had the suite been burgled while she’d been out?

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Do you not re- alise that, as my fiancee, you are now the target for all kinds of lunatics?’

  ‘What,’ she ventured, ‘exactly are you talking about?’

  ‘I am talking about kidnap!’ he emphasised harshly, then nodded grimly as he saw her wide- eyed look. ‘Yes. It happens. Your clothes were here, and you were… I thought…’ His face blackened with a terrifying rage again. ‘In future you will use the car and the driver I have provided for you. Do you understand?’

  She’d never seen a man so angry before; he was almost shaking with it. It was frightening to see someone who she had imagined to have an un- breakable control, to be that close to losing it com- pletely. And he was intelligent enough for his fears to have some rational explanation to them, rather than just the nebulous fears of the over-cautious. Jade found a wave of sympathy washing over her as she registered the sharply defined lines which divided the very rich from the ordinary person. A life haunted by the threat of abduction. She might resent him for forcing her into marriage, yes, but not enough to send him over the edge.

  ‘I should have left a note,’ she said quietly. ‘I won’t do that again.’ Then, to divert him, ‘Shall we have some tea—I’m absolutely parched?’

  He stared at her for a long, long moment, and then some spark fired at the depths of the coal- black eyes, something very like reluctant humour lifted one corner of his mouth.

  ‘Tea?’ he echoed faintly.

  With equal reluctance, Jade smiled back. She could get quite used to seeing him look ever so slightly nonplussed, she thought. ‘Yes, tea,’ she reiterated. ‘And if you spare me your “you English and your tea”, speech, then I won’t tell you that Greek coffee has the consistency of mud!’

  He laughed then. ‘But that’s not true, is it, Jade? As I recall, you loved Greek coffee—’

  She quickly turned away to pretend to look out of the window, afraid to speak, shaken with a strange, debilitating sadness and precariously close to tears at the intimate sound of that simple little memory. It was also, she realised, the first time she’d heard him laugh since the magical time they’d spent together on the island, when he hadn’t seemed to stop laughing. In fact, he had marvelled about it at the time—that she had the ability to make him laugh, almost… as though that in itself were a rare commodity.

  ‘I’ll go and freshen up,’ she said hastily, grateful that he said nothing, but aware of his watchful eyes on her retreating back.

  When Jade went back out into the sitting-room, the tray of tea had arrived, and Constantine was stretched out in one of the armchairs, his eyes closed. His long legs were elegantly sprawled in front of him and there were lines of fatigue etched deep on the craggy features. Just for that one brief moment she was reminded of her own father; a million years away from Constantine in lifestyle perhaps, but looking similarly exhausted as he battled to earn the kind of money which would support the spending habits of his extravagant wife. A battle he had finally lost.

  Silent though she was, the moment her foot went down on the soft carpet Constantine’s eyes flickered open immediately, and Jade’s senses prickled as she was caught up in the compelling blackness of his gaze.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said, without thinking.

  His eyebrows were raised fractionally as if sur- prised by her solicitude. ‘Yes. Your tea should revive me.’

  ‘For what?’

  His hand moved to rub wearily at the back of his neck. ‘I have a business dinner.’

  He said it with a quiet acceptance which caused her to look at him with new eyes. Suddenly she saw through to the loneliness and isolation of the tycoon, the omnipotent head of a vast organis- ation. Maybe there’d never been anyone in his life to tell him to slow down. She tried to dampen down another rush of definitely unwarranted sympathy. ’Do you have to go out on business tonight?’

  ‘Why?’ The voice was mocking, and the black eyes flickered over her watchfully. ‘Are you offer- ing me a more attractive alternative?’

  Jade didn’t react as she sat down in front of the tea-tray. ‘I merely meant that you look as though you could do with a good night’s sleep.’

 
‘But I’m not going to get one, am I?’ he queried silkily. ‘Not when I know that you’re right next door to me.’

  ‘But you slept OK last night,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Did I?’ he parried. ‘Are you quite sure about that?’

  ‘Tea?’ asked Jade, a fixed smile upon her face as she picked up the heavy silver teapot, thinking rather hysterically that she sounded like one of the characters from a comic farce.

  ‘Thanks.’ He took the cup that she offered him, adding a wafer-thin slice of lemon, and for a while the scrumptious contents of the tray were enough to take her mind off their sleeping arrangements. Jade bent her golden head over the various plates as she busily examined and began selecting con- tents from the assortment of dishes on the tray.

  ‘Mmm!’ she murmured enthusiastically, slightly embarrassed when she looked up into a pair of bemused black eyes. ‘I haven’t had a cream tea for years!’ she found herself explaining lamely.

  ‘Haven’t you?’ He smiled. ‘Me neither. Choles- terol be damned! Pass me one of those scones, please.’

  In the end, it proved a surprisingly companion- able meal as they both ladled thick home-made strawberry jam on to the fluffy scones, and com- pounded the damage by adding big spoonfuls of clotted cream.

  Jade was absolutely starving and Constantine seemed amused by her delicate greed. ‘Good?’

  It was terribly easy to like him when he was in this kind of benign, indulgent mood, she thought. He’d been like that when she’d first met him and now, as then, she found it impossible not to return his rare smile. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured with satis- faction, as she leaned back in the armchair and stretched her arms above her head. ‘That was de- licious—I feel absolutely full.’

  But with an abrupt movement he put his cup down on to the table. ‘There are a number of things we must discuss.’ His voice seemed to have as- sumed its habitually gritty quality, and their earlier mood of something resembling camaraderie was immediately broken.