by Olivia Gates
But there he was. His presence reached out and enveloped her, drowned her. Elemental, primal. Bigger than she remembered, broader, more ominous. He stared at her across the dozen feet of barely breathable air that was all that stood between them. Then he started obliterating them.
He approached like advancing darkness, and his aura eclipsed her, made her insides quiver with a mess of reactions she’d never thought she’d experience again. If anything, time had faded her memories of his impact. Or had he grown more overwhelming?
But he can’t be here, her mind screamed, as her heartbeats spiraled into the danger zone.
The chips of steel he had for eyes captured hers, freezing her to the spot. Then they swept her from head to toe, engulfing her in simmering ice.
Her gaze careered down his body in return. From sun-gilded hair, to skin the texture and color of polished teak, to the slashes and planes and hollows of a face assembled with ruthless perfection. His body was shrouded in a suit that looked molded on him. She knew from extensive experience that the flesh beneath had been carved by a divine hand. But all that physical flawlessness would have never affected her if it hadn’t been imbued with a charisma and character that bent masses to his merest whim. This man, this force of darkness, commanded thousands, his every decision and action impacting millions. And he’d once had her completely in his power, to do with as he pleased. As she’d once begged him to.
She’d also once begged him to let her go. Because even then she’d feared she wouldn’t have the strength to walk away. What he’d done next, to spite her, to torment her, had had her swearing never again.
But she’d believed she had nothing to worry about. That he’d disappeared from her life forever. After his latest and most terrible transgression, she’d been certain she would never lay eyes on him again.
But there he was. Why? Why?
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She barely recognized the alien rasp that hissed out of her. Then she heard Hannah’s agitated voice.
“When I found him at the door, I assumed you instructed the concierge to send him up. And since you do know him, I let him in.” Even Hannah thought the extent of Naomi’s acquaintance with Andreas had merely been a few encounters when her sister had married his friend. “He led me to believe you did invite him, said he had to arrive early, but insisted I didn’t disturb you at work, and that he’d wait for you.”
Naomi turned to Hannah, barely processing her apologetic account, only one thing registering within the mass of shock her brain had become. Fury.
Before she could assure her the fault had all been Andreas’s, he spoke again, addressing the older woman. “Thank you for being the perfect hostess, Mrs. McCarthy. Tea was lovely. But now that Naomi is here, you can tend to your other business.”
He was dismissing her!
And Hannah, one of the strongest characters Naomi had ever known, was already obeying him without hesitation, not even pausing to catch her eye to check if that was okay with her.
This tipped her still reverberating shock over the edge into pure outrage.
She ground her teeth as she turned to him, pulling herself to her full height, even though it still left her almost a foot shorter than his six foot five. “Now that I am here, you can go.”
Andreas waited until Hannah disappeared, no doubt to the farthest recess of the apartment, then cocked his head at Naomi. “I will go...back to your family room. Or would you prefer we conduct this meeting in some other room?”
Some other room.
His words dripped with nuance. Not that he necessarily meant the bedroom. He’d once turned every square foot of wherever they’d met into a setting for intimacy. The sexual variety only, of course.
That he could imply any such thing now added another layer of blackness to his already dark-as-sin character.
“The only place you’ll go is out,” she gritted. “Whatever you’re here for, it’s way too late. Everything—everyone—is long dead and buried.”
The Andreas she once knew would have met her rebuke with nothing but blankness in his eyes. The one actual reaction she’d seen, apart from incinerating passion, had been the last time they’d been together. He’d shocked her with his anger then. It had infuriated him that she’d mustered the will to end whatever it was between them. She’d been his handy outlet and it had enraged him that she’d been the one to end it all, probably only before he’d been ready with a replacement.
But now she could read some response in his gaze. Within the unfathomable steel-gray of his eyes, there was the stirring of surprise, of calculation, of...amusement?
He found death and burials amusing? Probably. He must also be marveling at the puny human who dared defy the god that he was. If so, she’d give him some serious entertainment.
Turning on her heel, only rage holding her together, Naomi reached for her purse and phone. She punched three numbers.
With a finger hovering over the call button, she turned to him. “Get out right now, or I’m contacting the police and reporting that you conned your way in here, and are staying against my will.”
Looking totally unconcerned by her threat, he calmly said, “Once you hear why I’m here, you’ll beg me to stay.”
“I’d sooner beg a shark to devour me.”
Those lethal lips twisted so offhandedly that frustration expanded inside her. “Speaking of devouring... The last time I ate was that horrid meal on my flight here.”
“Whatever happened? Have you now joined mere mortals in suffering commercial flights?”
He gave a shrug of dismissal, since of course multibillionaire Andreas Sarantos had his own fleet of jets.
“Even food on private jets can be bad. At least it seemed that way as I sat for the past thirty minutes being tormented by Mrs. McCarthy’s mouthwatering cooking aromas. I bet she made enough to accommodate my presence. Let’s honor her efforts and have this conversation over dinner.”
Naomi shook her head, as if that might make this nightmare fade away. But it was really happening. He truly was here, disregarding her anger and threats, and inviting himself to dinner. It was so atrociously arrogant, it numbed her.
She shook her head again. “I know you believe everyone is a chess piece in the game you perpetually play. But if you think you can still move me around, you’ve progressed from being detached from humanity to detached from reality.”
He met her low-voiced tirade with a cool-eyed stare. She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “See this? I really exist and I’m done playing my role in an act where you have the only lines. Now for the last time—get out.”
She could almost see her wrath shattering against the indifference he wore like impenetrable armor. If a fallen angel did exist, he had to look and feel exactly like Andreas. Terribly beautiful, sinister and sublime at once, impossible to withstand or to look away from.
He tilted his head, causing his now collar-length hair to sift to the side with a sigh. She suppressed a shudder at the sound, her hands fisting at the memory of threading through those layers of silk.
Then he tsked in mock reproach. “After four years of separation, is this any way to talk to your beloved husband?”
Two
Husband.
The word—the lie—detonated inside Naomi’s head.
“Ex-husband!”
Her barked qualification had no impact on him whatsoever.
He only shrugged. “Technicality.”
His nonchalance as he reduced some of her life’s worst times to nothing exacerbated her fury.
“That ‘technicality’ is called divorce.”
And it hadn’t been the easy, quick one she’d believed it would be when she’d demanded it. He’d put her through hell before he’d allowed her to conclude the “technicality” tha
t had ended the empty charade they’d called a marriage.
He gave another shrug, even more careless, more provocative. “Why all the drama? Anyone hearing you would think you’re a woman scorned, when in fact you were the one who left me.”
“This self-centered affliction of yours has reached its terminal stages, hasn’t it? You really are incapable of considering anything but your own concerns or anyone but yourself.”
“Is there a point you’re getting at, or did you just have a bad day and are in need of some venting?”
Her mouth opened, closed. Being a normal human with regular emotions had always caused her severe frustration and disappointment in the face of his total detachment. But this was beyond anything he’d exposed her to. He had reached the nirvana of indifference.
He went on. “If you’ve nurtured some imaginary grievances against me in the years we’ve been apart, I wouldn’t mind standing here until you have your fill of verbal abuse.”
“It’s only abuse if it isn’t true. And I don’t have vocabulary enough to describe the awfulness of your truth.”
“I don’t have any experience with the practice, but I hear some people find bashing others very cathartic.”
She finally realized how “some people” had apoplectic fits. “That’s it. I won’t tolerate your presence a minute longer.”
“You mean that up till now that was you being tolerant?”
“Get. Out. Andreas.”
He leveled those arctic eyes on hers for fraught moments, until she felt he’d given her a cold burn. Then he turned on his heel...and headed inside.
She stared at his receding figure until he disappeared. Then she was flying after him, with nothing left in her but the need to stop him from invading her life again.
Her fingers turned into talons as they sank into his arm. It was so thick, so hard she had to grab it with both hands and wrench with her full strength. That still didn’t make him turn around. She bet he finally stopped of his own accord. He was showing her how she had no effect on him and no say in his actions or decisions. As if she didn’t already know that.
Another wave of fury crashed within her when he turned in utmost tranquility. That snapped her last viable nerve.
She hit him. With both fists. Pounded on his formidable chest with all the bitterness that had long been bottled up inside her. Struck him again and again.
He just stood there, bearing her aggression without a change of expression, letting her “vent,” watching her intently, as if documenting the reactions of a strange and unstable entity. His lack of reaction cracked her open, had every loss and grief she’d ever suffered spewing out, swamping her in agony now that the leash of control had snapped.
Then suddenly, both hands were behind her back, held in the shackle of one of his, and she was pressed between the cold wall and his hot body. Before she could snatch in another ragged breath, one of his knees drove between her legs, splaying them, his other hand at her nape, tangling in her hair, securing her head, completing her imprisonment.
After one last glance into her eyes, a declaration of intent that had her choking on déjà vu, he bore down on her and crushed his lips to hers. And poisonous memories flooded her, plunging her into the past.
It had been exactly like this, when she’d gone to his hotel suite that first time, demanding he take her up on her insistent offer of herself. She’d instinctively known the edge of roughness was integral to his nature. But she’d felt he’d pushed the envelope, trying to scare her away. When that didn’t work, sending her wild with desire instead, he’d pushed some more, testing how much she would allow.
She’d allowed him everything, had reveled in the unbridled power of his passion. From that first night, he’d given her physical pleasure beyond imagining. He’d mined her body for responses and ecstasies she hadn’t known it capable of. With every encounter, he’d escalated the wildness of his possession and the ferocity of her satisfaction. But without the development of any emotional response on his part, even intense sexual gratification had started leaving her feeling drained, used up, like an addict who experienced indescribable highs, followed by crashes to dismal depths.
His conquering rumbles filled her now as he angled his hard lips against hers for a deeper invasion. He plucked at her trembling flesh with his teeth, plunged into her recesses, his tongue a slide of sex and silk against hers, inundating her in sensations, each acutely remembered and longed for.
Her surrender, even if it was with shock, not willingness as it had been before, made him take his sensual assault to the next level. His hand twisted in a fistful of her hair, sending a thousand arrows of pleasure to her core. Then he ground his arousal into her quivering belly, making that core spasm, then melt.
But it was his growl of enjoyment that caused her legs to buckle. “You taste even more intoxicating than I remember.”
And you taste exactly as I remember. Overwhelming...indispensable...
No. She’d already fallen into that abyss. Twice.
Never again.
Feeling as if she was being dragged under, drowning, she tried to squirm out of his hold, fighting not only his hunger, but hers, too. She only managed to grind herself harder into his potency. Her only hope of escape would be if he decided to let her go.
He only eased his grip by degrees, dragged his lips from her gasping mouth and across her cheek, nipping her earlobe on the way to her throat. For heart-thundering moments he sucked at her pulse point, as if he wanted to draw her heartbeats out of her. Then with a final groan, he set her hands free and raised his head.
He didn’t step away, kept their bodies fused. She remained still, not even breathing as that only pressed her closer to him. Not that she could move. It was all she could do to contain the tremors that threatened to shake her apart. It was his body’s support that kept her upright. And it was he who finally backed away from her, with such care, as if his flesh had melded to hers and sudden separation would tear off a layer of their skin.
It wasn’t far from the truth. Every inch he’d imprinted felt raw, every nerve he’d strummed exposed. His scent and feel still pounded in her core, his brooding eyes leaving her no place to hide, no chance to regain her composure.
Finally he stepped back, putting just a foot of charged space between them. She drew in a tremulous breath, hoping oxygen would kick-start her volition.
“I won’t apologize for hitting you,” she murmured. “I bet it’s the response you were after, so you’d have an excuse to do what you just did. You manipulated me into doing exactly what you want, as you always did. Good for you. Now leave. Or it won’t be your chest my next blows target.”
His eyes narrowed to steel slits, the flames of lust still flickering in their depths. “I like this new fire. You were always too...accommodating before.”
“You mean submissive.”
His gaze grew contemplative as he pursed lips fuller in the aftermath of the devouring he’d subjected her to. “Is that how you saw yourself?”
“It was how I was.”
“Not from my point of view. But then you made it clear you think I invent my own convenient, totally inaccurate version of reality. But for what it’s worth, I thought you were...pliant, yet never truly submissive.” His hand suddenly rose to her face, then he lowered it oh so slowly, running the back of his forefinger down her temple, cheek, neck and collarbone before pausing at the top of her cleavage. His voice dipped an octave into the darkest reaches of hypnosis. “You not only found pleasure in submitting to my demands and desires, but you demanded and took what you wanted as well.”
Heat surged in her loins with every recollection of those countless times she’d demanded and taken, when he’d let her feast on him until she’d lost herself in the delight.
She shrank back from his touch, which felt as if it had burned a hole r
ight through her. That wouldn’t have been enough to sever the contact if he hadn’t dropped his hand.
She hated him for being the only one who’d ever been able to toy with her so effortlessly, hated herself more for allowing him to, for being so susceptible to him still.
She forced out a thick whisper. “I don’t think you’re here to discuss our defunct liaison....”
His slanting eyebrow arched at the word.
“You’re right,” she continued. “If I could find a word that’s more trivial and impersonal than liaison, I would have used it. Anyway, I’m not interested in dredging up a past I’ve left behind, with a person I should have never gotten mixed up with, as you so kindly pointed out to me at the beginning.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, drawing her gaze to his daunting and unabated arousal. It had just been pressed against her flesh, reminding her of all the times it had invaded her, driven her beyond all sense of self and self-preservation with urgency and ecstasy.
She snatched her gaze up, found him watching her with that cool assessment that made her want to scream.
No doubt satisfied that he’d again provoked her, in every way, he half turned. “I am going to sit down. Coming?”
Without waiting, he continued to her family room, as if those explosive minutes that had thrown the precarious stability of her world back into chaos hadn’t occurred.
This time she managed not to pursue and attack him. Not because her anger had lessened, but because she knew he’d respond the same way. She couldn’t withstand another assault on her senses. Knowing him, he might even take it further, press on until he made her beg him not to stop. Even now she feared he’d make her do whatever he wanted her to.
Feeling as if her legs had turned to soggy sandbags, she followed him into her family room.
She’d not only childproofed recently, but also redecorated the space, to make it cheery for Dora and to counter the melancholy that permeated her and the place since Nadine’s and Petros’s deaths. Now Andreas walked into it and his presence made the room darken and shrink, as he’d always done to her whole world.
