by Penny Jordan
‘I bought it as a mobile conference suite,’ Leon explained to her. ‘It saves time to be able to conduct business meetings while travelling, and while some people prefer private jets, we of the Aegean have a love of the sea which is with us from birth.
‘How about a swim?’ he suggested when their tour was completed. ‘I shall tell the captain to drop anchor.’
‘Sounds lovely!’ Chloe enthused, already imagining the cool, silky feel of the water on her skin. ‘I’ll just go and change into a swimsuit.’
Leon’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, his voice deepening as he asked, ‘Why bother? The men will not see us, if that’s what’s worrying you. There is nothing like the feel of the sea against one’s flesh—the ultimate freedom. Very well,’ he sighed when Chloe continued to look doubtful, ‘Get your suit, then, my little prude.’
Chloe could not find a swimsuit, but she did find several bikinis, all so minuscule and brief that they widened her eyes in bemusement.
In the end she chose a pretty lemon one, really nothing more than the briefest triangle of cotton fastening over the hips with pert bows and a twist of lemon which did almost nothing to conceal her breasts. There was a matching cotton shirt to wear over it and Chloe pulled it over her head, hurrying up on to the deck.
The motion of the yacht had changed, and from cleaving the dense blue of the sea, it now bobbed up and down gently on the slow swell. A ladder had been dropped over the side of the vessel into the water, and a diving platform fastened in place. On the table where they had enjoyed their lunch now stood a tall jug of fresh fruit juice, and Leon was lazing in a chair, drinking a glass of it. He looked up as Chloe approached, his eyes appraising her slender shape. He himself had the physique of an Olympic athlete, muscles tautening beneath the satin skin as he stood up to relieve her of her robe.
‘Yes,’ he murmured softly as he looked at her, ‘I had forgotten that you were no longer a girl.’ His fingers slid over her rib-cage to cup the full softness of one breast, amusement glinting in his eyes as hers widened. ‘Another few centimetres and you might as well not be wearing this,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘I don’t know which is the more erotic—imagining you without it, or seeing you in it.’
‘I thought we were going to swim,’ Chloe reminded him primly, shielding her eyes from the bright glare of the sun. In the distance she could just about make out the soft, humped outline of several small islands. ‘Which ones are they?’ she asked Leon curiously. Long before she had ever met him she had dreamed of coming to the Aegean; of seeing for herself the wild beauty of its islands, and the haunting loveliness of its sea, so gentle in this mood, and yet so dangerous when the winds of the meltemi whipped it into a furious aggressor, menacing both man and land.
‘They are Ios, Paros and Naxos,’ Leon told her. ‘We shall be sailing between Ios and Santorini. It is on Ios that Homer is said to be buried, and his tomb is there. We could visit it if you wish, perhaps dine there tomorrow?’
‘I should like that,’ Chloe agreed, glancing across to the islands, veiled in lilac blue mists. No wonder the Greeks had been such storytellers, such poets; with so much beauty all around them how could it be any different?
‘Remember not to swim too far from the yacht,’ he added warningly. ‘Distances can be deceptive.’
‘Don’t worry—I enjoy swimming, but I’ve no ambitions to join the Olympic class! Not that I could anyway,’ she admitted ruefully.
Unlike Leon, she acknowledged several seconds later, watching him cleave the water with breathtaking speed and economy of movement. Of course a man raised in Greece would be found to love the water—he had said as much himself, but watching him, the effortless propulsion through the water, the sleek, tanned skin, Chloe knew that she was watching him in his element.
‘Come on in!’ he shouted to her, floating on his back and watching her scramble down the metal ladder. Not for Chloe a spectacular dive into the dense blue sea. It was all right for Leon to laugh at her, she thought crossly, gingerly releasing her hold of the safely solid ladder, she wasn’t a creature of the sea!
That Leon most definitely was he proceeded to demonstrate, swimming round and under her, surfacing at her side, and playfully ducking her beneath the waves, teasing her with a speed which left no room for retaliation.
‘Brute!’ she shouted at one point, when she had been tugged beneath the waves for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s not fair. You’re far too good!’
‘That’s the first time a woman’s ever told me that,’ Leon murmured throatily, grasping a handful of her hair, the silver strands floating round them like pale seaweed. His hands slid from her hair to her shoulders, and down to her waist, moulding her against him, while he supported them both, and Chloe realised with a sudden shock of recognition that, true to his word, Leon was swimming without anything on!
‘Chloe!’ The teasing was gone from his voice, her name an urgent whisper on lips that claimed hers, salty and warm as they explored the inner softness of her mouth. The gentle tug on the tiny bows securing her bikini went unnoticed as she gave herself up to the sweet seduction of Leon’s kiss, and it was only when his hands slid upwards to cup and caress her breasts that she realised what he had done.
‘That’s better,’ Leon murmured huskily. ‘Now you do look like a sea nymph come to life.’
After the first initial strangeness Chloe was forced to admit that there was something undeniably pleasurable about the feel of the cool water against her skin; about the hitherto unknown freedom her body was delighting in; about the teasing, silky brush of Leon’s skin against hers as he pursued her mock-threateningly through the waves; the game, so innocent on the surface, was in actuality a slow and erotic arousal of senses steadily inflamed by the touch and knowledge of each other’s proximity.
Leon seemed to know instinctively when Chloe began to tire, and guided her easily back towards the stationary vessel. When she hovered anxiously at the foot of the ladder he grinned understandingly, ‘Okay, sea nymph, I’ll go up first and throw you down a towel.’
Chloe knew that she was perhaps being silly; Leon had already said that they could not be seen, but even so, she had an entirely British reticence about clambering nude on to the deck, with the same careless panache that Leon had managed to achieve.
He was beautiful, she thought irrelevantly, watching him stride towards her and kneel on the deck to proffer the protection of a towelling robe, if such an adjective could be applied to anything as intensely male as his powerfully muscled body.
She was grateful for the drink he had poured her. The salt had made her thirsty and she drank almost greedily, lying back in her reclining chair, surprised to discover how tired the brief exercise had left her. She was out of condition, she thought, but then her present life-style left no time for such self-indulgent pastimes as swimming and sunbathing.
Leon lay down at her side, head pillowed on his arms.
‘Another drink?’
Chloe shook her head. She felt the engines start up beneath them and glanced enquiringly at him.
‘We’ll drop anchor in Ios harbour tomorrow afternoon, and go ashore for dinner later.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘I wish my father had lived to do this. It was his life’s ambition to sail these seas, and explore the islands, but it was one he was never able to realise. There was always something more important, like sending me to school, and finding husbands for his sisters. You would have liked him,’ he told Chloe. ‘He was a simple man in many ways; a very honest and upright man who believed in the power of hard work. He believed in it so much that he eventually killed himself,’ Leon added soberly while Chloe listened to him in silence. Leon had never talked to her about his family before, and a feeling of tender warmth filled her as she listened to him, her hand going out to touch his bronzed forearm in a gesture of sympathy that brought a brief smile to his lips.
‘Everything I am I owe to him. Without the education he scrimped and scraped to give me I would never have been what I am tod
ay. My very first business venture was financed by him. If I am half the father he was I shall think I have done well. He entrusted Marisa to me when he died. Her mother, Lydia, was the nearest thing I had ever known to a mother. My father married her when I was eight—my own mother died when I was born, and between them I suppose he and Lydia spoilt me shamefully.’
Chloe felt her heart sink. Leon would never give up Marisa in favour of her; he was bound too closely to her. Ice-cold fingers touched her spine, the brightness of the sun suddenly dimmed as though by an unseen cloud.
‘I know Marisa can be… awkward, but….’
‘There’s no need to say any more. I understand,’ Chloe stopped him brightly. Please, God, don’t let her have to listen to Leon explaining just why he loved Marisa so much today. Today was hers, and she refused to share it with the other girl’s shadow. ‘Tell me about when you were a little boy.’
‘What is there to tell? I was obnoxious, as most small boys are, and no doubt often hurt my parents with my arrogance and youth, as children do. Perhaps my punishment is that neither of them lived to see me become the success they had always hoped I would be. Lydia died when Marisa was two, and my father followed her only a handful of months later.’
For a moment both of them were silent. His words had given Chloe a deeper insight into his love for Marisa, but that didn’t stop jealousy searing her whenever she thought of the other girl.
‘You’d better get something on your skin,’ Leon said abruptly, changing the subject. ‘You’re so fair you’re bound to burn. The breeze off the sea is deceptive, and unless you want to be badly sunburned I suggest you get something on it right away. Stay here,’ he told her. ‘I’ll get something.’
He pulled on his shorts, standing up as he did so, and as she watched him a lump came into Chloe’s throat. How could she ever have thought that she had stopped loving him? Love didn’t die simply because one refused to acknowledge its existence, especially not a love like hers; it was imprinted on her heart, scorched into her flesh, indelibly written into her senses.
When Leon left she turned on her stomach, shielding her eyes from the sun, which had now started to dip towards the horizon. She had an odd, childish desire to hold back its descent to stop time, as though somehow the coming of the hours of darkness harboured some nameless evil. The legacy of childhood nightmares, she told herself, trying not to admit that her fears went deeper than that and owed their existence to the knowledge that sooner or later she would have to face up to the truth—but not yet, an inner voice pleaded. Not yet!
‘I’ll do your back for you.’
She hadn’t heard Leon approach, and jumped as he spread the cool ointment on her skin, relaxing as his fingers spread out and gently massaged the cream into her back. The slow, rhythmic caress of his hands, at first relaxing, soon became unwittingly erotic, and Chloe had to repress the desire to turn over and press her body into the hard warmth of his.
A delicious languor washed over her, making her as supine as a cat caressed to the point of blissful purring, her body unconsciously sensual. Her senses heightened to a point where she was vividly aware of everything around her, she could feel the pulsating desire pounding through her in an insistent tide, her breasts hard and swollen, echoing the growing ache deep down inside her. Leon’s hands moved downwards, sliding her arms completely free of her brief robe, her body exulting with fierce pleasure as his hands rested on her waist.
‘Leon!’
His name sounded thick and blurred on her tongue, her body quivering as he turned her over very slowly.
For several seconds he did nothing but look down at her, but as though the Greek sun had aroused something pagan inside her, Chloe felt no embarrassment, instead exulting in the slow, burning intensity of eyes that examined every inch of her body with such open desire that her stomach contracted protestingly with the intensity of her own response. To be so close, within touching distance, and yet not touched; to feel the heat coming off Leon’s skin and know her own body ached to feel that burning heat, aroused her to a peak of desire so intense that it was almost unbearable. Leon lowered his head and she stretched out her arms towards him, but he captured them, pinioning them above her head. The brief brush of his lips against her was like the merest sip of water to someone dying of thirst, a small moan of protest was torn from her throat as his mouth left hers.
‘Leon!’ She made no attempt to hide her feelings, her eyes the colour of pansies as they pleaded mutely with him, and then his mouth was on her skin, arousing, satisfying, encouraging and feeding the desire which seemed to pour through her in a red-hot tide, his name sobbed from her lips as he kissed the smooth warmth of her throat, the twin peaks of her breasts, swollen and hard beneath the hot rasp of his tongue.
Leon’s breathing was as ragged as her own when he lifted his head and said jerkily, ‘This time you will be with me every step of the way; for once you will cast aside that prim British manner which always withholds something from me and you will want me with a need as deep as mine for you.’
He released her hands and Chloe reached for him, her fingers curling into his hair, tugging his head downwards, her senses drinking in the scent and feel of him. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, hot and dry beneath its sensual torment, her hands sliding down the muscled breadth of his back to caress the narrow waist and sleekly male hips until the all too brief kisses with which Leon was tormenting her lips swept aside the last remnants of her self-control and her hands grasped the thick dark hair at the nape of his neck, holding his mouth to her own.
‘At last!’ she heard Leon mutter thickly. ‘At last my sea nymph becomes human!’
Chloe felt as though she were drowning, melting, being absorbed into Leon’s body, as though she wanted this kiss, with all its searing heat, to go on for ever, as though the only thing which would ever make her complete was Leon’s possession. The taut, throbbing pressure of his thighs made her ache for appeasement, her body arching invitingly beneath the heated thrust of his, her nails raking the lean, tanned back as he finally possessed her with an urgency that brought fierce cries of pleasure to the lips she pressed against his skin, her tongue tasting the sweat beading his throat as the muscles corded with the compulsion that seized them both.
When it was over Leon refused to let her out of his arms.
‘At last I have truly possessed you,’ he said thickly against her throat. ‘At last you are actually mine.’
He carried her down to their stateroom and slept with his head pillowed against her breasts, the graze of his breath against her skin a shadowy reminder of how, earlier, that very same breath had aroused her to the point where nothing mattered except that he possess her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEON was in the shower when Chloe woke up. She was dismayed to realise that she must have slept right through dinner—and this was confirmed when Leon walked into the room, pulling on jeans as he did so. He walked over to the bed and kissed her mouth before touching the flushed peaks of her breasts with gentle lips.
‘Today I shall show you Ios, and tonight we shall dine at a restaurant I know. It is owned by friends of mine, but first I have some calls to make.’ When Chloe looked surprised he smiled. ‘But naturally we have ship-to-shore communication, and apparently some of my associates were trying to get in touch with me yesterday. Fortunately I had given orders to the crew that we were not to be disturbed.’ He laughed when Chloe flushed. ‘Ah, your eyes reproach me for being so ungentlemanly as to remind you of our mutual passion, but your body rebels against them. And besides…’ his voice dropped, seductive as melted honey, ‘I find it erotic to remember how it was between us, how these…’ he touched her breasts lightly, ‘pleaded my possession, and all of you enticed me into stealing from the Gods, if only briefly, their power and divinity. I’ll leave you to get dressed,’ he added, ‘and I’ll instruct the crew to drop anchor at Ios. We should be there by lunchtime. We’ll eat on board, explore the island, and then have dinner.
’
Bearing in mind the fact that they would probably be walking without any protection from the sun, Chloe applied sun-screen liberally to her face, and found a sun-hat in pretty pink straw to match the soft pink cotton dress she had chosen from the wardrobe. Pink sandals completed the outfit, and the delicate crinkle-pleated cotton floated ethereally around her as she walked up on deck.
The sun shone from a cloudless sky, so blue that it was almost impossible to believe it was real. During the night they had obviously been sailing towards Ios, and now they were at anchor just outside the harbour and while Chloe waited for Leon to join her she was able to amuse herself watching the various comings and goings amongst the many craft.
Shops and houses clustered around the harbour interspersed with tavernas and bars, holidaymakers thronging the pavements and roads. Chloe was engrossed in watching them when Leon came up on deck, the warmth of his fingers on her neck making her turn to smile up at him.
They had chicken breast cooked in wine and served with tiny mushrooms and crispy fresh salad. Afterwards Chloe barely had room for the fresh fruit salad. Leon, she noticed, did not have any sweet, apparently preferring a wedge of Stilton and crackers.
‘A taste I developed when I stayed with a business acquaintance in London for several months,’ he explained, seeing Chloe’s surprise. ‘Would you care for some?’
Chloe shook her head, patting her stomach. ‘I’ve eaten too much already,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I can see that I’m going to have to get to work on my will power!’
It was a tacit admission that she was willing to stay with him, and Leon’s glance strayed over her slender figure, coming to rest on her face as he raised her fingers to his lips, kissing them individually and holding them within his grasp for a few seconds.
‘You won’t regret it,’ he said huskily at last. ‘And now, let me show you Ios.’
