The Greek Commands His Mistress(17)

He came down on the bed still in his boxers, and with the flick of a finger unfastened her wispy bra and pulled it away. She felt her nipples bead, tightening into pointed peaks, and then all of a sudden, or so it seemed to her in her heightened state of nerves, he was laying her down against the pillows and touching those agonisingly sensitive buds with his mouth and his fingers.

A little shudder racked her, and then another. Sensation was breaking through her defences as her breasts tingled and swelled, responding to his attention.

‘At least put out the light!’ she exclaimed.

‘You’re beautiful. I need to look at you.’

‘I don’t want you looking,’ she gritted between clenched teeth.

‘Close your eyes and pretend I’m not,’ Bastien suggested.

Sniping back at him became an impossibility while he was tracing a trail down her slender body with his mouth—kissing here, licking there, discovering the areas of her midriff that responded to his blatant teasing with wild enthusiasm and then slowly shifting down to more intimate areas. His fingers tugged at the waist of her knickers and she stopped breathing. She felt his breath on her...there...where it shouldn’t be. He found the most achingly sensitive place of all with his clever fingers, and her hips jerked and her breath hitched and she closed her eyes, blocking out the bedroom while becoming even more insanely aware of Bastien’s every move.

‘You’re really practised at this, aren’t you?’ Lilah commented gruffly.

‘We’re not about to pursue that subject.’

‘No... Oh!’ A strangled exclamation broke involuntarily from her lips as he stroked his tongue across the little nub of nerve-endings at the apex of her thighs.

With a strangled groan, Bastien came up over her again and crushed her parted lips under his, his tongue plunging only once, but deep, into the moist interior of her mouth, somehow igniting a ball of heat in her pelvis. Startled blue eyes flew wide and clashed with gold circled by lush black lashes.

‘Oh...’ Bastien said for her, with a wolfish grin that made her tummy flip in a somersault.

Feeling like a child who had foolishly stuck her hand in the fire, Lilah closed her eyes again circumspectly. He punished her by returning to his former activity, his fingertips grazing the inside of her slender thighs, where she had never been touched, and every single point of contact tingled and fired hot, like a burn. He used his mouth on her clitoris and it felt unbearably good, with sensation firing through her on all cylinders as the little tickles and prickles of uncontrollable pleasure mounted and she could no longer stay still. Her neck extended and her hips shifted and rose.

Bastien was touching her so gently. She had not imagined that he could be gentle in bed—had, in truth, been braced for passion, aggression and impatience. He slid a finger into her tight sheath and then another...tender, subtle, tormentingly pleasurable. Her blood was pounding in her veins, her heart was racing, and her whole body was damp with perspiration because everything she was feeling had swiftly become so shockingly intense.

She gave up on the losing battle to resist and opened her mouth on a gasp of reaction. Indeed, she was all reaction now, as waves of response coursed through her in an unstoppable tide. Every tiny caress and exploration he executed engulfed her in another wash of sensation. A tight feeling nestled at the heart of her and she shifted impatiently up towards Bastien, fighting the hollow sense of tortured frustration he had awakened without even fully grasping what it was.

‘Bastien!’ she exclaimed.

Burnished golden eyes assailed hers. ‘Tell me you want me.’

‘You know I do!’ she flared, with a bitterness she couldn’t hide.

‘You always did, didn’t you?’ Bastien grated.

‘What do you want? A trophy?’ Lilah gasped.

‘You are my trophy,’ Bastien told her, his skilled fingertips moving with expert precision at her tender core and setting off a chain reaction inside her.

The mushroom of heat penned inside Lilah suddenly surged up, with a force that blindsided her and overflowed. Out of her control, her body bucked and twisted and convulsed as the paroxysms of a powerful climax rippled through her slender frame.

Bastien ripped open a foil packet with his strong white teeth. He didn’t want to hurt her, he didn’t want to harm her in any way, but now she was as wet and receptive as she would ever be. He dragged a pillow under her to tip her hips up more and settled between her spread thighs.

The pleasure Bastien had meted out was like a powerful drug that took time to wear off. Lilah was still in a daze when she felt the pressure of Bastien’s entry stretching her tender flesh. Apprehension made her stiffen, a heartbeat before the sharp sting of his full possession made her catch her breath on a huff of dismay. He withdrew, hooked her legs higher and thrust into her yielding body again. This time there was no pain—only the amazing sensation of his fullness inside her.

‘It’s not hurting,’ she told him in relief.

A sheen of perspiration dampened Bastien’s lean, handsome features—for such care, such temperate precision, had not come without cost. ‘Se thelo...you feel unbelievable, hara mou.’

He rolled his hips in a wicked snaking motion that sent extraordinary sensation flooding through Lilah’s pelvis, and her eyes went wide with surprise. As he began to move, the first jolt of excitement careened through her without warning, and then the heat and pressure at the heart of her began to build again. It was a little like hitching a ride on a comet, she thought dizzily, with new responses released and overwhelming her.

Hunger sank talon claws of need into her very bones. Her heart slammed against her ribcage. Her body thrummed and pulsed with rippling darts of pleasure that only stoked her rising hunger. And then the intensity climbed to an unbearable height and pushed her over into the intoxicating grip of wave after wave of sweet, drowning pleasure.

It was over...it was done, Lilah reflected in a daze, crazily conscious of the crash of Bastien’s heart against hers, the brush of his hair against her cheek, the dampness of his big, powerful body against hers, the sheer weight of him and the incredible intimacy of their position. Well, she had no complaints, she conceded thoughtfully. In fact, he had made the experience amazing.

In the process of rebooting, after the longest, hottest climax in his considerable experience, Bastien breathed again. He rolled off her and caught her back into his arms, pressing a kiss to her brow without even thinking about it...

And then the thinking kicked in hard. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he playing at? He didn’t do touchy-feely—never had and never would. True, she had just given him a pleasure he was finding hard to match in his memory, and he already knew he wanted her again. But it was in the way an alcoholic knew he wanted a drink.

The comparison jarred, but it worked its magic, and Bastien pulled away from the strangely tempting pleasure of having her small, slender body lying against his. He sprang out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

‘I’m a restive sleeper and I prefer my own space,’ he told her carelessly. ‘I’ll be sleeping in the room next door.’

Lilah could feel herself freeze with regret and discomfiture. Yet such separation was what sex without caring was like, she scolded herself. It was a bodily thing—not a mental thing. Bastien didn’t feel any deep connection with her. He had satisfied his lust for the moment and that was that: he had leapt out of bed and straight into the shower. She could already hear it running.

Had she expected a warmer conclusion to their intimacy?

Well, if she had expected that she was an idiot. After all, wasn’t this exactly why she had lost her temper with Bastien two years back? He had only offered sex when she had wanted more, and that had hurt—hurt her pride, hurt her heart too. Wasn’t it time she was honest about that? She had started falling for Bastien Zikos the first moment she’d laid eyes on his fallen angel face and stunning eyes.

Of course she hadn’t known him in any way, so it had been infatuation rather than love, but his magnetic attraction had called to her on every level. And resisting it, recognising that he could only make her unhappy, had cut deep and filled her with disappointment. But it was the truth and it remained the truth, Lilah conceded ruefully. Bastien skated along happily on the shallow side of life, taking pleasure where he chose, discarding women whenever he got bored...and now she was one of those passing fancies—a sexual whim.

She shifted in the bed, and the ache between her thighs made her wince and grimace. Once she had said no to Bastien, and evidently that had put a price beyond rubies on her head because he wasn’t used to the word no and evidently couldn’t live with it.

Stop thinking these negative thoughts—stop it, she screamed inside her head, shifting on the pillow as if to clear it. It would be better to concentrate on the positive—think of the factory up and running again, her father back in his office and her little half-siblings secure because their parents were no longer worried sick about how to pay their bills. That was a good picture, she told herself soothingly.

And what about all Moore’s former employees? Her father had mentioned that he’d be calling a meeting on site today, to discuss the relocation of the factory and the planned reopening. That news would make a lot of people very happy.