The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife(30)
Closing her eyes, Lizzie shaped the muscles of his back, her own nerve-endings recording the pleasure of each touch. Was male flesh really different from female flesh-thicker, sleeker, more warm, sensual satin than soft silk, somehow intrinsically male in its construction? Or was it merely her own response to knowing that the flesh she was touching belonged to Ilios that made her feel that?
As he kissed her and held her Ilios's desire for her ran like ribbons of fire, until it filled his heart and his veins, spilling out into his touch so that it patterned his feelings for her on her flesh.
Cupped within his hand, the soft weight of her breast fitted as perfectly as though it had been created for his hold alone, and the erotic sensitivity of her nipple as it responded to his caress was responsive in that way only to his touch. The arch of her body inviting the possession of his was aroused only by and for him, as though they had been made for one another and only one another.
How could such a delicate touch have the power to drain from him the resistance of a lifetime? How could it seem to offer sanctuary and comfort? How could it possibly have the power to transform him from a man to whom emotions were the enemy to a man who craved … ? A man who craved what?
Ilios moved restlessly against his own thoughts, against his own weakness in allowing himself this unfamiliar need to give the essence of himself into the safekeeping of another. He cupped Lizzie's face so that he could kiss her. Kissing her and feeling her response to him re-established his role as the one in charge of what was happening. And his was the responsibility for them both, Ilios warned himself-a responsibility he had already neglected once.
Beneath Ilios's kiss Lizzie breathed a sigh of delight. It was impossible not to let her hand follow its own inclinations and drift down the lean length of his body, past the flat male curve of his hip, and then come to rest at the base of his spine. The pressure of Ilios's mouth on her own increased, his arms tightening around her as he half rolled her beneath him. Eagerly Lizzie parted her lips, her tongue caressing his, her fingertips stroking the shallow hollow where his spine ended.
Was it her love for Ilios that made the intimacy they were now sharing so heart-achingly intense? Lizzie wondered emotionally. It must be; there could be no other explanation, surely, for the sense of deep intimacy and connection she felt towards him.
She moaned softly with delight as Ilios moved over her, answering the pressure of her growing need. The pleasure from his hands spreading her thighs and his lips tasting her sex took from her both the ability and the will to do anything other than give herself over to him as he moved up her body, his flesh gleaming in the moonlight, erect and taut. Lizzie reached out towards it, encircling the swollen head of his sex, engrossed in the sensation of possessing him.
What had been pleasure had now become a fierce beating urgency-a primeval drive strong enough to crush all obstacles in its way.
How could the pleasure of another's touch be so intense that it invaded every part of him, making his nerve-endings cry out within him under its onslaught? He wanted Lizzie to go on caressing him as she was for ever. He wanted her to stroke and know every bit of him. He wanted-As if a sheer drop had appeared out of nowhere in a misty landscape Ilios's thoughts skidded to a halt as he recognised the danger he was facing. He could not, would not allow himself to feel like this. It went against everything he had worked for and planned for. It must not happen. It had to be destroyed.
Abruptly Ilios forced himself to release Lizzie, pulling back from her, leaving her without a backward look or a word of explanation.
Ilios had gone. She was alone in the bed that had so recently been such a wonderful place of intimacy and shared desire but which was now a place of harsh reality and emptiness.
Curled up against her pain, Lizzie tensed her jaw against the agonised cry of despair burning her throat. What had she expected? That the impossible would happen and Ilios would declare his love for her? She was twenty-seven, not seventeen, and surely what had happened to her young sister had shown her the damage that could be done when a woman was foolish enough to believe that her love for a man had the power to change him, somehow conjure from him a reciprocal love for her.
Ilios did not love her. He had made that plain in the way that he had recoiled from her, rejecting her with that look of furious disbelief that had told her more clearly than any words that he not only didn't love her, but he actively wished she was not there.
Chapter Fifteen
LIZZIE suppressed a small guilty yawn, afraid she might actually fall asleep in her dinner if she wasn't careful.
She was regretting now having agreed that it was a good idea, at the reception a week before, when Ariadne Constantin had suggested that the four or them go for dinner together, to a new restaurant that had recently opened to rave reviews. Especially in view of the distance that Ilios had deliberately created between them. He barely looked at her any more, never mind spoke to her or touched her. There had not been any further invitations to accompany him on site visits during the day, and nor was he discussing any aspect of his life or his plans with her any more. It was, Lizzie acknowledged bleakly, as though he hated her being there and bitterly resented the fact he had had to marry her-even though it had been his own decision.
The food, a Greek take on Australian-Eastern fusion cooking, was delicious, and the light sauces accompanying the fish and meat courses mouthwateringly tempting, but Lizzie had no appetite for them. She was far too unhappy. Was her constant tiredness perhaps a symptom of the misery she was feeling? Was that why she yearned to close her eyes and blot out reality?
Just remembering the curtness in his voice and the way he had turned away from her now was enough to close up her throat and sting the back of her eyes with the embarrassing threat of unwanted tears. Her reaction was surely more that of a hormonal teenager than an adult woman, and certainly not one she could ever remember having before. But then she had never loved Ilios before.
Lizzie watched enviously as Ariadne and her husband got up to dance on the restaurant's small dance floor. It must be heaven to be held so close in the arms of the man you loved in a small and discreet public demonstration of the love between you. Her body trembled in response to the intensity of her emotions.
The Constantins were returning to the table. Stavros Constantin was ordering more wine. Lizzie shook her head when the waiter moved to fill her glass. She hadn't touched alcohol since the night she had drunk champagne and she and Ilios made love-had had sex, she corrected herself fiercely. That was all it had been-sex-lust-that was what she must remember. She certainly wasn't going to risk having a drink now. In her current emotionally vulnerable frame of mind there was no saying what she might attempt to do, or how much she might try to humiliate herself once they were alone together.
The other three drank their wine, then Ariadne got up, asking if, like her, Lizzie wanted to visit the ladies'.
Nodding her head, Lizzie got up too. Anything would be better than having to sit next to Ilios, knowing how eager he was to get rid of her.
Once in the cloakroom, Lizzie felt the tiredness that had threatened to overwhelm her earlier catch up with her again, causing her to smother yet another yawn. She apologised to Ariadne as she did so, hoping that the other woman wouldn't think her rude.
‘Don't worry,' Ariadne responded. ‘I understand. I was exactly the same when I was first pregnant with our son. I'd been expecting morning sickness, but instead what I got was sleeping sickness.'
Pregnant. The cloakroom spun dizzily round her and Lizzie had to cling to the basin.
Ariadne, obviously concerned, reached out to her.
‘I'm all right,' Lizzie reassured her. ‘It's just that I hadn't thought-'
She stopped abruptly, but Ariadne had obviously guessed the truth because she put her hand to her lips and then exclaimed, ‘Oh! You didn't realise that you might be pregnant-and now I am the first to know and it should have been Ilios. Don't worry-I shan't say a word-not even to Stavros.' She gave Lizzie's arm a comforting little squeeze, and offered, ‘If you would like, I could give you the name of my maternity doctor. He is very good.'