Conveniently His Omnibus(47)

She opened her mouth to tell Andreas that she had changed her mind, that she wanted to go home, that she was not prepared to stay a minute longer, no matter how much he tried to blackmail her into doing so. But her panic didn’t stem from any fear of him. No. It was herself she feared now, and the way she was beginning to feel, the thoughts she was beginning to have. She couldn’t allow herself to feel that way about him. She couldn’t be attracted to him. He wasn’t her type of man at all. She abhorred the way he had treated her, the way he had misjudged her. But the shocking shaft of self-awareness, of longing she had felt as he’d described his desire for the woman he would love wasn’t going to be dismissed.

‘I can’t...’ she began, stopping as Andreas held up his hand warningly, silencing her as someone knocked on the door.

Dry-mouthed, Saskia waited whilst he went to open it, watching as their cases were brought in—not by the driver of the Land Rover but by another smaller, older man to whom Andreas was talking in Greek, smiling warmly at him as he did so, and then laughing good-humouredly as the older man looked past him at Saskia herself, before clapping him on the shoulders with a wide, beaming smile.

‘What was that all about?’ Saskia demanded curiously once he had gone and they were on their own again.

‘Stavros was saying that it is high time I had a wife...and that I must lose no time in getting myself a fine boy child,’ he added mercilessly.

Saskia could feel herself colouring to the roots of her hair as she looked everywhere but at the king-sized bed in the centre of the room.

Despite the room’s air conditioning she felt stifled, unable to breathe...hunted and desperate to escape.

‘I’m going to have that shower,’ Andreas told her, mundanely breaking into her thoughts, turning away from her as he did so and heading for one of the three doors that opened off the bedroom.

Once he had disappeared Saskia looked at the door to the corridor, longing to have the courage to walk through it and demand that she be flown back immediately to Athens. But if she did she would lose her job—Andreas would make sure of that!

Fiercely Saskia tried to concentrate on something else, anything else but the appalling situation she was in. She hated what Andreas was doing to her...what he was making her do. And she hated Andreas himself too...didn’t she?

Unable to answer her own question honestly, Saskia studied the view beyond the large patio doors that opened out onto an enclosed courtyard, which itself surrounded a tantalisingly tempting swimming pool complete with its own bubbling spa pool.

Small oases of green plants broke up the paving and the brilliant harshness of the sunlight. Comfortable-looking sun loungers complete with umbrellas offered a lazy way to enjoy the sunshine. The whole scene looked like something out of an exclusive holiday brochure, the kind Saskia had only been able to glance at enviously, knowing such a holiday was way beyond her means. But right now the only place she wanted to be was safe in her own home.

Andreas couldn’t really expect her to share a room—never mind a bed—with him. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t...she was so...

‘The bathroom’s free...’

Saskia froze. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts she hadn’t realised that Andreas was in the bedroom with her...standing right behind her, she recognised as she picked up the clean, warm scent of his newly showered body.

‘I’ll go and sort out something light for you to eat. Dinner won’t be for a few hours yet, and if you’ll take my advice you’ll try to rest for a while. Greeks eat late and go to bed even later.’

‘But I thought that we’d be having separate rooms,’ Saskia burst out, unable to control her panic any longer. ‘I would never have agreed to come here if I’d thought that I’d— No! Don’t you dare touch me,’ she protested as she felt him moving closer to her, reaching out to her. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he touched her, if he...

Frantically she turned and ran towards the door, but somehow Andreas managed to get there before her, blocking her access to it, taking hold of her, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her arms.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he ground out savagely. ‘What exactly is it you’re pretending to be so afraid of? This? A woman like you!’

Saskia gasped and shook from head to foot as his arms closed imprisioningly around her and his mouth came down on hers. He was wearing a robe, but as she struggled to break free it was his bare skin she could feel beneath her flaying hands. Warm, damp...hard, his chest roughened by dark hairs. Her hands skittered wildly over his torso, shocked by the intimate unexpected contact with his bare skin, seeking some kind of purchase to thrust him away and finding none.

He was kissing her with an angry passion that made her feel weak, the blood roaring in her head as her brain recognised her inability to deal with the searing experience of so much furiously male arrogant sensuality.

‘Stop acting like a novice, an innocent,’ Saskia heard him demanding against her mouth. His tongue forced her lips to part for its entry and the hand that was imprisoning her urged her even deeper into the sensual heat of his parted thighs as he leaned back against the door, taking her with him. His free hand was on her body, arrogantly stroking its way up past her waist to the curve of her breast.

Saskia tensed in shock as it cupped her breast, his thumb-pad circling her nipple and somehow enticing it to peak into a shocking bud of delicious wanton pleasure.

She could feel the aroused heat of him like a brand, and beneath her anger she felt a sharp, spiralling stab of female curiosity and excitement...a dangerous surge to conspire with him, to allow her traitorous body to experience even more of the intimacy of their embrace.

Without knowing she had done so she opened her mouth, hesitantly allowing him access to its sweetness, shyly starting to return his kiss and even more shyly allowing her tongue to mesh seductively with his.

‘Andreas? Are you in there? It’s me, Athena...I need to talk to you.’

Saskia froze as she heard Athena’s voice from the other side of the door, but Andreas showed no sign whatsoever of any confusion or embarrassment. Still holding Saskia against him in a grip she could not break, he opened the door and told Athena flatly, ‘Not now, Athena. As you can see, Saskia and I are busy.’

‘She is with you,’ Athena snapped angrily, darting Saskia a look of icy venom. ‘Why isn’t she in her own room?’

‘She is,’ Andreas returned coolly. ‘My room is Saskia’s room. My bed...her bed. My body...her...’

‘Your grandfather will never allow you to marry her,’ Athena breathed, but Andreas was already closing the door, ignoring her insistence that he listen to her.

‘Andreas, let me go,’ Saskia demanded. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t bear to do anything, least of all think about the way she had responded to him...the way she had encouraged him...

Derisively Andreas watched her.

‘Okay, Saskia, that’s enough,’ he told her. ‘I know I told you I wanted you to act like a faithful fiancée, but that does not mean you have to pretend to be an innocent virgin who has never—’ Abruptly he stopped, frowning as he mulled over the unwanted suspicions that were striking him as he looked at Saskia’s pale face and hunted eyes.

Even though he had let her go she was still shaking, trembling from head to foot, and he could have sworn just now, when he had held her in his arms and kissed her...touched her, that he was the first man to make her feel so...

For a moment he examined what he was thinking, and feeling, and then firmly dismissed his suspicions. There was no way she could be so inexperienced, no way at all. There was enough Greek in him for him to consider that the gift of her virginity, her purity, was one of the greatest gifts a woman could give to the man she loved, but his cultural heritage from his British father and schooling mocked and even deplored such archaic feelings.

Would a woman expect a man to keep himself pure until he met her? No. So why should it be any different for a woman? As a mature man he accepted and respected a woman’s right to choose how she dealt with her own sexuality. But he knew too that as a lover, a husband, there would be a deeply, darkly passionate and possessive part of him that yearned to be his beloved’s only partner, an ache within him to teach her, show her the delights of sensual love. And right now something about Saskia’s reaction to him was sparking off a reaction he was having to fight to control, a response that was pure primitive Greek male. A need!

‘I’m not sleeping in this room with you,’ Saskia reiterated numbly. ‘I’m...’

If she was acting then she deserved an Oscar, Andreas decided grimly. But a fiancée who looked terrified at the very thought of being with him was the last thing he needed. He had to calm her down, to calm them both down.

‘Come with me,’ he commanded, taking hold of her hand and drawing her towards one of the doors that opened off the bedroom.

When he opened it Saskia could see that the room that lay beyond it was furnished as an office, with all the latest technological equipment.

‘Will it make you feel any better if I tell you that I intend to sleep in there?’ Andreas demanded.