She hesitated under the full onslaught of his night-dark eyes, indeed was so wildly disorientated that she very nearly cannoned into a lounger near by. Colour flooded her cheeks, an aching, terrifying awareness quivering through her slender form. She couldn’t take her eyes off his starkly handsome golden features and was plunged into instant recall of how she had felt in his arms hours earlier.
He dealt her a dazzling smile and strode fluidly towards her. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine...’
‘Just fine... You look spectacular,’ he murmured with a slightly ragged edge to his deep, dark voice. His eyes ran over her in a blatantly possessive scrutiny, taking in the fall of silvery hair, the delicate perfection of her glowing face, and roamed right on down to her toes, taking unashamed note of every curve he found en route. ‘Glorious,’ he added, reaching for both her hands and drawing her close.
Her heart pounded and she tried to steady it, bewilderment in her sapphire eyes. ‘Nik—’
‘And mine,’ he completed with intense satisfaction.
Everything she had intended to say went straight back out of her head again.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Ponia asked chirpily, causing both their heads to spin round.
‘Not at all.’ Nik smiled, releasing Leah’s hands just as she attempted to snatch them away.
‘The staff are hovering with lunch,’ Ponia explained, watching Nik swing out a chair by the table and settle Leah into it.
Leah was conscious that her hands were shaking. The full effect of Nik’s warmth and admiration had shaken her. But it couldn’t mean anything. Maybe he was always charm personified with a new lover. For that was really all she was. New, fresh, different in every way from the women he usually took to his bed. And the charm wouldn’t last. Women bored Nik easily, quickly. She had always known that.
Lunch was served. Ponia chattered about inconsequential things. Every time Leah looked up from her plate she was entrapped by Nik’s slumbrous gaze and her pulse would quicken and her temperature would rise, making her reach for her wine with increasing regularity.
Nik’s mobile phone buzzed. He left the table to pick it up where it lay on a chair several yards away.
‘I can’t wait until the rest of the family see this,’ Ponia chuckled.
‘Sorry, I...?’ Leah dragged her attention from Nik’s vibrant smile in her direction as he talked into the phone. It was no mean feat.
‘You’re locked into each other like a pair of magnets on a honeymoon. When I invited myself along I had no idea what I was getting into!’ Ponia grinned to show that she wasn’t offended. ‘I’m going swimming. I’ll see you later.’
Hot-cheeked, Leah bent her head. She grabbed up her wine again. It gave her something to do with her hands. She had come out here to talk seriously to Nik, a challenge at the best of times but a positively mountainous challenge when, for the very first time in five years, he was treating her like a highly desirable woman and being shatteringly attentive.
Draining her glass, she stood. Nik curved his arms round her from behind, taking her by surprise. As he tugged her relentlessly back into contact with the abrasively masculine angles of his powerful form her treacherous body quivered with an instantaneous response which terrified her and she tensed.
‘What’s wrong?’ he breathed from above her head.
‘There’s something we need to discuss—’
‘Forget it. If the discussion is likely to harbour a single mention of divorce, separation, celibacy or Woods, let me give you a hint,’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘Keep your mouth closed.’
An entirely unexpected spurt of amusement assailed her. He always thought he was one step ahead of her and for once he wasn’t. ‘It’s not about any of those things.’
Nik tugged her round. ‘Then it’s not important.’
Before she had even guessed his intention he was covering her mouth hungrily with his own. It was headier than the wine she tasted on his lips, sweeter than anything she had ever known. Helplessly she leant into him, snaking her arms round his neck to stay upright, the flames of her response burning up every skin cell. His fingers splayed beneath the curve of her hips, lifting her into electrifying contact with the unmistakable thrust of his erection.
‘I want you again,’ he muttered thickly.
And she wanted him so badly there was an ache low in the pit of her stomach, her mind suddenly a shameful receptacle for erotic images that were shatteringly new to her experience. But the very strength of the passion he could evoke within her devastated her. He didn’t even have to use pretty words or compliments. He didn’t even have to make an effort. A few kisses and she simply fired into spontaneous combustion. Like a sex toy, a submissive little doll that he could manipulate wholly to the dictates of his own needs. That image gave her the strength to pull back from him.
‘I have to talk to you,’ she framed, and turned towards the house. ‘And I think we should go inside.’
‘We can talk in bed.’ Nik tracked her with predatory black eyes.
‘You only got out of bed a few hours ago!’ Leah heard herself hiss.
‘And I can’t wait to get back there, agape mou.’
How did you switch him off again? she wondered wildly, dismally conscious of the tautness of her nipples and the tingling heat deep in the very heart of her. It occurred to her that if she was programmed for his benefit he was very much programmed on the same wavelength and that if she relaxed her guard for one tiny second he was intent on taking advantage of that.
‘I think you’re over-sexed,’ she whispered, sharply disconcerted by what was happening between them.
‘And you’re complaining?’ He dealt her a smouldering smile.
Leah attained the cool of what appeared to be the main reception-room, perspiration beading her short upper lip. She sank down on a sofa.
‘Theos, that’s so cute! Your feet don’t touch the floor!’ Nik laughed and, instead of picking another seat as she had hoped, crouched down in front of her. ‘So talk,’ he invited, studying her with heavy-lidded eyes.
Feeling cornered, Leah edged further back into the depths of the sofa. ‘I’ve been thinking—’
‘Dangerous...definitely a habit you have to break,’ Nik interrupted mockingly.
She had to steel herself to continue. ‘About that certificate.’
He uttered a very rude word she had never heard pass his lips before. Hard tension locked his strong features into immobility and he sprang upright and strode across to the stone fireplace. ‘You do pick your moments,’ he said grimly. ‘What can we possibly have to talk about on that subject?’
‘It has to be found...and I thought that maybe if you gave me some idea about what that certificate contains—’
‘No!’ He shot her a forbidding look and she suffered a weak moment of piercing regret for the speed with which his mood had altered.
‘I wouldn’t tell anybody, for goodness’ sake!’
Nik regarded her with pure steel in his hard gaze. ‘The fewer people who know, the safer my family is.’
She noticed something that a mere day earlier would have left her untouched. She noticed that she did not figure as a part of his precious family. ‘You don’t trust me.’
‘Trust doesn’t come into it.’
‘And the last person you’re likely to trust is Max Harrington’s daughter,’ she completed painfully.
‘I didn’t say that—’
‘You didn’t need to. You treated me like a leper for long enough!’ she added helplessly.
‘The past is behind us—’
‘How can you say that when you’re expecting me to live with it?’ she demanded unevenly, her sapphire gaze bright with pain. ‘I thought that maybe if I knew more I might be able to help you find that certificate...’
‘Ah...suddenly I understand.’ He slung her a glittering look of slashing derision, his hard jawline clenching fiercely. ‘You see it as your passport to freedom. Come up with the certificate and I set you free? Is that it?’
Her narrow shoulders rigid with strain, Leah forced herself to meet that savage scrutiny but she could feel the blood draining from her tense face. ‘Isn’t that what you want too?’
‘I wanted it so badly I could taste it five years ago!’ he delivered with cruel candour. ‘And a week ago I thought I had that certificate. But something changed for me when I emerged empty-handed from that filthy box. I knew I had reached the end of the road and I refuse to waste another single day brooding over a fruitless search. It’s over now!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she dared unsteadily, tears springing to her distressed eyes but willed back with every ounce of her self-discipline. ‘Not while we are still together.’
‘You weren’t thinking of that when I was inside you,’ he breathed with raw contempt. ‘Or when you were sobbing with satisfaction in my arms.’
‘Please,’ she gasped, defenceless against the charge, shaken by his explicit reminder of her complete lack of restraint.
Closing the distance between them in two long, punishing strides, Nik clamped his hands over her shoulders and dragged her upright. ‘In my bed you’re as hot as hell for what I can give you. You love everything I do to you, you love everything I make you feel. With me you’re wanton, abandoned and out of control...’