‘Once is not enough,’ he growled sexily, half under his breath. ‘I still want you, moli mou.’
And some very basic element in Ella exulted in her sexual hold over him. In that instant, her heart racing, her pulses quickening and her treacherous body quivering with anticipation, she was a slave to the promise of the pleasure he would give her and she had no time to spare for agonising over the label that other people might affix to her position in his life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TEN days later, Hellenic Lady arrived in Athens.
Ella was still in bed in the yacht’s magnificent main state-room and she was devouring the British newspapers, several of which contained items about her. It was an extraordinary experience to suddenly see herself appear for the first time in print in the guise of a celebrity. In her case, however, her fame was purely borrowed from association with Aristandros. She was variously described as his ‘new companion, Dr Dazzler’, ‘Calliope’s sexy aunt’ and ‘the family black-sheep’. Her fascination only died when she came on a disturbing couple of paragraphs that suggested that her family had shut the door on her because she was a promiscuous wild-child.
Aristandros strode in, clad today in a dark pinstripe suit of faultless tailoring that made the most of his tall, well-built body. He was said to electrify a room when he walked into it, and Ella was certainly not immune to that effect. She tensed against the heaped-up pillows, sapphire-blue eyes very wide in the heart-shaped delicacy of her face.
‘I’ve been working for four hours. One glimpse of you,’ Aristandros husked, strolling over to the side of the bed, neatly sidestepping the sprinkle of discarded toys that betrayed Callie’s visit earlier that morning, ‘And I want to get straight back into bed.’
Her body tingled, nerve-endings uncurling in anticipation, heart rate speeding up. It was just sex, and she regularly told herself that fact. But she still had to acclimatise to the magnetic draw of wanting to rip his clothes off every time she saw him.
With an impatient sound he scooped up the heap of newspapers on her lap. ‘Haven’t you learned yet? You don’t ever read your own publicity. I pay my lawyers to read it for me,’ he confided, discarding the tumbled, crackling newspaper sheets in an untidy heap on the carpet. ‘I did appreciate the Dr Dazzler line, but not the wild-child tag. Someone’s confused you with your sister Susie, and an official apology will be appearing this week.’
Her full lower lip had parted from the upper. ‘Are you saying you’ve complained?’
Aristandros shrugged and removed his jacket, pitching it on to the ottoman by the wall and removing his shoes. Smouldering dark-golden eyes assailed her as he straightened to his full six-foot-three-inches of height. ‘I’m still convinced that you’ve only ever been a wild-child with me.’
‘Well, you’d be wrong.’
‘You’re all talk and no action,’ Aristandros quipped with a razor-edged challenge in his gaze. ‘In bed you don’t know how to do anything until I do it first!’
Cheeks as red as ripe strawberries, Ella slung him a furious look. ‘I suppose you think that that kind of crack is funny?’
‘No, I find it highly entertaining that, while most women prefer to minimise the number of their past lovers, you want to claim more,’ he drawled, smooth as silk.
‘Why on earth are you getting undressed?’ Ella demanded abruptly, finally taking notice of that fact.
‘And, in spite of that scarlet past, she still has a mind as pure as driven snow. Haven’t I corrupted you in any way?’ Aristandros mocked, skimming off his boxers in a manoeuvre that soon made it blatantly obvious why he had stripped off.
‘Oh…’ A darting little frisson of sexual heat travelling through her slender length, Ella sank back into the pillows in a manner that might almost have been labelled inviting as he joined her in the bed.
‘Oh…’ Aristandros teased, reclining back and drawing her to him with clear intent. As her slim fingers found the bold, jutting length of his arousal, he emitted a roughened groan of appreciation. ‘Oh yes,’ he growled hungrily. ‘You beat the hell out of a coffee break, khriso mou.’
For a split second, that quip made Ella hesitate, but in truth she found his sexual spontaneity and raw potency as irresistible as she found him. His sensual mouth on hers was like a brand that burned to create a flame that was never quite doused. No matter how much he kissed her, enough was never enough. His tongue thrust between her lips and released a flood of excitement that lit a feverish trail of response through her entire body. He wrenched her nightdress out of his path and closed his lips on a swollen pink nipple.
Sweet sensation gripped her while his knowing mouth travelled between one taut peak and the other, laving and teasing her sensitised flesh until she moaned. With the impatient stroke of his forefinger, he probed the slick, wet welcome at the heart of her before pulling her under him with an unashamed urgency that thrilled her. He plunged into her hard and fast, and her eager body rose to meet his. Excitement was as intense and searing as a fire inside her. He pleasured her with long, forceful strokes, pushing back her knees to gain even deeper penetration. She felt like she had hitched a ride to the stars, and the spellbinding pleasure devoured her. She heard herself cry out and buck under him as breathtaking heat and the waves of ecstasy roared through her. In the sheer power of that sensual conflagration, she was helpless and mindless in her response. He slammed into her one last time with an uninhibited shout of satisfaction.
For a timeless moment she lay under him, rejoicing in his weight, the pound of his heart and the rasp of his breath. At that instant she felt as she often did, overwhelmed by the level of mind-blowing pleasure. But not so overwhelmed by physical sensation that she didn’t enjoy the brush of his mouth against her brow in a salutation, and the tightening of his powerful arms around her in what might almost have been a hug. He didn’t do hugs, but she lived in hope. She loved what he did to her in bed, but she loved the closeness in the aftermath even more, and never, ever stirred a muscle to break their connection before he did.
It was a shock when Aristandros tensed, voiced an unmistakeable Greek curse and pulled back from her in a violent movement that spoke more of rejection than of anything else.
Hard eyes struck her questioning gaze in a near-physical blow. He struck the wooden headboard with a powerful fist, and made her flinch back from him in consternation.
‘What?’ she gasped in bewilderment.
‘I forgot to use a condom,’ Aristandros bit out rawly.
‘Oh…dear,’ was all Ella could think to comment in that unbearably tense moment. The date when she was to start taking the contraceptive pill had not yet arrived, and she had warned him that other precautions would be necessary for the first couple of weeks they were together. Until now he had followed that rule with scrupulous care and had left no margin for error.
Aristandros sprang out of bed like a hungry tiger leaping on prey and swung round to glare at her. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ he demanded icily. ‘I don’t want a child.’
A chill ran through Ella, and she wondered why that statement should feel like a slap in the face when she was equally as keen to avoid the trauma of an unplanned conception. She was frantically working out dates inside her head, which was difficult, as recent changes in her routine appeared to have unsettled her once-regular menstrual cycle. ‘I’m afraid it probably wasn’t the best time to overlook the precautions,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I could be at my most fertile right now.’
‘I can’t believe I forgot!’ Aristandros grated as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m never careless.’
‘Either of us could be infertile,’ Ella remarked. ‘You’d be surprised how common it is.’
Aristandros gave her a look of outrage and compressed his handsome mouth, as though the suggestion that he might not be able to father a child was a gross insult to his masculinity.
Ella stayed where she was until he had showered and departed. She was in shock, but she also felt that she had just received a much-needed wake-up call. For the past ten days she had been with Aristandros almost round the clock. He got up before six every morning to work with his personal staff. At eight, he joined Ella and Callie for breakfast. If he hadn’t yet reached the stage of being able to totally relax and play with the little girl, he was at least unbending from his rigidity around her, and developing the ability to talk to her and get to know her.
Life on the vast luxury yacht was excessively comfortable and easy. The crew attended to their every need, and very often even before Ella realised that something was required or even available. She was waited on hand and foot and encouraged to be a lady of leisure, with nothing more important to consider than her next visit to the well-equipped beauty salon and its staff on the deck below. It was a lifestyle that could never have come naturally to her, but it gave her the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with Callie. The bond between Ella and her biological child already ran deep and strong. While she would never have chosen to frolic in a swimming pool for her own benefit, she was happy to do so when the purpose was to teach Callie to swim, and the occasions when Aristandros had joined them had proved by far the most entertaining.