Her face closed. ‘Well, I don’t need to talk to you,’ she retaliated, pulling away as far as possible along the wide back seat of the spacious interior of the car, with its glass panelling to keep occupants private from the driver.
She was bristling with hostility, he could see, and rounded on him like a cornered animal.
‘What is this, Nikos? What the hell are you following me for? What’s it to do with you what I do with my life?’
He looked at her. A long, level look. ‘You ask me that?’
It was all he said, but it was all he needed to say. For a moment their eyes locked, and in them was an infinity of memory.
‘Nikos—’ Her breath was a sigh, her mouth warm and soft and so, so generous beneath his. He could not resist kissing her. Could not resist folding her against him, feeling the swell of her tender breasts against him, the slender curve of her body wrapped in his arms. Feel, too, the response of his body to her closeness…
He sought to draw away. This was impossible! A torment beyond enduring! Already he had gone far, far further than he’d intended. But, again, he’d been unable to resist. They had been out for the evening, a charity dinner-dance, and she was looking so beautiful he’d thought he would never be able to take his eyes from her. And when he had driven her home she had persuaded him—fool that he was, and tempted beyond reason!—to come in for coffee. And here, now, on the plush sofa in the low-lit drawing room of her father’s house, he had taken her in his arms, unable to resist…
But resist he must! She had already artlessly let slip that her father was away on business, and Nikos knew that he had flown up to Edinburgh that day to see if another source of rescue package for his company could be put together, even at this late hour. And so it was dangerous beyond all things for him to be here, alone in the house with her. But he was on fire for her! And despite all his resolutions that he must not do what every cell in his body was urging him to do, still he did not leave—did not get to his feet, remind her that his flight to Athens was early the next morning, that he must get back to his hotel.
She was clinging to him,
her mouth open to his, her fingers winding into his hair, sliding around the column of his waist, and he could recognise, with the experience of his years, that she was becoming as aroused as he was. And it was madness to let it happen! Madness!
And yet insanity possessed him—overtook him. He let her draw him to his feet, let her take his hand, her eyes glowing, ardent, let her lead him from the room, ascend the stairs to her bedroom. He tried—he truly tried to resist as she embraced him again.
‘Sophie—I mustn’t—I must go—’
But she was oblivious, feverish with mounting desire, as beyond reason as he was—he could tell. And he gloried in it, rejoiced in it—that she should be as ardent, as inflamed for him as he was for her. But one of them had to stay sane…surely one of them must?
‘Nikos—oh, Nikos!’ Her very voice enticed him, entreated him! ‘Don’t go—please, don’t go—please—’
How could he resist? How? When she was pleading for the very thing he wanted more than anything else in the world?
So he let insanity possess him.
And then afterwards he paid the price. A price he had never thought he would have to pay.
She was lying in his arms, her body curled against his, her hair like a silken scarf around him, her hectic heart rate slowing now, as was his, as he lay consumed by wonder, murmuring endearments to her, tender and loving, possessed by such emotion as he had not known existed. She was everything that he had dreamed of! He could not regret what had happened! How could he? It had been a voyage to a paradise he had never known before—a destination that he knew now, with absolute certainty, would be his home for ever.
Her eyes were shining with joy, and emotion kicked through him again just to see it.
‘Oh, Nikos! Darling, darling Nikos! I’m so, so happy—so blissfully, blissfully happy! I can’t believe it really happened—I can’t believe that it’s all right. It’s just like a fairy tale!’
She kissed him, her eyes like jewels.
‘We can be married now, can’t we? And everything’s going to be so wonderful! You and me together! For ever and ever! Bliss, bliss, bliss! And Daddy will be all right too, because I know you’ll save his company and everything will be fine again.’
He stilled. He could feel it happening.
‘What did you just say?’
She gazed at him, eyes veiling suddenly. ‘I’m sorry! Oh, I’m sorry, Nikos! I shouldn’t have said that, I know. But I’ve been worried about him, and now I’m just so relieved I don’t have to worry about him after all, and—’
He did not let her finish. Sharply he pulled away. Out of her clinging embrace. He threw back the bedcovers and stood up. Looked down at her. Looked down at the beautiful, pale, slender body he had just possessed.
And knew the price he was expected to pay for it.
‘Nikos?’ Her voice was uncertain again, and he could hear the note of anxiety in it. Well, she was right to be anxious. Her prey was about to escape her. Coolly, methodically, he started to get dressed. But inside he felt a hot, raging maelstrom of emotion boiling in him.
‘Nikos?’ Her tremulous query came. ‘Where—where are you going?’
‘Where?’ His riposte was cool. As cool as the manner in which he was swiftly doing up his dress shirt, fastening his cuffs. ‘Back to my hotel, of course.’ His eyes were veiled in the dim light, but he could see her body in all its beauty, all its lost innocence, in a soft pool of lamplight. Emotion boiled in him again, but he would not let it show. He reached for his dinner jacket, abandoned on a chair in their haste to undress each other only a short while ago, shrugging it on across his broad shoulders.