She put her hands against his chest to push him away, but that was a mistake, because she felt the trembling start inside her as soon as she touched him, and she had to snatch her hands away because of what they might do; the weakness they might unveil too clearly for him.
Looking away from his observant stare she said thickly: 'How can you do this? Go back to your mistress, I don't want you.'
'I haven't got a mistress, and you do want me,' he said very softly, watching her.
She lifted her head to look at him furiously. 'Is the affair with Diana over? How sad. I'm sure you'll find someone else.'
'I'm sure I could,' he agreed casually, and that deepened her rage with him. His complacent smile made her want to hit him.
'It won't be me,' she snapped.
'No?' He put his head to one side and ran an exploratory eye over her from the bright tip of her head to her feet, taking his time, making his enjoyment only too clear. 'Didn't you enjoy being my mistress, Marina?'
She felt red colour rush up her face. She hit him so hard it made her hand sting. For a second Gideon looked at her with rage, his black eyes obsidian, furious, then he took her by the shoulders and bent her backwards, despite her helpless struggles. She turned her head away to avoid the searching mouth and felt it moving along her exposed neck. Her trembling increased and with it so did her anger.
'Let me go, you swine!' she cried harshly.
Without answering, Gideon caught her chin in one hand, his fingers biting into her, turning her face up towards him, then his lips were heatedly opening her own and the ground under her feet seemed to shake. Fire streaked along her nerves. Her eyes shut tight. She felt her body arch towards him and then his hands ran sensuously over her back, pressing her body closer, the stroking caress of their movements wiping out all memory inside her.
Her small hands moved up to clutch at his shirt and the reality of his body under her lingers made the blood sing in her veins. No pleasure her hands had ever had from their skill on the piano could equal the piercing sweetness she felt as she slid her hands up Gideon's body, deeply aware of the muscular hardness of the flesh and sinew beneath her fingertips.
Her response had speeded up the hammering beat of his heart. His hands moved up under her T-shirt, their cool exploration running up her bare back to close possessively over her small breasts.
Harshness enveloped her and she abruptly dragged herself away, breathing heavily.
'Get your hands off me!'
His face was darkly flushed, his eyes glittering.
'You want my hands on you,' he muttered thickly, his speech slurred by the pressure of the desire she could read in his intent stare. His eyes closed and opened again, fierceness in them. 'Don't you know what you do to me?'
'Any woman can do that,' she said savagely, and saw his face whiten.
'No,' he said unsteadily. 'Nobody else.'
'Is that what you told Diana?' She gave him a cold, bitter little smile. 'You do it so well, Gideon, a well-rehearsed patter you must have delivered many times before, but this time it isn't going to work. I don't believe a word of it.'
'It's true,' he broke out with his black eyes fixed on her, a burning intensity in them. 'I love you. With Diana, with everyone else, it was just pleasure —none of them ever made my heart stop the way you do, the way you did the first time I ever set eyes on you.'
Her eyes widened—she remembered that night, the concert, the party, the adoring women thronging around him and hanging on his every word, the black flash of his eyes as he noticed her and the way he held her hand later, smiling down at her with reckless, excited eyes.
'You were such a baby,' he said in a husky, shaken voice. 'Big innocent eyes and a shy little smile—my God, I wanted you the moment I saw you.'
Marina remembered all too well the gleaming brilliance of those eyes as they stared at her. Was that what he had been thinking? Had there been desire behind those hard black eyes? He had stood there, tall and elegant in his evening clothes, look- ing at her with exalted amusement, and she had imagined his excitement came from his triumph
during the performance. She had barely dared to lift her head to look at him; the magician whose powerful hands had made that wonderful music. She had certainly not suspected that while Gideon stared down at her, he had had thoughts like that in his head. It would never have entered her mind. He was right. She had been innocent, naive, unaware of all the sexual complications which Gideon was to teach her.
'A mistress was all you ever wanted, wasn't it?' she accused, her eyes bitter as she raised them to his face again.
He read the contempt she was showing him and his mouth twisted wryly as he shrugged those broad shoulders in acceptance of the charge. 'Have you ever seen it from my side of things, Marina? You've met my mother, you know what she's like. From an early age I got dragged around the world like a performing monkey, given everything I ever wanted, but always treated more as a toy than a child. My mother suffocated me. I never had a free hour to myself. I wasn't allowed to breathe unless she gave me permission. I had no friends because she didn't want me to be distracted from my music. My father was shoved aside because he might interfere between me and my mother.'
She knew all this, had worked it out for herself from what she had observed of his mother and from what Grandie had told her.
Gideon grimaced, his features set hard in grim disillusionment. 'When I could break away, I did,
and I determined then that I would never again get seriously involved with another woman during my lifetime.' His eyes flashed as he stared over her head. 'If you let them, women take you over completely —that's what I learnt from my mother. They stifle you, smother you, cling round you like ivy. I decided when I grew up that women had their uses but they had to be firmly kept in their place. I learnt to use them, enjoy them and then kick them out of my life when I'd finished with them.'
She winced at the harsh cruelty of that and he ' watched her face, his own shadowed. 'Yes,' he agreed, 'it isn't pretty. I could lie to you and hide all of that, but I don't want any more secrets between us, Marina. I want you to know what I am, what I've been.'