His tongue lunged and curled around hers, till she had no choice but to respond to its seductive, outrageously demanding dance.
For a moment he stilled, as if surprised as she caressed his mouth with hers, tentatively mimicking his actions. His whole body hardened, even the pulse of his heart kicked out of rhythm for an instant.
Then he gathered her even closer, dragging her up, almost off the floor, and in against his blazing heat. His hunger was raw and blatantly obvious. His body throbbed for her. She felt his arousal surge against her and something melted inside her, hot and sweet like molten sugar.
Restlessly she shifted against him, and was rewarded when large hands clasped her bottom and hauled her higher, till that potent heat was against her very core. Urgently she slid against him, eager for the new sensations he awoke in her.
She felt edgy, hungry. Desperate as she’d never been for a man.
His kiss grew ravenous as he thrust hungrily into her mouth. Now she held him, her hands clamped in the softness of his black hair as she revelled in his possession. In the awe-inspiring power of this man who held her so effortlessly, and drew her to a fever pitch of need.
She tilted her head, the better to accommodate him. He ravaged her mouth with a thorough expertise that left her reeling and craving more.
Her lips were throbbing when he finally dragged his mouth from hers. He was so close her universe was encompassed by dark, glittering, febrile eyes, and by the feel of him clamping her against him, as if, for him too, close wasn’t close enough to satisfy the storm of escalating desire.
His chest heaved against her and she heard the rasp of uneven breathing, his and hers together, as they strove for oxygen.
Silence stretched between them as Tessa tried to control her whirring thoughts. To make sense of what had just happened and to decipher the expression on his face. She could read heat, emotion, intensity. And what else?
Suddenly she shivered, as cold reality slipped in. He was her enemy. The man who hated her, believed her to be a mercenary liar.
The man who until just a few days ago had been engaged to another woman.
Hell!
Blood sizzled under her skin as heat washed through her. How could she have forgotten? How could she have let him—?
‘You really are something,’ he murmured, still holding her up against him so she couldn’t find the purchase to move away. His hands had slid to encircle her waist and she fought the flutter of traitorous excitement at the sensation of his proprietorial touch.
‘You’re either the best actress I’ve yet come across, or…’ His words trailed away as slowly, oh, so slowly, he lowered her. Each centimetre was a lesson in the power of desire and the magnitude of her guilt. For even now Tessa couldn’t repress the tremor of excitement that rippled through her as she slid down his hard body. His unashamedly aroused body.
Her eyes squeezed shut in dismay at her own appalling weakness.
‘Or,’ he continued, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, his lips teasing erotically against her skin, ‘you really are panting for it. Which is it, Tessa? Are you so desperate for me that you’ll spread your legs right here? Right now?’ His hand slid up her back in a parody of the caress she’d felt as he kissed her.
Or perhaps that earlier embrace had been false too. Maybe it had all been a con. A sick, twisted game that Stavros played just because he could. Because he held all the cards in this particular deck.
Because he’d seen her vulnerability and decided to use it against her.
For a nauseating moment she wondered if he realised just how inexperienced she was, and whether that gave an extra fillip to his monumental ego in seducing her so quickly, with such insulting ease.
With a violent jerk she wrested herself away from him, arms flailing and legs kicking. She jammed her knee up in what should have been a crippling blow, but he was too fast, deflecting her with a swift sideways movement. She slithered from his grasp, stumbling because her knees were so unsteady, her legs boneless.
He reached for her, grabbed at her waist just as she slipped off balance, but she shoved his hands away.
‘Let go of me!’
Horror lent her strength to escape his grasp and lurch through the doorway into the huge bedroom. She needed air or she’d be sick, she knew it. After the closeness of the bathroom, scented with the heady perfume of arousal, of warm, wanting flesh, the breeze coming through the open bedroom window was like returning sanity.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Tessa spun round as she sensed him emerge from the bathroom.
He paused in the doorway, body tense as he surveyed her. Nevertheless, she backed a couple of surreptitious paces away from him. Out of reach of those long arms.
‘You didn’t mind me touching you a moment ago,’ he drawled and she avoided his eyes, concentrated instead on the bunched muscles of his forearms as he planted himself, legs wide and arms akimbo, facing her.