CHAPTER EIGHT

L EANDROS TOOK A slow mouthful of the cognac he’d poured for himself and taken into his bedroom. On their return to their suite, Eliana had made a point of murmuring goodnight to him and disappearing into her own room. Leandros had watched her go, wondering whether to stay her. His mood was strange—but then so was hers.

She seemed...different. He wasn’t sure how, only that she was. Since the curtain had fallen at the opera she had been different. Over dinner—different. In the car on the way back to the hotel—different. But he didn’t know how, or why.

What he did know, as he took another mouthful of the fiery liquid, was that all evening it had become increasingly impossible to take his eyes from her. Even now he could feel heat beating up in his body, filling him with a restlessness that he knew could be assuaged in only one way.

Should he respond to it? Go to her room? Fulfil the reason he had brought her here to Paris with him? Why should he not? She’d agreed to it, gone along with it, so why should he feel this reluctance now?

He swirled the cognac slowly in its glass. His body was telling him—increasingly so—that now was the hour. Her beauty, so breathtakingly displayed in that ice-blue evening gown, had been inflaming him all evening. Yet his own scathing words to her the previous night, spoken right here in this room, saying that he wanted no sacrificial martyr in his bed, that he wanted her as eager for him as he was for her, were sounding in his mind.

But there was no sign of that. Not tonight. His mouth twisted a moment. Maybe he should stop jibing at her, cutting at her to relieve his own bitterness, indulging in his accusations of her. He’d made an effort over dinner, keeping conversation civil, even though sometimes it had been an effort. His mouth twisted again. Not for that reason, but because his eyes had kept going to her, distracting his attention.

He had known his blood was quickening... And it was doing so again now. Tormentingly so.

He knocked back the rest of his cognac, knowing he was doing a disservice to its XXO status.

Maybe he should consider a shower—that might take his mind off where it wanted to go.

He set the empty cognac glass down on the antique mahogany chest of drawers with a click, reaching up to rid himself of his bow tie, loosen his collar.

Restlessness was possessing him again.

And he knew why.

Carefully, Eliana cleansed her face of make-up, taking trouble to do so, making full use of the generously supplied toiletries in her en suite bathroom, then she washed her face with scented soap, patting it dry gently with a soft towel.

She gazed at her reflection, eyes wide and clear.

I told myself I came to Paris because I owed it to Leandros—because I saw it as a way of finally getting closure for myself.

But she knew that now for the self-deception it had always been. She knew the truth now—had seen it, felt it, faced it as Puccini’s heartbreaking music had soared all around her, revealing to her the truth she had been hiding from, denying.

Her hands lifted to her head, removing the pins one by one from her hair, so that it started to fall in luxuriant tresses to her shoulders. She shook it out, cascading down her back in soft, silken folds that framed her face, then reached to the bodice of her gown from which she now removed the two safety pins. Immediately, the drapery dipped across her breasts, exposing her cleavage, the soft swell of her breasts.

She gazed once more at her reflection.

Glorying now in her own beauty.

Beauty that had one purpose only.

She felt a quickening of her pulse, felt a quiver go through her...a shimmering awareness of her own body. With shallow breathing, she turned away, walking out of the en suite bathroom, back into her bedroom. She felt the silken folds of the beautiful gown she was wearing brush her thighs as she crossed to the door, opened it and stepped beyond.

A replay of what she had done last night.

But now, this night...

Oh, it was so different.

As different as dark from light.

As denial from acceptance.

Lie from truth.

Softly, slowly, she opened the door to Leandros’s bedroom and stepped inside.

Leandros turned. He was unknotting his tie, his dinner jacket already discarded, draped around the back of a chair, cuff-links slipped off and placed on the tallboy.

His hands dropped away. He stilled completely.

She was walking towards him. Not as she had before, halting and hesitant. Now she was simply approaching him—in all her breathtaking, matchless beauty. Her gown was slinking around her slender, shapely body, the décolletage low over the sweet swell of her cupped breasts...

He felt something spear within him, and knew it for what it was.

And her hair—

His breath caught. It tumbled in golden glory over her bare shoulders, her bare back, luxuriant and wanton. She had wiped the make-up from her face, but she needed none to enhance her beauty.

His breath caught again, emotions storming within him, unleashed and potent.

She came up to him—unhesitant, unforced, unresistant. She said not a word, and nor did he, as she lifted her hands, wound them around his neck, drew his mouth down to hers...

And he was lost.

His mouth tasted of wine and aromatic coffee, and her fingers at the nape of his neck speared into the sable of his hair. She felt her breasts peak, engorge. Felt desire—oh, sweet, sweet and glorious desire—stream within her. This— this was why she was here...why she had come to Paris...why Leandros had had to come to her, ask her to go with him. Six years...six long, anguished years...bereft and punishing... Anguished years she had deserved, yet which now vanished as if they had never been.

His mouth was crushing hers now, and his hands had caught her waist, pulling her against him. Her pliant body yielded to his, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. She felt his body surge, and where once, long ago, in her innocence, it might have shocked her with its sure sign of masculine arousal, now she gloried in it.

He was hers, and she was his. And for this night, this time, this long-deferred union, she would take, and give, and possess and yield what she had never done before.

That all he could feel for her was raw desire she did not care about—could not care about. If that was all she could give him that had any value to him it would be hers to give—and claim. And she would glory and rejoice in the giving and the claiming, now and for ever.

Desire was creaming through her and she gave herself to it, consumingly and passionately, with so much pent-up longing, with so much time to make up for—lost time, damaged time. But she had this time now, and this night. And it was hers to give to him, and to take for herself. Now. Oh, now...

She was pressing her hips against him, feeling his need for her, glorying in it, and in turn pressing her engorged breasts against the hard wall of his chest. The frottage against her cresting nipples was making desire course through her even more powerfully, more urgently.

Without taking his mouth from hers, their tongues still entwining, ravenous for each other, he scooped her up into his arms, swept her across to the waiting bed, coming down with her as he laid her upon it. Then he was shucking off his clothes, ridding himself of them and then setting himself to free her of hers. She lay back, lifting her arms above her head against the pillows, her body displayed for him as he knelt over her, easing the narrow straps from her shoulders, turning her over, sliding down the zip and lifting the pale silk from her body.

She heard, low in his throat, his guttural response to what he had revealed for his own pleasure, his own desire—and she saw it was his desire to have that pleasure. His eyes were dark, glittering with naked desire. His mouth was demanding on hers, his hands shaping her breasts, drawing from her intensities of pleasure she had never known, never dreamt could exist.

Then his mouth descended to the straining peaks, laving and caressing, teasing and delighting with little whorls of pleasure that drew from her throat low, helpless moans of bliss. His hands were moving down her body, smoothing her flanks, slipping beneath her, lifting her hips towards him, his mouth never leaving her silken flesh.

She gave a gasp of wonder, of shock, swiftly followed by intense, unbelievable pleasure. Her hands closed around his shoulders, holding him where he was as his lips glided to where she most exquisitely sensitive. She felt her legs widen, her thighs slacken, as if her body had a will and an appetite of its own. And she could not resist it, must go with it, must give herself to it—could do nothing but be helpless, to crave the pleasure, the exquisite, unbelievable pleasure he was arousing in her.

Desire quickened, became urgent, like a wildfire taking hold of a tinder-dry forest. Her whole body was aflame, her breath shallow, her neck arching, her spine curving, to offer herself...

She felt the pleasure mount, intensify—it was unbearable, it was exquisite, it was all the world, it was her whole being. Little cries broke from her, pleading and imploring. Her fingers indented into his strong, sinewed shoulders and a tide was building in her...a tide she could not stop, would not stop, creaming through her, mounting and mounting, intensifying yet more, until she thought she must surely die of it unless...unless...

And then suddenly, brutally, he was lifting his mouth away from her. She gave a cry of loss, of anguish. But he was moving over her, his powerful thighs parting hers yet more widely, his forearms lifting him now. He was readying himself, poised, and she realised that all that had come before had merely been preparation—to quicken her, arouse her, take her to the point he himself was now at.

She felt his urgency and knew it to be her own as well. His hunger for her was her hunger for him. Wanting...craving...needing more and yet more... And now her hands were fastened around his flexing spine, seeking only to draw him down to her, to let him fill her, make her one with him...

She was blind, lost in a hunger that was a tornado of flame and urgency. Reaching for him, pulling him down to her, she wanted this, only this...his possession...now... Oh, now...now... now ...

His hands were cupping her flanks, lifting her to him. Her spine was arching like a bow, offering her yearning, pleading body to him, and then he was there, poised at the moment of their ultimate fusion. For one last moment of unbearable hunger he kept her waiting, and as her bliss-blinded gaze clung to his, his eyes burned with a desire that was darkness visible.

She heard him speak—a low, impassioned rasp.

‘Now I make you mine... mine —’

He drove into her. Full and thrusting and complete.

She screamed. Pain spearing through her like a knife.

Leandros froze. His blurred vision cleared and he was staring down at Eliana’s contorted face, realising, dimly, that her hands were pushing desperately against his chest, pushing him away...pushing him out of her.

In some kind of disbelieving slow motion he withdrew from her, knowing his heart was pounding, his breathing was ragged, his consciousness in freefall.

As he came free of her she buckled over, jack-knifing onto her side, curling into a foetal position—protective and rejecting. He put his weight on his knees, staring down at her. In the low light from the bedside lamps he saw her hair was totally swamping her face.

‘Eliana— Christos !—what is it? What’s wrong?’

Consternation was in his voice, bewilderment, incomprehension... The contrast from a moment ago, when he had been blind with desire, craving only one consummation, with what was now pounding through his blood was total.

His answer was only that she hunched her body even more, hugging her drawn-up knees, and from her throat broke a noise that could only be a sob.

With a shaking hand, he smoothed away those tresses from her face. It was still contorted.

He said her name again, his voice shaking now, as did his hand as it lifted away from her. Instinctively, he let his hand close over her shoulder, but she only wrenched herself away the more, and another noise tore from her.

‘Dear God—I didn’t mean to hurt you!’ His own voice was broken, with shock—more than shock—racking through it.

What had happened? What the hell had happened? She had been aflame for him—and he for her.

It had been an instant conflagration as his eyes had gone to her, walking into his room when he had thought her in bed next door. He had felt a shaft of searing gratification at the sight of her, at the clear purpose in her as she came towards him, her body shaped sensuously, gloriously, by her clinging gown, her hips swaying, breasts all but bared by the revealing drape of her low décolletage, and her hair loosened and, oh, so wanton, cascading over her shoulders...

She had come up to him...kissed him. Her lips lush and velvet, claiming his, her hands winding around his neck to draw him to her. And that instant had released from him all that had been waiting for release.

His response had been instant, unstoppable—and all-consuming. Urgent and overpowering—overwhelming. He had been unable to resist—and why should he have? She had not come to him as she had the night before, as some kind of unwilling sacrifice, the difference had been absolute.

Lush and sensuous, desirous and desiring...

It’s what I wanted—all that I wanted.

And he had taken what she’d offered, what she had so clearly wanted as well. Every touch, every kiss, every yielding, every low, sensual moan in her throat, every caress and every arching of her body had been an invitation to him to take more, and yet more...

To take all he craved and hungered for.

Until—

His mind reeled, incomprehension possessing it totally. Not knowing what to do, he moved away. He must do something—but what? And how? And then, as he drew away from her, his eyes went to the bedsheet, where they had been lying.

And he froze all over again.

The pain was ebbing, and abject gratitude that it was doing so shuddered through Eliana. Slowly, slowly, she was surfacing from it, and feeling not just the pain, that sudden agony like a knife-thrust, convulsing her, but all the other sensations that had been flooding her overheated, over-stimulated flesh.

Cold was creeping over her now, and she felt her body shiver.

Then the quilt was being drawn over her, and her shoulder was being taken, and slowly, but insistently, Leandros was turning her towards him. Her knees were still drawn up, but she felt them slacken, felt the hectic pounding of her heart rate slow a fraction. Pain—a searing ache—still pierced her.

Leandros was beside her, a sheet pulled half across his waist. He was raised up on one elbow, on his side, and his other hand was carefully, gently, drawing her tumbled hair clear of her face.

He looked down at her.

‘I think you need to explain,’ he said.

Disbelief was still his dominant consciousness. Yet the evidence was pounding at him. Her scream, her cry of pain when he had entered her—and then... Thee mou , that smear of blood...

It isn’t possible—it just isn’t possible.

She was looking at him. Her features were no longer contorted, yet there was a pallor to her face that told she was still shaken. Her eyes were huge, distended, barely meeting his. But he wanted answers. Needed answers.

‘Eliana, you were married for six years—six years! How was I to think—?’ He broke off.

Words formed in his head, unspoken but vehement. What the hell kind of marriage had it been for those six long years? Clearly not the kind he had assumed it to be. Had raged that it would be...

And more of his assumptions had self-destructed as well. She’d given Damian no children—no grandson for his father. By choice? To avoid pregnancy? Or had there been chance of pregnancy...? No chance because either she or Damian had been incapable? Or—?

They’d never consummated their marriage.

But why ?

He looked down at her. And as he did the explanation came to him. The one and only obvious and ineluctable explanation.

‘Damian was gay,’ he said.

His voice was flat.

But his emotions were not.

Somewhere very deep inside him, emotion was welling—turbid but powerful, seeking entrance to his consciousness, seeking the light. But this was not the time for it.

She hadn’t answered him, but her gaze had shifted, and he knew without a doubt that that was the reason for what had happened just now. The reason that, after six years of marriage, she was still a virgin...

Or had been.

Until a few brutal moments ago...

Compunction knifed through him. Had he known—had he had the slightest suspicion—he would never—

‘Eliana, I am sorry .’ His voice was vehement. ‘But I never dreamt—How could I? If you had only said... Dear God, I would have been...’

‘I didn’t know it would hurt,’ she said.

Her voice was low and her eyes slipped past his again.

‘Not like that.’ She swallowed, and now her eyes did meet his. ‘And I am sorry too... I... I’ve shocked you. Shocked myself.’

He saw her start to tremble, saw beneath her lashes tears start to bead. He drew her against him, holding her, as carefully as if she were the rarest porcelain. His breathing was ragged still, but his heart-rate was slowing now, his body subsiding. Passion spent before it even was. But that did not matter...did not exist. All that mattered—all that existed—was his careful holding of her, appalled by his unintentional hurting of her. She was bundled up beneath the protective quilt, his arm around her.

After a while, he spoke. ‘Would...would a warm bath help, do you think?’ he heard himself ask. ‘I can draw it for you. It might be...soothing.’

She swallowed, nodding faintly. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice still low.

He slid from the bed, seizing the bathrobe from the door and wrapping himself in it, heading into the en suite bathroom and turning on the bath taps to full. Not too hot, just warm and...soothing, as he had said. Would bath salts help? Surely they might. And the scent of them, too, would be soothing. What else? What else could he do? Carry her into the bathroom, that was what.

He went back into the bedroom. She was still lying there, bundled up beneath the quilt, still in a foetal position.

‘Your bath’s all run,’ he said.

He didn’t ask, only drew back the quilt, scooping her up in one smooth movement. She felt as light as a feather and, naked as she was, he felt her to be terrifyingly vulnerable. He kept his eyes from her, out of consideration, lowering her to her feet beside the fragrantly full bathtub. He turned away, not wanting her to have him seeing her vulnerable nakedness.

‘I’ll... I’ll leave you to it,’ he said uncertainly, not knowing what else to do. A thought struck him. ‘There’s a shower cap, if you don’t want your hair to get wet...’

He closed the bathroom door, left her in peace and privacy. His thoughts were still all over the place, his emotions even more so. Disbelief was still uppermost, and things were rearranging themselves inside his head—things he had thought for six long years that now needed to be re-examined. Understood...

What kind of marriage did she have?

Obviously, not the kind that he had thought she had. Not the one that everyone else had thought she had. There had never been a whisper of Damian Makris’s sexual orientation that he had known of. But then... His expression darkened. With a domineering father like Damian’s, being gay was something no son would freely admit.

Did she know beforehand?

That was the question that burned now. The question he had to know the answer to— had to.

Because if she’d known...

Then she didn’t leave me for another man—not in that way. Not in the way that lacerated me, carved knives into my flesh...my heart...

His face hardened. The woman he had once loved might have walked into a celibate marriage, but that didn’t exonerate her for her decision. She had still married Damian for his money.

Rejecting me because she thought I would be poor and she couldn’t face poverty.

It was that that had shown her true nature. Her true character. That was all he must remember about her.

And yet...

Even with the Makris wealth to give her a luxury lifestyle she can hardly have been happy in that marriage. Having a father-in-law holding her at fault for his lack of grandchildren when all along it was his son who had borne the responsibility for it.

Had Damian let her take the blame? Shoulder his father’s ire and disappointment?

So that after Damian’s death old Jonas had thrown her out of the family, cut her off with nothing?

He frowned again. And if she hadn’t been cut off like that...

Would she be here with me now?

The question forced its way into his head—demanding an answer. An answer he did not want to give. To face.

An answer he did not have.

Last night she tried to come to me like some sacrificial victim, making me feel bad about what I was demanding of her. Yet tonight...

He gazed blindly at the closed door of the en suite bathroom.

Tonight she was a different woman...

He felt emotion buckle through him, confusion and conflict. He turned away, busying himself straightening the bedclothes, tidying the pillows. His eyes went again to the slight telltale stain on the sheet. He should strip the bed.

Instead, he only pulled the quilt over it, smoothing it flat. They would sleep on that. And under the one in her bedroom, which he’d fetch now.

He halted. Would she want to spend the rest of the night with him? His expression changed again with his changing thoughts. He wanted her with him. It was why he had brought her to Paris. Not for her to sleep alone, away from him. Not any longer.

Not now.

He strode out, walked into her bedroom, lifted the quilt up and then, as well, scooping up her nightdress. It was only a cheap garment, with a popular chain store label in it, but if she’d feel more comfortable wearing it tonight—well, that was understandable.

He glanced around. What else might she need?

He saw a tube of face cream on the bedside table, and picked that up too. Plus there was whatever was in the vanity in his own bathroom.

He returned to his own bedroom, laid her quilt over his, draped her nightgown over the pillow on her side, placed the face cream on her bedside table.

Another thought struck him. Hot milk—that might be comforting too, after her bath.

He went out again, heading into the kitchen. He made fresh coffee for himself, heated milk for her, sweetening it with honey, adding some delicate almond biscuits to the tray, carrying it all back with him.

He could hear the bathwater emptying, and he knocked gently on the en suite door, having picked up her nightdress.

‘If you open up, I’ll pass you your nightgown,’ he said.

She did so—just a crack—and he handed it to her, hearing her thank him in a low voice. When she emerged, his eyes went to her. She looked pale still, but better somehow. Her hair hung down her back, a little damp from the bath, curling around her face. She looked younger.

Like I remember her.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Better—thank you. The bath was a good idea.’

She looked around, clearly uncertain what to do.

‘I thought you might like some hot milk and honey,’ he said. He made his voice encouraging.

‘That was kind—thank you.’

He folded back the quilt on her side, gesturing that she should get in. She did, and he propped up the pillows for her, before stepping away again. Then he went round to his side of the bed. He realised, with a start, that he was still naked beneath his bathrobe. He snatched his sleep shorts from underneath the pillow, swiftly pulled them on, adding a tee as well, out of the chest of drawers. Sufficiently decent, he discarded the bathrobe, climbed into bed beside her.

‘One hot milk coming up,’ he said, and reached for the mug from the tray on the bedside table. ‘And almond biscuits.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and took the mug and a biscuit. She cupped the former and nibbled the latter.

Leandros reached for his coffee. He’d made it milky, with some of the hot milk he’d heated for her. He helped himself to a couple of the biscuits.

‘Be careful of crumbs,’ he warned her. ‘They’re hell to sleep on.’ He kept his voice light.

She gave a slight smile, sipping at her milk, easing her shoulders back into the pillows. She turned to him.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Her voice was still low. ‘For the milk, the bath—and for...being understanding about...’

He felt his hand reach out, touch hers. Lightly. Gently. Saying nothing. Simply wanting...

But he didn’t know what he wanted. Things had changed. But how, and to what extent, he still didn’t know.

One thing he did know.

That to sit here quietly, side by side with her like this, in the midnight hours, in the soft light around them, not speaking but sharing this moment, companionably finishing their warming drinks, sharing the almond biscuits, was good.

And for now, that was enough.