Mediterranean Tycoons

‘It’s not important. Forget it; I have.’

Her head came back at that, her eyes fixing on his in bitter resentment. She loved him but right at this moment she hated him. He didn’t trust her an inch and never would, but still she decided to give him one last chance. The final test, she told herself.

‘You saw the perfume Ted had bought. I told you we met by accident,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I told you Ted had lied and he confirmed it.’

One ebony brow arched in sardonic amusement. ‘So you did,’ he mused as he sank down on the sofa beside her. He was too close and her pulse leapt at his nearness.

‘Will anything convince you?’ she asked flatly. ‘Spelling it out in blood, maybe?’

Marcus ran a comprehensive eye over her and, reaching out, he let his long fingers tangle in her silky red hair. ‘If you want to convince me—’ his voice deepened ‘—feel free to try.’

She had her answer. Sex was all Marcus wanted from her. She tried to pull her head away but he wouldn’t let her escape. Her stormy eyes clashed with mocking black and his long fingers in her hair tightened their grip. ‘It should be fun,’ he teased.

‘That’s all I am to you, a sex game, you egotistical bastard,’ Eloise shot back, her fury edged with fear as his dark head descended. She tensed, eyes wide and glinting with defiance. She was damned if she was going to roll over again beneath his sensual onslaught. That was all she had done since they met in Paris and it had to stop, she told herself.

But her traitorous pulse raced into overdrive as Marcus covered her lips with his own in an explosive kiss. His dark head blocked out the light and his hand curved around her waist, hard and restraining, while he plundered her mouth at will.

Her pulse raced, and she gripped his arms in a last-ditch attempt to break free. But he wouldn’t let her go. He simply flattened her to the sofa. His hard, hot body sprawled on top of her, and his mouth continued to ravage her own, rough and then tender as one long hand swept down her body, and back to cup her breast.

She fought for control. ‘No,’ she moaned against his lips, struggling to breathe, denying the sensations he was forcing her to feel. Her nipples tautened into tight buds, and she trembled, unable to control her treacherous body’s reaction. But by a supreme effort of will she lashed out at him with fist and knee.

He reared back, and she caught a brief glimpse of his stunned expression as she flung herself over the arm of the sofa and landed on her feet.

‘What the hell was that for?’ Marcus sat back against the sofa, rubbing a hand across his cheek.

‘Figure it out for yourself.’ Her chest heaving, she stood a few feet away, staring down at him with angry green eyes. How it was possible one man could be so infinitely desirable, a great lover, and yet be completely lacking in the emotional department Eloise did not know.

Marcus’s eyes were dark and glinting with suppressed anger, and with an impatient gesture he got to his feet and moved towards her. ‘You’re mad because I chased Ted.’

Eloise swallowed unevenly. ‘No, not that you chased him,’ she said quietly. ‘But that you never believed him and, more importantly, me.’

His dark eyes pinned hers, shrewd and penetrating. ‘You want me to believe you; it bothers you that I don’t. Why is that, I wonder? Perhaps you care for me rather more than your sharp tongue will admit.’

Any minute his clever mind would work out how she really felt about him, and she couldn’t let that happen. ‘No, but I object to being treated like a whore, a woman who will sleep with a man one minute and quite happily sleep with another an hour later, and by your actions that’s how you see me.’

‘Ah, Eloise.’ Marcus’s expression was grim. He looked at her standing there, so young and looking so incredibly sexy and yet innocent at the same time, and it gave him a peculiar feeling in the region of his heart that was almost pain. ‘I only ever think of you as a clever, incredibly beautiful woman, and you shame us both by thinking otherwise,’ he said gently and, reaching out, he caught her shoulders and drew her gently towards him. ‘And if I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry.’ He moved one hand towards her cheek, and trailed gentle fingers down until he reached her chin.

A betraying pulse began to beat at the base of her throat and a nervous flutter stirred her stomach. ‘That’s a first.’ She tried for sarcasm, but the tremble in her voice gave her away as he tilted her chin and looked deep into her wide emerald eyes.

His eyes grew dark. He brushed her mouth gently. ‘And I do believe you about Ted.’

‘You do?’ She stared at him, and her heart skipped a beat. He believed her. Was she hearing right? A heady excitement bubbled through her.

‘Yes, I do.’ Tension snaked through Marcus’s large powerful body. His hand slipped from her shoulder to tighten around her slender waist, and he smoothed a few tendrils of glorious red hair from her brow. He had to keep it light, he wasn’t yet ready to confess he was blinded by jealousy.

‘After all, any woman with me as her lover wouldn’t look twice at Ted,’ he said with a husky chuckle, his slumberous dark eyes holding hers.

Eloise couldn’t help it; even when she was angry, he had the ability with a word, a look, a touch to make her change her mind. Her lips twitched. ‘You arrogant devil!’ She shook her head but he looked deep into her green eyes and saw the humour she couldn’t quite hide.

‘But you like me,’ he murmured teasingly, and suddenly Marcus, who had never considered if a woman liked him or not, found he was waiting, his heart pounding for her answer.

‘Yes, you could say that,’ she responded with a husky chuckle of her own, and then very gently, almost reverently, he bent his head and kissed her, and she kissed him back in helpless surrender.

He gently pulled her dress off her shoulders, his dark gaze flicking over her pouting breasts, raising her in his arms, slowly with the tip of his tongue he circled the areolae of one hard nipple.

‘Oh, yes,’ she sighed, immediately thrown back into a whirlpool of sensations. ‘Please.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Marcus parroted, his mouth enclosing the rigid tip and slowly licking her aching flesh, teasing with tongue and teeth until her back arched, and she was burning with the heady heat of passion and desperate need for continuance.

He slipped his arms beneath her, lifting her high so he could capture her mouth with his in a long drugging kiss as he carried her into the bedroom. He slid her down the long length of his body, letting her feel the pulsing ache of his arousal as he eased her out of her dress in one smooth movement.

He was wearing too many clothes. A low groan of frustration escaped her and she pushed her hands beneath his jacket up and around his back, dragging his head down to her, finding his mouth with her own.

Airborne again, Marcus laid her down on the bed, and in seconds joined her naked. A deep erotic sigh of pleasure escaped her, as the black hair of his chest rubbed against her turgid nipples.

Long fingers traced the length of her body, the indentation of her waist, the silky softness of her flat belly, and she trembled. She gripped his shoulders quivering with need. But he played with her mouth, licking and nibbling, then thrusting with his tongue, and all the time his long fingers slowly stroked the curve of her hip, the smooth skin of her inner thigh, but frustratingly refraining from touching her where she longed to be touched.

‘Marcus,’ she panted, her small hands sliding down to cover his, lost to everything but her own need.

‘Tell me what you want,’ Marcus rasped in a dark undertone, his breath fanning her cheek, his night-black eyes searching emerald. ‘Perhaps this?’

Her whole body jerked as his seeking fingers parted the velvet folds of flesh to touch the hot, moist, pulsing point of pleasure, sending convulsive shivers lancing through her.

Her hands roamed feverishly over his shoulders and skated down his back, around his broad chest to trace the silky black line down over his taut stomach, driven by a purely female primeval need to possess and be possessed, to claim him as her own. Her slender fingers found him, curving around the satin-coated steel length of him with shivering excitement, stroking him, made bold by her need.

She felt his great body shudder, and briefly she felt an incredible sense of power. But a heartbeat later she could not think at all as his mouth caught hers in a savagely hungry kiss. Involuntarily her fingers tightened around him.

With a guttural groan, Marcus raised his head. ‘You do it,’ he spelt out roughly, his night-black eyes clashing with her dazed green. Shuddering on the edge in a passion-induced dream, she did…

Eloise awoke early the next morning and yawned widely. She stretched languorously and was instantly aware of the warm male body beside her. Slowly turning her head, her green eyes widened on the sleeping figure of Marcus.

He lay on his back, one arm trailing across the top of her pillow, the other flung across the other side of the bed. The sheet was draped low across his hips, his broad hair-roughened chest rising slowly and evenly in sleep.

She glanced up at his face. With his eyes closed, and a day’s growth of beard darkening his firm jaw, he looked less than his perfect self, younger and somehow vulnerable.

Heat coloured her cheeks as she recalled last night, and her own part in it. She had actually touched him intimately with hands and mouth, something she had never imagined doing, and yet with Marcus she wanted to. It was unbelievable…

He was amazing. They had made love with a passion a hunger that lasted for hours until, sated and exhausted, she had fallen into a dreamless sleep. Her love-swollen lips curved in a smile of pure female satisfaction. Hardly surprising he was still asleep, she thought, her fascinated gaze sliding over his naked torso.

Even with her body aching in muscles she never knew she had, she couldn’t keep her eyes off his gorgeous bronzed body, and recalling how it felt to be thoroughly possessed by him made her shudder with remembered pleasure. Unable to resist, she reached out her hand and gently smoothed the soft black hair from the centre of his chest down to the narrow strip that disappeared beneath the sheet.

‘Hmm. That’s nice,’ Marcus murmured, moving and pressing a kiss on the top of her head.

‘I thought you were asleep.’ Eloise blushed scarlet and lay back, feeling almost happy. Marcus had said last night he believed her about Ted. A giant step forward—surely it couldn’t be long before he believed she was innocent of all he had accused her of?

‘I was, until you assaulted me.’ Marcus grinned and sat up, pulling her up with him. The dark eyes that met hers danced with wicked humour, and she smiled back.

‘Me?’ she questioned in mock indignation.