No Mistress But Love

Lindy’s eyes flew to his, filled with suspicion. He had to be joking—hadn’t he?

‘I see what difficulty you’re having in believing how incredibly beautiful I once was,’ he murmured, his facial expression and his tone equally deadpan.

It was the infinitesimal chance that he actually might be serious that made her pause to take stock before verbally tearing into him. He was Greek, she reminded herself, and from what she had heard Greek men were a pretty macho lot…but one thing she had never heard of was a macho man describing himself as beautiful! Ah—but she had heard something of his having an English mother…or was it grandmother? She let out an involuntary groan of pure exasperation with herself. Since when were Englishmen given to extolling their own physical attributes so extravagantly? Any fool would have accepted immediately that he was joking at her expense!

‘And that’s what I find so exhilaratingly novel about all this,’ he murmured, the now open caress of his fingers in her hair and the huskiness entering his tone scattering her angry indignation and reawakening the throb of excitement in her with a heady vengeance. ‘Knowing that, when you decide to give yourself to me, it won’t be because you’re dazzled by my pretty face, but because——’

‘When I what?’ shrieked Lindy, her sudden and violent attempt to escape curtailed as his hands slid from her hair to her shoulders and clamped her into immobility.

‘Lindy, I realise that the mere idea of your making love with a man as grossly disfigured as I am——’

‘You’re not disfigured and you damn well know it!’ she accused angrily. ‘And you also know damn well that you can probably have any woman who takes your fancy!’

‘Including you?’

‘That’s not what I meant!’ she groaned in exasperation. ‘Damn it——’

‘That’s the third time in succession you’ve just sworn,’ he snapped, suddenly jerking her body closer to his. ‘And I don’t like my women swearing.’

‘I’m not one of your women, and, anyway, “damn” isn’t swearing!’

‘Yes, you are, and yes, it is, as far as I’m concerned. And, believe you me, you’re more mine than any other woman I can think of—you’re the first I’ve owned outright, thanks to the turn of a card.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous, you can’t own a person!’ she exclaimed witheringly. ‘Slavery was abolished some time back—or hadn’t you heard?’

‘Well, I’ve just reinstated it on this island, which I happen to own—or hadn’t you heard?’

He was laughing as he spoke, displaying strong white and, needless to say, perfect teeth as he did so. And his hands had begun sliding slowly down from her shoulders and were now caressing her back in a way that was affecting both her mind and body quite disastrously.

‘But all that’s completely irrelevant,’ he whispered seductively, drawing her body another fraction closer while stopping short of actual contact. ‘You see, I’m not the sort of man who would ever dream of forcing his attentions on a woman.’

Hardly something for him to be boasting about, thought Lindy fuzzily, her head swimming with the almost unbearable tension of the excitement gripping her—the problem was far more likely to be one of women forcing their attentions on him.

‘And, of course, you’ll have your own bedroom in this suite until such time as you start sharing my bed—a time which will come only when you choose.’

‘If that’s the case, that time will never come,’ retorted Lindy, trotting out the words in which she had little or no faith simply because she felt the occasion demanded them, and also because they afforded her a few seconds’ distraction from the overwhelming effect his nearness was having on her.

‘Perhaps I’ll remind you of those words when you come, eager and impatient, to my arms…or perhaps then I’ll be too distracted even to recall them.’

‘Stop it,’ she pleaded, the words coming out in a high-pitched squeak that dismayed her.

‘Of course I’ll stop,’ he placated her, while at the same time his head lowered to hers. ‘But first I should like to kiss you.’

‘Why?’ she squeaked inanely, and emitted an even stranger sound as she attempted to clear her throat.

‘Because I’d like to; perversely, perhaps, given that I know you’ll derive no pleasure whatever from it. But, as I say, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a challenge, and your lack of response now will make the passion I shall soon taste on your lips all the sweeter.’

It was then that he drew her fully into his arms, and then that her own rose instinctively to cling around him. Her immediate reaction was of disappointment, and one she instantly transformed into a more acceptable feeling of surprise. It was the unexpected chasteness of his kiss that she found so disconcerting and that made her realise just how terrified she had been of how she might respond. Almost light-headed with relief at finding her fears ungrounded, she felt her rigid muscles relax as the crippling tension that had gripped her for so long swiftly left her. And it was then that he made his move; his arms sliding down her body, his touch electrifying as he moulded her to him, his lips parting hers till his tongue gained entry to plunder and explore the melting guilelessness of her mouth.

And it was in that one fatal moment of relaxation that his body began dictating with impunity to hers; inflaming it into a violence of response far more powerful than anything she had feared. So totally attuned had her body instantly become to his that the urgent swiftness with which potent desire leapt in him neither shocked nor alarmed her. From the start there had been a primitive instinct within her, something that had tried to warn her of what this man was capable of awakening in her and which she was capable of comprehending only when it was too late. But now her body was singing out in reckless joy, marvelling in its magical ability to evoke so unbridled and powerful a response in his.

When, without so much as an instant of warning, he wrenched her from his arms and strode across the room to the huge plate-glass doors leading out to the balcony her reaction was one of such profound disorientation that the only thing she was even vaguely aware of was the sound of her own laboured breathing rasping in her ears.

‘Well, as I said,’ his disembodied and only marginally breathless voice came to her, ‘the next time you’ll enjoy it…perhaps a little more.’

The sarcasm oozing from his every syllable brought the stinging heat of humiliation crawling over her body. Never in her entire twenty-three years had she experienced anything like this…anything as utterly degrading as this! She had allowed herself to be manipulated by an experienced man of the world and had actually thought she was affecting him as devastatingly as he was her!

Anyone would have thought she had never been kissed before! But she had, and with some men had thoroughly enjoyed it…yet never once had she come close to losing control of herself, and nothing she had ever experienced could have prepared her for what had happened to her just now.

She raised her hands and pressed them against her burning cheeks as the sickening thought occurred to her that it wasn’t even a question of having allowed herself to be manipulated by him…she had been nothing more than putty in his hands.

‘My, my, don’t tell me you found kissing me so nauseating that you’re incapable of speech,’ he taunted. ‘Never mind, there’s always next time to look forward to.’

‘Don’t bank on it!’ she flung at him in childish despair, then, wishing she had had the sense to keep her mouth shut and simply leave, she turned and walked from the room, tears of rage and humiliation stinging her eyes as the sound of his mocking laughter floated softly to her ears.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0bd3fc76-7d1e-5f96-b9a8-f45aed3fba24)

‘JUST where the hell have you been?’ demanded Lindy, her aggressive words bringing Niko’s complaint about her language flashing back to her as she confronted Tim Russell on opening the door to the office.

‘Close the door,’ he ordered sharply, glancing furtively past her.

‘I have every intention of closing it,’ she retorted, slamming the door hard behind her. ‘Because I don’t intend the guests hearing the earful I intend letting you have, you low-down creep! I——’

‘I suggest you shut up and listen to what I have to say, because I’ve only a few minutes.’

‘What do you mean—you’ve only a few minutes?’ she demanded, her eyes sweeping contemptuously over his bleary-eyed, ill-shaven features. ‘You’ll just——’

‘It means I’ve a boatman waiting to take me off this damned island,’ he informed her, crouching down to the holdall at his feet and closing it.

Lindy’s eyes widened in startled disbelief. In the two months she had been here, as his petty moodiness had hardened to vindictive hectoring and she had lost all memory of the man she had once believed him to be, she had grown to despise him. As for his qualifications for the job, she had yet to puzzle out whether he was very good at hotel management or simply adept at delegating most things, as he invariably did, to the highly trained staff at his disposal. Her friends had been right in their belief that he was expecting more from her than he had admitted, and she recognised his unpleasant behaviour towards her as his way of trying to punish her for so naively having believed him—behaviour she responded to with open contempt. This vindictive specimen of manhood she could handle with ease, she told herself, but Niko Leandros was another matter altogether, and for that reason Tim Russell was going nowhere without her!

‘Right—let’s go,’ she stated, anger searing through her as he began laughing derisively. ‘If you’re worried about honouring your gambling debts I suggest you send Mr Leandros a fiver when we get back to England—that should just about cover my worth, shouldn’t it?’

‘If I’d known Leandros was likely to be part of it I’d never have got involved in that particular card school,’ he muttered, rising to his feet and hooking the holdall over his shoulder. ‘Unfortunately I’d had a bit too much to drink by the time he put in his unexpected appearance.’

‘Oh, I see. You were drunk, and that makes it perfectly all right for me to be left to the mercies of a self-opinionated playboy, is that it?’

‘Who do you think you’re kidding, Lindy?’ he jeered. ‘You fancy him like mad and make no effort to hide it—a fact that makes me see red when I think of the “I wish men would leave me alone” routine you’ve been dishing out to me. But I’d say Leandros can’t exactly be described as impervious to you, as he’s the one who suggested I stake you.’

‘And how many of you were there in this card game?’ demanded Lindy frigidly, refusing even to acknowledge his opening gibes. ‘Tell me, Tim, how many other of the degenerate gambling fraternity had the opportunity to win me?’

‘He bought the rest of them out of the game—it was just the two of us.’ His gaze hardened visibly. ‘Damn it, Lindy, none of this would have happened if you’d behaved like a normal woman towards me. And don’t try telling me you expected things to carry on between us as they had in England, because even I refuse to believe you could be that stupid!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she rounded on him, trying desperately not to lose her temper, ‘but that’s exactly what I believed—and what you led me to believe. And to blame me for your bouts of drunkenness, your womanising and your——’

‘I hate to interrupt this litany of praise,’ he snapped, ‘but I really have to get a move on.’

‘We have to get a move on,’ she informed him coldly.