Jacqueline Baird - Mediterranean Tycoons

Eloise slid her hand down the indent of his spine, felt him shudder, and clenched his buttocks, needing him to move, to ease the intolerable tension, but he stayed fast.

Lifting his dark head, black eyes burning down into hers. ‘You make me…’ but whatever he had been going to say was lost as Eloise involuntarily clenched and tightened her legs around him.

He moved hard and fast and Eloise naturally, wantonly picked up the furious rhythm and was spun into a world of pure sensation that exploded in a shattering conflagration like a star going nova. She clung to him, whimpering cries escaping from her.

Marcus, his breathing audible, stared down into her dazed green eyes, and slowly eased from her allowing her limp body to sink back on the bed. His dilated black eyes still fixed to her, he rolled off her and, brushing her lips with his, he leant on one elbow and stared down at her in silence for a long moment, his large hand stroking down her still-quivering body with a tactile delight.

‘Exquisite,’ Marcus murmured softly. ‘I have never seen you totally naked in the light of day,’ and he dropped another kiss on her brow.

Only then did Eloise realise it couldn’t be more than three in the afternoon, the summer sun was shinning though the window, lighting every corner of the bedroom, and she was stark naked with a man who was her enemy. ‘Oh.’ Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her breasts.

Marcus’s narrowed gaze swept her hectically flushed face, and lower to her defensive arms over her chest, and then he burst out laughing.

‘What’s the joke?’ she demanded, and with a speaking glance Marcus led his gaze linger on her folded arms, and lower to where his long leg lay over her lower body, then back to her face.

‘A bit late to be bashful, darling.’ Marcus fought to restrain his laughter. ‘After what we’ve just done.’

Eloise saw the humour in her defensive action, and chuckled. ‘Yes, well, I am shy.’

‘You can certainly act shy,’ Marcus drawled and, lifting a finger, he traced the smiling curve of her mouth. ‘But, thankfully—’ he surveyed her with delighted masculine satisfaction ‘—in bed you are the most wonderfully passionate, sexy woman. I can’t get enough of you.’

Eloise almost laughed again, but it was with sick humour. If only he knew since the age of twenty she had never looked at a man. Before that, Marcus himself had been the only male she had allowed to touch her and he still was….

Marcus scanned her naked body spread out before him, and let his finger trail from her mouth to circle the areolae of her breasts; he felt her tremor and, lifting his dark head, he scrutinised her with a reawakening of desire. A tiny muscle pulsed at the corner of his mouth. ‘I doubt I will ever have enough of you,’ he breathed.

Held by his darkening eyes, she was shaken by his unconcealed passion, and tore her gaze away to look somewhere over his shoulder. To believe him would be the road to hell, she knew. She could not let her guard down, but as he once more took her mouth in a hot hungry surge of passion Eloise caved in. Her hands gripped his smooth shoulders, and skimmed over the tautness of the muscles flexing in his back and, closing her eyes, she bowed to the inevitable.

‘You are so hot, so tight,’ Marcus rasped as once more he drove her to the heights and, groaning her name, he thrust deeply into her one last time, felt her come and then jerked violently with the force of his own release.

MARCUS flopped over onto his back carrying her with him, folding her in his arms so tenderly, for a second Eloise felt as she had the very first time they made love. But not quite… Then she had felt as though they were one single identity bound by love. Now she knew better…

Her mouth pressed a brief caress against his bronzed chest, breathing in the hot, moist scent of him. Then she lifted her head and collided with slumberous dark eyes. ‘I need the bathroom,’ she said prosaically and wriggled from his hold.

Standing in the shower cubicle, the warm spray beating down on her, Eloise tried to come to terms with what she had done, but before she could get her chaotic emotions in any kind of order, the door of the shower stall opened and Marcus appeared. Very tall and broad but without an inch of fat on his muscular frame, his black hair and eyes gleaming, he was magnificently male and incredibly gorgeous.

‘Allow me,’ he chuckled, knowing exactly what she was thinking, and took the soap from her numb fingers.

What followed was a lesson in sensuality that left Eloise weak as a kitten, and clinging limply to his wide shoulders as he carried her to the bed and tucked her in.

She groaned and rolled over on the wide bed, fighting the demons in her mind, and suddenly opened her eyes. It was dark, and for a moment she did not know where she was; then she remembered. She glanced across the bed. She was alone.

Five minutes later, dressed and with her hair combed back in a ponytail, she nervously made her way into the sitting room. Marcus was at the desk, a laptop computer open in front of him, obviously working.

What did one say after spending all afternoon in bed with a man? she thought despairingly. ‘I think I’d better be going now,’ was the best she could come up with.

Marcus spun around in his seat. ‘Eloise, you’re awake,’ and, getting to his feet, in two lithe strides he was beside her. ‘And you’re not going anywhere. I’ve cancelled your hotel room.’ With a wave of his hand, he indicated a suitcase on the floor. ‘And arranged for your clothes to be sent here. It makes more sense to stay here while we are in Paris.’ As he bent his head she knew he was going to kiss her.

Evading his mouth, she stiffened angrily. ‘You…you have…my hotel room.’ She could not get the words out, she was so mad at his high-handedness. ‘How dare you?’ she finally snapped. ‘You had no right.’

Marcus stilled and studied her beneath hooded dark eyes. ‘I have every right, Eloise. You gave me the right yesterday when you accepted my terms to keep you out of court.’

Reminded with such brutal candour of their deal, Eloise paled. ‘I see.’ And she did—he held all the cards and he was the sort of man that always won. ‘But what will I tell Katy?’ she murmured under her breath, but he heard her.

‘I’ll take care of Katy and Harry,’ he said arrogantly.

With the same speed and cunning as he had taken over her life, no doubt. Pride alone made her square her shoulders and face him. ‘I suppose it will be more convenient for the brief time I am in Paris,’ she agreed, and, with a burning desire to hit back at him, she added with mock sweetness, ‘after all, why should I spend my money on a hotel bill when I am a wealthy man’s mistress? In fact I could do with some new clothes. I didn’t bring much with me, because I thought I was only staying a couple of nights.’

Marcus had the gall to laugh. ‘That’s what I like about you, Eloise. Even when you’re down you’re never out.’

‘Pig,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to unpack.’ She brushed past him to get to her suitcase.

But later that evening, once more in the wide bed, with Marcus, pig was not the word that sprang to mind. Eloise had to clench her teeth to hold back the words of love that hovered on her tongue, and repeat over and over in her head no emotional involvement.

When she finally had the breath to speak and her emotions under control she asked casually, ‘How long have you had this place?’

A husky chuckle greeted her enquiry, and held firm against the side of his mighty body, she glanced sideways up at him. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You, Eloise. Together, we have just experienced mind-blowing sex.’ Amused dark eyes rested quizzically on her lovely face. ‘And you come out with a mundane question like that.’