Jacqueline Baird - Mediterranean Tycoons

Her lips compressed. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise conversation was forbidden between bouts of sex.’

‘Bouts of sex.’ Marcus’s expressive mouth curved into a sardonic smile. ‘Crude, Eloise.’

‘But then you are?’ she snapped back.

She felt his body tense, and his fingers bit tightly into her side, and she saw the swift flare of anger in his deep brown eyes. Then the corners of his sensuous mouth quirked in a cynical smile.

‘If you really think that, Eloise, then your sex education has not been as extensive as I thought. Perhaps I should show you the difference.’ And, flipping her onto her back he hovered over her. Catching her hands in one of his, he pinned them above her head and kissed her.

She felt the latent passion in his kiss, but he went on kissing her, and pinned to the bed she was unable to resist. With hand and mouth he tormented her until she was drowning in something so incredibly erotic that she groaned out loud, and she was incapable of offering any protest as he roughly positioned himself between her thighs.

Her body cried out for him, and in that moment it hit her like a bolt of lightning. She loved him, always had and probably always would. It didn’t matter that he was ruthless and arrogant and felt nothing for her but lust. She knew he was the only man she would ever allow to touch her, and a single emotional tear squeezed from her eye.

Marcus looked down at her and stilled. Hell what was he doing? He knew he could have her, here and now, the act primitive and yet satisfying, and it took all his will power to pull back, his body rock-hard and aching.

Eloise glanced up, her green eyes slowly focusing on Marcus, and wondered why he had stopped.

‘What we share is not crude, Eloise.’ He smiled a ruefully slightly humorous grin, accurately reading her mind. ‘And I intend to keep it that way.’

Marcus watched the fleeting emotions of surprise, regret and finally relief chase across her exquisite features, and accurately read every one of them, amazed at his own restraint and slightly worried. He had never felt protective of his usual lady friends but for some inexplicable reason with Eloise it was different.

He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to know? How long have I had this place?’ Rolling over on his back and curving her unresisting body in the crook of his arm, he proceeded to tell her.

‘My father bought this apartment for me when I spent a year here studying French. My father was of the old-fashioned school, who thought if one wanted to be a player in the world-wide business market, then it was essential to speak the two languages of diplomacy, English and French.’

Realising she loved him made her feel incredibly vulnerable but, somehow comforted by the warmth of his body and the deep melodious tone of his voice, she slowly relaxed. ‘Ah, so that’s why you are so fluent in French,’ she murmured. ‘And the London hotel—don’t tell me he bought that for you as well?’ Such conspicuous wealth was unimaginable to Eloise.

Marcus chuckled. ‘No, I bought the hotel myself a few years later. When I was a student in London I stayed in a hall of residence. It was single-sex and very correct.’

She looked up beneath the thick fringe of her lashes. The sensual curve of his mouth brought vividly to mind how it felt on her own, and her stomach flipped. She didn’t want to like him, didn’t want to admit she loved him, and certainly did not want Marcus to discover how she felt, and she hid the disturbing thought with humour.

‘Why is it I have difficulty associating you with correct and sex?’ she posed. ‘Unless, of course, you’re a secret S and M freak?’ she concluded with a grin.

A husky chuckle greeted her comment. ‘Wishful thinking, darling.’ And, leaning over her, he added, ‘S and M is not my thing, but I will be perfectly happy to oblige if your fantasy is to be bound to my bed.’

‘No, certainly not,’ Eloise shot back, horrified at where her attempt at humour had led.

‘Pity,’ Marcus observed with a grin, his dark eyes laughing down at her, and wondered if she was aware she had the most expressive eyes; every flicker of emotion was recorded in the swirling emerald depths. ‘Still, I think I can survive on straight sex, as long as it is with you.’

‘Straight sex, with a crooked lady friend.’ She said the first thing that came into her head, and then wished she hadn’t as she saw the swift flare of anger in the depths of the black eyes that held hers. Then a muscle in his jaw twitched, a slow smile tilted the corners of his lips again, and he lifted a finger to trace the contours of her slightly parted lips.

‘Forget the crooked part, and be my lady, and I will do the same,’ Marcus offered lazily. ‘The deal we made need not affect our relationship, unless we let it.’ He shrugged a smooth, tanned shoulder. ‘A truce, if you like.’

Pretend the deal never existed. It would be very foolish, Eloise told herself, but with Marcus’s hand slipping from her lips to her throat and lower, she felt like taking the chance. His words had given her the first crumb of hope for the future. ‘All right,’ she agreed rather breathlessly.

‘That design looks really promising.’ Katy stood behind Eloise surveying the drawing board over her shoulder. ‘Inspired, in fact. It just goes to show what the love of a good man can do,’ Katy teased happily.

Eloise grimaced! If only that were true, she thought longingly. But Marcus’s intentions were far less honourable. A lustful revenge was more what he had in mind.

‘And where is he?’ Katy demanded as Eloise turned in her seat to look at her friend. ‘We haven’t seen him for nearly a week.’

‘Marcus does work,’ Eloise drawled mockingly. ‘He has an office on Wall Street, and he keeps apartments in London and Paris, but his home base is in Greece. And hopefully, if we all work a bit harder, we might end up with three or four outlets as well.’ She diverted Katy from any more personal questions by asking how the latest designs were selling.

It was over a month since she had returned from Paris. The week in Paris had been a revelation to Eloise, and she blushed at the thought. She’d spent most of it in Marcus’s wide bed. They’d eaten out occasionally, and he’d insisted on taking her shopping and spending a fortune on clothes for her. She’d tried to stop him, pointing out she had only been joking when she suggested he buy her clothes, and in any case she was only going to be with him for one year.

His short reply was to remind her of their truce.

On returning to London, he’d insisted on accompanying her to her apartment. She hadn’t wanted him in her own home, and she certainly hadn’t wanted him to make love to her there, but he did. She couldn’t sleep in her own bed at night without thinking of him sharing it with her.

The next evening he had called, supposedly to take her out to dinner; instead, she had landed up in the king-sized bed in his London penthouse, and dinner was a cheese sandwich before, at her insistence, she returned to her own home.

In the ensuing weeks, he had behaved as far as Katy and Harry were concerned as the perfect suitor for their friend, handsome, sexy but more than that—he was caring and concerned, and his input in the business had been invaluable. He had a wonderful sense of humour. Eloise had watched him joking and laughing with Jeff and Julian, and Katy and Harry; they had all dined frequently together, and according to all of them Marcus was wonderful.

He was the same with everyone; even baby Benjamin gurgled when Marcus appeared. Eloise kept reminding herself, he was a master manipulator and a devious swine—but, God help her, even as she hated him for what he was doing to her, she was finding it harder and harder to retain a semblance of distance from the man. Every night that she spent in his bed, when he made love to her with a passion, tenderness, or simply a ravishing hunger, it became more difficult to hold back the words of love she ached to say.