JACQUELINE BAIRD - Mediterranean Tycoons - Reckless & Ruthless - Husband on Trust / The Greek Tycoon's Revenge / Return of the Moralis Wife

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.’

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.