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She clung gratefully to that separate room, her own private space, like a child counting and re-counting those last few precious days of a school holiday, because she had seen the way he looked at her from time to time, seen it and instinctively known what that look meant. He was a normal, virile male, after all, and she was his wife.
But if he was going to be tetchy because there was another week to go before he could, with honour, claim his conjugal rights—the very phrase made her squirm- then she didn't know how she could bear it. And she didn't know how she would bear it when she would be expected to share his bed. Close her eyes and think of England, she supposed! And--
'Eeek!' she yelped, her dreary thoughts sharply interrupted by a sensation of cold squelchiness, then of warmth and strength as Jude's hand began to massage sun-cream into the soft, heated skin of her naked midriff.
'I can do that!' she gabbled, galvanised into action and struggling to sit up. A mistake, she realised; h
is hand was now trapped between her updrawn thighs and her breasts.
Smoky grey eyes, wide behind dark lenses, winged sideways apprehensively, met his, and held. His ebony- fringed eyes were as blue as the improbably blue sea that sucked at the shore and, like the sea, contained small depths of clear emerald, brilliant flecks of light. The glinting lights of laughter, damn it!
He was laughing at her, not openly, but inside—which made it worse.
Laughing at her foolishly coy and virginal behaviour, making her feel foolish, clumsy and gauche.
•I know you can do it.' His husky voice came close to her ear, his breath fanning her skin as he leaned forward, prising his hand from its softly sensual trap and laying her prone on the towel again. 'But so can I, so why not just stop twittering, and lie back and enjoy?' he added, his words pricking her mind on different levels.
Other than lashing at him with hands and feet, there was nothing she could do. And fighting him physically would achieve exactly nothing. He could,-if he wished, flatten her with one hand, the muscled Strength of his naked torso left her in no doubt about that at all! Besides, it would be undignified, and it would make him think he had a hell-cat for a wife. He didn't deserve that.
And so she gritted her teeth and endured, and closed her eyes and tartly reminded herself that she had to get used to such liberties, liberties that in exactly one week's time would sharply escalate up the scale of intimacy!
They had made a bargain and she had too much respect for him, and for herself, not to keep her side of it, and she wondered whether to try self-hypnosis. Not very hopeful as to the outcome, especially when the self-prescribed treatment was instigated in a moment of panic, but willing to try anything, she silently repeated, 'I will be a good wife. I will. I will.' And eventually the silent exhortation assumed the soothing rhythm of the sea, of the gentle pressure of his hands as he massaged the cream on to her long, slender legs.
A pulse began to flutter in her throat as his fingers feathered the soft skin of her inner thigh, accelerating as his plundering fingers took more than was honest when they slid a little way beneath the fabric of the tiny triangle which made the bottom half of her bikini. Agonisingly, she felt every muscle and sinew of her body clench in a spasm of purely instinctive rejection, but the thieving fingers moved onwards, towards more legitimate areas, covering the flat plane of her stomach, the soft flare of her hips, the arch of her ribcage.
And to Cleo it suddenly began to feel like nothing she had ever experienced before. Frightening—but obviously not frightening enough! Her mind told her to defend herself against the marauder, but her body had definite ideas of its own, was acquiescent, limpid. And she was drowning in something warm and deep, and not really painlessly because her lungs felt tight, as if she , should be gasping for air, and her heart was pattering wildly... And any self-defensive thoughts she might have had were being subdued by his lean, knowing hands, and she knew that if she allowed herself to relax, by just that necessary fraction, she would be completely and utterly subjugated...
When his fingers found the front fastening of her bra top, moving aside the two small halves to expose the twin rounded peaks to the sun, to his eyes, to his hands, she made an effort to protest, to tell him, acidly, that she was unlikely to get sunburned just there, especially if he could refrain from interfering with her clothing! But the words just wouldn't come out coherently. They emerged thickly, like a moan, a moan of pleasure. And as she felt her nipples harden as a tug of something sweet yet achingly fierce flared to life deep inside her, she knew that the fraction of relaxation had been achieved, that the erotic, wordless lovemaking of his hands had dissolved the very last barrier... He was her man, her mate, and she wanted him as she had never wanted anything before. And without conscious design her body arched sensually beneath his hands, a blatant invitation, and he said, 'That should do it.'
The clipped, disinterested tones came as if from a very great distance and it was several seconds before Cleo realised that the sweet ache inside her, the sensual and unstoppable need he had aroused, was to remain an ache. A sour ache.
He was standing up now, his lithe body taut, a glistening bronze masterpiece in the bright Greek sunlight, to tally imperious and quite unmoved by what had happened to her because, quite obviously, nothing had happened to him.
He began to unzip his shorts and Cleo closed her eyes, her throat tightening as he told her blandly, 'I'm going for a swim. See you.' And when she opened her eyes again he had gone.
She searched the water and found him, cleaving through the deep blue depths in a powerful crawl, and she scrambled to her feet, her fingers shaking as she re- fastened her bra top then gathered her things together, pushing them in her beach bag.
Her face was burning, and it wasn't from the effects of the sun. It was shame.
Shame and humiliation both. He, no doubt bored by this empty charade of a marriage, but bound by his agreement to her stipulation, and irritated to the point of exasperation by the way she had previously skittered nervously away from the slightest physical contact, had taken the opportunity to demonstrate just how he could, if he wished, subdue her.
And he had done so, and to add the final telling insult had walked away, showing her how completely unmoved he was by her obvious arousal. He could take her or leave her—that was the message his actions had transmitted, loud and clear.
She didn't think she would ever forgive him for that. Ever. And the ease with which he had physically dominated her would make her shy away from him in the future more than ever before!
Back at the white one-storey villa Cleo helped herself to a tall glass of fresh lemon juice from the jug in the fridge, gulping it down thirstily, her stormy eyes darting around the cool gleaming kitchen as if she expected someone to leap out of the shadows and attack her.
Someone? Jude, of course! His hands on her body had been a form of attack—insidious, almost unbearably erotic, but an attack all the same!
But gradually she relaxed, her eyes calmer, her hands almost steady as she rinsed her glass. Jude would be back on the beach, or still swimming. Either way, she had again put distance between them. However, a nasty little voice intoned maliciously, deep in her brain, she wouldn't always be able to keep her distance. And he wouldn't always draw back at the moment of capitulation, not if he wanted children, he wouldn't.
And beginning a family had been the reason he had decided to marry, and the Slade Securities shares had meant that she had been the woman he had chosen to bear his children. Suddenly, the idea was mortifying. She had thought she was doing the right and sensible thing when she'd suggested they marry, but now she wasn't so sure. She seemed to be pulling herself out of one mess, only to find herself entangled in one which was worse!
She had always admired Jude for his ability to remain aloof, cool, and for the way he was always in total control. But as she flounced from the kitchen and down a cool corridor to her room she could see the other side of that ability of his—the darker, cruel side.
The way he had shown her how he could bring her to the point of begging for his lovemaking—despite the absence of the love she had always believed to be essential—had left her shaking with unfulfilled need and self-disgust.
A potent mixture, poisonous. And that very ability of his, which she had once so admired, now sickened and frightened her.
