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She bucked against him in a vain attempt to dislodge him. 'Get off me, you great hulking brute. I hate you!* Her quick temper and sheer terror made her strite at him with anything she could think of. 'My God, you. and your Greek heritage! Family! What a laugh! Even your own mother is afraid of you; for years you've made her suffer with relatives she can't abide.'
If she'd thought he was angry before, that was nothing compared to his reaction now. . .
Alex's head jerked back and he stared down at her in violent black fury, his eyes flaming with rage. His grip tightened on her wrists, forcing a low cry from fer. 'Wrong move, Saffron,' he grated between histeeth, his dark head bending lower, and Saffron felt herself begin to tremble. 'You will not distract me with wild accusations. I intend having you, and you must have realised by now that I usually get what I want in the end.'
'However low you have to stoop to do it?' she cried unwisely, but fear and anger mingled with sheer panic made her forget all caution. 'About what I would have expected from a man no better than a pimp,' she added, dredging up a last few grains of defiance.
He did not notice her panic, only the derision in her words. 'Don't ever, ever call me that again if you value your life!' he snarled, and his hand reached out to tangle in her hair, jerking her head up towards him, his face only inches from her own. For a long moment he stared into her glittering angry eyes, a muscle jerking in his cheek.
"The truth hurts,' she managed to fight back.
'You are either a fool or a very brave woman,' he snarled, like a tiger about to pounce.
She looked at him with bitter resentment. As far as Alex was concerned she was a fool; she had known she was beaten from that day on Mykonos only she'd had too much pride and been too afraid to admit it.
His mouth fastened on hers brutally, kissing her with savage fury, and she moaned in pain and, more humiliatingly, aching longing. Sensing her reluctant response, his lips gentled, his mouth searched hers and his long fingers tightened their hold on her.
His breath seared her mouth and down the vulnerable curve of her throat. 'You are going to give me what I have paid for, my sweet wife.* He looked at her, his lips curved in a deadly smile, then his head lowered to her breast.
'I'm not. . .' she choked almost incoherently as his teeth bit lightly at her breast; he blatantly watched the nipple swell and tighten and then glanced knowingly up at her flushed face.
'You will, but don't worry—I won't take anything you aren't prepared to give.' His breathing had deepened but he spoke with a deadly calm that was more terrifying than his earlier rage. 'You have led me a merry dance. No woman has ever succeeded in doing that to me, and neither will you.'
Her heart racing, Saffron realised it was the devil in him talking, the powerful, cynical businessman against whom she had never stood a chance and whom she had been the biggest fool in Christendom even to try to outwit. Already she could feel a sweet tide of pleasure she couldn't resist flowing through her veins, and as his head lowered again, his tongue flicking lightly over the tip of her breast, she gasped and felt her body yielding itself to him in trembling anticipation, his to do with as he wanted, even as her mind tried to deny the ease with which he aroused her. She flinched as he raised his head to watch her.
'I did not mean to bite. There; I've kissed you better,' he said silkily, his free hand covering her other breast and squeezing gently. Saffron arched beneath him in helpless response, and his black eyes held hers, a glint of mockery in their fiery depths.
'It is time to pay the piper,' he rasped as his mouth claimed hers once more. For a second she offered a token resistance, clenching her teeth, but it did not last. His long, supple fingers played with the hard tip of her breast and her lips parted on a low moan, giving him the access he sought.
His kiss hardened, his tongue dancing in and out of every moist, secret coma: of her mouth, while his hand taunted and teased, stroking down over her belly and beneath her briefs and garter belt, her only remaining clothes, to the soft red hair at the juncture of her thi
ghs.
'Stockings. My favourite,' Alex said, kissing her navel. 'Hardly virginal,' he mocked, glancing up at her glazed eyes. 'Another little ruse, no doubt,' he grated as with slow deliberation he peeled her panties and stockings from her legs, kissing his way down and back up their shapely length, then once more finding her mouth.
Saffron knew she should fight, but had no will left; the blood pounded thick and hot through her veins, every nerve pulled taut with passion. Alex was an expert lover and his touch, the scent of him, the brush of skin on skin, the subtle play of his long fingers over her quivering, aching flesh melted her bones. He was so large, so powerful; the scent of Mm filled her nostrils and his touch filled her mind and heart to the exclusion of all else.
She was not aware that he had freed her hands until she felt the strength of his broad shoulders beneath her fingertips. She began caressing him in urgent need. Her lips parted and she whimpered as she felt the steel-hard weight of him against her thigh, while with mouth and tongue he teased and tormented her, kissing every inch of her soft flesh.
'Saffron, my spicy Saffron,' he growled as he showered kisses back down her stomach, trailing his hands over her burgeoning breasts and down. He nudged her legs apart with one hard-muscled thigh then trailed kisses along her hipbone, and she cried out as his wicked fingers delved in the heart of her womanhood and his kiss became too intimate to endure.
Soon she was twisting and gasping, her hands clenching the sheet as her body arched in a bow, seeking, needing only the fulfilment that Alex could give her.
Suddenly he was over her again, his broad chest hard against her breast. His mouth moved insistently over hers with renewed passion, ravaging in its ruthless possession. She felt a brief flare of pain as he swiftly urged her legs wider apart and slid between them. She stiffened slightly but he was having none of it. His large hands curved under her buttocks and lifted her from the bed as he came down, letting her take his whole weight as he moved fiercely into her in one driving thrust. . .
She cried out with the pain and Alex reared back. She looked straight into his eyes, and for a second she thought she registered regret, then his head lowered, his lips took hers in a strangely soothing, achingly tender kiss and amazingly she was no longer hurting, her slender sheath clenching around his rigid, pulsing length.
'Yes, yes!' he encouraged hoarsely. 'I won't hurt you again. Relax,' he breathed into her open mouth. One strong hand supporting his weight, he curved the other up her back and around her shoulder, still joined but rocking her in his embrace. 'That's it, my little witch; go with it.' As he spoke he eased her back down and moved slowly inside her, his head bent to kiss her in a long, hot, open-mouthed kiss, his tongue following the rhythm of their bodies.
Saffron gasped as she felt her body absorbing and adjusting to Alex's, then cried out as the slow, lazy rhythm picked up speed, his hardness filling her until she cried out again, frightened by her own fervent response. Her small hands curved around and up his back, her fingere digging into his satin-smooth skin, her legs instinctively lifting, clamping high around his waist. She closed her eyes tight, her body clenching in what seemed like anguished pain as Alex, dark and all-powerful, swept her into a maelstrom of feelings and sensations she had never imagined possible. Her body finally convulsed in a shattering climax that went on and on, in wave after wave of storming ecstasy.
Then Alex, with a 'God!' groaned out in a hoarse, breathless sigh, shuddered, his huge body going rigid, before he collapsed on top of her, his heartbeat racing with hers, and he trembled, as Saffron did, for long moments afterwards.
Eventually Saffron, the fires which had consumed her slowly dying down, felt a curious exhaustion, and an emptiness in her heart that brought moisture to her eyes. Alex rolled off her and lay flat on his back, an arm thrown over his eyes, his mighty chest still heaving. The rasping sound of his breathing was the only noise in the brightly lit room. She glanced sideways at him and quickly away, the lengthening silence a testimony to the chasm that lay between them even when they had been as intimate as it was possible for two people to be.
With a choked sob, she slid off the bed and stumbled towards the bathroom. She was surprised but strangely unconcerned when Alex followed her, curving his arm around her waist.
'Allow me.' She stood motionless in his hold as he turned on the taps and they both watched the large bath slowly fill. 'Are you ah right?' he asked tersely, lifting her in his arms and depositing her gently in the warm water.
