The Demetrios Bridal Bargain (15 page)

Rose struggled to catch her breath, her throat ached…he was so beautiful he made her ache all over. Just looking at him burnt her up from the inside out.

Mathieu took the hands extended to him and turned them over. ‘I want your hands on me,' he rasped, his voice as dark as the hot feelings inside her.

A fractured sigh snagged in Rose's throat as he laid her hands palm down on the bare skin of his tautly muscled belly. Breathing shallowly, she raised herself up on her knees and slid her hands up over his hair-roughened chest. Circling his tight male nipples with a finger, she leant forward, repeating the action with her tongue.

His skin tasted salty; he tasted the way he smelt.

‘Sweet mother of God,' he groaned, sinking his fingers into her hair and dragging her face up to his. His hands framed her face. ‘Look at me,' he said thickly. ‘
Dieu
, but I want you, Rose.'

Her eyes slid to his mouth. Just looking at the sensual curve made things tighten and shift low inside her. ‘What's stopping you?' she asked, thinking, I love you…oh, God, I love you.

They kissed fiercely with a bruising desperation, fighting to deepen the contact. Mathieu's hands fell to her hips and he jerked her hard to him, sealing their bodies at hip level, letting her fully appreciate the urgency of his throbbing arousal.

Rose could feel the tremors running through his greyhound-lean frame. ‘I didn't know anything, anyone could feel this way.' Her head fell back as his lips moved down her neck, his tongue flicking across the pulse throbbing at the base of her throat.

She pulled back and looked at him, and he smiled a slow smile that felt like a fist tightening very deep in her belly…Her skin burned in an agony of anticipation as he slid down the zip of her dress and, still holding her eyes, peeled it gently off her shoulders.

When the fabric pooled around her waist revealing her full pink-tipped breasts he sucked in a ragged breath. ‘You are beautiful,
mon coeur
,' he rasped, weighing one perfect breast in his hand before bending his head and running his tongue across first one engorged peak and then the other.

Desire like a flame licked through her body as her back arched. She found the sight of his dark head against her pale skin incredibly, mind-blowingly erotic.

He was speaking in French, the hot, impassioned words spilling from his lips as he pushed her back against the pillows and spread her hair like a golden curtain around her flushed face. He then curved her arms above her head, his eyes darkening as he watched her breasts quiver, the peaks hardening as they lifted.

‘Is this the way I looked in your fantasy?' she whispered, forcing the husky words past the aching emotional thickness in her throat.

He smiled, a fierce smile that thrilled her to the core. ‘You are my fantasy,
ma petite
.' One hand gently splayed across her abdomen, he pulled her dress down over her hips until she lay there in a pair of lacy pants. He ran a finger along the pale smooth flesh of her inner thigh and she trembled, gasping his name as his fingers continued to stroke and tease, releasing a flood of heat that washed over her heated skin tingeing it with a faint rosy blush.

‘Don't stop,' she pleaded when his fingers lifted from her skin.

She felt rather than heard the deep laughter vibrate in his chest, but when he bent over her and locked his eyes onto hers there was no laughter in his face. There was strain evident in the sharp-drawn lines that drew the skin tight over his incredible bones and a hungry, almost febrile glitter in his deep-set eyes.

‘There is no possibility of that happening,' he promised huskily. Then, turning away briefly, he divested himself of his boxers. She watched him through half-closed eyes, one arm thrown above her head in an attitude of wanton abandon.

When he turned back her eyes dropped. A stab of sexual heat shot through her body all the way to her curling toes.

‘Oh, my,' she breathed shakily.

She wanted him so much her skin crackled with it, her blood hummed with it. She couldn't put the depth of her longing into words, but she tried, and she wasn't even embarrassed by the inarticulate babble that came from her lips as he moved over her, parting her thighs and trailing a finger along the silky soft skin of her inner thigh, drawing sharp gasps and moans of pleasure from her throat before moving higher and deeper into her moistness.

A keening moan stayed locked in her throat as she moved against his hand.

Nothing, she thought, could be better than this.

She was wrong.

Her body arched as he thrust into her and a wild cry of startled delight left her lips.

Above her Mathieu froze and, between rasping gasps, growled, ‘Look at me.'

Rose's mind, every part of her, was so totally concentrated on the incredible sensation of being filled and stretched by him, the heat of him, the smooth thickness of him, that there was a time lag before she responded.

Eyes glazed, the amber colour of the iris reduced to a thin strip, the pupils were so dilated, she blinked up at him, momentarily blinded by the luminous glow in his.

He stared down at her, his golden skin coated by a glistening coat of sweat, the sinews in his clenched jaw and neck standing out as he struggled to hold himself in check.

‘You're…you're…'

I'm dying, she thought as her head began to thrash from side to side on the pillow. Unable to bear the pressure building up inside her—there was nowhere for it to go—she pleaded, ‘Please, Mathieu, please…'

Then as she felt him pull back she tried to lift her head and cried out in alarm. ‘No…no, I need…'

She grabbed for his shoulders, her fingers sliding over his sweat-slick skin, then her nails sinking in to hold him.

She breathed a fervent sigh of relief as he slid back into her, not deeply enough to satisfy the hunger inside her, but enough to send shafts of shimmering sensation coursing through her body.

He repeated the sequence again and again, pulling back with agonising slowness, then sinking in each time a little deeper until she could feel the rhythm in her head, in her blood, in her bones—she couldn't separate herself from it.

When it got too much to bear she prized her eyes open. ‘Mathieu, I can't, this is…I need—oh, God, I can't bear it,' she moaned.

He looked into her passion-glazed eyes and a groan was dragged from deep inside him. ‘Neither,
mon coeur
, can I,' he groaned, thrusting deep into her, giving her all of himself.

She responded with a wild cry, wrapping her legs tight around his waist and pushing up to deepen the glorious penetration and the intense nerve-stretching pleasure. Her breath grew shallow and fast as she felt the pressure build, then as the light exploded behind her eyelids she went limp and let the shattering climax claim her.

Mathieu felt her pulse tightly around his length and with a groan let go, and with one final thrust a feral moan was ripped from his throat as, gasping for breath, he collapsed on top of her.

A
S THEY
lay there intimately entwined, in a tangle of sweat-slick limbs, Rose smiled and ran her hand down the damp curve of Mathieu's back.

‘I am the first man you have been with.' Rolling off, Mathieu lay on his back, one hand curved over his head. The knowledge lay like a stone behind his breastbone. He stared at the ceiling as he added hoarsely, ‘How is this possible?' The question seemed addressed more to himself than to her.

Rose, still floating on a cloud of languid contentment, felt the first stirrings of unease filter into her bliss. She opened her eyes to look at him through the damp screen of her lashes.

Back-lit by the shaft of light from the half-open curtain, his tautly muscled torso gleamed like oiled silk and Rose was overwhelmed afresh by the spectacular beauty of his powerful body. Emotion locked the muscles of her throat tight.

‘Speak to me, Rose…'

She lifted a hand to her cheek and felt the salty wetness of her tears. She had not been conscious of crying. ‘So you're my first—does it actually matter?'

Mathieu looked at her in astonishment. ‘Does it matter?' he echoed in outrage. ‘You were an innocent.' He swallowed, causing the muscles in his brown throat to ripple visibly as he fought to contain his feelings, unable to believe she could not understand how this altered everything.

‘A damn virgin…
Dieu
…' He lifted a hand to his head and fell backwards onto the mattress.

‘You were the one who said I'd never had a lover.' Her attempt to draw a smile failed miserably. When his head turned on the pillow towards her she could almost physically see the waves of tension rolling off him.

‘I was being ironic and you knew it,' he bit back before he closed his eyes once more.

He had done everything right up to this point. So why did he have to spoil everything now? ‘I really think you're in danger of blowing this way out of proportion.'

‘Every word you say,' he told her through gritted teeth, ‘is making this worse.'

‘Fine, I won't say anything.' She felt his rejection like a physical pain in her tight chest. Face white, she rolled onto her stomach, dragging the sheet up to cover her nakedness, nakedness she had just minutes earlier taken voluptuous pleasure in. Now it was all ruined, her hot skin began to cool and she shivered.

She had found their love-making so incredible, more mind-blowingly perfect than she could have imagined possible, that it had not occurred to her until he had begun to speak that he had found the experience less satisfactory. Which, when she thought about it, was not so surprising as she had not known what she was doing, but it had felt pretty good at the time.

He dragged a hand across his eyes. ‘
Dieu
, what have I done?' he groaned.

‘You want me to explain? I thought I was the innocent?'

He turned his head, the anger in his eyes smouldering. He looked as angry as she had ever seen him. ‘I hardly think that this is the moment to be flippant.'

The dry laugh locked in her emotionally constricted throat. ‘Believe me, I do not feel flippant. If you expect me to apologise for being pretty amateur, forget it.'

‘You have some explaining to do,' he told her heavily.

‘No,' she said, pulling herself upright. The sheet still gathered around her, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, presenting her stiff, straight back to him.

‘The woman I found in my bed in Monaco was not a virgin.' His thoughts flicked back to the aborted seduction scene, his dark brows drawing into a frowning straight line as he shook his head positively. ‘Definitely not!'

‘How would you know? I thought you threw her out of your bed.'

Rose let out a squeal of protest when with no warning a brown arm snaked around her middle. Clutching tight to the sheet, she fell back across his lap. Lying there, looking up into his lean face, she felt the hunger so recently sated stir.

‘A man knows these things.'

‘You didn't know these things about me,' she reminded him.

A nerve clenched along his jaw. ‘I'm waiting, Rose.'

‘I don't owe you anything, least of all an explanation,' she husked, her chest rising in tune to the rapid gusty breaths that escaped her parted lips.

Her angry contention made him stare. ‘You were a virgin,' he said rawly.

‘Will you stop saying that? It's not like I planned to be a virgin at twenty-six. I just wanted to be sure…' She stopped, aware of the implication of her words, and retrieved the situation by adding with a laugh, ‘And then I suppose I just gave up waiting.'

‘And I happened along. You know how to make a man feel special,
mon coeur
.'

‘Stop calling me that,' she snapped angrily. ‘You've got a cheek acting as if I've tried to pass myself off as something I'm not.' It was painfully obvious that he would have preferred the sexy siren she had turned out
not
to be. He would have preferred Rebecca, which made him no different from every other man. ‘I never said I was that woman—in fact I've never stopped saying that I wasn't her.'

‘But you knew that I thought…'

The condemnation in his manner struck Rose as wildly irrational and it frustrated the hell out of her that he couldn't recognise the fact. ‘And I thought enthusiasm would make up for lack of experience. It looks like we were both wrong,' she countered. ‘For goodness' sake, it's bad enough you're making me feel like a cheap one-night stand, but do you have to rub salt in the wound by making me feel like a cheap one-night stand who is useless at sex? If I'd known that you only sleep with women with a diploma in fornication I would have—'

‘This is not about you being inexperienced in bed.' He looked at her with total incredulity. The women he had relationships with were as selfish as him; with them he knew where he stood. It infuriated him that she could act as though what she had given him was inconsequential.

Rose struggled upright and sat there on the edge of the bed with her back to him. ‘Not much,' she grumbled, trying to imply with her small laugh that she found his reaction faintly amusing. The last thing she wanted was him even starting to suspect that she was totally devastated.

‘Oh, for goodness' sake, can we just drop the subject and agree it—' she gestured without looking at the tumbled bedclothes ‘—was a mistake.' And what a mistake! Her soft lips twisted into a wry bitter smile as she added, ‘I'm not the woman you wanted. I'm not the woman from your hotel room.'

‘I did not want her, desire her…you…' His glance slid down the curve of her rigid spine. His brow furrowed as he tried to tackle the conundrum presented to him. ‘You are identical…Even your voices…' One he desired, the other left him cold. He stopped dead, a spark of startled comprehension appearing in his eyes. ‘There are two of you…
twins
…?'

Rose dodged his now-angry gaze and began to pleat the sheet between her fingers.

Mathieu muttered something in French under his breath, pulling her around towards him with one hand, and pushing back the locks of hair that concealed her face with the other. His hand stayed there framing her face. ‘Look at me,' he commanded, tilting her chin up to him. ‘That woman in Monaco, she was your sister, your twin, wasn't she, Rose?'

Rose nodded. There seemed little point in denying it.

He expelled his breath on one long, sibilant sigh.

‘And she is the one who was jilted at the altar.' His eyes swept her face and Rose gave a tiny nod. ‘The one who went off the rails,' he added, his voice and manner getting angrier with each additional suggestion.

‘She's married now to an absolutely lovely man.'

‘And do you know this from personal experience too?'

Rose shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I don't understand.'

‘Well, you seem to share most things.'

A wave of angry colour washed over her skin as the implication sank in. ‘You have a really nasty mind—you know that, don't you?'

His hands fell away. His head sank forward onto his chest as the layers of implication hit him. ‘I know nothing about you,' he said, lifting his head and looking at her blankly. ‘You are not the person I thought you were.'

‘The person you thought I was?' she repeated, the bubble of anger inside her bursting. This was meant to be a memory, a perfect moment for her to recall in years to come, and he had spoilt it with his interrogation. ‘How can you be so hypocritical?' she asked him.

‘You deceived me and it is
my
fault?'

‘I haven't deceived anyone,' she yelled. ‘I told you until I was hoarse that we'd never met before. And I don't see the problem. Do you normally want to know a girl's history before you have sex? You're a total hypocrite. Five minutes ago you weren't even vaguely interested in the person I am beyond my bra size.' From the direction of his gaze the same thing was still true.

With an angry snort of disgust she brought her hands up to cover her heaving breasts. ‘Oh, I'm not criticising you for being shallow, I knew that you didn't care about me, but to turn around and act as though I have somehow cheated you, well…' She shook her head energetically enough to send strands of caramel hair whipping around her face.

‘You are calling me shallow?'

On another occasion Rose might have been amused by the expression of stark incredulity written on his lean face.

‘I can see why you're so upset. You must have thought I was ideal for your purposes. A woman traumatised by a painful romantic experience.'

Teeth clenched, he ground out, ‘You are suggesting that my
modus operandi
involves taking advantage of vulnerable women?'

Rose was not deceived by his soft tone. She doubted she had ever seen anyone as angry as he was right now. On another occasion she might have been cautious about her response, but she felt strangely disconnected from what was happening as she stared at the nerve clenching and unclenching in his hollow cheek.

‘I'm saying a woman who was just dipping her toe back in the water after getting burnt.' Even as she said it she recognised that you could drive a cart and horses through the analogy. Any woman who thought Mathieu was a little light relief, a safe place to get back into the dating game, would be seriously unbalanced.

‘And you were—just dipping your toe in the water?'

He waited for her response, glaring at her as though this was all some part of her fiendish master plan.

‘I suppose I got tired of waiting for Mr Perfect. You see, I thought I was in love, but he was married and I thought honourable, but he was just using me. I found out the day you offered me this opportunity…' She gave a shaky laugh as her gaze slid across the tumbled, still-warm bedclothes. ‘I really don't think this is what the graduate career service had in mind when they talked about opportunity.

‘I had this mad idea that it would be a good idea to find out about sex with someone I didn't care about.'

‘So you approached this like a scientific experiment?'

‘For God's sake,' she exclaimed. ‘It lasted for about two minutes before I wised up. I admit I was curious what everyone was going on about. What I'm trying to say is I'm not really in a position to judge your motives.' He obviously did not feel similarly restrained.

‘You are not the person I thought you were.'

‘Can you hear yourself? I'm not the person you thought I was. As if you'd know.' She released a hard little laugh. ‘You didn't know the person I was; you didn't know anything about me. What could you know about the person I am?' she asked him. ‘The person I
really
am,' she added, pressing her hand to her heaving bosom.

‘You didn't sleep with me, Mathieu, because you liked who I am or even who you thought I was, because I am the person you have been looking for all your life. You slept with me because I'm here and available and you thought I'd be low maintenance. Well you can relax.'

Her advice did not seem to have any immediate soothing effect. He looked about ready to implode.

‘I'm out of here as soon as I can thumb a lift.' The trouble about an island was a grand sweeping exit was hard to achieve.

Dragging the sheet from the bed, envying him his total obliviousness to his nakedness, she stood up and walked towards her bathroom.

Inside she lasted until she had locked the door, where she slid down the wall to the cold marble floor. Where in a foetal huddle she cried until there were no tears left.

She didn't know if she would have opened the door if he had asked, but her resolve was never tested because Mathieu didn't knock and when she crept out in the early hours the suite was empty.

 

‘You might as well unpack,' Mathieu said, entering the room and glancing down at the suitcase she had left by the door. ‘Nobody is leaving this island today.' Did it make him insane that he would lie just to have her the other side of a wall, soft and lovely and hating him?