The Married Mistress (14 page)

It was a sound of pure joy, of satisfaction at the wonder of sensation that assailed her. But a moment later she stilled completely, shaken into almost total oblivion, when she felt the reality of Damon’s mouth on her skin, his hands at her breasts. He cupped and held the soft weight, lifting them to his tormenting mouth once more, licking, nibbling, suckling until Sarah felt that her head would explode with trying to contain the tumult of sensations that was pounding at her brain.

The throb of her pulse was like the beat of a huge orchestra working towards the ending of some magnificent symphony, layering sound upon sound, building up to a crescendo like an explosion of fireworks, and she felt that her body just wasn’t strong enough to contain it.

‘Oh, please…’ It was torn from her on a gasping cry. ‘Damon, please…’

‘Hush,
agape mou
,’ he soothed her. ‘I want this to be right for you.’

‘It
is
right,’ she muttered feverishly. ‘How could it be anything but right? It’s what I want. What I need.’

‘I want you too.
Theos,
so much!’

His knowing, tantalising hands found the damp curls at the top of her thighs and he pressed his palm against her, holding her. Sarah’s teeth dug into the fullness of her bottom lip so that she wouldn’t moan aloud, but when one long finger touched on the sensitive bud at the centre of
her desire she couldn’t hold back from groaning his name into the mouth that had returned to kiss her senseless.

‘Damon—I
want
you! I want you with me, in me. Deep inside me!’

‘Yes… Oh, yes…’

It was just a raw mutter as one hair-roughened leg came between the slender length of hers, nudging them open to allow him access to the most feminine core of her. He slid between her thighs, hot and strong and so very, very aroused. Clearly as hungry for her as she was for him.

Sarah tossed her head impatiently on the softness of the pillow, her red-gold hair flying over her face, tangling into knots. Damon paused just for a second to tenderly brush the auburn strands away from her, easing the tiny tendrils that had stuck to her parched mouth.

Then, before she had time to think, he lifted his long body up, supporting himself on the strength of his arms, and thrust into her in one fierce, powerful movement.

‘Sarah!’

Mixed in with Damon’s gasp Sarah heard someone give a wild, keening cry of pleasure, and realised with a sense of shock that it was her own voice she had heard. But the next moment she was beyond thought, beyond speech, capable only of feeling as he moved within her, hard and strong, and only just in control.

She was already so far gone that she needed little to push her to the edge of her own restraint. She felt the forceful thrusts within her, the gathering vigour of his movement. She barely had time to snatch a much-needed breath before her body arched up to meet his, her head falling back, her hands clinging to the hard, sweat-slicked shoulders above her.

One more and she was pushed over and into a world of brilliant sensation where lights like a thousand shooting stars exploded around her and time and place ceased to
exist. Where there was nothing but herself and Damon and the wonder of ecstasy that they had created between them.

‘Damon!’ she cried in an aftershock of delight. ‘Oh, Damon!’

And, pushing her hands between their hot, damp bodies, she touched soft fingers to the point where they were joined, smiling against his mouth at his incoherently muttered response.

A ragged heartbeat later she heard Damon groan her name, looked into his eyes and saw the brilliant febrile glitter that burned there. And as she watched she saw his dark head thrown back, the flash of hot colour burning along the sharp line of each cheekbone, his throat corded and tense. In the wide ribcage she could see the heavy beat of his heart, see the rough, uneven breathing that raked through him.

And then he too reached the climax of sensation, taking her with him even higher, deeper, further, until she lost all knowledge of where and who she was and only felt.

Until at last, exhausted and replete, Damon collapsed across, her, dragging in raw breaths, struggling to ease the violent racing of his heart.

She held him, her own eyes closed, her body limp with satisfaction. One hand curled in his hair, twisting the night-dark strands around her fingers, the other stroked the length of his back, from shoulders down to buttocks, unable even now to get enough of the touch of him, unwilling to let him go.

But eventually he groaned, lifted his heavy head, and rolled to one side, releasing her from the pressure of his body. His arms came round her, gathering her close, and she felt his kiss on the top of her head, his face buried in her tangled hair, bright silky strands catching on the roughness of the night’s growth of beard on his jaw.

‘That is what it’s about with me and you, my darling,’
he muttered, his voice rough and thick and filled with dark satisfaction. ‘That is how it is,
agape mou
. How it always will be.’

And Sarah couldn’t find it in herself to worry whether the husky-voiced terms of affection were true, if they were meant, or if they were just bedroom lies, pillow talk, needed to fill the silence of the time after such a violent explosion of passion.

If they were lies, they were sweet little lies, and she would be content with them, hold them close to her for now. Use them as a protection against the time when such lies might be all she had to comfort her.

Because she had no hope, no expectation that the passion that had flared between them so fiercely in the darkness of the night, the conflagration of desire that had burned them up, consuming them totally in its raging heat, was any sort of a new beginning. It had nothing of any promise in it, only the appeasing of a desperate hunger that wouldn’t be controlled.

Damon had spoken no word of love, or a future together. He had been full of ardour and a primitive carnality that had driven them both beyond the bounds of control, but he had promised her nothing. Nothing but tonight, and with that she knew she would have to be content.

If tonight was all she would have, then tonight she would take and try to be happy with it. She would use it to garner memories, to hold them against the dark, cold, lonely days that must come soon. She knew they were, inevitably, just over the horizon, thankfully out of sight for now, but coming closer, ever closer with each second that ticked away far too swiftly for her liking.

Twice more Damon reached for her in the night, the first time before she would even have thought that either of them could have recovered. But already the hunger was
growing deep inside and she responded with the same urgency, the same need as she had experienced before.

Eventually, they slept, but there was one more time, a time when it was Sarah herself who reached for Damon, who took him into her and sobbed out her delight just as the light slowly started to permeate the room. And she knew that for all the rest of her future, no matter where she was or what was happening to her, she would never be able to watch the sun rise, the dawn come up, without remembering this one special night when she had been with Damon in a hotel room in Paris.

Long, exhausted hours later, she finally struggled up from the drugging clouds of sleep into which she had tumbled to hear the sound of rushing water from the shower, and Damon whistling, slightly off-key, in the bathroom.

Hot tears stung at her eyes as the sound took her back to the brief, wonderful days of her marriage, when she had believed it was real. When she had thought that Damon loved her.

Every morning, just like this, she would lie in bed, worn out by the ardour and intensity of their lovemaking. She would hear Damon whistling or singing as he showered. And she would think that she had never been so happy.

But that happiness had been founded on a dream, an illusion. It had never truly existed; never been real.

She knew the truth now, and she would make herself accept it. Damon did not love her. He couldn’t have done, or he would never have used her in the way he had, for whatever reasons.

A buzzing sound forced its way to her attention, distracting her from her unhappy thoughts. It was coming from the suite’s sitting room, reaching her through the open door. It took a moment to register just what it was, but then she realised—Damon’s cellphone.

‘Damon! Phone!’

The sound of the shower and Damon’s tuneless whistle continued unabated. He hadn’t been able to hear her voice through the thickness of the door and the heavy pounding of the water.

‘Damon!’ she tried again. ‘Damon—phone!’

Still no response. Another minute and it would be too late. Already she had thrown back the covers and was hurrying into the other room, reaching for the small silver phone on the table.

‘Damon…’

But it was already too late. With the typical perversity of such things, as soon as she had it in her hand the ringing stopped. She had just enough time to glance at the screen, to try to register the name if not the number, before it went blank again. The caller had clearly given up and rung off.

But not before Sarah had seen the name and it had struck straight to her heart like a cruel knife.

Because the person ringing Damon had been none other than Eugenia Stakis. The woman his father had said he really wanted to marry.

D
AMON
knew that something was wrong as soon as he came out of the bathroom.

He had left Sarah curled up in bed, dozing sweetly, while he took his shower, completely relaxed and totally naked. The woman who confronted him when he finally emerged was wide awake, out of bed, upright, obviously uptight, and very definitely dressed in one of the white towelling robes that the hotel provided for its guests’ use.

And if he wanted any further evidence as to the mood she was in, then the very forceful way that the robe was gathered round her slender frame, belted to the point of her barely being able to breathe, and pulled close and tight at the neck so that not an inch of skin showed, would have given him the message loud and clear.

Not that he needed any such help. The look in her eyes, and the set of her mouth, pulled almost as tight as the belt on the robe, told him that. Something had happened in the short time that he’d been in the shower to swing her frame of mind from relaxed and contented to overwrought and totally on edge.

It was probably another report in the paper. They’d left most of the English Press behind when they flew out of London, but the French reporters had been there
en masse
when they had driven out of the airport, and they’d followed them to the hotel. The story of the Gorgeous Greek’s new English mistress had spread far and wide, and everyone wanted a picture of her—preferably of the two of them together.

But until he knew for sure that that was the case, then discretion was definitely the better part of valour. 153

‘You’re up, then,’ he said as casually as he could, rubbing at his still-damp hair with a white towel.

If the truth was told, he deeply regretted that she had ever got out of bed. He would much rather that she had stayed there, sleepily sensual and warm, with her glorious hair in a rich, red-gold tousled cloud around her fine-featured face, those amazing green eyes clouded partly by sleep and partly by sensual longing. Though if she had been in that state, he would have found it infinitely harder to leave her there, even though he knew he had to. He would much rather have slipped back between the sheets…

‘Yes, I’m up.’

The words were clipped and curt, coming from a mouth that was tight-lipped and stiff.

‘Any reason why I shouldn’t be?’

Ouch! Someone or something had really riled her badly. She was
not
in a happy mood. Which was a pity, because after the night they had just shared she should, like him, have woken up with the feeling that all was well in her world. That it was a day for new beginnings, the resolution of differences, the clearing up of misunderstandings.

Not so, it seemed.

‘It’s just that I thought you were out for the count,’ he replied, tossing the now damp towel onto a chair and crossing the room to where his case still stood against the wall.

He hadn’t unpacked last night and so the clean clothes he needed were still folded away, something that piqued him slightly. If there was one thing he hated, it was suitcase-creased clothes. And he had an important meeting early this morning.

‘You looked ready to sleep the morning away.’

‘Another feather in your cap, I suppose?’ Sarah snapped.

‘Ti ipate?’

Damon paused in the process of shaking out his clothes, putting them on hangers to let some of the creases fall out.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’d like to take the credit for wearing me out with your—sexual attentions, I suppose,’ Sarah sniped. ‘It would be an accolade for your stamina—a feather in your cap, we’d say. Or perhaps you’d prefer the phrase “a notch on your bedpost”.’

‘I most definitely would
not
!’

Damon still didn’t know why she was goading him like this, but it was wearing his temper pretty thin. Already the cheerful, optimistic mood he’d woken up in was fraying badly at the edges.

‘Just what is wrong with you this morning? This time you really have got out of bed on the wrong side.’

‘I got out of bed on the side you left me on!’ Sarah retorted obscurely, making him frown in puzzlement.

‘And just what is that supposed to mean? I only went to the bathroom to shower!’

‘And now you’re dressing.’

She seemed to have jumped on to a totally different topic, with no logic at all in her behaviour.

‘It is usual in the morning,
agape mou
.’

Never once in the past had he ever minded getting dressed—or undressed for that matter—in front of any woman, especially not Sarah. But somehow now, with her glaring daggers at him for her own private reasons, it was a distinctly uncomfortable feeling. And the way she had scowled at the term of endearment was decidedly disturbing. For the first time in his life he was glad when he had his underwear on, and pulled a shirt on over it.

‘And I could hardly attend a meeting in the hotel’s robe—delicious though it does look on you.’

Sarah ignored the blatant attempt at flirting, as he had suspected that she would.

‘So you’re going out.’

‘I have an important meeting to go to. I did tell you that I had to work while I was here.’

‘I know what you said, but that was before the news broke about—about us. I would have thought that you’d rather be out there flaunting your new mistress.’

‘And I would have thought that you would much prefer to stay inside, away from all the publicity.’

‘Great! So you finally bring me to Paris—only a year too late—and all I get to see are the inside of a hotel and the four walls of this suite! Wonderful!’

Oh, was this what it was all about? Was she sulking because she thought that he should take time off to be with her? Well, that he could deal with easily enough.

‘I won’t be working all day, Sarah,’ he said, fastening shirt buttons with swift efficiency.

The attempt to be placatory was ruined by an edge to his voice that warned of the effort he was making to keep a grip on his temper. If she had deliberately set out to provoke, then she was certainly succeeding.

‘The meeting finishes at noon. I’ll come back here then and we’ll go out together.’

He flashed her a cajoling smile, the sort that usually worked wonders on even the most bad-tempered woman.

‘I’ll show you all the sights—Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, everything. I promise.’

Would that appease her?

No response, damn it! No lightening of the sullen frown that had hovered ever since the moment he had first seen her. No answering smile putting a gleam into her eyes. Whatever was bugging her, she really had it bad.

‘You don’t have to bother—I’ll manage by myself. I can find a street map and…’

‘I really wouldn’t advise that.’

‘So what would you
advise
me to do? Sit quietly in here, in splendid isolation, twiddling my thumbs while waiting for my lord and master to come home?’

‘You know what I mean, Sarah! If the paparazzi spot
you they’ll make your time hell. You won’t have any peace and…’

As he zipped up his trousers and buckled the leather belt at his waist he realised that she had something in her hands. Something small and silver that she was tapping restlessly against one palm in a movement that spoke of severe irritation and a worrying inner tension.

‘What’s that?’ he asked sharply.

The repetitive movement stopped abruptly, and Sarah flashed him a look of such mutinous defiance that for a second or two he was sure that she wasn’t going to answer. But then she seemed to rethink and tossed something down onto the bed, where it bounced slightly on the sprung mattress then lay still, gleaming amongst the soft blue of the covers.

‘My phone?’

It was the last thing he had expected, and he really couldn’t understand what this had to do with anything.

‘You had a call while you were in the shower.’

‘You should have shouted for me.’

‘I did—you didn’t hear me.’

‘Well, I’m sorry but…’

He was fastening his tie as he spoke, looking in the mirror. But his busy hands suddenly stilled as he saw her reflection in the glass, caught the look on her face.

It obviously wasn’t just the fact that she had been woken by the phone, or yet that she hadn’t been able to get him to hear.

‘Is there a point to all this, Sarah? Because if there is, I’d very much like to hear it. I really don’t have time for this.’

‘Of course not!’
Her
tone took the description ‘tart’ to a whole new dimension. ‘You have your
meeting
to get to.’

That was just too much.

‘Are you implying that there is no meeting—or that—?’

‘I’m implying nothing. But there is something I want to say.’

With an exasperated sigh, Damon raked one hand roughly through the darkness of his hair, ruffling the locks he had only just brushed into shape.

‘All right, Sarah.’ He flung himself down into the nearest chair, and fixed his attention on her face. ‘Spit it out. Whatever it is that’s getting to you—stop dodging around it and get to the point.’

Well, she’d asked for it, Sarah reflected uncomfortably. But seeing him this way, with his arms folded across his broad chest and that disturbingly belligerent look on his face, she felt uneasy at actually broaching the subject.

She wished she could sit down. Her legs felt disturbingly shaky beneath her. But she much preferred to keep the advantage of height that being upright gave her. So she leaned her hips against the dressing table, supporting herself that way.

‘You had a phone call,’ she said carefully.

‘You already said that. So what?’

‘From Eugenia.’

His sudden start told her that she had his total attention. Unease and distress prickled over her skin as she saw the way his head came up, polished jet eyes opening wide for a moment then narrowing again thoughtfully. The phone call mattered. That much was obvious.

‘What did she say?’

He had recovered slightly now, and his voice at least was well under control. If it hadn’t been for that one, immediate reaction he might have convinced her that he was totally casual about the whole thing. But, agonisingly sensitive to everything about him, she had caught that initial tiny reaction and so was not so sure.

‘I don’t know. She rang off just as I picked it up. All I saw was her name.’

Had he relaxed—even just very slightly? She couldn’t tell. His face was as impassive as if it had been carved from stone; his eyes carefully opaque.

‘She’ll ring back.’

‘I’m sure she will. You must have had a dozen calls from her in the past few days.’

That brought his head up, ebony eyes narrowing sharply.

‘How…?’ he began, and just the tone he used pushed her into a nervy response.

‘I—checked your call record.’

The silence that fell probably lasted no more than ten seconds, but it seemed that each of those seconds was measured out on Sarah’s overstretched nerves. She felt as if someone was plucking at her heartstrings, playing out some ominous overture to a major explosion.

‘Spying on me now, are you?’

The very pleasantness of the way he said it, the almost impossibly light intonation, the easy way he lolled in the chair, were all belied by a new and dangerous sharpening of his gaze, and ominous set to his jaw.

‘N-no.’

‘No? Then what would you call it, hmm? What is it when you invade someone’s privacy, pry into their personal things—is that not spying?’

‘Only if you have something to hide!’

‘And do I? Have something to hide?’

‘I don’t know! You tell me!’

Oh, please,
please
tell me! If I have to know, tell me now. Bring it all out in the open so that I know once and for all where I stand—or, rather, where I don’t stand!

Please, Damon! Please don’t keep pretending. Not after last night! Please tell me the truth. At least tell me to my face that Eugenia’s the one for you. At least have the honesty, the honour to do that!

But Damon’s face had closed up totally. His eyes were
hooded and his mouth clamped so tightly shut that it was just a thin, cruel line.

Pushing himself out of his chair, he snatched his jacket from the hanger on the wardrobe door and shrugged it on. And in spite of herself Sarah couldn’t help thinking how wonderful he looked. How stunningly handsome in the dark blue suit, the crisp white shirt and the sky-blue tie. He had the sort of devastating appeal that should carry a health warning. Certainly it was positively lethal to the shreds of the self-control she was desperately struggling to hang on to.

‘I’ve nothing to say to you,’ he stated icily, freezing every last hope she had had before it had fully time to form. ‘Except goodbye.’

It was like a blow to the heart.

‘What? Just like that? Good— But you said that I—’

‘Goodbye until lunch time,’ Damon elaborated, casting an impatient glance at his watch. ‘I’m going to be late!’

‘Then you—you’re coming back?’

‘I said I would! I promised I’d take you round Paris.’

But that was just too much. It raked up too many bitter memories of the promises he had made in the past. Promises that she now knew had been nothing but lies, or smokescreens to hide his real plans behind.

‘It’ll be too late.’

‘Rubbish! We can see plenty of the city in an afternoon.’

‘Not for that! I mean you’re too late. A year too late!’

‘Sarah, you’re not making sense.’

A dark, dangerous frown drew Damon’s black brows together over his glittering eyes.

‘Just what
do
you want? Do you want me to come back at all?’

Did she? Her heart cried yes, she would put up with anything, endure the worst mental torment if she could only see him a little bit longer. Stay with him for just a short time more.

But rational common sense warned her that to break it
now
was the only way. That the longer she stayed with him now, the harder it was going to be to let him go. She was only prolonging the agony, making things so much worse for her. She had to let him go.

And yet deep inside she knew that she couldn’t.