Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN
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impressed, and rightly so. It is magnificent!’
His uncharacteristic praise stunned Mariella, who stared at him, her turquoise eyes shadowed and wary.
‘Has your sister been in touch with you yet to reassure you that Fleur is well?’ Xavier continued.
Not trusting herself to speak, Mariella shook her head and then winced as her tense, locked muscles resisted the movement.
Quick to notice her small betraying wince, Xavier demanded immediately, ‘You’re in pain. What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘My muscles are stiff, that’s all,’ Mariella replied.
‘Stiff. Where? Let me see?’
Before she could object he was sitting down next to her, his fingers moving searchingly over her shoulders, expertly finding her locked muscles.
‘Keep still,’ he said when she instinctively tried to pull away. ‘I am not surprised you are in so much pain. You work too hard! Drive yourself too hard. Worry too much about others and allow them to abuse your sense of responsibility towards them!’
Swiftly Mariella turned her head to look at him.
‘You are a fine one to accuse me of that!’ she couldn’t help pointing out.
For a moment they looked at one another in mutual silence. She was learning so much about this man, discovering so many things about him that changed her whole perception of what and who he was.
He couldn’t have been more wrong about Mariella, or misjudged her more unfairly, Xavier acknowledged as he looked down into her eyes. Her sister, in contrast, was exactly what he had expected her to be, and typical of his cousin’s taste in women. The more cynical side of his nature felt that, not only were they suited to one another, but that they also deserved one another in their mutual selfishness and lack of any true emotional depth.
Mariella, on the other hand… He had never met a woman who took her responsibilities more seriously, or who was more fiercely protective of those she loved. When she committed herself to a man she would commit herself to him heart and soul. When she loved a man, she would love him with depth and passion and her love would be for ever…
‘Your sister should have been in touch with you. She must know how much you are missing Fleur,’ he told Mariella abruptly.
Mariella tensed, immediately flying to Tanya’s defence as she told him fiercely, ‘She is Fleur’s mother. She doesn’t have to consult me about… anything. This holiday will give the three of them an opportunity to bond together as a family. Tanya and Khalid are Fleur’s parents and…’
‘I miss Fleur too,’ Xavier stopped her gruffly, his admission astonishing her. ‘And in my opinion she would be much better off here in a secure environment with those who know her best, rather than being dragged to some fashionable resort where she will probably be left in the care of hotel staff whilst her parents spend their time enjoying themselves!’
‘You are being unfair,’ Mariella protested, and then winced as Xavier started to knead the knots out of her muscles, making it impossible for her to move.
‘No. I am being honest,’ he corrected her. ‘And when Khalid returns you may be sure that I shall be making it very plain to him that Fleur needs a secure family environment!’
Xavier would make a wonderful father, Mariella conceded, and then stiffened as she tried to reject the messages that knowledge was giving her! After all, like her, Xavier had no intentions of ever getting married!
‘Your muscles are very badly knotted,’ she heard him telling her brusquely as his thumbs started to probe their way over the tight lumps of pain.
It was heaven having the tension massaged from her body, Mariella acknowledged, and no doubt what he was doing would be even more effective if she wasn’t trying to tense herself against those dangerous sensations that had nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of work-induced muscle ache, and everything to do with Xavier himself.
The longer he touched her, the harder she was finding it to control her sexual reaction to him.
His thumbs stroked along her spine, causing her to shudder openly in response. Immediately his hands stilled.
‘Mariella.’
His voice sounded rough and raw, the sensation of his breath against her skin bringing her out in a rash of sensual goose-bumps. Was she only imagining that she could hear a note of hungry male desire in his voice?
She couldn’t trust herself to speak to him, just as she didn’t dare to turn round, but suddenly he was turning her, holding her, finding her mouth with his own and kissing her with a silent ferocity that made her tremble from head to toe as her body dissolved in a wash of liquid pleasure that ran through her veins, melting any resistance.
The hands that had so clinically massaged her shoulders were now caressing her flesh beneath her loose top in a way that was anything but clinical! A savage, relentless ache began to torment her body. The warm, perfumed night air of the garden was suddenly replaced by the aroused male scent of Xavier’s body and Mariella reacted to it blindly, wrenching her mouth from beneath his and burying her face in the open throat of his robe so that she could breathe it—him—in more deeply, her lips questing for the satin warmth of his skin, her moan of pleasure locked in her throat as she gave her senses their head.
Beneath her lips his flesh felt firm and hot, the muscles of his throat taut, the curve where it met his shoulder tempting her to bite delicately into it. She heard him groan as his hand covered her breast, her nipple swelling eagerly against his palm. She felt the warmth of the night air against her skin as he pushed her simple cotton robe out of the way, her whole body shuddering in agonised pleasure as he cupped her breast and lowered his mouth to her waiting nipple.
The pleasure that surged through her tightened her body into a helpless yearning arc of longing, exposing her slender feminine flesh to his gaze and touch, offering her up to them, Mariella recognised distantly as she shook with hunger for him. Wanting him like this seemed so natural, and right, so inevitable, as though it were something that had been destined to happen.
Lifting her hand, she touched his face, their gazes meeting and locking, silently absorbing one another’s need. The look in his eyes made her body leap in eager heat, the sensation of the slightly rough rasp of his jaw against her palm as he turned his face to kiss it filling her with a thousand erotic images of how it was going to feel, to have him caressing even more sensitive and intimate parts of her body. She was, she realised, trembling violently, as Xavier stroked his hands down her back and lifted her against his body so that she could feel its hard arousal. She ached so badly for the feel of him inside her, for the fulfilment of his possession of her, the completion. His mouth was on her breast, her nipple, caressing it in a way that made her cry out for the hot, deep suckle of a more savage pleasure.
In the moonlight Xavier could see the swollen softness of her mouth and her breast, his breath catching in his lungs as his gaze travelled lower, to where the delicate mound of her sex seemed to push temptingly against the fine cotton of her briefs.
The thought of sliding his hand beneath them and holding her, parting the delicately shaped lips and opening up her moist inner self to his touch, his kiss, sent a shudder of hot need clawing through him. In the privacy of this garden he could show her, share with her, give her the pleasure he could see and feel her body was aching for. But here in his garden, in his villa, where she was under his protection, a member of his family… a woman as off limits as any of the carefully guarded daughters of his friends.
His hand was already splaying across her sex, his thumb probing tantalizingly.
Hot shafts of molten quivers darted from the point where Xavier’s hand rested so intimately on her to every sensitive nerve ending in her body. Within herself Mariella could feel her own femaleness expanding rhythmically in longing. More than anything else she wanted him there inside her. More than anything else she wanted him…
Her raw sound of shocked protest broke