Purchased for Passion: Shackled by Diamonds / A Mistress for the Taking / His Bought Mistress. Julia James
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of your “professional reputation”?’
Leo pushed his chair back and stood up, his hand slashing through the air.
‘Enough! I don’t want to hear one more insolent word from you.’ He relapsed into Greek, and vented his feelings in several choice expletives. Then he stalked away, his mood as black as thunder.
Behind him, Anna Delane sat very, very still.
She wouldn’t crack. She wouldn’t. She would not give him that satisfaction.
Satisfaction.
The word jibed at her with cruel taunting. She could still see it now, etched on her memory, the triumphant satisfaction on his face as she’d opened her eyes to look down at the man who had just done what he had to her.
Self-hatred lacerated through her. How could she have betrayed herself like that? How could she have responded to him, been stroked and caressed and kissed into arousal as she had let herself be?
Until she was helpless, mindless, beyond all control, all salvation.
Beyond anything except the fire that had swept through her body, flamed it to an ecstasy that she had never known existed.
Nothing had ever been like this—nothing.
It had been incredible, ecstatic, exquisite—a stormfire of sensation that had burnt her flesh to the core in a sensual pleasure so intense she had not known it was possible to exist.
I never knew—I never knew it could be like this…
And in that same moment of exultant realisation she had known exactly why she so feared Leo Makarios—just why he was so dangerous to her. She had opened her eyes and realised, with a sickening, ravening horror, what she had done, what she had let him do. What she had wanted him to do!
And he had known it. Wanted her to want it, and what he could make her feel. She had seen the triumph in his eyes.
Self-hatred lashed through her again.
Oh, God, she’d walked to his bed like an ignorant, arrogant fool! Thinking she could stay detached, controlled. Uninvolved with what was going to happen to her. She had prayed for strength, but she had been weak—devastatingly, sickeningly weak.
So pathetically weak she hadn’t been able to resist. Not a single touch or caress; not even a single kiss! Leo had melted her into his arms and she had been able to do nothing, nothing, to hold back from him!
A shaft of fear went through her.
Three weeks, he’d said. Oh, God, she couldn’t last three days here!
Or three nights…
She sat staring out over the beautiful vista of sea and sand as if she were staring at a desert of thorns.
He would do to her again tonight what he had done last night. She knew it. Knew it with a sick, dull certainty. He would take her to bed and stroke, caress and kiss her body until she could fight it no longer. Until her control was stripped from her just as he stripped the clothes from her body, and that mortal, consuming fire would ignite in her again—until she was aching for him…
Anna could feel her body start to respond, feel a prickling in her skin even at the memory of the night that had passed.
Agitatedly she got to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest, crushing down the sensation that was starting to lick at her body. The hunger that was coming to life again, the throb between her aching thighs…
She had to keep busy! Had to do something, anything, to distract her body. She’d already done her morning stretches and skincare routine, using them to blank out her mind as best she could, when she had finally stirred from her exhausted slumber to wake to lacerating consciousness. Sick with horror, she’d bolted from the bedroom, hearing the shower in the en suite bathroom, knowing she had to get away before he emerged.
Emerged to enjoy his triumph over her.
She’d stuck in her room, body aching, trembling with overstimulation, wanting only to sink into permanent oblivion—anything other than face up to what she had done.
But there had been no oblivion—only a maid, insistent, not once but twice, that Mr Makarios was waiting for her on the terrace.
So she had put her armour on. Like one going into battle. Her exercise outfit was hardly the thing to wear in the Caribbean, but it was the only daywear she had brought with her that was not designed for the Alps in winter. She’d tied up her hair, put on the concealing veil of her dark glasses, and gone down to face up to what she had done.
Taking refuge from it the only way she knew how.
And she’d nearly cracked.
So very nearly.
As she’d walked up to him and seen him sitting there, lounging back, the strength of his body exposed in a close-hugging polo shirt, in hip-lean shorts, seen the long, strong sinews of his thighs, the smooth, muscled forearms, seen him watching her approach through lazy, heavy-lidded eyes, she had felt her insides start to dissolve.
He had just looked so devastating!
Something had turned over inside her, melting through her.
And then another emotion had taken its place. A familiar one—a safe one. The safest she could ever have in his company.
Anger.
That was what she had to feel in his presence—nothing but anger. It was the only way she could endure what lay ahead.
In the night, she knew, with bitter self-hatred, she would succumb—could do nothing else, was helpless to resist.
But in the day—
In the day the object of her hatred could be someone other than herself. It could be the man who had done to her the thing she could never, ever forgive herself for.
Leo Makarios—the man she both hated and desired.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEO slewed the Jeep to a halt in front of the villa in the golden light of the westering sun. His muscles ached, but at least his black mood had gone. He’d spent the day on the island’s eastern coast, punishing it out of him by wave-sailing the rough Atlantic swell. He’d thought of doing what he’d done yesterday—inspecting his property developments taking shape on the southern shores—but everything was going to schedule and there was nothing more there to occupy him. Besides, he hadn’t come here to work. He’d come here to relax.
Unwind.
Enjoy some well-earned R&R with a beautiful woman to warm his bed…
His face darkened momentarily as he tossed the Jeep’s keys at one of the outdoor staff and headed indoors. All day he’d deliberately kept Anna Delane out of his head. He didn’t want to think about her.
Now he wondered idly how she’d spent the day. Still sulking?
A smile twisted at his mouth as he sprinted lithely upstairs.
She wouldn’t be sulking for long. He’d make sure of it.
There was no way a thieving piece like Anna Delane was going to get the better of him. His smile deepened.
He would start again on her, right now.
He’d just thought of an excellent way to do so.
A massage, personally administered, was exactly what he wanted.
And after the massage…
Anna lay in Leo Makarios’s arms. She was facing away from him, drawn back against his body by his heavy, restraining arm. His thigh was heavy across hers.
She stared out across the room.
It had happened again.
The fire had burnt through