She fought to keep her eyes open against the surge of physical longing his touch evoked. Callie’s fingers clenched into fists at her sides, the breath catching in her chest till she felt light-headed.
One caress, one touch, did that!
‘Yes.’ His sibilant stretched out in a hiss of satisfaction as he lowered his head.
She should move. Pull away. Run! But her feet were glued to the spot, her will to resist eclipsed by a flood of remembered pleasure.
‘Come to me tonight, Callie. Give me one night and I’ll say no to marrying Angela.’ The sensuous burr of his voice enthralled her. She had trouble focusing on his words.
His eyes burned dark fire as she stared up into his bold face. This close she saw the way his fine-grained skin began to darken along that chiselled jaw. Not by so much as a blink did he betray emotion. There was just that all-consuming sensuality, drawing her closer.
Stunned, she felt her will soften, her body sway towards him, drawn by the force of a desire she couldn’t conquer.
Then her brain clicked into gear. His words percolated through her hazy thoughts. She jerked her chin from his hold, stepping back carefully as if expecting him to lunge for her.
‘And if I don’t?’
His smile disappeared. His eyes narrowed as anger sparked. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re some piece of work, Damon Savakis.’ Callie wrapped her arms round herself, as if to stop the sudden pain that engulfed her. For a moment she’d hoped he felt a little of the magic she’d imagined between them. The reality of his outrageous proposition was too cruel. ‘This is a sick game you’re playing.’
‘No game, Callie. A simple deal.’
‘You think you can buy me?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t play innocent. It doesn’t suit you.’ He raked her with a searing stare that burned her flesh. ‘You’ve been bought before, remember? When you married your late unlamented husband.’
The horrible truth was like a blow to the solar plexus, winding her and cramping her stomach.
That was different, she wanted to scream. I didn’t care about anything then because I thought my life was over. I was hurt and vulnerable and I believed I was saving my family. If only I’d known the mistake I was making.
‘But you’re asking me to…give myself for your pleasure.’
Damon folded his arms. The movement accentuated the muscles in his arms and chest, and his air of lazy confidence.
‘No need to be melodramatic, Callie. I’m not asking you to do anything you haven’t done, and enjoyed, before.’ His mouth pulled wide in a smile of satisfaction that sent the blood tingling through her body.
‘That’s not the point!’ Callie was so furious, so appalled she felt like landing a punch that would bend his arrogant nose completely out of shape.
Her anger was heightened by the knowledge that he was right. She’d enjoyed every moment of their intimacy.
‘Then what is? You don’t want me to marry Angela. Very well, I’m willing to compromise. I’ll take you instead, on a strictly short-term basis. One night. That’s all I want.’
He’d never consider her as a marriage candidate. He’d want someone pure, innocent and gullible for that role.
Callie’s mouth quirked in a humourless smile. That was one thing she’d been saved: a marriage proposal from another arrogant lord-of-all-he-surveyed tycoon.
‘What’s so amusing?’
‘Just relief you’re not offering anything permanent.’
His eyes widened, then he jerked his head up in denial. ‘Don’t hold your breath. A single night will be sufficient.’
‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ she muttered. Her pride smarted at his dismissal. But despite her anger heat flared under her skin as his gaze trawled her, slow and assessing. As if remembering how she looked naked.
Was this how slaves felt in the ancient markets, scrutinised by buyers?
His glittering appraisal left Callie exposed and vulnerable. Yet a tiny, renegade part of her thrilled, knowing he desired her.
‘You’re bluffing.’ She straightened her shoulders.
‘I don’t waste my time with bluff.’ He paused as if weighing her mood.
‘Tonight’s my last night here. That’s your deadline. Come to me tonight, stay as my lover and the deal will go through without a marriage contract. I’ll even allow a fair settlement on the Manolis family.’
He watched her with glittering eyes. ‘Tonight,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘You’ll wait a long time.’
His sensuous lips curved in a smile that did nothing to allay her fears.
‘In that case I’ll look forward to seeing you dance at my wedding.’
DAMON strode across the living room of the opulent guest bun galow, swung round and paced back the way he’d come.
Eleven o’clock.
She wasn’t coming.
Hell! He’d been so sure. Certain that at last he’d find respite from the voracious hunger that gnawed his vitals, distracted him from work and kept him from sleep. He speared his fingers through his hair, frustration rising.
He wasn’t used to losing. Couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t got his way in an important negotiation. And this, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, was important.
Callista Manolis got to him as no woman ever had.
She should leap at the chance to share his bed, hoping for the expensive trinkets a man as rich as he could buy her.
But that wasn’t her game. She’d sold herself in marriage once. No doubt she was angling for another cushy, long-term position. She set a high price on her favours.
Except when she pursued a little casual distraction with someone she thought unimportant, someone she could use briefly then discard. As she’d used him at the beach. She’d been warm and wanton in her pursuit of pleasure. So uninhibited he’d plunged headlong into a passion that far surpassed any of his recent liaisons.
He slammed to a stop, frustration rising in a tide that tightened every muscle. At dinner tonight she’d worn a dress designed to drive men to the edge of sanity, hinting at barely concealed feminine treasures. He’d taken it as a sign of her capitulation.
Instead the vixen had been toying with him.
He lunged for the sliding glass door and hauled it open, needing fresh air. He strode out to the flagstoned terrace then catapulted to a stop.
She was here.
His breath stopped as relief swamped him. It came in a rush so overwhelming he clutched at the door. Dimly he registered amazement at the intensity of his reaction.
His heart accelerated to a restless, arrhythmic beat as he watched her pick her way down the path from the main house, holding her long skirts up around her ankles.
Fire glittered on her breasts and round her wrist. She’d worn the diamonds again. But it wasn’t jewellery that fixed his attention. Each time she passed a glowing uplight on the path it turned the fabric of her dress translucent, hinting at her seductive form.
The gown was long, white, gossamer-fine gathers of fabric designed to look like an ancient Greek dress. Fine gold cords crossed at her waist and below her breasts, defining luscious curves and a slim figure. The neckline plunged so deep she couldn’t wear a bra. The silken swish of fabric as she moved was designed, he hoped, to indicate the absence of underwear.
Damon’s hands itched to reach for her. He remained where he was.
Let her come to him.
‘You decided to accept my offer.’ He kept his voice firm, devoid of the raw satisfaction that would betray his pleasure. He would show no vulnerability to this woman.
‘How could I resist such an alluring proposition?’ The words came low and husky in the darkness, drawing the tension in his belly tighter. Yet even in the dim light there was no mistaking the jeering twist of her lips.
She still feigned distaste. Did she never give up?
She stepped onto the terrace and stood a few metres away, hands concealed in the folds of her dress, chin up, expression glacial. Yet that mask of disdain couldn’t conceal everything. Her breasts rose and fell quickly, making the diamonds at her cleavage shimmer.
She wasn’t the ice maiden she pretended. Soon she’d thaw for him.
‘So what is this?’ He waved a disparaging hand at her long dress. ‘Your virgin-sacrifice outfit?’
Her lips curled in a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Hardly. You made it clear it wasn’t an innocent you wanted. I thought that’s why I appealed—because I’ve got such vast experience with men.’
Callie held her breath, amazed at her temerity in baiting him. She didn’t know whether to be horrified or glad she still had strength to trade insults with Damon Savakis. Part of her cringed at what she was doing.
The impulse to flee kept her poised for flight.
The idea of agreeing to this cold-blooded arrangement made her stomach churn and her mind revolt. She was so inexperienced she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d been with a man.
Her as a billionaire’s plaything for the night!
Yet she had no choice. She couldn’t, wouldn’t turn her back on her cousin. No girl deserved to have her life blighted as Callie’s had been in a contract marriage. Not where all power rested with an older, powerful husband who saw his wife as a chattel, not a real person with feelings.
That thought steadied her nerves.
‘You look stunning,’ he murmured. ‘You know how to dress to please a man.’
Bitterness twisted in Callie’s belly. Alkis had chosen this, as he had all her evening dresses. He’d selected expensive outfits that showed off his wealth and too much of her flesh. Though impotent, her husband had enjoyed making her flaunt herself, despite her protests, or perhaps because of them. He got a perverted kick out of parading her half-naked before other men. As if their thwarted desire compensated for his own inability to consummate the marriage.
He’d revelled in the sight of their tongues hanging out as they undressed her with their eyes. But it hadn’t stopped him lashing out at her in private for supposed infidelities.
Oh, she knew all about dressing to please a man. That was why she hated this dress. It made her feel tainted.
‘I thought you’d appreciate the dress.’ He was like the others, interested only in her body.
‘Tell me,’ he purred in a voice that rubbed like velvet over her bare flesh,
‘are you wearing anything under that?’
Callie’s forced smile froze on her lips as a shiver of trepidation swept through her.
Fear threatened to puncture her carefully constructed mask of indifference. For this wasn’t like before, when they’d come together in a joyous rush of mutual desire. This was something beyond her ken. There was an edge of danger to this situation. He looked so…predatory, as if he wanted to gobble her up with one snap of his jaws. There was nothing warm or gentle about the hunger in his face.
A frisson of stark panic sped down Callie’s backbone.
‘Would you prefer it if there wasn’t?’ Surreptitiously one slim heel slid back on the flagstones, till she realised what she was doing and forced herself to stop.
She’d made up her mind to do this. If she didn’t please Damon it would be disastrous. This way her family would retain their home and Angela would be free to marry Niko.
Only Callie would be stripped of her dignity, and her privacy. Her mind shied frantically from the thought.
Yet after all she’d endured, she’d survive this. One night. One long night. Then she’d be free.
‘I like the idea of you coming to me naked beneath the glitter and the haute couture.’ He shrugged. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’ll find a way to satisfy me.’
Callie’s throat closed on a spasm of horror. How long could she keep up the pretence of indifference? Already she was torn between the desire to curl up and hide and the need to have him show again the tenderness that had obliterated all her defences.
No! She couldn’t think like that.
Tenderness wasn’t on Damon’s agenda. He looked alert, aware, hungry.
His stance was a hunter’s, ready to attack.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ He’d been silent so long her nerves stretched thin.
‘Of course.’ He stood aside and gestured for her to precede him into the lamp-lit sitting room. ‘Welcome.’
Said the spider to the fly. Callie shivered at the carnivorous edge to his smile. Her steps were reluctant but she forced herself forward.
If she didn’t do this she’d regret it for the rest of her days. She would rescue Angela. As she’d wished so often someone had stepped in years ago to save her from making the worst mistake of her life.
That knowledge gave her the strength to slip past him, chin up, eyes straight ahead. She faltered as she caught his scent, warm and intoxicating, and felt a whisper of desire shiver into life. But anxiety extinguished it as she stepped into the shadowed room.
She felt movement behind her and shuffled a couple more paces forward.
The sound of the door sliding closed made her scalp prickle. To her overwrought imagination it was as loud as the thud of a cell door. She licked dry lips then wished she hadn’t as Damon stopped beside her, his gaze zeroing in on her mouth.
‘Would you like a drink?’ He gestured to the bar.
‘No. No, thank you.’ That would only prolong the agony of waiting.
Better to get this over before her craven urge to run sabotaged her intentions.
He stopped before her, eyebrows raised. ‘No? So eager, Callie. I like that.
I like it very much.’ With one hand he tilted her chin so she met his ebony eyes. They gleamed with a heat that scorched her right to the soles of her feet in her high-heeled sandals. The stroke of his finger along her jaw evoked memories of pleasure she’d almost forgotten in her anger and distress.