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‘Don’t be ridiculous…of course it meant something!’ Ella flashed back. ‘But you wanted me to be something I couldn’t be.’
Aristandros closed a strong hand over hers to force her to turn and look at him. ‘I only wanted you to be a woman, not a strident feminist—’
Ella sent him a flaming look of bone-deep resentment. ‘I was never strident. I was sensible. We wanted totally different things out of life. It could never have worked.’
‘No doubt time will tell,’ Aristandros fielded very drily, releasing his hold on her hand.
The silence that laced their return to the penthouse gnawed at Ella’s nerves. She was already wishing that she didn’t speak first and think later. They were about to share the same bed, and she could barely believe that, never mind accept the idea in the mood she was in. ‘If the painting’s to be mine, I’ll be hanging it here somewhere,’ she told him abruptly, surrendering to a sudden need to bridge an atmosphere filled with tense, uneasy undertones. ‘Because I don’t have anywhere else to live at present.’
Aristandros sent her a sudden, satisfied smile, as if that bleak assurance was a heart warming plus on his terms. ‘You live where I live now.’
An involuntary shiver ran down her taut spine as the level of dependency that that statement suggested continued to chill Ella and her independent soul to the marrow.
The tall, powerful Greek closed his hands over hers to turn her back to face him. Brilliant golden-brown eyes assailed hers. ‘Don’t fight the inevitable, glikia mou. Embrace these changes in your life. You might even find that you come to enjoy them.’
‘Never,’ Ella swore in a fierce undertone.
‘I hear words on your lips that no other woman has ever dared to confront me with,’ Aristandros confided, his deep drawl silky with indulgence. ‘You are truly unique.’
Recognising his triumph at the position he had her in, Ella shut her eyes tight. So, when his mouth came down on hers without warning, her only weapon was her rage. But even as she braced her hands to his chest to push him angrily away she thought better of that move. She had made a devil’s bargain, and now payment was due. While Aristandros kissed her, she stood like a statue, unresponsive as stone. But he played with her mouth, soft one moment, teasing the next, and then hot and male and hungry, until her thoughts were no longer clear and her resistance was breaking down, sensual response beginning to quiver through her treacherous body in an ever-swelling tide.
With a masculine growl of approval, Aristandros bent down and lifted her, swinging her up into his arms with easy strength to carry her into the master bedroom.
Her heart was racing so fast she couldn’t catch her breath. When he set her down, she kicked off her shoes. A soft glide of air brushed her backbone as her dress was unzipped. His sensual mouth was like a brand on hers. The slide of his tongue between her parted lips was an indescribable aphrodisiac that sent darts of heat and tingles of excitement quivering through her entire body. For an instant she was shattered by the awareness that she wanted him as fiercely as she wanted air to breathe. Guilty unease filtered through her, cooling her head for a moment as she tasted the bitter truth that she was weaker than she had thought she would be.
‘Stop it,’ Aristandros growled, scorching dark-golden eyes raking her troubled face.
‘Stop what?’
‘Thinking whatever you’re thinking which is suddenly giving you all the animation of an Egyptian mummy.’
Discomfited colour bloomed across her cheekbones.
‘In fact, don’t think at all,’ Aristandros urged forcefully. ‘This is sex. You don’t need to carve it up into little intellectual nuggets to be studied below a microscope. Be spontaneous…natural.’
‘Natural?’ Ella hissed at him tempestuously. ‘This is the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done!’
His blue-shadowed jawline clenched. ‘Only because you’re fighting everything I make you feel.’
That he recognised her struggle, ineffective though it was, shook Ella, for it had not occurred to her that he might understand her that well. His impatience unconcealed, he dumped her down on the bed. ‘This is sex’, he had said with a detachment that ran contrary to her every instinct. But if their arrangement was to work, she reasoned, she had to stop judging him and wanting and expecting more than he was ever likely to give her. She had passed the last deadline: it was crunch time.
‘How many guys did you say?’ Aristandros enquired silkily, watching her shimmy beneath the sheet until only her shoulders could be seen.
