LITMIR.BIZ

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turn of her bruised lips, brushed his thumb over them.

      ‘I don’t want a saint,’ she returned dangerously, and shivered at the way his eyes glittered. She’d never wanted anybody, until Pierce.

      Taking her hand, he brushed it with his lips. ‘At this point a wise man would withdraw, but it seems I cannot. Have dinner with me tomorrow.’

      It never even entered her head to say no, but she had no idea just how much her ‘yes’ would change her life.

      She went to dinner with him the following evening, and the hours flew by. By the time he drove her home, she was fathoms-deep in love with him. He was so easy to talk to, interested in everything she said. When he talked about himself, she was so busy watching the play of expressions on his face, and listening to the silky sound of his voice, that she could hardly remember a word he had said, but she was captivated even so.

      He was like no other man she had ever met. Handsome, exciting, endlessly intriguing, he swept her off her feet. Used to being pursued by men who either wanted to know her because of who she was, or who were only interested in adding her to their list of conquests, Pierce was like a breath of fresh air. Oh, she knew he wanted her, as the passion of his goodnight kisses made plain enough, yet at no time did he attempt to rush her into bed. Her response to him was just as potent, but made all the more electrifying for being held in check.

      He chose to satisfy other senses. Every date became an adventure as he introduced her to new and exciting experiences. One day they might succumb to the lure of grand opera followed by a late supper at an exclusive restaurant, the next would find them walking barefoot on the beach, eating seafood on the pier. Yet all the time that underlying attraction was there. He made exciting love to her, but was always in control. Then one evening, when the frustration which had her tossing restlessly in her bed at night made her protest at his withdrawal, he drew her up beside him on her couch and brought her gaze up to his with a hand beneath her chin.

      ‘When I take you to bed, Alix, it will be to consummate a marriage, not an affair,’ he declared huskily.

      As she gazed up at him, lips still throbbing from his passionate kisses, tears sprang to her eyes. ‘You want to marry me?’ she gasped incredulously, because although it was what she wanted she hadn’t been sure that Pierce wanted anything more than an affair.

      He smiled wryly. ‘I rather think I ought to, before my control runs out.’

      Her eyes probed his, wanting to be sure. ‘You know you don’t have to marry me, Pierce,’ she offered, because it was true. She loved him too much to deny him anything.

      His blue gaze scalded her. ‘I know, but it’s marriage or nothing. Or are you saying you don’t want to marry me?’ he accused, and she shook her head swiftly.

      ‘Oh, no! I do want to marry you, Pierce. I love you desperately,’ she cried, flinging her arms up around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.

      After a second, his own arms closed about her. ‘Then we’ll be married as soon as I can arrange it,’ he declared thickly. ‘You don’t mind if it’s just the two of us? No friends, no family?’

      So happy, she rubbed her cheek against his. ‘Mum and Dad won’t mind, just so long as I’m happy.’

      So, without telling a soul, they were married in Los Angeles just a few days later, taking witnesses from off the street, and rushed straight from the wedding chapel to the airport to catch a flight to New York. It didn’t worry her that she really knew very little about him, except that he was American and a businessman. They had fallen in love, and their time was too precious to worry about such mundane matters. She knew he was successful, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he wasn’t. Love, she discovered, was all they needed to make them happy.

      It was quite late when they arrived at his apartment. Alix suddenly found she was nervous. This would be the first time they had really been alone together, and the promise of the night ahead made her shiver with equal measures of excitement and alarm. She had never made love with anyone in all her twenty-one years, while Pierce was undoubtedly experienced, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Especially when he appeared to be in such a strange mood. He had been quiet on the flight, preoccupied, and when he had spoken there had been an odd stiltedness in his manner which she found a little unnerving.

      When it continued into the meal his housekeeper had left for them, but which neither of them was doing justice to, she felt forced to speak. ‘Is everything all right?’

      Without looking at her, Pierce continued cutting his meat, but then, with a muffled oath, he threw aside his knife and fork, meeting her startled gaze with a look she had come to know so well, and which set her heart thumping in her chest.

      ‘No, it isn’t. There’s only one thing I’m hungry for, and that isn’t food. I want you, Alix. I’ve waited as long as I can, but my patience has finally run out,’ he declared gruffly, and rose to his feet.

      She understood then the reason for his preoccupation, and didn’t protest when he picked her up and carried her to their bedroom, nor at the fervour with which he proceeded to make love to her so gloriously. He awakened her fledgeling sensuality with a sensitivity which allowed her to find her own pace, caressing away her clothes, and inviting her to do the same to him. Any fear she had had evaporated in the growing heat of passion, stoked by the caress of his hands on her silken skin, and the touch of his mouth on her breasts.

      He aroused her slowly, taking infinite care, his mouth and hands teasing until she was moving restlessly beneath him, her hands reaching out to touch him. His receptivity, the moaning sighs he gave that revealed the pleasure her touch was giving him, invited her to be bolder, and all her inhibitions faded away. It was not enough, and she told him so with every pleading twist of her body. Only then did he begin to make love to her with an urgency that soon had them locked together, straining towards a goal she had never reached before. When he took her, the pain was fleeting, forgotten as Pierce showed her a world of dazzling pleasure, taking her way beyond herself in a kaleidoscopic explosion which had her crying out, and hearing his own cry echo in her wake.

      * * *

      Alix stirred in the large double bed, coming awake to the tingling knowledge that Pierce lay beside her. Her husband. A warm glow of pure happiness spread through her system at the sound of that. No longer was she plain Alix Petrakos, but Mrs Pierce Martineau.

      Turning her head on the pillow, her lips curved as she studied the back of his head, his dark hair rumpled by more than mere sleep. The memory started an altogether different glow inside her. Their union had been perfect. Everything she had ever hoped and more. She had fallen asleep in his arms, blissfully content. But that had been last night. It was morning now, and all she had to do was reach out and touch him, and Pierce would respond. Her heart gave a skip and settled into a faster rhythm, the fine hairs on her body rising as her nerve-ends came to prickling life. Smiling, she rolled over beneath the silk sheet, reaching out one slim hand to slide about his waist.

      It was a move she never completed, because at her first touch the man beside her jack-knifed away, sitting up, thrusting back the cover.

      ‘Don’t touch me!’ The rasping tones, so harshly alien, shocked her into immobility—but only for a millisecond; then she too sat up, watching in total incredulity as the supple, naked figure of her husband moved away from the bed with a stiff-legged stride. One visibly trembling hand pushed the tumble of long platinum locks from her eyes. Large grey eyes, rimmed by dusky lashes, were suddenly clouded with disbelief and hurt.

      ‘What?’ She breathed the question on a note that hovered uncertainly between hopeful humour and pending horror.

      The tall, slim-hipped, dark-haired figure of her husband seemed actually to stiffen at the sound of her voice, but he didn’t halt his progress to the en-suite bathroom. Gathering scattered wits, Alix was out of the bed in seconds, the sheet she used to cover her nakedness billowing about her legs as she followed him to the open door. He had to explain that remark if he wanted her to treat it as the joke it just had to be.

      ‘Pierce!’

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