His Virgin Mistress Part 17

'Why did you not answer any of my calls?' he asked at last, when she was wilting beneath his gaze. 'Do you not think you owed me that?'

Joanna moved her head in an awkward little gesture, 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Oh, I think you do.' He put the beer aside and moved to the edge of the sofa. Spreading his legs, he rested his forearms on his thighs. 'Were you afraid? Is that it? Has your experience with your ex-husband made you wary of getting involved with another man?'

'We weren't involved.' Joanna was defensive.

'No?' Demetri regarded her impatiently. 'You are not go ing to try and tell me you are in the habit of asking a man to make love to you?' he queried drily, 'I was there, Joanna. I know you had never been with a man before.'

'So?' Joanna got up now, unable to sit still under his scrutiny.

'The fact that we had s.e.x together doesn't give you the right to-'

'We did not have s.e.x together,' retorted Demetri harshly, getting to his feet. 'We made love. There is a difference. As you would know, if you were not trying so hard to hate my guts.'

'I don't hate you.' Joanna folded her arms across her mid riff. 'I just think you're attaching too much importance to-to something that-that had to happen one day.'

Demetri's mouth turned down. 'So prosaic,' he said wryly. 'So practical.' His lips twisted, if I did not know better, I might even be tempted to believe you.'

'Believe it,' urged Joanna, her nervous hands now grop ing for the hem of her sweater and tugging it down again. 'I-I wish you would.'

Demetri subjected her to another prolonged stare. And then, when she was on the verge of making a panicked retreat into the kitchen, he closed the s.p.a.ce between them and cupped the side of her neck with his hand.

'So,' he said, watching her reaction with narrowed eyes. 'If I were to do this-' His fingers tightened and she felt her own pulse beating against his hand. 'Or this-' He bent his head and bestowed a light kiss at the corner of her mouth. 'You would not object?'

Joanna trembled. 'Wh-why would you want to kiss me?' she asked, determined not to let him see how shaken she was by his behaviour. 'Have you exhausted all the women in Greece?'

He swore then, but he didn't let her go, and she swayed a little unsteadily under his hands. 'You are deliberately trying to provoke me,' he said, pulling her hair loose of the elastic tie she'd used to control it and sliding his fingers into its tumbled softness.

'But you are wasting your time. I will not let you drive me away.'

Joanna tried to remain calm, 'I-I just don't know why you've come here,' she protested. 'I know you probably think I'm ungrateful for not wanting your father's money, but I tried to tell him-'

'Forget the money,' said Demetri, drawing her even closer and nuzzling her neck with his lips. ' Theos, you have no idea how much I have missed you. It is crazy, no? But I have.'

'Demetri-'

'What?' He lifted his head to look down at her with dark soulful eyes. 'You do not believe me? Well...' he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip '...what was it you said? Believe it? Yes, believe it, Joanna. That is why I am here. Because I find I need you in my life.'

Joanna's jaw dropped. 'You don't mean this-'

'Why not?' Demetri's thumb tipped her face up to his now, making it easy for him to brush her mouth with his. 'You cannot deny that from the minute we met there was an irresistible attraction between us.'

'No-'

'Oh. yes.' He was positive. 'You know it is true. The wonder of it is that I kept my hands off you as long as I did.'

Joanna shook her head. 'You've made a mistake.'

'Really?' He didn't sound convinced. 'So you are not attracted to me at all? When I do this...' He stroked a sen sual finger down her spine that had her arching helplessly against him. 'Or this...'

His free hand slid beneath the hem of her sweater to spread its cool strength against her waist. 'You feel no answering response?'

'I-didn't say I wasn't attracted to you.' she exclaimed breathlesslv.

'Then-?'

'I won't be your mistress, Demetri!'

He let her go then, as she'd known he would. A numbing silence followed her outburst and, unable to stand the anti climax.

Joanna backed away towards the door.

'I think you'd better go now,' she added, groping for the handle, 'It was-good of you to come, and-and I am flat tered that you find me att-'

'Skaseh!'

She didn't recognise the word he used, but its meaning seemed fairly obvious-particularly as it was accompanied by a chopping motion of his hand. His face was dark and ominous, and although his features were still drawn with fatigue, a hectic colour had overlaid his pale cheeks. With a m.u.f.fled oath, he strode towards her, and she had no time to fumble the door open before he slammed angry hands on the panels at either side of her head.

He stared down at her, his eyes searching her face as if seeking answers she couldn't give. Then, with a savage in tensity, he said, 'Did I ask you to be my mistress?'

'No.' Joanna couldn't accuse him of that exactly. 'But you're not going to pretend you didn't come here expecting to-to repeat what happened before?'

'What happened before,' he echoed a little mockingly. 'Oh, Joanna, you have a great deal of trouble in saying what you really mean. Of course I came here because I want to sleep with you.

But our relations.h.i.+p does not only consist of what we do in bed.'

'We don't have a relations.h.i.+p!' exclaimed Joanna fiercely.

'You want me. You may even believe you want to make love with me. But at the end of the day-'

'At the end of the day, you do not know what the h.e.l.l you are talking about,' he told her harshly. 'You do not know how many nights I have lain awake, wondering how I was going to function the next day, never mind take re sponsibility for an organisation my father was reckless enough to put into my hands-'

'Your father was never reckless,' protested Joanna, grate ful for something to say that wouldn't engender any more of his anger. But Demetri wouldn't let her go on.

'My father was reckless,' he contradicted her unsteadily. 'He brought you to Theapolis. He introduced me to the one woman I thought I could never have and then pushed us into one another's company, expecting-' But there he broke off, shaking his head.

' Theos, I do not know what he expected any more. All I do know is that my life has not been the same since you came into it. How can you tell me I do not know what I want?'

Joanna trembled. She ought to stop him. She had to stop him. There were things she had to say to him. But all she managed was, 'What do you want, Demetri?' and with a groan he lowered himself against her.

'You,' he said simply, and in a kind of delirium she felt his mouth open over hers. 'You,' he said again, against her lips, 'I love you, agapitos. And I have never said that to any woman.'

Joanna's head swam at the first taste of his tongue in her mouth. She hadn't realised how much she wanted him to touch her until she'd felt the muscled length of his hard body imprisoning her against the door. She hadn't known her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had become so sensitive, or bargained for the melting softness in her lower limbs that was only accentu ated when he eased his thigh between her legs. The pulsing heat of his arousal stirred against her stomach, and, giving in to the delicious weakness that was enveloping her, she wound her fingers into his hair.

Demetri's kiss lengthened, deepened, robbed her of her breath. Shrugging off his overcoat, he allowed it to fall to the floor at their feet as he drew her across to the sofa and pulled her down on top of him.

'I have dreamed about this, about you,' he said huskily, his hand behind her head, holding her to him. 'But always before I was in control. s.e.x was just a game to be played, and I played it like everybody else.' He gave a groan. 'No longer.' His fingers slid beneath her sweater, splaying across her back. 'Now I cannot think of life without you. How controlling is that?'

Joanna drew a quivering breath. 'I can't believe this.'

'What?' He rolled over with her so that now she was crushed beneath him, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest. 'What part of this do you not believe? The fact that I have been nearly out of my head because I could not get away from Athens any sooner?

Or that I am in love with you; have been in love with you, I think, since your first morning at the villa. You came out onto the terrace and I watched you from the pool. Oh, yes.' This as her eyes went wide with surprise, 'I watched you for quite some time before I chose to make my presence known.'

'Your nude presence,' murmured Joanna daringly, and was rewarded with a rueful smile.

'My nude presence,' he conceded. 'You noticed.'

'How could I not?' she countered, her courage growing. 'You were-well, you know what you were better than me.'

'Aroused.' he admitted huskily. 'You do that to me.' He took one of her hands and drew it down between their bod ies. 'Like this, hmm?'

Joanna's cheeks went pink. 'Demetri, I-'

'Do not say anything,' he advised her gently. 'And you need not be alarmed. I do not intend to do anything to frighten you.'

Joanna brought her hands up to his face. 'You don't frighten me, darling,' she whispered, her thumbs brus.h.i.+ng his lips now. 'I love you.' She paused. 'But I think you know that already. Isn't that why you're here?'

'I am here because I want to ask you to marry me,' de clared Demetri fiercely, pus.h.i.+ng himself up and looking down at her with impa.s.sioned eyes, 'I do not want a mis tress, Joanna. I want a wife. But not just any wife. You. Only you.'

EPILOGUE.

'My father knew about us,' Demetri murmured some time later, drawing Joanna's naked body into the curve of his. Although he had already made love to her he was still half aroused, and she s.h.i.+fted in unknowing provocation as his erection nudged the sensual cleft of her b.u.t.tocks.

'I know,' she breathed softly, but he sensed a certain am- bivalence in the words and wondered if she still doubted the sincerity of his actions.

But surely she believed that he loved her. Theos, he couldn't imagine life without her. Hearing that she loved him had been like having a great weight lifted from him. When he'd carried her into her bedroom and stripped the bulky jeans and sweater from her he'd been sure that noth ing and no one could harm them. Yet now he could feel an unsettling barrier between them.

But why?

'He told you?' he ventured now, praying it wasn't his father who was his rival. A living man he could deal with. A ghost?

That was something else.

'Mmm.' she conceded, heartening him somewhat when she turned her lips against the arm that was cradling her head. 'Philip came to see him. But I suppose you know that?'

'I did hear something about it,' he admitted wryly. 'I would like to say he gave us his blessing, but I would not go as far as that.'

He sensed rather than saw her smile. 'Do you mean Philip or your father?'

'My father,' Demetri a.s.sured her firmly. 'He warned me not to hurt you.'

She tensed then. He felt it. And, needing to see her face, he moved so that she rolled onto her back beside him. In the lamplight she was so beautiful, he thought achingly. Her lips bruised from his kisses, her cheeks pink with a mixture of shyness and-what? Apprehension? Surely not.

'He loved you, you know,' he added huskily, needing to rea.s.sure her. 'But I am sure you know that.' His hand sought the swollen fullness of her breast that was tantalisingly close to his chest, his thumb ma.s.saging the taut nipple. 'He swore he would come back to haunt me if I let you down.'

'And is that why you're here?' she asked abruptly, star tling him by the sudden catch in her tone, and he blew out a defensive breath.

'Say what?'

She s.h.i.+fted again, and his hand, which had slipped ca ressingly over her abdomen, halted at the triangle of moist curls between her legs, 'I asked-' Her eyes were wide and troubled, 'I asked, is that why you're here? Because of what your father said? Because he gave you the impression that I needed-someone.'

Demetri propped himself up on his elbow now, staring down at her with dark, disbelieving eyes, 'Is that what you think?' He made an expressive gesture, 'Is that why you're acting like you wished this had never happened?'

Joanna's face was indignant now. 'I'm not acting like that,' she protested. 'But-but I don't want you to feel that you're responsible for me.'

'Khristo!' Demetri swore. ' Theos, Joanna, I thought we knew one another better than that.'

She looked a little less anxious now. 'Do you mean that?'

'Of course I mean it.' He bent to bestow a sensuous kiss on the curve of her shoulder, 'I love you, Joanna. Me. Not my father. I am crazy about you. How could you even imag ine that anything my father said could influence my feel ings?'

She shook her head, but one hand came to stroke his cheek.

'I didn't want you to think-oh, you know what I'm trying to say.

What with Constantine making me a benefi ciary in his will and all-'

'Hey, I had forgotten that,' murmured Demetri teasingly. 'But it does prove my point. Why should I feel responsible for a woman who is prepared to turn down a yearly legacy of-?'

'Shh.' She put her fingers over his lips and he opened his mouth to bite them instead. 'Don't say any more,' she ex claimed.

'I believe you.'

'In any case, if anyone has a complaint here, it is I,' Demetri continued drily, smiling as his probing fingers caused her to catch her breath. She was wet and he was instantly aware of his own hard response, 'I have tried to contact you numerous times since you left the island, but you have persistently ignored my calls.'

Joanna drew her upper lip between her teeth. 'Actually,' she said carefully, 'you didn't try to contact me for several weeks.

You may have rung me in the last three weeks, but in the beginning you left contacting me to your father's solicitor.'

Demetri sighed. 'All right. I admit that in the days- weeks-following my father's funeral I had little time for myself.

Nonetheless, if you had contacted me, a.s.suredly I would have returned your call.'

'Would you?'

'Do you doubt it?'

'N-o.'