Mistress: Taming the Playboy. Sharon Kendrick

ceiling, waiting for her words—the words that women always said at moments like these, when they were at their weakest. Praise, adoration and undying love—Constantine had heard them all in his time. Words which were his due and yet words he often scorned because of their transparent predictability. Yet Laura said nothing.

      He turned his head to look at her—she was lying perfectly still, with her eyes closed and her pale hair spread out like a fine cloud across the pillow. She was so still she might almost have been sleeping—the fading gleam of tears drying on her heated cheeks the only clue as to what had just taken place. She must have sensed that his gaze was on her, yet still she did not open her eyes and look at him.

      Which made the next step easy, didn’t it? An early exit from her bed—which was what he had planned on making all along. Besides, he preferred sleeping on his own once his passion had been spent, and the cloying emotions of waking up with a woman always left him cold. So why the hell was he lying here in a state of indolent bliss, heavy-limbed and unwilling to stir?

      For a moment Laura didn’t move, couldn’t think—her equilibrium thrown off kilter by what had just happened between them. She found herself biting back inappropriate words—telling him that sex with him was one of the most glorious things which had ever happened to her, and so was he. Telling him that she had been a rash and stupid fool to have turned down his offer of marriage and please could she reconsider? But as her shattered senses returned to something approaching normality she knew she had to put some distance between them in order to protect herself.

      Because sex could make you feel too close to a man—it could make you start concocting all kinds of emotional fantasies about that man. And hadn’t she just been doing exactly that? Imagining herself half way in love with him? She should never forget that the man in question had a heart of stone—why, he’d moved as far away from her as possible as soon as their bodies had stilled. And hadn’t he made this ‘assignation’ of theirs sound completely unemotional—mechanical, even? Well, then, pride should make her do the same.

      ‘I think … I think that perhaps you’d better go now,’ she suggested huskily.

      Constantine, who had been mentally preparing himself to do exactly that, stilled. ‘Go?’ he echoed in soft disbelief.

      She risked opening her eyes then, and wished she hadn’t—for in the bright moonlight Constantine lay on the bed like a beautiful dark statue, with the rumpled sheet which lay carelessly over one narrow hip only just covering his manhood.

      Laura swallowed. ‘Well, yes. I mean … Alex might come in early and I don’t … Well, I don’t want him to find us in bed together.’

      ‘How very admirable of you, Laura,’ he murmured, but inside his feelings were at war. He felt anger that she—she—should be the one to eject Constantine Karantinos from her bed—and yet this went hand in hand with an undeniable and fierce approval that she should demonstrate such sound morality around his impressionable young son.

      He pushed the sheet back from his inconveniently hardening body and watched the way that her nipples were peaking in response. He saw the movement of her throat as she swallowed down her desire, and the way her eyes were now drawn irresistibly to his groin. ‘Though if you continue to lie there looking at me like that, then I might just change my mind,’ he said thickly.

      The statement—or was it a question?—hung on the air as she saw the sudden tension return to his body, and Laura’s tongue snaked around her lips, her thighs parting by a fraction as she shifted uncomfortably on the bed.

      Constantine rolled over. Kissed her nipple. Heard her gasp as he stroked between her legs and then slicked on a condom. Suddenly she was urging him inside her, and it seemed like only seconds before he felt her spasming helplessly around him and he followed her almost immediately, his mouth pressed against her shoulder as he bit out his fulfilment.

      But he withdrew from her as soon as the last sweet wave shuddered away, moving from the bed with an elegant grace as he began to pull on his clothes.

      ‘Constantine—’

      Zipping up his jeans, he looked down at the flushed and startled expression on her face. ‘Mmm?’

      ‘Maybe …’ Her voice was tentative. ‘Maybe I might change my mind this time. About you staying. As long as you leave early.’

      Although he was now on the much more familiar ground of a woman trying to inveigle him back into her bed, Constantine narrowed his eyes with a slowly smouldering anger. Did she really think he was the kind of man who would pander to her whims—the kind of man to be played with as a kitten played with a mouse? Wasn’t she in danger of over-estimating her appeal to him?

      His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t think so, agape mou. Alex is asleep down the hall—and until he knows that I am his father, then I don’t think it’s a good idea if he finds me in your bed, do you? Sweet dreams,’ he said softly, and turned and left the room without another word.

      For a moment Laura just lay there, watching the door close behind him, her body still glowing with the aftermath of pleasure but her heart aching with a terrible kind of pain. Had she mistakenly thought that sex might bring about some sort of closure? Maybe give her some guidance about how she was going to extricate herself and Alex from this situation while causing the least amount of hurt all round?

      If so, then she had been hugely mistaken. Because behind all the passion she had felt Constantine’s bitterness, and the knowledge that it could take her to a dark, dark place.

      She must have drifted off to sleep, because when she opened her eyes she was surprised to find it was six o’clock. The house was still silent and for a moment she lay there, reliving the night before and its horribly unsatisfactory ending. She showered and dressed, and spent ten minutes tugging the rumpled bed back into some sort of order before going to the other end of the corridor and poking her head around Alex’s door.

      He was fast asleep, his dark lashes feathering down into two sooty arcs, the faint colour to his skin an indication that he had been playing in the sunshine. He looked really contented, she thought with a sudden glow—and her heart felt a little lighter as she went down to the empty kitchen and made herself a coffee.

      Taking the cup outside, she went to stand at the top of the stone steps at the end of the garden and stood looking out to sea, where the giant crimson globe of the sun was rising up over the milky horizon. It was such a beautiful place, she thought wistfully—and yet it seemed to have its own shadows and secrets. Though maybe every place on earth did.

      Later, she was busy constructing a giant plate of fruit for breakfast, while Demetra pounded away at some dough and bemoaned the fact that the village no longer had a bakery, when Laura heard a rapid clicking sound and looked up.

      ‘What’s that?’ she questioned.

      Demetra paused. ‘Oh, the helicopter.’ She shrugged. ‘It will be Kyrios Constantine, going to Athens.’

      ‘To … to Athens?’ questioned Laura shakily, her heart crashing uncomfortably against her ribcage. She told herself that it was unreasonable of her to expect him to inform her of his movements. But didn’t last night’s lovemaking entitle her to the common courtesy of him at least coming to say goodbye? She could see Demetra looking at her curiously, and found herself struggling to say something suitably conventional. What would a casual servant say at such a time? ‘Er … the pilot lives on the island, does he?’

      ‘Oh, he needs no pilot,’ answered Demetra. ‘Kyrios Constantine flies the helicopter himself!’

      ‘And is he … working in Athens?’ questioned Laura

      ‘Work, yes—and probably women, too.’ Demetra’s eyes crinkled conspiratorially. ‘Always the women—they flock to Kyrios Constantine like ants around the honeypot.’

      The housekeeper’s words made her hand jerk, and the fruit knife she was holding inadvertently nicked her thumb. Laura quickly put it down as a small spot of crimson blood welled up and began to drip onto the wooden table.