Alien Vengeance (11 page)

‘The perfume you brought from England,’ he completed the thought for her.’ It is a favourite of mine too. How nice,
matia mou
, that our tastes are the same.’

‘Nice?’ Gemma repeated dazedly. ‘Nice? My God.’ She jumped to her feet, regardless of her throbbing knee. ‘How dare you do this? Haven’t you degraded me enough already?’

‘You find French perfume degrading?’ His brows lifted. ‘You must be unique.’

‘It isn’t the bloody scent.’ Her voice throbbed with temper. ‘It’s the—the implication, and you know it. As an alternative to your loathsome shirts, I’m to wear this—and nothing else, I suppose. Your own private strip show. Well, I’ll see you in hell first. If you like it so much, wear it yourself.’ She threw the bottle at him, but he caught it adroitly before it smashed, to her chagrin. ‘Or better still, keep it for your next lady. She may share your—your perverted appetites. I don’t.’

‘As you wish.’ He put the box back in his pocket. His face and voice were expressionless, but she knew that he was angry just the same. He said, too gently, ‘My appetites are quite normal, I believe. As for your own, my lovely one, I suspect that in spite of your protestations, they are still unawakened.’ He paused. ‘A situation,’ he added with cool deliberation, ‘that I intend to remedy later.’

He went out, closing the door behind him.

THE light faded out of the sky, and she watched it go with a kind of quiet desperation. The arrival of darkness seemed an omen of all her worst nightmares, and she was scared.

As soon as she was alone, she’d dressed hurriedly, fastening all the buttons on the shirt from throat to hem with finicking and ridiculous care, and winding the sash tightly round her slim waist. As if it would really make the slightest difference in the end, she thought despairingly.

Then she’d sat on the edge of the bed, one palm cupped round her sore knee and waited.

She could hear the sound of the shower from his room, and the silence when it ceased. Later, she’d heard the door of his room open, and his footsteps and in spite of herself, she’d shrunk back on the bed, staring at the door, anticipating its opening. But he’d walked past, without even the slightest hesitation, and gone downstairs.

That had been nearly twenty minutes ago, and now the delicious aroma of grilling meat was floating up to her, reminding her with potent cruelty just how long ago it was since she’d eaten that sandwich.

Gemma licked her lips. There was little point in remaining where she was, cowering in a corner until he chose to come for her, especially when she had no means of keeping him away. She’d even tried to shift the chest of drawers to block the door, but it had been too heavy for her, and she hadn’t been able to budge it by as much as an inch.

All she could do was go downstairs and hope somehow to find a way to persuade him to give her some further respite. She bit her lip nervously. Probably it hadn’t been very wise to make him angry, to have thrown an expensive gift literally back in his face, but she couldn’t honestly say she regretted it, she thought fiercely, her hands curling into claws. And anyway, it was safer to be on hostile terms with him. She could fight his anger with her own. It was when his voice gentled— when he came close to her—touched her—that he was most dangerous.

She shuddered, remembering the moment when he’d picked her up from the bathroom floor, his hands momentarily grazing her breasts as he did so. He hadn’t even intended a caress, yet the shock of it had shaken her as if the earth had moved under her feet.

If she kept him angry, perhaps she could also keep him at arm’s length, she thought.

The door to his room was ajar, and he’d left the lamp burning on the chest of drawers. Gemma paused, wondering whether she should extinguish it, and then she saw the bunch of keys lying next to it. Car keys, she thought incredulously. The keys to the jeep, there for the taking. She was already stretching out her hand, when she remembered she had no pockets to hide them in. Besides, if she took them now, and hid them in her own room, he might miss them. Whereas, if she left them where they were for the time being, and took them while he was asleep as she’d planned originally, then the first he’d know about it was when he awoke the next day, and found her gone and the jeep too.

But she was sorely tempted to grab the whole bunch and make a dash for it here and now. The main problem was still Cerberus. She hadn’t heard a yelp out of him since Andreas had returned, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lurking about downstairs, just waiting for her to make one false move.

And when she got downstairs, and realised that Andreas himself was on the terrace, cooking steaks on a charcoal grill, she was more than ever thankful that she’d decided to wait.

He had his back turned to her, seemingly intent on his task, but as she got to the doorway, he said coolly, ‘
Kalispera
.’

Gemma swallowed. ‘Good evening,’ she returned with an assumption of calmness.

‘The food is nearly ready.’ He gestured towards the table where a salad and a bottle of red wine were already waiting.

‘So I see.’ She paused. ‘I gather I’ve been demoted from chef.’

He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘Some of your recipes are a little too ingenious,
matia mou
. Who knows? You might have gone wandering in the hills today and found some hemlock.’

‘With the Hound of the Baskervilles to keep me company?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Even I’m not that ingenious,
kyrie
. And where is Cerberus, by the way?’

‘He has gone back to his master,’ he said, ‘who lives in the village, not the Underworld. You miss the dog perhaps? You would like to have him as a pet while you are here?’

‘I can think of only a few things I would like less,’ Gemma said, still sweetly.

‘And I’m sure I don’t even have to ask what they are.’ He transferred the steaks deftly to plates and handed her one. ‘I hope you don’t intend to refuse this too.’

She would have loved to have had the moral strength to fling the steak off the terrace into the bushes, but she was so hungry she could have eaten the plate as well, so she merely smiled noncommittally as she watched him pour wine into her glass.

‘You don’t have a dog of your own?’

He shook his head. ‘I am here so little, it would not be fair.’

‘But then what is?’ Gemma said blandly. ‘I’ve seen a cat.’

‘Did you feed it?’

She hesitated. ‘Not really. I put down a few scraps this morning.’

‘Then I am only surprised you have not seen a hundred cats,’ he said. ‘They are not the sleek pampered pets you have in England. Here, they breed, and they beg.’ He gave her a sardonic smile. ‘And now we have finished with the animal kingdom, Gemma
mou
, what safe topic do you suggest for discussion next?’

She shrugged. ‘As far as I’m concerned, we don’t have to talk at all.’ She cut into her steak as if it were someone’s throat.

‘You have a gift for silence?’ His brows lifted. ‘An amazing quality in a woman.’

‘My speciality.’ She sipped her wine. ‘As chauvinist remarks seem to be yours.’

‘I specialise in other things as well,’ he said gently.

She glared at him mutely over the rim of her wine glass. There was a long pause, then Gemma said abruptly, ‘Did Michael have a special friend in the village? A man friend, I mean.’

‘Not that I am aware of. He knew Stavros, of course, and Maria’s brothers.’ He took more salad. ‘You have some reason for asking?’

‘Not really.’ She speared a piece of tomato. ‘It was just something Maria said to me. She told me Mike had gone to meet a friend, and I got the impression this friend could be Greek.’

‘It would be no one from this village.’ He frowned a little. ‘He no longer has friends here. But I believe he stayed in other places before he came to Loussenas.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose he must have done.’ And she had little chance of tracing any of these places, she thought despondently. Crete was a big island, and although she thought Mike in one of his infrequent letters had mentioned some place in the White Mountains, she couldn’t be sure.

She said, ‘I wouldn’t be too sure that it’s no one from this village. Perhaps not everyone thinks Maria’s the wronged maiden her family like to make out. I think she knows this friend of Michael’s because she got very angry when I pressed the point.’

‘Perhaps Maria does not think it necessary to keep her temper with the sister of her seducer,’ he said grimly. ‘Anyway, she had no right to be here. I shall speak to Stavros tomorrow.’

Go and speak to him now, Gemma prompted silently, and the last you’ll see of me will be the jeep’s tail lights disappearing down the mountainside.

But, of course, he did nothing of the sort. When she had finished her steak, he asked if she would like some fruit. She was on the point of refusing when she remembered that even if she was no longer hungry, fruit would be a way of prolonging the meal. But when he made to refill her glass, she hastily put her hand over it. It was heady stuff, she’d discovered already, and she needed to keep her wits about her.

He cleared the. plates and came back with a bowl of fruit, and two small cups of coffee, thick and rather bitter.

She said, ‘Is this what we call Turkish coffee?’ ‘You may, Gemma
mou
, but we do not. Relations between our countries have been strained and worse for generations.’

‘It’s sad,’ she said, half to herself. ‘Turkey’s such a near neighbour to Greece to be an enemy.’ ‘Everywhere in the world there are such problems.’ He shrugged slightly. ‘In the case of your own country, there is Ireland, I think.’

She took some grapes from the bowl, and began to eat them. They were the size of small plums, purple and thick with juice. There was silence between them, but the night was full of sounds— the chirping of cicadas in the undergrowth, the cry of a bird, far off, mournful and piercing, and closer at hand, music.

Gemma pushed back her chair, and went over to the balustrade. ‘What’s that?’

There was a moon, she noticed, a great golden ball swinging in the heavens on a chain of stars.

She heard him get up too. Was suddenly aware he was standing behind her, very close to her.

He said, ‘The music? They are having a celebration in the village.’

‘Don’t tell me.’ She kept her tone light, but she was acutely conscious of him, of his breath stirring her hair, the warmth of his body subtly penetrating her thin layer of clothing. ‘They’re having a public stoning.’

‘They are good people,’ he said quietly. ‘Under other circumstances, Gemma
mou
, you would think so too.’

His hand closed on her hip, swaying her backwards so that she was actually leaning against him. She felt his lips touch her ear, his teeth gently grazing the lobe, and she tensed. His mouth moved downwards, teasing a sensitive path down to the curve of her shoulder. The music in the distance was playing an insistent, insidious rhythm, and her pulses echoed it, while the moonlight swam behind her closed lids.

His other hand cupped her breast, caressing its rounded softness, before his fingers sought the hardening thrust of her nipple through the fabric of the shirt. The barrier of the material between his seeking and her urgency was a delicately erotic torment. She was suddenly scorched by the memory of his hands brushing against her bare breasts, and the knowledge of how desperately she needed to feel his hands on her body again shook her to the soul.

If she moved, even slightly, turned fully into his arms, offered him her mouth, then there would be no going back—and no escape either.

She whispered, ‘No’ frantically, and pulled away from him. She’d made her plans and no shock of desire, no fever of the blood, was going to stop her now. But was the choice even hers anymore, she wondered as his hands came down on her shoulders, turning her to face him.

His voice was deep, urgent. It made her shiver. ‘Forget, matia
mou
. Forget everything except that we are here together and we want each other.’

‘I can’t,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I can’t forget. You—you must give me more time—please. If you’ll wait, I’ll do anything you want, be anything you want—I swear it. Only not now, not yet, I beg you.’

She swallowed, waiting in a kind of agony for his reply.

She heard him murmur something which could have been an obscenity or a prayer, then his hand took her chin, turning her face up to his.

‘What are you trying to do to me, Gemma?’ he asked huskily. ‘Is this how you’ve treated your other men—putting them into hell while you offer them heaven?’

She shook her head, avoiding the intensity of his dark eyes. ‘That—that was a lie. There’s never been ... I’ve never .. .’ She stumbled to a halt. ‘Oh, I don’t expect you to believe me.’

‘No, I think that is the truth—at last,’ he said grimly. ‘Does it also explain your reluctance, I wonder?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘That—I cannot believe. You are not a child, but a beautiful woman.’

She flicked the tip of her tongue along her dry lips. ‘You said you’d be patient,’ she reminded him.

He smiled wryly. ‘And you catch me in my own trap, Gemma
mou
. If you remember too, I said my patience was not endless.’

She stared, as if mesmerised, at the open neck of his shirt and the black hair which shadowed the golden skin it revealed. ‘I remember.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘But it won’t be for much longer.’

‘Is that a promise?’ He was frowning slightly.

‘A promise.’

‘Then we have a bargain.’ He paused. ‘You are a creature of moods, Gemma. One moment a virago, screaming abuse at me—the next, a cooing dove. Which, I wonder, is nearest the truth— nearest the woman who lives behind your eyes?’ He brushed a gentle finger across her lids. ‘The woman who wishes to spend yet another night alone.’

He released her, and she stepped back, trying to stem the flood of relief rising inside her in case it showed, and made him suspicious. But he turned away, pouring himself more wine, and she seized the opportunity to slip away. She washed the dishes and put them away, then went up to her room. She glanced into his room, and saw the keys still there on the chest. She gave them a longing glance, and hoped Andreas wasn’t planning on spending half the night on the terrace drinking wine and listening to the music.