Hostage to Love (Entangled Suspense) (13 page)

He obliged, passing restive fingers across her puckered flesh over and over, before pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. His other hand cupped her backside, kneading her soft flesh before he pressed her closer to his arousal. She whimpered as fierce need tore through her. Her senses on fire, she ran urgent hands under his shirt and sighed with satisfaction as she encountered muscled hardness. She yearned to feel him against her, naked, skin-to-skin. Another moan escaped her lips as Nick pressed his thighs against hers.

He freed her mouth, gave them a chance to inhale much needed air, but his assault on her senses didn’t abate. With the precision of a shark, he followed the vein to the pulse in her neck and explored it with his mouth and tongue. The rush of air from his lips heated the soft whorls of her ear, and she gasped at the pleasure overload.

“God,
yineka mou
, you’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted to be with you like this,” he muttered hoarsely as his hand left her breast and started lowering the thin strap of her dress.

With the cool rush of air on her exposed skin came reality.

She tore herself out of his arms and took several steps backwards. Heaving deep breaths, her fingers found and held onto the safety of the table behind her.

“Well, that’s too bad, Nick. I stopped being your wife a long time ago, and I won’t sleep with you just so you can scratch an itch.” She cursed the huskiness of her tone.

Shock and disbelief darted across his face. “Is that what you think this is?” he asked, his voice sandpaper-rough. Arousal still blazed in his eyes, and she could see his hard-on pushing against the zipper of his trousers. With her own need sharply thwarted, she swallowed hard and looked away.

“What else can it be? Your testosterone levels are so off the charts right now you can barely see straight. And I haven’t forgotten how much you love sex.”

He inhaled sharply, a sound that brought her eyes back to his. “I’ve never hidden the fact that I’ve always enjoyed sex, but if you think I can jump from our bed to another—” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what to make of that.”

Pain lanced through her. Looking into his face, she could almost have sworn she saw hurt there. “What am I supposed to think? You barely paused to take a breath after we separated before you were out partying and carrying on as if you were single again. Granted, you’re extremely photogenic, but seriously, did you have to pose for every single photographer in London, with every single beautiful model?”

“My life didn’t stop just because you’d decided to storm off in a tantrum.”

“Don’t belittle my feelings. What was wrong between us was more than just a childish tantrum. Or maybe that was the problem? You wanted a biddable wife, someone who could never be your equal—except maybe in the bedroom. At least your libido recognizes equality a lot more than you do.”

“My libido rages out of control only with you,
glikia mou
, and trust me, it’s damned inconvenient when all you want to do is fight instead of making love with me.”

“I don’t want to fight—”

His harsh laugh stopped her. “You’re doing a cracking impression, baby. As to thinking you were biddable, hell no. Stubborn and extremely infuriating, yes. Biddable? Not in this lifetime.”

“You tried to control me, Nick. When I refused to let you take over my life, you chose to punish me.”

His brows drew together. “Punish you? How did I punish you?”

“Don’t play games with me, please. You know how much I want a child. How much I want a family.”

His head jerked away, his skin paling a little as he stared out over the terrace. For several minutes he didn’t speak. When he turned back, his eyes were shuttered. “And you walked out because you thought I was punishing you by refusing to give you what you wanted?” His tone was devoid of any emotion.

“What was I supposed to think after you made me give up the job I loved, the master’s degree I wanted to take, and then dismissed the subject of children outright without even talking about it?”

“Did you stop to think there might have been reasons for everything? For goodness’ sake, we’d been married only a few months. Was it wrong to want you to concentrate on just us?”

“No, it wasn’t. But refusing to discuss it was. You shut me down again when I mentioned it by the pool. And let’s talk about you continuing to have
your
life while you expected me to give up mine, shall we? You didn’t give up a single thing, Nick, while I was supposed to turn my life upside down for you, and you gave me nothing in return. God, you wouldn’t even let me redecorate your precious bachelor pad, the place I was expected to live!”

“So your solution was to walk away?” His face was granite-hard and his hands balled into fists, as if he held onto civility with a thin thread. “With the expectation that I would run after you and beg you to come back?”

“I guess we’ll never know. I didn’t return, and you didn’t come after me. I’m only here because your sense of
duty
forced you to bring me here.”

He glared daggers at her. “What if I told you that you were wrong? That not a single day went by that I didn’t want to storm into that excuse for a hovel you chose to hide in and drag you back kicking and screaming?”

Her heart thumped wildly. Then she blinked back foolish tears. “I’d say every single paparazzi shot of you attending a premier or a benefit gala or a polo event with your newest paramour when we were apart makes that statement a lie. And I may be still weak physically, but I’m far from bird-brained. Your actions spoke volumes of how you felt about me leaving. Did you ever even love me, Nick?”

He froze, raw rejection stamped across his face before his features morphed into blank indifference.

Big shock.

She whirled away from him. How could she have voiced the one insecure question she’d held at bay for so long? “I guess I have my answer.”

She started to stalk past him, but he lunged, caught hold of her shoulders, and pulled her to a stop.

“You’re doing it again. You’re walking away from this conversation just as you walked away from us six months ago.”

She lifted her chin, refusing to be cowed. “Because there’s nothing left to say, Nick. You don’t love me. The only thing to do is to take our separation to the next level and divorce.”

His indifference receded, replaced by fierce, implacable determination. “There won’t
be
a next level. You’ve put us both through six months of hell. Then stepped it up by putting
yourself
in the crosshairs of a dangerous psychopath. I say that gives us plenty to talk about. I won’t let you reduce everything to one question and one answer.”

She shook her head. “Funny, it’s all I can think about now. I don’t really want to talk about anything else.”

“Then just listen. I wanted to come after you six month ago. I did,” he insisted when she started to shake her head dismissively. “But I thought you needed time to adjust to being an Andreakos wife. The pictures you saw in the press, I can’t help those. I wasn’t with those women. The photos were posed. A man in my position has responsibilities, and media placement comes with the territory.” He put a firm hand under her chin and propelled her gaze to his. “But, trust me, I always intended to come after you. If for nothing else, for an explanation as to why you were so determined to end our marriage.”

She withstood his touch, very much aware he hadn’t responded to her question about whether he loved her. And call her a coward, but she didn’t want to probe. She’d never wanted to blurt out the question in the first place. Somewhere inside, she was raw from having her long-time suspicion confirmed that Nick
didn’t
love her. That he never had.

Sure, he’d said plenty of things in Greek during their marriage that she’d told herself meant the same thing as “I love you,” but now that she knew the language a little better, she knew they weren’t the same thing at all. “I care about you” or “you’re my heart” wasn’t the same, in any language.

“If you say so.”

His eyes darkened into a flat gray. “You don’t believe me.” The words were dulled, threaded with shock.

She winced. “Come on. You’ve never let a small thing like distance stand in your way. Six months is a long time to keep away from something you claim you want—you managed to talk me into marrying you within weeks! Are you so surprised that I’m finding it hard to believe you didn’t want this separation to continue?”

Chapter Seven

She didn’t believe him.

Nick whirled away, fists clenched so hard his knuckles protested.

“Where are you going?” Her voice, shaky but defiant, stopped him.

“Do you care?” He looked toward the beach, contemplating a hard run on the packed sand. Or maybe inside, in his gym. Right now he’d give anything to go a few rounds with his punching bag.

“Of course I care! You stopped me from walking away just now, and now you’re doing the same?”

“I think our conversation has reached its natural conclusion. If it hasn’t, it needs to, or we can throw any hope of this truce continuing out the window.”

“You’re upset with me, because I told you
my
feelings? That I didn’t immediately take your word as gospel?”

“I’m frustrated in more ways than one, but yes, I’m man enough to admit it’s more sexual frustration than anything else right now. And as much as you claim not to, I know you want me just as much. So unless you want this to end with us both horizontal on this terrace, I think it’s a good idea you stay away from me.”

He walked to the terrace steps, away from the need to snatch her back into his arms and
make
her believe him. He shucked off his shoes at the bottom of the steps and strode barefoot onto the grass. Half a minute later, he’d gained the beach.

The cool crunch of the fine grains of sand momentarily slowed him down. At the water’s edge, he stopped, breathed in deep, his restless gaze taking in the wide, calm expanse of the sea and the large sphere of the moon suspended over it.

She didn’t believe him
.

He didn’t know why the knowledge devastated him. Was it because at the back of his mind, he’d expected once he’d told her she’d never strayed from his mind for more than a second, she’d fall into his arms and everything would be fine between them again? He hadn’t let himself think she’d dismiss his words so summarily. Well, more fool him.

He raked both hands through his hair, frustration and arousal biting through him in equal measures. The very fact that the blow Belle had dealt him just now hadn’t cooled his raging hard-on told him he had it bad.

But they couldn’t carry on like this forever. And he sure as hell wasn’t prepared to let her go. She could forget her ridiculous talk of divorce. She hadn’t sought one in the six months since she’d walked out, and he was damned if he’d let her start divorce proceedings now. If she persisted, he’d keep her tied up in court for years. He had the wherewithal to do it. The Andreakos name carried a lot of clout, and if necessary, he would use it to his advantage.

Controlling much?

He gritted his teeth against the mocking inner voice. In this he knew she was right, but they hadn’t lost everything that made their relationship work—he refused to believe that. Her trust in him might be nonexistent, but her uninhibited physical response just now had proven the sexual side of their relationship remained white-hot. She’d all but melted in his arms on the terrace. His body leapt again in remembrance of her hitched cries and seeking hands. She’d been right there with him until the last moment when she’d accused him of using her to scratch an itch. Yes, he had an itch all right—one
she’d
caused.

Well, it was time to bring things to a head. He smiled grimly at the crude analogy. Tomorrow, he would meet with Richard Francis and find out what the hell he wanted and what he knew about Nawaka and Charles Mwana. If he could shed light on Mwana’s whereabouts, all the better.

Once that was out of the way, he and Belle would revisit tonight’s conversation. And he fully intended them to revisit other things, too. Because the cold showers had stopped working; hell, they’d been less than effective in the first place. Even the swim-a-thons he’d punished himself with the past couple of nights no longer did the job. He found himself waking up in the middle of the night to a raging boner and an empty bed, and he was slowly losing his mind.

He released a harsh sigh and started unbuttoning his shirt.

The distinct ring of his cell phone stopped him.

“Andreakos,” he announced himself, irritation coating his voice.

“John Allen here, sir.”

“Do you have anything new for me?” he rasped.

“Yes. We’ve picked up a trail here in South Africa. Unfortunately it’s to a private airport.”

Adrenaline surged through his veins. “So we know where he’s headed?”

“That’s the thing. He didn’t just charter one plane. He chartered five, each one with a different destination. And none of the officials at the charter company have been able to give us an accurate description of who boarded what plane.”

Nick bit back a curse. “Dammit, isn’t finding people what you do for a living? Isn’t this what you’re
supposedly
best at? You’ve had five days to find him. How could he have slipped out of your fingers so easily?”

“We weren’t anticipating—”

“No, you weren’t. Where are the flights headed?”

“Hong Kong, Venezuela, Ghana, Tel Aviv, and Turkey.”

“He won’t be on the Turkey flight,” Nick said with a certainty born of instinct. “He’ll expect us to hone in on that one because it’s the closest to Greece. Don’t rule it out completely, but I want you to concentrate on the other flights, especially the ones to Tel Aviv and Venezuela—there could be political or drug connections there we’ve overlooked. I’ll look into it from this end, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you need more manpower?”

Allen hesitated. “That would help, if—“

“Do it. Hire as many men as you need to. You told me one of his soldiers said Mwana seemed fixated on my wife?”