Page 73 of The Tycoon’s Affair: Tempted By Desire

Her lips were soft, but she kept her mouth closed and there was tension in her body. Damn her. She would not deny him. Not after that cheap little show. Yet even in spite of the tackiness he’d still been turned on. Again. And she was right—he’d asked for this.

That knowledge wasn’t welcome.

Neither was her resistance.

Arkim was aware of the changing quality of sound around them. How everything was muffled. The sandstorm must have enveloped them by now. But all of that was secondary to the woman in his arms. The woman who would pay for turning his life upside down.

He took his mouth off hers and looked down to see those extraordinary eyes glaring at him. If he wasn’t acutely aware of how her body quivered against his he would have let her go, been done with her. A reluctant lover was not something he was interested in—not that he had much experience of that.

But Sylvie wanted him. It had sparked between them from the moment their eyes had met—from the moment he’d rejected her outright. And in spite of that rejection they were here now, as if this course had always been inevitable.

There was no turning back until this was done and she’d paid. And he was sated.

He relaxed his hands in her hair, started to subtly massage her skull. It felt fragile under his hands.

‘What are you doing?’ she said huskily.

Her hands were against his chest, but she wasn’t pushing him away.

His arousal was so hard he ached with the need to sheathe himself inside her body, feel her contract around him.

But her innate fragility did something to him.

..it tempered his anger, turned it into a need to seduce. To make her acquiescent.

‘I’m making love to you.’

Her hands pushed against his chest now. ‘Well, I don’t want to be made love to.’

Arkim shook his head, his fingers all the while massaging her skull in slow, methodical movements. ‘You’ve admitted you want me. And I think you do want to be made love to—very much. After all, you’re a highly sexed woman...aren’t you, Sylvie?’

Sylvie looked up into his eyes. Even in heels she felt tiny next to him. Puny. Weak. His fingers were in her hair, massaging her... She felt like purring. Not like pushing him away. But she had to. Highly sexed? If he found out what she really was—

She went cold at the thought and pushed him again, but his chest was like a steel wall. Immovable. At the same time she was aware that she wasn’t scared; the fight to get away from him was as much a fight with herself as it was with him. More so. And he knew it—the bastard.

His hands were moving now...down to her jaw, cradling her face. Something dangerous lurched inside Sylvie—some emotion that had no place there. It seemed to be the hardest thing in the world to free herself completely and move away.

Arkim’s scent was heady, masculine. It enticed her on a very basic female level. He didn’t even say anything this time. He just bent his head and kissed her again, those sensual lips moving over hers with masterful precision and an expertise she couldn’t resist even though she tried.

She tried to keep her mouth closed, like before.

But Arkim was biting gently on her lower lip, making it tingle, making her want more.

.. She felt some of her resistance give way, treacherously, and he took advantage like the expert he was—slipping his tongue between her lips, finding hers and setting her world on fire.

His hands moved over her shoulders, down her back, urging her into him, against the hard contours of his body.

Her scanty costume offered little protection.

She was helplessly responding to his kiss, to the tantalising slide of his tongue against hers, urging her to mimic him, initiate her own contact.

Sylvie couldn’t think. Everything was blurry, fuzzy. Except for this decadent pleasure, seeping into her veins and making her feel languorous. Treacherously, she didn’t want this moment to stop. Ever.

Her hands were moving, lifting of their own volition, sliding around Arkim’s neck so that she could press closer.

She was aware of her breasts, crushed to his chest, tightening into hard points.

One of his hands was on her lower back and it dipped down further, cupping one buttock, squeezing gently. Between her legs she felt hot, moist...

But as Arkim’s hand slipped even lower, precariously close to where Sylvie suddenly wanted to feel him explore her, she had a startling moment of clarity—this man hated her.

He believed that she was little more than a common tart, debauched and irredeemable, and she was about to let him be more intimate with her than anyone else had ever been.

Disgusted with her lack of control, Sylvie took Arkim by surprise and pushed herself free of his embrace. For a second when he opened his eyes they looked glazed, unfocused, and then they cleared and narrowed on her. She felt hot and dishevelled. And exposed.

She put her arms around herself. ‘I told you. I don’t want this.’

Colour slashed Arkim’s cheekbones. He was grim. ‘You want this, all right—you’re just determined to send me crazy for wanting it too.’

Something enigmatic lit his eyes, and for a split-second Sylvie had the uncanny impression that it was vulnerability.

That impression was well and truly quashed when he said coldly, ‘I don’t play games. Go to bed, Sylvie.’

He turned on his heel, and he was walking away when something rogue goaded her to call after him, ‘You don’t know a thing about me. You think you do, but you don’t.’

Arkim stopped and turned around, his face etched in stern lines. It made Sylvie want to run her fingers over them, see them soften. She cursed herself.

‘What don’t I know?’ he asked, with a faint sneer in his tone.

‘Things like the fact that I’d never sleep with someone who hates me as much as you do.’

He walked back towards her slowly and Sylvie regretted saying anything. He stopped a few feet away.

‘I thought I hated you...especially after what you did to ruin the wedding...but actually I don’t feel anything for you except physical desire.’

Sylvie was surprised how strong the dart of hurt was, but she covered it by saying flippantly, ‘Oh, wow—thanks for the clarification. That makes it all so much better.’

To her surprise, Arkim just looked at her for a long moment, and then he reached for the robe that lay on the ground near their feet and handed it to her, saying curtly, ‘Put it on.’

Now he wanted her to cover up... Why didn’t that make her feel vindicated in some way?

She slipped her arms into the sleeves and belted the thick material tightly around her waist. Arkim was still looking at her intently, but it had a different quality to any expression she’d seen before.

She felt exposed, and a little disorientated.

For a moment when he’d handed her the robe she could have sworn he’d seemed almost.. .apologetic.

As much as she didn’t want to hear his scathing response again, she was tired of playing a role that wasn’t really her. ‘There’s something else you don’t know.’

Arkim arched a brow.

She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never actually...stripped. The main act I do in the show is the one with the sword. I do other routines too, but I’ve never taken all my clothes off. What I did just now... I made it up... I was just proving a point.’

He frowned, shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘Why don’t I believe that?’

Sylvie lifted her chin. ‘Because you judged me before you even met me, and you have some seriously flawed ideas about what the revue actually is. Why would I lie? It’s not as if I have anything to lose where you’re concerned.’

She saw a familiar flash of fire come into Arkim’s eyes and went on hurriedly.

‘The man who runs the revue—Pierre—he knew my mother. They were contemporaries. When I arrived in Paris I was seventeen years old. He took me under his wing. For the first two years I was only allowed to train with the other dancers. I wasn’t allowed to perform.

I cleaned and helped keep the books to pay my way.

’ Sylvie shrugged and looked away, embarrassed that she was telling Arkim so much.

‘He’s protective of me—like a father figure.

I think that’s why he doesn’t allow me to do the more risqué acts. ’

When she glanced back at Arkim his face was inscrutable. Sylvie realised then that he probably resented her telling him anything of the reality of her life.

When he spoke his voice was cool, with no hint of whether or not he believed her. ‘Go to bed Sylvie, we’re done here.’

She felt his dismissal like a slap in the face and realised with a sense of hollowness that perhaps she should have been honest from the beginning. Then they could have avoided all of this. Because clearly Arkim had no time for a woman who didn’t match up to his worst opinions.

He turned to walk away again and she blurted out before she could stop herself, ‘What do you mean, “we’re done”?’

Arkim stopped and looked at her. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind and then he said, ‘We’ll be leaving as soon as the storm has passed.’

Then he just turned and walked out, leaving Sylvie gaping.

‘We’ll be leaving...’ She’d done it. She’d provoked him into letting her go.

She’d finally made him listen to her—made him listen as she tried to explain who she really was.

And now he didn’t want to know. Yet instead of relief or triumph all Sylvie felt was. ..deflated.

‘I don’t feel anything for you except physical desire.’ Arkim’s own words mocked him. He couldn’t get the flash of hurt he’d seen in Sylvie’s eyes out of his head. And he tried. He couldn’t deny that it made him feel...guilty. Constricted.

He’d lied. What he felt for her was much more complicated than mere physical desire. It was a tangled mess of emotions, underscored by the most urgent lust he’d ever felt.