The Marriage Betrayal

Chapter THREE


TALLY felt wonderfully comfortable as she opened her eyes slowly to focus on the elaborately gathered oyster silk canopy above her …

Propelled by sudden alarm, she sat up with a start, her widened eyes scanning her unfamiliar surroundings in dismay. This was not the bedroom she had been allotted. Morning light was seeping round the edges of the drapes and illuminating the opulent contours of a big room furnished with antiques. This was not Cosima’s room, either. Her attention fell on the masculine clothing draped on a nearby chair and her attention immediately shot to her own body below the sheets. Finding her bra and pants still in place, she winced when she recognised the turquoise dress she had worn the night before lying on the floor in a heap with her shoes and evening bag. Her last memories of the party came flooding back, before she noticed the fact that the pillow beside hers bore an imprint and heard the unmistakeable sound of water running beyond the door that was ajar at the far side of the bed. A door that led to an en-suite bathroom?

Tally was disconcerted and wired with consternation when Sander Volakis, his lean bronzed features extraordinarily handsome, strolled into the bedroom with only a towel anchored round his lean hips. He looked amazing, from his wide brown shoulders to the corrugated flatness of his stomach and long powerful legs. ‘Ah … you’re awake,’ he pronounced in the most incredibly calm greeting.

Hugging the sheet to her throat, Tally viewed him furiously over the edge of it. ‘How on earth did I get here? What happened? Did you sleep here last night as well?’

‘Naturally, this is my room,’ Sander supplied lazily.

‘So what am I doing here?’

‘There was nobody else to take on the job of looking after you. After the doctor had checked you over—’

‘The doctor?’ Tally gasped, becoming suddenly ludicrously aware that her hair was probably standing on end and her make-up smeared all over her face. Her most pressing desire then was to leap under the bed and hide but she was forced to sit there, the squirming focus of his uncomfortably steady scrutiny. ‘What doctor?’

‘Eleni and I thought it best to have the local GP check you out in case it was necessary for you to go to hospital. Cosima swore that she only put a sleeping pill—which she got from a friend, not the boyfriend according to her,’ Sander explained drily. ‘The GP asked for the bottle, consulted a colleague by phone and decided you were unlikely to suffer any lasting harm. He then gave Cosima a lecture about the risks of giving unprescribed drugs to third parties that left her in hysterics.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned, cringing at the amount of fuss and drama her passing out had caused. But she was genuinely disturbed that her sibling had subjected her to such a dangerous experiment and resolved to have a serious talk with the younger woman. However, at that moment she had a more pressing cause for concern: the presence of her underwear suggested that nothing intimate had occurred between her and Sander but she wanted to be sure. ‘I gather that … er … we didn’t do anything last night?’ she prompted, her cheeks reddening fierily.

‘I like my women awake,’ Sander asserted. ‘Awake, lively and consenting. I would never take advantage of a woman while she was helpless.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you but I still don’t understand why I seem to have spent the night in your room …’

‘Cosima didn’t volunteer to assist you and I chose not to leave you in the hands of the staff. None of them knew you. I wanted to be sure you were all right.’

‘Thanks.’ Unable to sit there any longer when she needed to use the bathroom, Tally wriggled out from below the sheet, hurried round the foot of the bed and sped for the bathroom like a runner sprinting for the finishing line.

Happily engaged in enjoying the view of her lush breasts and bottom bouncing in the inadequate support of a skimpy black bra and knickers, Sander just laughed as the door shut behind her. He loved her small but wonderfully curvaceous body and she was shy, which he was even less accustomed to. Shy, possibly even a little prudish, which would be an even more unfamiliar female trait for him, he acknowledged wryly, since the women he usually shared a bed with thought nothing of nudity. He’d had to have a very cold shower in the middle of the night to douse the flames of arousal caused by Tally cuddling her half-naked curves up against him.

Tally loosed a moan of horror at her tousled reflection in the many mirrors surrounding her. It was the bathroom from hell, she decided, unnerved by the number of reflections hitting her from every angle. Grabbing up a masculine comb, she began to enforce order on her curls while striving to discourage the frizz factor. After washing her face and making use of one of the new toothbrushes on offer, she stepped into the shower. She was still embarrassed by the gauche manner in which she had fled from the bedroom.

After all, in the circumstances, Sander Volakis had behaved surprisingly well for a male with the reputation of a rich, spoilt womaniser. Although he hardly knew her and their relationship only encompassed a passionate kiss or two, last night when it mattered he had looked out for her and looked after her. A lot of blokes would just have turned their backs and walked away from so awkward a scenario. That he hadn’t taken the easy way out really impressed her.

Donning the white towelling robe on the back of the door, Tally pushed her underwear into the pocket and returned to the bedroom.

‘Breakfast?’ Sander asked lightly, straightening from the table by the window, which was spread with a selection of food. Clad only in a pair of soft blue denim jeans that moulded his narrow hips and long powerful thighs and a white tee, he was a heartstoppingly attractive figure.

‘No, thanks, I’d better get back to my room.’

‘Why do you always want to run away from me?’ Sander enquired, ebony brows drawing together above his stunning eyes in a frown.

Tally recognised in a thought that was not for sharing that the more he made her feel, the more he scared her, and the more her native caution urged her to keep her distance. Sander Volakis was dangerous to her peace of mind, to everything she had ever known about herself, because with him she wanted to throw away the rule book and stop playing safe. She only had to look at him to want to walk into his arms and touch him, so retreat struck her as the wiser part of valour.

‘I’m not running away,’ she proclaimed with a taut smile.

As poised as a lion ready to spring, Sander paced several steps closer. ‘You feel the same vibe that I do.’

It was true, because when he was that close she was so tense she could hardly breathe, and when he reached for her and drew her close by dint of closing his hands round the ends of the sash tied round her waist she made no objection; indeed she laughed with a playful sense of freedom that was new to her.

‘I want you, moli mou,’ he growled soft and low, the roughened edges of his fracturing accent purring sexily along the vowel sounds.

‘You can’t have me,’ she told him daringly.

‘Just one little taste before you go,’ Sander husked, holding her against him and then lowering his arrogant dark head to toy with her full pink lips in a slow sensual assault.

As he suckled at her full lower lip his breath fanned her cheek and she shivered. A split second later as he deepened the pressure her pulses leapt like trapeze artists on a high wire, her mouth opening for the plundering pillage of his tongue, excitement hurtling through her in a shower of energising sexual sparks. It was more than a taste, it was a feast, as a sure masculine hand closed round the swelling softness of a rounded breast, his thumb grazing the swollen tender tip so that she gasped below his mouth, every sense greedily scrambling to get the most out of every new sensation. Go, her mind echoed in a curious refrain. Go … where? Just then she didn’t want to go anywhere if it meant separating from him.

Sander hauled her right off her feet and up into his arms and kissed her with stimulating thoroughness. The arm he banded across her hips pressed her into revealing contact with his potent arousal. By the time that he brought her down on the bed with him excitement was racing through Tally at the speed of a runaway train. She had an out-of-control sensation that should have scared her but instead she felt elated as she revelled in the heightened responses of her body and the sense of rightness between them. He felt like the guy she had long been secretly hoping to meet and, while a little voice at the back of her mind warned her that she had only just met him, he had already won her trust by taking care of her the night before. And trust was everything to Tally.

‘You have gorgeous breasts, glikia mou,’ Sander husked, the robe pushed apart to reveal the pouting globes he was shaping in his palms, long brown fingers tugging at her protuberant nipples in a tantalising caress. ‘I’ve been fantasising about them since we first met …’

Colour washed up over her face, her green eyes very bright, for she did not know what to say and she was hugely uncomfortable with the sight of her bare flesh in the daylight flooding through the windows. But before she could react, Sander bent his proud head to catch a tender rose-coloured tip between his lips and lave it with his tongue and a ball of heat burst in her pelvis, spreading aftershocks of stimulation through her entire lower body. For the first time in Tally’s life, desire was rippling through her in mindless waves and she could not believe how powerful and tenacious a hold it had on her. He kissed her again hard and fast and she stopped thinking altogether, her hands smoothing restively over the satin skin of his broad shoulders and her fingers spreading against the hair-roughened breadth of his chest. The husky soapy scent of him fresh from the shower was an aphrodisiac.

‘Are you staying?’ Sander prompted thickly, his accent scissoring sexily along the syllables.

For an instant, breathless and with her body on a high of burning desire, she could not fathom why he should be asking her such a question.

Sander ran a teasing fingertip along her reddened lower lip. ‘I want you. I wanted you the first moment I saw you but I like to play fair. I also want your assurance that you’re fully recovered from last night.’

‘Of course I am.’ I wanted you the first moment I saw you; yes, she liked the sound of that, as it so perfectly matched the way she had felt when she first saw him. The wanting, the burning craving, had been as instantaneous for her as a chemical reaction. She gazed up into lustrous dark eyes shaded with gold in the light and her heartbeat thudded heavily, the muscles in her pelvis clenching in a response that came as easily as the next breath to her lungs. But that insane pulse of desire pulling at her made it almost impossible for her to think clearly. Was she going to sleep with him? She wanted to. She knew that with a little thought she could probably come up with at least twenty reasons why she should not sleep with him but, just for once, Tally was rebelling against her cautious and sensible side. Sander was beautiful, sexy and surprisingly thoughtful and she was flattered that he found her so attractive. She was convinced that she would never find a more suitable male to be her first lover.

‘Tally …’ Sander smiled down at her.

And because she already feared that she was thinking too much and detracting from her newly found confidence and spontaneity, she pulled him down to her and kissed him with all the fierce passion she had always suppressed.

Sander was blown away by her enthusiasm: she was like a torch in his arms and she had the body of a goddess. He traced the swollen heart of her and found her flatteringly wet and ready for the next step. He rolled on a condom with practised ease and without any further ado, for he was hugely aroused, he pulled her under him and pressed back her knees.

As eager as he was for the final act, the pulse of desire in her pelvis steeping up in urgency, Tally made no demur. But as she felt the sure probe of his manhood at her entrance, nerves made her suddenly tense and his thrust when it came pierced her deep and hurt. At the sound of her cry of pain and resulting grimace, Sander had to struggle to rise above the pleasure of the tight grip of her inner muscles. Momentarily he froze and swore, pulling back from her in an abrupt motion.

‘What the hell …?’ Sander exclaimed.

Gripped by severe embarrassment when she realised how he had reacted to her cry, Tally breathed, ‘You didn’t have to stop.’

Sander frowned down at her as though she was talking in another language. ‘Of course I did. I hurt you.’

Tally could feel herself reddening so hotly that she felt as if she were roasting alive from outside in. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so … er … uncomfortable the first time,’ she mumbled apologetically.

As Sander retreated even further from her he noticed a spot of blood on the white fibres of the robe she lay on. ‘The first time? Are you saying that you were a virgin?’

Tally focused on a strong brown and very tense shoulder. ‘Er … yes.’

Sander rolled all the way back from her and sprang off the bed in one defensive movement. ‘So what’s your game?’ he demanded before he disappeared into the bathroom.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Confused, Tally hastily flipped the robe back across her exposed body and sat up, wincing at the tenderness between her thighs. She was totally mortified by the ignominious ending to their intimacy. He had stopped dead, clearly had had no desire to continue and he was angry as well. Having always assumed that men found it a challenge to stop at the eleventh hour, as it were, she was bewildered and inclined to think that she must have turned him right off.

Sander reappeared and scooped up his boxers to pull them on. He sent her a scorching glance of suspicion from stunning dark golden eyes. ‘What are you playing at? You’re a virgin. I didn’t sign up for complications.’

Although she wanted to sink through the mattress, Tally, in her turn was becoming angry at his attitude. ‘What’s your problem? Perhaps I should’ve warned you—’

‘Of course you should’ve warned me!’ Sander blasted back at her, his lean dark face grim. ‘If I’d known I would have taken my time and I wouldn’t have hurt you!’

Her cheeks red, Tally tied the sash on her robe and slid off the bed onto nerveless lower limbs. ‘Well, let’s not make a meal of it. I appreciate that you’re surprised but I don’t think there’s any reason for you to be so annoyed with me.’

‘I don’t like surprises. Women usually have an agenda with me …’

Tally pulled a face as she stooped hurriedly to gather up her dress and shoes. ‘Could my agenda be … getting away from you as quickly as possible?’ she prompted dulcetly, fighting her sense of humiliation with all her might.

‘Women don’t usually sacrifice their virginity in a casual encounter.’

‘Well, that’s me told, is it?’ Tally quipped, paling at that description of their intimacy. ‘Sorry if I departed from the norm and spooked you. I didn’t realise that you only dallied with identikit females. What sort of women are you used to? Or is that a rude question?’

Sander could not recall when he had last met a woman who could have equalled Tally Spencer’s innocence. Even when he was a teenager his female companions had been as sophisticated and nonchalant about sex as he was himself. In the world in which he moved everyone was sexually experienced and it had not even crossed his mind, in spite of the shyness he had noticed, that she might be any different.

‘You’re my very first virgin,’ Sander admitted, zipping his jeans, and surveyed her with brooding tension. ‘I’ve heard that the less experienced a woman is, the more she expects from a man.’

‘You heard wrong, where I’m concerned anyway. I may have almost zero experience but I expect nothing from you, least of all a lecture about sacrificing my virginity in a casual encounter!’ Tally traded flatly, tilting her chin, corkscrew curls shimmying back from her flushed cheekbones, enhancing the bright green colour of her eyes.

‘I wouldn’t have chosen to make love to you if I’d known I would be your first lover. You must’ve had some reason for waiting so long to have sex …’

Tally flinched, determined not to stroke his ego by admitting that it had taken him to fill her with the desire and need to experience that ultimate intimacy. ‘I’m not exactly an old lady. Nor am I as unusual as you think. Not every girl sleeps around from a young age. The time just felt right.’

‘But why did you pick me? Or is that a stupid question?’ Sander enquired cynically.

‘A stupid question?’ Tally queried from the bathroom doorway, because she was planning on getting dressed but not in front of him.

‘Maybe working for the Karydas girl has given you a taste for her lifestyle and you’re hoping that I will deliver it,’ Sander derided.

‘Oh, so now you think I’m a gold-digger … my goodness, you’re as obsessed with your financial worth as Cosima is!’ Tally condemned furiously, outraged by his suspicions about her character. ‘Get a life, Sander! We had sex but I’m not expecting a commitment of any kind from you! In fact if I ever see you again after this fiasco, it will be too soon!’

Within minutes, Tally had shed the robe and donned her clothing. She emerged from the bathroom again and pushed forcefully past Sander, who was in her path, by raising her hands to push against his broad chest in vehement rejection.

‘Tally—’

‘Get lost!’ Tally launched back at him angrily as she stalked out of the room and headed straight upstairs to her own.

So much for him being the special guy whom she was connecting with, she castigated herself bitterly while she eradicated all evidence that she had not spent the night in her own bed. Having donned casual clothing and packed her stuff for departure, suddenly she could not wait to go home and she took out her mobile phone to check out the local train times and then to ring her father. It was not a call she enjoyed making but she felt that it was only fair to tell him what had happened, lest he receive some other version of the truth from his daughter. Anatole Karydas was shocked and rather silent and it was with a heavy heart that she finally went downstairs to confront her sister.

‘Oh, it’s you …’ Wrapped in a colourful silk kimono, Cosima pulled a long-suffering face and reluctantly let her into her bedroom. ‘I suppose you’re expecting me to grovel but you should’ve minded your own business last night. Even though Chaz had nothing to do with what happened, he was thrown out of the party. No doubt you’re pleased about that!’

‘Right at this minute, I couldn’t care less about you or your boyfriend. Thanks to you, I passed out in public and was left to depend on the kindness of strangers while I was unconscious,’ Tally reminded the younger woman, her bright eyes level and accusing, her hurt over Cosima’s lack of concern or guilt on that score well concealed because she had her pride. ‘How could you put me through that? It was a very dangerous thing to do and a very unpleasant experience.’

Cosima was defiant. ‘So?’ she traded sulkily. ‘I didn’t want you here this weekend.’

‘It won’t be a problem you have again,’ Tally assured her drily. ‘I’ll see you … or maybe I won’t.’

Her sibling followed her to the door, only then noting the small case Tally had left in the corridor. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I have a train to catch—’

‘But you’re supposed to be leaving with me this afternoon,’ the pretty brunette protested, her surprise and annoyance patent.

‘I’d like to go home now. All the best, Cosima,’ Tally pronounced with sincerity and departed in relief …