Lovers Never Lie Read online

  Weak with need, she ran her fingers around the waistband of his swimming trunks. His skin was warm velvet, but the hard muscles beneath snagged her breath in her throat. She tugged at his trunks, and with urgency, he helped her.

  He rose above her, the sun splitting around either side of his face. His eyes were soft with want but his lips were firm and sensual. Reaching for his shorts, he extracted a packet from its pocket. She closed her eyes and felt his body shift as he slid on protection. She curved up and he thrust down, easing into her with caring and skill. A searing heat spread through her loins and he thrust faster.

  He was in her, and on her, through her, and around her. Everywhere she was, he was, too. Partners in ecstasy, equals in love.

  For one long shuddering moment, she heard only the sound of his passion and her own answering cry. She shut her eyes, but couldn't shut out the light. It penetrated her consciousness as he penetrated her body, lit her from without, as he lit her from within. Burned into her fears, and dismissed them with disdain.

  A wave slapped the rock not far from her head, and somewhere on the cliff side, bees buzzed over flowers. But here on the rock, none of that mattered. Andrew's passion was her passion, her joy, his. In a crescendo of sound they met and joined, then blazed together in an explosion of sensation.

  For a long moment afterward he didn't move, simply stayed where he was, his weight warm and welcome. His head rested on her chest, and he curled his tongue around one nipple, teasing and enticing it, encouraging it again to tautness.

  She chuckled with pleasure, a low, throaty sound she was unused to hearing from her own throat. But she was just as unused to feeling like this, as contented as a cat in sunshine, as satiated as a kitten with a belly full of cream. Joy bubbled up as though from a spring, filling her with effervescence. An unfamiliar sensation, but one she liked.

  He covered her mouth with his and kissed her again, not urgently this time, but slowly as though he savored her taste.

  "Friends?" he whispered, kissing his way up her cheek to her eyes.

  She shut her eyes and shivered, relishing the touch of his lips on her eyelids and the feel of his manhood stirring within.

  "More than that," she whispered back, afraid to say the word lover, as though even now the magic might end. Moving her hands across his back, she found his skin slick with passion. His eyes closed and she moved to meet him once again as he thrust into her body with a rhythm as old as time.

  He seemed to know instinctively what gave her pleasure, and she was stunned that two virtual strangers, two friends, two lovers, could produce such ecstasy.

  She loved him, she suddenly realized, with her body, soul, and mind, but most frightening of all, she loved him with her heart.

  She stared into his face and memorized each plane and line, held dear the tiny scar marring his jaw.

  Everything was perfect; this moment, this man, this feeling of love.

  Chapter 8

  Andrew stared down at her, the passion in his eyes giving way to concern. His eyes grew darker and darker, as though one idea after another tumbled through his brain and not one of them had anything to do with love. He rolled off her onto his side, facing her, but apart.

  "What is it?" she whispered, joy spiraling away like water down a drain, dread filling the emptiness left behind.

  He ran his finger down her throat to her breast, then, as though forcing himself, he pulled his hand away.

  Aching with loss, she pulled her discarded towel across her chest. The sun still blistered down, but suddenly she felt cold. For all the sun's fiery touch, it couldn't penetrate the ice forming around her heart.

  Andrew stared at his hand, the one that had touched her, then into her eyes, his expression deadly serious.

  "Perhaps—" He paused, as though to choose his words carefully. "—remaining friends was better."

  No, her heart protested, but she trapped the word with her lips.

  "We're lovers now," he said.

  The word lovers held no warmth, though the magic of their lovemaking still hung in the air around them.

  Involuntarily, the muscles in her pelvis contracted.

  "It's time you told me the truth." His voice was emotionless and he seemed to hold himself in, as if reserving judgment in some way.

  Relief trickled through her. He didn't find it easy to speak the words of love. She didn't either. Wasn't it enough that they felt the love? Did either of them have to admit it out loud?

  Loving wasn't safe. Admitting it wasn't safe. Love could be lost, and she'd lost enough.

  She stared into his eyes, and searched for strength, needed his assurance to say the words.

  Andrew suddenly rose to a sitting position.

  She struggled to her elbows then sat up also. Eyeball to eyeball was the only way she could face him head on. But when her eyes met his, her heart quailed. It would take all the strength she possessed just to hold her own.

  Andrew looked past her across the sunlit cove toward Agios Nikolaos. His lips tightened and he turned to her again. "What's in the package Stacia?"

  Her breathing died to a shallow gasp. Obviously making love to her had meant nothing to him. While she'd been struggling to admit her love, he was thinking about something else entirely. His father's will?

  She'd been a fool to think she could trust this man, a fool to ignore her own suspicions. In the end, as in the beginning, it all came down to the package.

  It was as though they had never made love at all, as though she peered through tinted glasses into the darkest corner of the ocean. The sunlit cove seemed suddenly shadowed, the welcoming rocks, hard and bumpy, the food in the picnic basket, foreign and tasteless, the blanket on which they lay... No. No more.

  Andrew was right about one thing. It was time she knew the truth.

  His eyes had hardened into slate-blue orbs, eyes of a prosecutor and a judge. From the look on his face, the decision he'd rendered was guilty.

  "What's the package got to do with you?" she demanded, swallowing the bile rising in her throat.

  He rose to his feet, his movement fluid. Her body felt battered and sore, as if her bones were all broken and her flesh bruised. Continuing to sit was suddenly as untenable as remaining without clothes, but her right leg buckled beneath her as she rose. She staggered against an out-jutting promontory on the rocky wall. Tears filled her eyes, threatened to spill over.

  He took hold of her shoulder as if to steady her, and a trembling began that buffeted her body. With a forceful shrug, she pulled herself free.

  "I want to get dressed," she said firmly. If she was going to hear his answer, she needed the armor of clothing.

  His hands dropped to his sides, clenched once, then hung still, the effort of that stillness evident on his face.

  She yanked on her shorts, ignoring the panties she'd packed in her bag. She would be exposed for the time it took to put them on. She'd already given him her body. Now she wanted it back.

  She turned her back to him and reached for her brassiere, fumbling with the clasps as though she were a novice. She couldn't bear to look at him and see in his eyes that he'd only made love to her to get the will. Then his hand touched hers and she froze to the spot.

  "Let me help," he offered quietly, as though he hadn't spoken earlier, as though his question no longer reverberated in her ears.

  "I can do it," she said sharply.

  His hand dropped away.

  Irrationally, that loss was harder to bear than his touch.

  She slipped her arms through her blouse, buttoned it and faced him. His shorts were already on, but his chest was still bare. With sandals and a lance, he could be Jason arriving on Crete for the Golden Fleece. He seemed the personification of good standing before her, not of evil.

  She cleared her throat, prayed the words she needed would come. "You haven't answered my question." She lifted her chin higher.

  "You've got something of mine in that package," he said, his voice hard.

/>   Everything about him was now hard, except for the hair curling softly around his face. Yet he stared at her as though memorizing her features.

  "I was warned about you," she said.

  "You know about me?" Something painful flickered across his face. "Warned I would want my property back?"

  "I was warned you might try to steal it." If she said the words aloud, it might make it all seem real. She backed away one step toward the stairs.

  "Me steal it?" he asked incredulously. He took a step toward her, his gaze fastened on hers. "They don't call it stealing when you take back what's yours."

  His gaze pinned her to the rock. She was unable to move backward, didn't want to move forward.

  "Who are you?" she whispered. She needed to hear the truth, knew suddenly it was the only way to make the pain end.

  "I told you who I am."

  "You gave me a name. That doesn't mean you told me the truth."

  "Why don't you tell me the truth?" His eyes were bullets, hard as metal and steely blue. "What's in the package Stacia?" He gripped her wrist. "Do you know?"

  "Yes," she breathed, bracing herself, though for what she didn't know. The completeness of their isolation, so desirable before, seemed suddenly menacing. She caught her breath and held it. He would hardly attack her. He knew she didn't have the package with her.

  A sound as soft as a sigh escaped his lips. "You're part of it, aren't you?" His fingers became an iron band around her wrist, and his eyes grew darker, though with pain or elation, she wasn't sure which. And there were lines around his lips that hadn't been there before.

  "Part of what?" she asked.

  "The conspiracy," he answered, in a leaden voice. "You knew what was in the package, yet you agreed to carry it to Greece."

  "Yes."

  He released her wrist and gripped her chin instead, tilting it upward, his eyes searching hers. Her soul too, for all she knew. Heat scored her cheeks where his fingers lay, reviving past unwanted heat.

  "I didn't want to believe you knew," he said in a contemptuous voice.

  She wrenched her head away. Somehow his contempt hurt more than the knowledge he wasn't who he pretended to be.

  "I'd begun to believe you were incapable of such a thing."

  "I'd do it again in an instant." Anger added an edge to her words.

  "You'll never do it again to me."

  The steely certainty in his voice made her want to lash out at him. "We're lovers now. You said so." She heard the bitterness in her voice and struggled to keep her feelings from her face. She had given him too much already.

  "Lovers never lie," she added softly. "I know you're not Andrew Moore. At least, that's not your father's name." The words tumbled from her mouth, but if she didn't speak them quickly, she might not speak them at all.

  "You told me your father left when you were young, taking your brother with him." She stared hard into his eyes. "Your father is Andropolous, isn't he?"

  Stunned surprise crossed his face.

  "You found your father," she accused, "and planned your revenge."

  "Revenge?" he repeated.

  Even as she'd said it, it sounded ridiculous. The man to whom she'd just made love wasn't capable of revenge, no matter whose son he was. Not if it meant hurting her. And hurting her was the only way he was going to get that package.

  Her heartbeat faltered. Perhaps she had simply assumed he cared. What if he hadn't? Her palms turned clammy. Fear trickled up her spine.

  It was as if her eyes were open at last, looking at the truth and recoiling.

  "You've been following me," she accused, scarcely able to breathe for every breath hurt.

  "Yes," he admitted.

  "Talking to me, helping me, lending me money." As she ran through the list, she could feel him mentally ticking each item off.

  "I talked to you because I wanted to, helped you because you needed it, loaned you money for the same reason." His voice was low and even, not a criminal's voice at all. If this were the movies he'd be shouting and waving a gun.

  "You waited and watched. You took your time. You enjoyed yourself." Her last words were as high and thin as a sorcerer's rope.

  "I enjoyed being with you." He gave her a faint smile. "Although you aren't the easiest person alive."

  "Why didn't you just take the package?" Blood raced through her veins and hit her head. "Why did you have to humiliate me first?"

  He took another step toward her. "I did nothing to harm you. You did that yourself."

  She could see him as clearly now as when they'd made love, but this time his lips weren't swollen with passion, nor were his eyes bright with desire. His lips were compressed now, his eyes accusing. He seemed larger, stronger, and more powerful than ever.

  He held her gaze with his, his eyes forcing her to stay put when reason demanded she bolt up those stairs and never look back.

  "Why did you do it?" he demanded.

  "It was a job like any other."

  "Not quite like any other."

  "Travel. Good money." She faced him squarely. "It was hard to turn down."

  "I didn't want to believe you'd do anything for money." His lips twisted. "I guess I was wrong."

  She shook her head in dismissal, her stomach churning with the knowledge that even now she knew the truth about him, she cared what he thought.

  "Why chase half way across the world after me?" she asked.

  "You have what I want."

  "You should have talked to your father?"

  "I have no father."

  "He'd have treated you fairly."

  "Alive, or dead, he never treated anyone fairly. But what's that got to do with this." The crease in his forehead deepened.

  She resisted the urge to smooth it away. "He's old and confused." No more confused than she.

  "Who is?" he demanded.

  "Mr. Andropolous," she said impatiently. The perplexed look on Andrew's face made her long to shake him. "Your father."

  "My father?" he repeated stupidly.

  "Stop it," she commanded. She couldn't look at him and discuss this, all the while wanting him. Look at him and know he didn't really want her.

  He gripped her shoulders. "My father's dead," he said again.

  "Then... who is Andropolous?" Her head was swirling. The pieces of the puzzle shifted like sand on a desert.

  "Exactly," he said icily. "Who is Andropolous?"

  "Mr. Stone's client," she explained, then was instantly furious she had done so. She owed him nothing.

  "Mr. Stone?" he demanded sharply.

  "Mr. Stone's the man who hired me."

  "Wilson," he corrected.

  A chill streaked down her arms at the ice in his voice.

  "Stone," she insisted. "He said his name was Stone."

  "And you believed him."

  "Yes, I believed what he told me." Although obviously, she was no judge of what was true, or who to believe.

  "Stacia." He shook her shoulders, as though what he was about to ask mattered more than anything on earth. "What do you think is in the package?"

  She hesitated and was lost. There was no point in prevaricating if he was telling the truth about his father being dead.

  "Mr. Andropolous's last will and testament." Hope flickered at the confused expression on Andrew's face. If he wasn't Andropolous's son, he wasn't the villain she'd been warned against.

  "There was more than paper in that package," Andrew said tersely. His fingers tightened as if by reflex.

  "Just a sweater," she answered, then reached up and grabbed his wrists, was unprepared for the current jolting through her when they touched. She snatched away her hands, sure they'd been burned.

  His eyes seemed on fire, also. Their indigo color darkened, settled finally at black, but within their depths, a light flashed.

  "How do you know it's a sweater?" His voice was low and accusing.

  "I opened it," she said, flushing.

  He released her so abruptly she felt d
isconnected. "Come on," he ordered. He snatched up the food basket and blanket. The light in his eyes burned brighter than ever. "Let's look at it together."

  * * *

  Andrew had set the pace of a marathon runner, racing back to the hotel with one hand gripping her elbow as though she were a prisoner. Though chilled with apprehension, her skin was slick with sweat, and the sun seemed as determined to blind her as Andrew was to rush her. She stumbled once, but that barely slowed him. He held her weight and pulled her on her way again.

  She peered at the key in her hand, her eyes still adjusting to the comparative darkness of the hall. She felt for the key hole and inserted it into the lock. A click, a grating of tumblers, and suddenly they were through.

  She took in a deep breath and surveyed her room slowly, aware of Andrew at her back, aware of his impatience. The room seemed unfamiliar, as though it had changed in the hours she'd been gone, but perhaps it was she who had done the changing. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth and across her lips, the only dry parts of her body.

  "Get the package," Andrew demanded.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she moved toward her suitcase, opened it in front of him and took out the parcel. She faced him and found that even now he moved her, standing before her as he did, tall, strong and handsome. What struck her most was the clarity of his eyes.

  Honest eyes, she would have thought.

  "Open it," he ordered.

  She lifted her chin. "I'm opening nothing. Not until you tell me your interest in this."

  Too swiftly for her to stop him, he stepped closer and snatched the package. Only then did he look at her.

  His eyes were the blue of the Mediterranean sky. Clear eyes. Open. Eyes you could trust.

  She dropped her gaze and stared at his hands instead. She'd come close to trusting him once. That wouldn't happen again.

  "My name is Andrew Moore," he told her for a second time. "What's in the package is mine."

  His words were clear enough, but it wasn't his words that worked on her doubts. It was his voice. The firm, certain voice of someone who is sure.