Chapter 10
This was Cara’s worst nightmare. She avoided being on stages at all costs these days, had even hidden in the toilets when Margot’s business had won an entrepreneurial award so she didn’t have to be up there in the spotlight. Yet, here she was, sat on a chair on one side of the stage while Wren was on the other, the priest-who-wasn’t-a-priest performing slow body rolls in front of her like his six-pack was the product and this was a soon-to-be-interactive advertisement. And as much as she would be signing up to a subscription for her viewing pleasure, the whole being watched by an audience of flesh-hungry women was about as appealing as swimming with sharks.
‘You could smile,’ Akis said as his crotch rocked and writhed mere centimetres from her face.
‘Is that a joke? Why would I smile when I don’t want to be here?’ She had to raise her voice above the pumping bassline of the music.
‘You not smiling might affect my tips. I need the tips.’
This time he ducked right into her personal space, priest robes discarded, bare chest rippling up her torso. Seeds. No, not seeds of any kind. He had impersonated a member of the clergy. That was law-breaking.
‘Well, you should have thought about that before you hoodwinked me into believing you were a member of God’s family.’
He was smiling now and it wasn’t so much sexy but smug. ‘I do not know whether to laugh at whatever the word “hoodwink” means or remind you that each one of us is a member of God’s family. If you believe.’
Cara was about to counter him quickly until he spun around and suddenly there was rope around her and she was being bound to the chair. What the hell was this? A quick look to the left and she could see Wren and another dancer getting into a similar situation across the stage. And far from looking nervous or embarrassed, Wren seemed to be putting her hands all over the dancer’s torso.
‘Greek olive oil,’ Akis said. ‘Cup your hands.’
‘No.’
‘Come on, extra virgin. There are other women down there who would give their husband’s Amex for this chance.’
‘I would give you my own Amex to get off this chair if I didn’t think my aunt would be disappointed in me.’ She paused. ‘Did you call me “extra virgin”?’
Before Cara could say anything else, he had taken control of her hands and poured oil in them. And unless she did something it was going to start dripping all over the rather lovely skirt Margot had stumped up for in Liberty. She stood up and the chair came with her. But, instead of rubbing the oil over Akis’s contorting abdominals, Cara went for his face. Slapping her hands on his cheeks, she massaged the oil into his skin, teasing fingers around his firm jawline, tracing a finger under the edge of his mask…
‘Ochi. No,’ Akis said firmly. ‘Not the mask.’
A statement rather than a warning.
Then, somehow, the rope around her and the chair fell away and Akis picked her up.
‘We have approximately two minutes and thirty seconds until this song is over and you are meant to be left quivering with need with every single person in this audience wishing they were you.’
His breath was hot in her ear and with his almost carrying-over-the-threshold cradling, there was no space between them.
‘So, you have two choices. We can do sexual things with food like Wren and Horatio. Or I can just put you on the floor right now, and ride all over you until the song climaxes.’
Cara hated that somewhere down in the depths of her uterus there was a definite vibration. Out of the corner of her eye she spied the tell-tale shape and colour of a cucumber. There was only one option.
‘The floor,’ she told him. ‘And I am not going to move a centimetre.’
It was definitely a sexy smile crossing his lips now. ‘We will see about that.’