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After a while, Kayla looked up at him where he lay beside her, propped up on an elbow. ‘Why didn’t you...?’ Crazily, even after the intimacy they had shared she was too embarrassed to say it.
‘Why didn’t I what?’ Leonidas leaned across her, tracing the curve of her cheek before picking a small windblown flower out of her hair. ‘Take what I wanted?’ he supplied, helping her.
She nodded, closing her eyes against the exquisite tenderness of his touch.
‘Because I don’t think you’re a girl who indulges in casual sex, and you wouldn’t have thanked me for it tomorrow.’
‘Because you think I’m on the rebound?’ Suddenly self-conscious of her nakedness, when he hadn’t even undressed beyond his gaping shirt, she sat up to retrieve her clothes. ‘I’m not—I promise you,’ she said resolutely, wriggling into her panties.
She was well and truly over Craig now. But perhaps there were other reasons for Leon not taking their lovemaking the whole way. Perhaps he was remaining faithful to someone, she thought uneasily. Someone who moved him to anger and roused his passions in a way she might never be able to do...
‘Did you bring her here?’ She couldn’t look at him as she started fastening her blouse.
‘Who?’
‘The woman you won’t talk about?’ she said grievously.
He laughed—a deep, warm sound on the scented air, mingling with the drone of insects and the mellifluous birdsong. ‘You really are a very imaginative little lady.’
‘Not as imaginative as you, with your island mansion and your racehorses,’ she accused, kneeling up to tug her shorts on.
‘Uh-uh,’ he denied. ‘The racehorses were your idea,’ he reminded her with a hint of humour in his eyes, although the slashes of colour across his cheeks were evidence of the passion that still rode him. ‘And now I really think it’s time that we started back.’
‘I’m being serious,’ she stressed, wishing he wouldn’t continue to evade the issue, wondering if he was only doing it because there really was someone else.
‘So am I,’ he breathed heavily, getting up and pulling her with him, and this time his determination brooked no resistance.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_4f43e431-2a8d-5459-9391-7de03b70dbb9)
LOOKING BACK, LEONIDAS wasn’t sure how he had managed to stop himself making love to Kayla that afternoon. Heaven knew he had wanted to. A fact not made any easier by the knowledge of how much she had wanted him, too. But there were ethics to be observed, and there was no way that he could have taken all she had been offering when he wasn’t being straight with her. It had all boiled down to guilt, he decided shamefully. Guilt because he wasn’t telling her the truth.
But the truth was that he had come here to be alone. Not to indulge in any social or sexual entanglements with a girl who could carry him along with her ridiculous yet infectious sense of make-believe. Well, make-believe to her, at any rate. Because he could afford that island, had it been for sale—and a dozen like it, did she but know it. But it seemed like a lifetime since he had indulged in that childish game, and he had found it oddly refreshing.
In the world he moved in there was no room for fantasising or dreaming. Only for cold hard facts and figures. Securing deals. That was living the dream. Or so he had thought.
Until now, though, he hadn’t begun to realise how deeply and for how long his dreams had been buried. Firstly by his father, and then more recently beneath the weight of his own responsibilities. He had been so busy making money—reaping the benefits of all he had worked for during the past decade or more—that he hadn’t taken the time even to question where those dreams had gone. And now this little nobody had come along, making him question his values. He was annoyed with himself for allowing her to get under his skin to such a degree. But that didn’t change the fact that he wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a long time—much less one who would have been in her own marriage bed right now if things had worked out as they should have.
A hard possessiveness kicked in as he imagined her naked with the faceless, double-crossing character who had betrayed her—he could only temper his indignation at the thought of the two of them together by imagining himself in Kayla’s bed. And that brought other problems as his body hardened in response to imagining her sobs of pure pleasure directed at him and him alone as he made himself master of her body.
But things couldn’t go on as they were. He was either going to have to come clean at some stage, he decided grimly, or end their relationship before it went any further. Neither prospect filled him with any pleasure.
He knew exactly what she thought about company men, and after the experience she had had with that lowest of the low fiancé of hers—not to mention her father—she’d be blameless for thinking he was no better. Yet staying away from her wasn’t an option he welcomed either. He was just relieved that his secretary had e-mailed him with some plans that needed his urgent attention, so that for today at least he didn’t have to think about how he could come clean with Kayla. However he chose to tell her, he knew she wasn’t going to welcome finding out...
* * *
When Leon didn’t put in an appearance that day, and didn’t come down the next morning, Kayla jumped at Philomena’s suggestion that she drive up to the farmhouse with some bread Philomena had just baked.
She’d scarcely given a thought to her ex since Leon had taken her over to that island, she realised, noticing how it seemed to shimmer in the morning sun. She couldn’t help marvelling at the difference between the two men and wondering what she had ever seen in Craig.
Had her love for him been so shallow that the first man who came along could make her forget him and the hurt he had caused her so completely? But then Leon wasn’t just any man, she reminded herself, with a sudden tightening of her breasts and that familiar stirring of heat at the very heart of her femininity. He made her feel like no other man had ever made her feel.
A throbbing excitement leaped along her veins at the memory of their afternoon on that islet, when he had driven her crazy for him, playing with her like a love-toy, winding her up only to let her run wild with delirious sensation as he had taken her to heights her mental and physical being had never scaled before.
She had wanted him so much! And it had been patently obvious that he wanted her. So why hadn’t he taken their lovemaking to its ultimate conclusion? Was it because there was someone else? But he had called her imaginative when she had broached the subject with him, so perhaps it was simply that he didn’t think she was ready to embark on a relationship with him—in which case, she decided with a delicious little shiver, it was up to her to show him that she was.
When she arrived at the farmhouse her heart gave a little leap when she saw the truck parked outside.
So he was in! She wondered if she was being too presumptuous in coming. Supposing he didn’t want to see her? Or she’d disappointed him in some way?
Feeling queasy in the stomach just from entertaining that possibility, she tripped lightly round to the glass-paned peeling doors at the back of the house. One creaked open at her less than confident knock.
When she called out there was no reply, and so gingerly she moved inside, still calling his name. He wasn’t in the sitting room, and nor did he emerge from the kitchen when she moved enquiringly towards it.
Perhaps he’d gone for a walk, she mused, standing there in the hall, wondering what to do.
About to take a look outside, she heard a sudden thud on the boarded floor above. She dumped her carrier bag with the bread she’d brought on an old pine chest just inside the door.
‘Leon?’ she called out, and when there was still no response, unthinkingly she raced up the stairs.
His bedroom was in shadow, with semi-closed shutters, but a quick glance towards the bed revealed him lying there on his back, still drugged from sleep, groping blindly for something on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Kayla moved over and, picking up a chunky little clock, replaced it on the cabinet beside the bedside lamp.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, knowing what an early bird he usually was. It was already after ten and she’d obviously woken him, she realised, guessing he’d reached for the clock and knocked it over when he’d heard her calling him.
‘I must have crashed out,’ he mumbled, drawing an arm across his forehead. His eyes were heavy with sleep and his hair was dishevelled and, like his unshaven jaw, satanically dark. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I brought you some bread. I thought you were out, but the door was open,’ Kayla responded with a nervous gesture of her hand. She was aware that she was gabbling, but it was difficult to do anything else when faced with the sight of his bronzed body, naked save for the fine sheet that barely covered his hips and certainly left nothing to the imagination. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’
‘What do you think?’ he drawled, in a voice thickened by sleep and by the involuntary response of his anatomy.
Heated colour touched Kayla’s cheeks and yet she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to his potent virility. Driven by something more powerful than her own reasoning, she dropped down onto the bed.
‘I think you must be overjoyed,’ she whispered, touching kisses to the warm, undulating muscles of his chest, using the pale, sensuous fountain of her hair to caress him as her lips moved over the tautened flesh of his tight lean waist and her hands dealt tremblingly with the sheet.
He let out a deep shuddering gasp of anticipation. ‘Why did you come?’ he asked heavily.
‘I just thought that one good turn deserved another,’ Kayla whispered, feathering kisses over his tightly muscled abdomen. She didn’t know where she was finding the courage to seduce him like this. She only knew by instinct alone that he was a man who liked his women confident and worldly, not wimpish and nursing the old wounds of a previous relationship.
‘Close your eyes,’ she ordered softly, getting up.
Leonidas’s heart seemed to stop, and then thundered into life when she came back to the bed and straddled him. She was wearing a white top with a little red skirt that swirled about her thighs, and his mind whirled in a vortex of conflicting thoughts as he realised that she had obviously removed what she had been wearing underneath.
‘Kayla. Stop this...’ He wasn’t sure whether he’d spoken the words or whether they were just buzzing feverishly through his brain.
‘Why? Is it too early for you?’ Kayla teased, excitement driving her even as her mind raced with interminable doubts.
Was she carrying things too far? Didn’t he like a woman taking the initiative? He was more down to earth and unfettered by convention than any man she had ever met. He didn’t want a woman who was anything but what he was. Not someone weighed down with emotional baggage; someone who didn’t know her own mind.
Beneath her Leonidas shivered as he felt her sliding down his body, the moist heat of her searing his skin like a molten poultice.
‘Dear—!’ He swallowed the profanity, his breathing laboured, his body on fire. He had to stop this! But as her soft mouth took possession of him his senses spun into chaos.
He had never felt so powerless, and yet at the same time so shamelessly empowered. His body was a temple of pleasure at which this amazing woman was worshipping.
He felt his size increase and harden like burning, quivering steel. His body was taut as a bow, holding back the flaming arrow it needed to release before it consumed him in its raging inferno.
He fought to contain it, the struggle almost overwhelming him. And just when he thought he had won the battle she slid along his length, positioning herself above him to take him into her.
He tried to pull back, but he was powerless to do anything but push against her slick hot wetness, groaning in defeat as he allowed himself the freedom to let her do whatever she would.
Looking down at him, Kayla registered the rapturous agony on his face, that line of pained pleasure between his closed lids. It lent him a vulnerability she hadn’t seen before—one that called to everything in her that was soft and feminine and tender—and yet she felt powerful too. She was in control and glorying in it, dominating the pace and the depth and the rhythm. That was until she heard the guttural masculine groan when he suddenly clamped his hands over her hips and pushed harder and more determinedly into her.
The depth of penetration dragged a small cry of ecstasy from her lips. She felt the explosion of his seed deep within her and started to climax almost instantaneously.
It was the most fulfilling experience of her life.
They were both breathing heavily when she collapsed, wet and gasping, against the warm damp cushion of his chest, and then he was rolling her round so that she was lying pressed close to his side.
‘What was all that about?’ he quizzed, as soon as he could speak again. His breathing was still heavy and laboured.
Kayla wasn’t sure whether there was disapproval in his husky tones. ‘Didn’t you like it?’ she enquired, almost diffidently.
‘Of course I liked it!’ he shot back, his voice incredulous. ‘But right now I’m not sure whether to applaud you for your resourcefulness or to paddle that pretty bare bottom of yours and send you packing back to Philomena’s.’
‘Why?’ An uneasy line pleated Kayla’s brows as she lay facing him with her hair wildly dishevelled. ‘Do Greek men always have to be the dominant partner?’ She was beginning to feel hurt and embarrassed.
‘No. But whoever chooses to be should take responsibility for what they’re doing. Is there any chance that you could be pregnant after that delightful little escapade?’
‘Of course not! I’m not that stupid!’ she snapped, trying to sit up and failing when he kept her anchored to his side. She didn’t feel it was necessary to add that she was taking the pill. She had tried to come off it after her break-up with Craig, but her periods had gone so haywire that her doctor had suggested it might be best for her to keep taking it until her emotions were on a more even keel.
‘So what happens now?’ Leonidas asked, his breath seeming to shiver through his lungs.
‘What do you mean?’ Blue eyes searched the midnight-darkness of his for some sign of tenderness—the tenderness that had been stirred in her by seeing him so vulnerable while she had been making love to him—but there was none.
‘We’ve just become lovers and you don’t even know who I am.’ Something he was going to have to rectify—and as soon as possible, he realised, floundering. It was a feeling that was alien to Leonidas Vassalio.
‘Yes, I do. Or as much as I need to,’ she murmured, feeling his powerful body tense as she applied a trail of butterfly kisses over the slick warmth of his heavily contoured chest.
‘I’m trying to be serious, Kayla.’
‘Why?’ she breathed against the velvety texture of his skin, delighting in the way his breathing was growing more and more ragged from her kisses.
But as her fingers trailed teasingly along the inside of one powerful thigh his hand suddenly clamped down on hers, resisting the temptation to let it wander.
‘Because I don’t believe you’re the type of girl who does this without knowing what sort of man she’s getting herself involved with and without demanding some degree of emotional commitment.’
And he wasn’t offering any. She couldn’t understand why telling herself that caused her spirits to plummet the way they did.
‘I’m not demanding anything,’ she uttered, knowing that the only way to save face was to get the hell out of there. ‘And I’m sorry if I offended you!’
Scrambling out of bed, managing to shrug off the hand that tried to restrain her, she heard his urgent, ‘Kayla! Kayla, come back here!’
She didn’t, though. Her wounded pride propelled her into the adjoining bathroom, her mind focussed only on tidying herself up and getting out.
Stung with regret for upsetting her, momentarily Leonidas flopped back against the pillows. He hadn’t intended her to take what he had said in the way she had. He had been trying to explain, in a roundabout way, what he should have told her long before, but procrastinating had only made an awkward situation far more difficult. After what had just happened he didn’t know how or where to begin. He only knew that he couldn’t let it happen again before he told her the truth—and all he’d managed to do was let her believe she’d offended him...
Offended him! He couldn’t stop a lazy smile from touching his mouth.
She’d blown his mind, he thought, when she’d woken him up from a deep, deep sleep and dragged him straight into a cauldron of sizzling pleasure. He hadn’t had time to catch his breath—let alone think! And he wouldn’t have been caught so off-guard, still in bed, if he hadn’t been up practically all night trying to get round one last hitch with those amended plans...
The plans!
He shot up in bed just as Kayla was emerging from the bathroom.
He’d left all his paperwork spread out over the kitchen table with his laptop—incriminating evidence of who he was! It had been late, and he’d obviously crashed out on the bed after he’d come up here and showered!
‘Kayla, come here!’
The authority in his voice would have stopped a lesser mortal, but she ignored it as she moved around the bed, frowning, tugging at the draping folds of the bedlinen.
‘Are you looking for something?’ he asked, knowing he had to act quickly.
Kayla made a grab for the red briefs he was holding up, which only succeeded in bringing her across the bed and against his disturbingly masculine body as he withheld them, effectively securing what he wanted.
‘You haven’t offended me. You were wonderful,’ he murmured, his warm breath a delicious sensuality against her hairline. ‘Now, come back to bed. I want to talk to you,’ he said, and just as an incentive slipped his hand under the tantalising little skirt and let his fingers play along the outer curve of one taut, silky buttock.
Kayla groaned, weakening beneath his mind-boggling powers of persuasion. She felt vulnerable and incredibly sexy with no panties on, but she despaired at herself too, at how easily and effortlessly he could bend her to his will.
Whatever he had to say, she had the strongest suspicion that she wasn’t going to like it. He didn’t want commitment. Of course he didn’t. And anyway she wasn’t ready for another serious relationship yet. Yet neither was she ready to let him have it all his own way.
Catching him in an unguarded moment, reaching round to adjust the pillows behind them, she managed to wriggle out of his arms and snatch her underwear from his grasp, saying, ‘I can talk better over a cup of coffee,’ as she ran giggling out of the room.
‘Kayla, come here!’
She was in the hall, pulling her panties back on, when he raced down the stairs, still fastening his robe, but darted off again laughingly as soon as she saw him coming.
‘Will you just stand still and let me talk to you?’ he called after her as she grabbed the carrier bag she’d left on the chest and headed for the kitchen. He had to break it to her gently. She’d be angry, it was true, but not as angry as she would be finding it out for herself.
‘Go and sit down,’ he commanded softly when she turned around. He was pointing to the sitting room. ‘I will make the coffee.’
‘Fine,’ she agreed airily, pivoting away again, ‘but I’ll keep you company while you’re doing it.’
‘In the sitting room,’ he breathed, in one last attempt to prevent her from seeing all his papers.
She turned in the kitchen doorway, her chin lifting in playful challenge. ‘And since when did you suddenly start issuing so many orders?’
‘Since I thought you were running out on me without finishing what you started.’ One purposeful stride brought him over to her, his mouth a sensuous curve. But inside he was a heaving mass of turmoil.
