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There—that should hopefully convince him that she wasn’t secretly pleased that they were going to be here together alone…
‘Sadie, I give you my word that you’ll be perfectly safe,’ Leon told her rawly.
As she turned away from him and started to walk back towards the mas, Sadie admitted to herself that she wasn’t at all sure that ‘safe’ was what she wanted to be. In fact she knew that it wasn’t! Not when the alternative was a blissful night spent in Leon’s arms, enjoying and exploring Leon’s body, having him explore hers… all of hers, with his hands and his mouth and…
Guiltily Sadie quickened her step as her whole body melted on a wave of unstoppable longing. Leon would be a wonderful lover. Somehow she already knew that. And her body wanted him to be its lover—wanted him to be! She had to stand still as her body reacted to her thoughts with a shocking surge of need.
Watching her, Leon discovered to his chagrin that he was actually grinding his teeth in frustration as a surge of hot male hunger gripped him. Fiercely he tried to resist the impulse to remember how she had felt in his arms last night when he had kissed her. He had given Sadie his word that he wouldn’t touch her, and he fully intended to keep it!
Briefly he looked away from her, battling against himself when he discovered that his body was telling him very determinedly and openly just how much it opposed what he had decided.
Already it was tormenting him with dangerous thoughts and even more dangerous images of what it would feel like to share the pleasure of love with Sadie, of what it would be like to share the heat of desire with her, and the intimacy of knowing one another’s bodies!
God, but he wanted her, Leon realised savagely—which was exactly why he would have given anything, paid anything, not to have to spend the night here at the mas with her.
He was a man of honour, and seducing her…
Seducing her. Leon leaned against the car and gave in to the fierce tide of heat that ripped through him.
He would undress her slowly, uncovering her inch by inch, touching her, stroking her, reassuring her as he kissed the soft sweetness of her skin, her throat, and that delicate delicious spot just behind her ear, her jaw, her eyelids and then her mouth.
Leon closed his eyes and tried to fight the surge of arousal engulfing him. But it was impossible. He could feel the immediate stiffening of his body and cursed himself beneath his breath, relieved that Sadie was too far away from him to be aware of his reaction.
But even knowing what his thoughts were doing wasn’t enough to stop them. Not now…
He would kiss Sadie slowly and chastely, waiting until she was ready for the intimate exploration of his tongue. Somehow he would find a way to control his need to thrust it hotly into the sweetness of her mouth. And then, once she had accepted him there, he would start to explore her body, the delicate curve of her arm just above her elbow, the inside of her wrist, the soft slope of her neck where it met her shoulder. And her breasts…
Leon felt the fierce thrusting reaction of his own body, saw when he looked down where his erection strained against the cloth of his jeans. Inside them he was hard and aching, so tumescent that it hurt.
Sadie had already reached the mas. He knew he ought to follow her, but his need for her was devouring him—and if he did… if he even got within breathing distance of her right now, never mind close enough to touch her, Leon knew that he wouldn’t be able to trust himself to keep the promise he had made to her.
Just the thought of cupping the soft weight of her breasts in his hands, of exploring them, running his fingertip around that place where the creamy paleness gave way to the deeper pinkness of her aureole before rising up to the nipple itself, was sending him crazy with longing.
His erection throbbed and pulsed. Inside his head, his hand was already travelling down her body, stroking her thighs, easing them apart, exploring the soft warmth of the full swollen lips protecting her sex with gentle reassurance before sliding between them to probe the moist excitement of her, and then…
Leon groaned out aloud and sliced a mental guillotine down across his thoughts. If he continued like this he wouldn’t be able to walk as far as the house, never mind do anything else, he told himself grittily.
He didn’t just want Sadie, he admitted angrily. He damn well loved her as well!
And loving her meant that he wanted to protect her. Not just from any other man who might dare to take advantage of her, but from himself!
He was in this so deep he might as well give up right now, Leon admitted. But he couldn’t afford to. Not until he had got the takeover sorted.
He was glad that Sadie had seen sense with regard to his plans for Francine. His board would not have been too pleased, to say the least, had he had to institute potentially expensive and—even worse—long drawn-out legal proceedings against Sadie to prove that the Myrrh perfume formula belonged legally to Francine. He needed that formula, Leon admitted, and he needed it badly—because he wanted to make good the vow he had made in his grandmother’s name and memory: that women the world over would be able to enjoy and afford the perfume she had so longed for as a young woman.
When that had been done he could give himself time to court Sadie, and to love her. Not until then. And right now he had the night to get through!
At least they weren’t going to starve whilst they waited for their replacement vehicle. Thanks to Sadie. Leon closed his eyes, reliving that moment when she had handed him the olive. An innocent Eve, indeed!
His erection stiffened and once again he muttered an imprecation under his breath. He was thirty-four years old, for heaven’s sake, and well past the age when he ought to be getting a hard-on just thinking about sex.
But he wasn’t just thinking about sex. He was thinking about Sadie! And he was thinking about love! Thinking about it. Aching for it—and for Sadie!
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS gone eleven o’clock. In the kitchen of the mas, Sadie suppressed a small yawn and cast a wary look at Leon.
They had eaten a meal together earlier in the evening, and Leon had once again refused any of the wine—although why he should have done so Sadie had no idea, since he was not going to be driving after all.
She had had some, though! To give her the resilience to get through the evening? To help her to block out the savage and aching longing driving through her, urging her to take the kind of provocative sexual action she would normally not just have totally deplored but refused to even consider? Her? Seduce Leon? Her brain said no way, but her emotions and her body ached. If only…
Luckily, all the beds in the mas possessed bedclothes, and Leon had managed to turn on the hot water, so at least she would be able to have a shower before she went to bed.
A shelf of books in the TV room should have provided her with some means of passing the time and removing herself from Leon’s presence, but stubbornly, and with alcohol-underpinned courage, she had refused to do so, remaining instead in the kitchen even though it was now over two hours since they had finished eating.
‘You’re tired,’ Leon announced in a clipped voice. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’
Why didn’t she remove her unwanted company from his presence was more like it, Sadie reflected bitterly, but she kept her thoughts to herself as she smothered another yawn. She was tired, she admitted, but strangely she was reluctant to leave the kitchen.
Strangely? Since when had it been remotely strange for a woman in love to want to leave the company of the man she loved? Sadie derided herself mentally.
A woman in love? She was in love with Leon? Well, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?
All right, she admitted angrily. All right! But that didn’t mean…
That didn’t mean what? she questioned herself mercilessly. That didn’t mean that right now she just ached to leave her chair and go over to him and wrap her arms around him? To kiss her way all along his jaw and tease her fingers through his hair? She wanted to taste the texture of his skin and explore the deliciously tempting outline of his mouth, whilst her free hand tugged his tee shirt out of his jeans and slid beneath it to feel the male strength of his chest, and then—
Frantically Sadie fought to reign in her rioting thoughts! Her face was burning, she knew, and no wonder. Perhaps it might be wiser if she did go to bed!
‘You’re right,’ she told Leon huskily. ‘I am tired. I will go to bed.’
Yes, she needed to get away from him before her body went totally out of control with longing and she ended up making a grab for him and putting her wanton thoughts into action!
Defiantly, she poured herself another glass of wine and picked it up. She had lied about being tired. She was far too wound up emotionally for sleep, but perhaps the wine would help her to do so.
Leon exhaled his pent-up breath in a savage sigh as he watched Sadie walk away from him. Morning couldn’t come fast enough for him. How the hell was he supposed to do anything so mundane as sleep when he knew that Sadie was lying there in the next room?
No way was he tired yet. He decided he would walk round the gardens of the mas and try and get his feelings under control.
Gathering up the underwear she had rinsed out, Sadie padded naked from the bathroom to the bedroom. The mas was certainly well equipped, and she was enjoying the luxury it provided. She envied Leon his stay here.
She found she couldn’t get Leon out of her head as she restlessly prowled around the bedroom, the glass of wine forgotten. And besides, a mere glass of wine wasn’t capable of subduing her longing… her love…
Leon stared back towards the mas. Sadie would be in bed by now. The savagery of the need that gripped him tensed his jaw. He could see the swimming pool, the water shimmering in the moonlight. His body needed cooling down and his thoughts needed exorcising!
He reached the side of the pool in a few strides, stripping off his clothes by the edge, and launching himself into a neat dive that sliced the water almost silently.
A fierce front crawl took him the length of the pool and back.
Still wide awake, Sadie went to her bedroom window. It looked out onto the pool area of the garden, and her whole body stiffened as she saw Leon in the water.
She watched him for several seconds before going into her bathroom and pulling on the bathrobe she had found there.
Like a sleepwalker she opened her bedroom door and made her way quietly and purposefully through the mas.
When she reached the pool, Leon was swimming towards the opposite side. Calmly she took off the robe and left it beside the pool. Unlike Leon, she did not dive into the pool, preferring instead to slide her body into its deliciously warm water.
She was a good swimmer. Her stroke was perhaps not as powerful as Leon’s, but still very accomplished and sleek, and it carried her speedily through the water to where Leon was just executing his turn.
She could see the look in his eyes as she reached him and put her feet down on the tiled floor of the pool. Here at the shallow end the water was just lapping the lower curves of her breasts, nudging erotically at her nipples before retreating to expose them fully, its touch a sensually warm caress that heightened her already aroused senses.
‘Sadie—’
She could hear the harsh warning in his voice but she ignored it. Up above them the sky was a midnight-blue cover sprinkled with brilliant white diamond stars. Sea and pool merged into a shimmering infinity, reflecting the brilliance of the moon. Nightscape lighting had turned the gardens of the mas into a place of mystery and fantasy.
The only sound to disturb the warm silence were the lap of the water and their own breathing. Leon’s was measured, but harsh, as though he was fighting to control it, and her own was so rapid with excitement that it was making her feel almost faint. Leon was standing up in the water, with his back against the tiles, and Sadie could see his expression quite clearly. He looked, she thought giddily, like some Greek god come to life, with his dark hair and strong chiselled features. And his body… Her heart did a dangerous slalom from what felt like a great height, and then skidded to a thudding halt against her ribs.
Leon’s body, she admitted, gulping in air, was just the most sexy male body she had ever seen in her life! She had thought that bodies like Leon’s only came courtesy of a Michaelangelo or a Leonardo. His torso was a perfect V shape, his shoulders impressively broad, his chest solid but not overly muscled, tapering into his waist. She itched to spread her fingers across his chest and to savour the silky warmth of the soft darkness of his body hair. Her heated gaze dropped helplessly to where the narrow line of hair disappeared beneath the water. Like her, he was naked…
Sadie could feel her breasts swelling and her nipples tightening. Her body quivered, agitating the water around her. Unable to stop herself, she moved closer to Leon and silently raised one trembling hand to his body.
‘Sadie.’ Leon’s low-voiced growl warned her of her danger, but she refused to stop. The pleasure of touching him was going to her head like champagne.
She took another step closer and then pressed both her hands flat against his chest. Lifting her head, she touched her tongue-tip to the hollow at the base of his throat, savouring the hot, salt male taste of him.
Lost in what she was doing, she didn’t see the storm signals or smell the dangerous scent of brimstone in the air. One minute she was standing in front of Leon, shivering with the knowledge that all that was keeping them apart was the soft surge of the water whilst her lips closed on the fierce pulse in his throat, and the next she was literally being imprisoned by Leon’s arms as they wrapped themselves punishingly around her and his curses rang savagely in her ears.
‘Are you crazy?’ she heard him demanding furiously. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? Do you think I’m made of stone?’
Stone… No, of course not. Leon was all wonderful gorgeous, sexy, woman-arousing, hunky maleness, all hard muscles and solid flesh, excitingly scored with that enticing line of hair that her fingers just ached to explore, Sadie decided feverishly.
She wasn’t even aware that she had spoken her thoughts out loud until she felt Leon’s teeth nip sharply at her ear and heard him tell her rawly, ‘That’s it. You’ve just sent my self-control into lunar orbit. Hell, Sadie!’
His hands gripped her, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her buttocks as he dragged her through the water and into his own body.
The feel of him against her skin to skin turned her belly soft with hot desire. Impetuously she moved her hips against him, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his mouth down towards her own.
She knew that she ought to be shocked by the brazenness of her own behaviour, but instead something inside her was urging her on, Leon’s mouth was on hers and no way was the kiss he was giving her reinforcing the verbal protests and denials he had given earlier.
He was kissing her with a hot passion that more than matched her own, his hands rhythmically kneading her buttocks as he did so.
She could feel him against her, excitingly hard, as his erection rubbed stiffly against her belly. Even the movement of the water seemed to echo the rhythmic thrusts of their bodies as her hips responded to the pressure of his hands, pulling them together.
The reflection of the stars and moon danced on the rocking water. Helplessly Sadie closed her eyes to its mesmerising glitter, only to be subjected to the even more mesmeric effect of Leon’s kiss.
She could feel her whole body responding to its passionate demand as she arched up on her toes and pressed herself into him. Her bare breasts were rubbing against his chest, her nipples so aroused by their contact with his body that fierce spirals of sensation coiled from them to flicker like lightning through her.
Their bodies were slickly wet from the pool water, but the heat inside her was generating another kind of wetness within the swelling lips that protected her sex. And not just a wetness, but an ache. Such an ache that she found herself wrapping her arms even more tightly around Leon’s neck as she ground her hips into him in open female demand. Her body ached—hurt even—with her need for him.
‘You want me here… now?’ she could hear Leon demanding thickly as he wrenched his mouth from hers.
Deprived of contact with his mouth, Sadie began to kiss and lick her way along his throat, savouring every taste of him. When she reached his jaw she ran her fingertips experimentally over the shaved line of his beard, exhilarated by the sensually rough feel of him.
His sex, when she touched it, would feel just the opposite—smooth and sleek, the skin tight where it strained over his erection.
Her whole body began to burn and shake, and she made a small, very female growl low in her throat as she nipped urgently at Leon’s ear.
Did he really need to hear her say the words? Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he feel what was happening to her?
She slid her hands into his hair and tugged it until he once more bent his head towards her.
Against his lips she told him fiercely, ‘Yes. I want you. Yes, here—and yes, now!’
She punctuated each word with a kiss, gasping as Leon cut off her breath with her last word, taking her mouth with a savage primitive hunger that sent her blood roaring through her veins and made her weak with reciprocal longing.
His hands were touching her everywhere. Stroking her shoulders, her arms, cupping her breasts and then kneading them with loving attention until she was shuddering pre-orgasmically with hot rivulets of pleasure.
The feel of the pads of his thumbs against her nipples made her cry out—a low, guttural sound that had his hands slipping down, one to grasp the side of her waist, the other stroking over her stomach and then lower, parting the swollen lips of her sex and stroking against her wet eagerness.
At no time in her life had there ever been anything like this! There never had been and never would be again, Sadie acknowledged dizzily as her body responded to Leon’s sensual stroking touch with violent, almost climactic little shudders of pleasure.
Instinctively she reached for him, clasping him in her hand, her eyes widening in shock as she realised that she could not fully encompass him.
He felt hot and hard, his sex swollen. Shockingly, she had a sudden savage, surging ache of need to have the feel of him against her lips, to caress and explore him, slowly and thoroughly, but she knew her own body wasn’t going to wait for much longer.
As though she had verbalised her urgency and need to him, Leon suddenly grasped her by the waist and lifted her against him.
Eagerly Sadie opened her legs and wrapped them around him, gasping with pleasure as she felt the first thrust of him within her, urging him to move faster and deeper as she clung to him, offering the full pleasure of her body.
The water around them was pounding against the side of the pool in increasingly fast waves, but Sadie wasn’t aware of the movement of the water, only the rhythm of their bodies as they rocked together in frantic, desperate need. She could feel the tight circling of her orgasm beginning, her stomach and her thighs tensing as she reached for it, crying out her pleas and praise to Leon.
She could see the rictus mask of his face above her as he drove harder and deeper into her eager flesh. Voluptuously it tightened around him, increasing the intensity of their pleasure.
‘Yes… Yes!’ she moaned. ‘Yes. Just like that, Leon… just like that… Mmm… yes. Just—’
The broken sob of her voice was suspended as her whole body tensed and then exploded in a fierce succession of rhythmic contractions.
She could feel the hot surge of Leon’s own release pulsing into the warm darkness of her body.
Release, bliss… peace…
She could feel how much she was shaking as she clung to Leon, knowing she was not actually capable of standing on her own two feet.
She felt his lips brush against the dampness of her face.
‘Tears?’ he whispered. ‘I hope they are tears of pleasure?’
‘Do you need to ask?’ Sadie challenged huskily.
