by Penny Jordan
The sound of their breathing, the soft little sighs and moans of pleasure Sadie was giving and the thick, raw muffled responses from Leon filled the air around them.
Dizzily Sadie acknowledged that if this was war no way was she going to sue for peace!
When Leon’s hand cupped her breast she moaned an appreciative response. When she tugged his shirt free of his jeans and allowed her hands the pleasure of caressing his warm bare skin he returned the compliment by sliding his hand beneath her tee shirt with gratifying impatience and eagerness.
Her nipple pushed eagerly against the thin fabric of her bra, seeking the skin to skin touch of his hand just as eagerly as his erection was demanding hers.
Between hungrily passionate kisses their clothes were quickly and mutually discarded. The desk was behind them and Sadie murmured in approval as Leon made good use of it, by lifting her onto it.
The warm sunlight through the window dusted gold over Leon’s warmly tanned skin, finding in the dark shadowing of hair glints of tawny warmth. Sadie clung to him as he reached for her, wrapping herself tightly around him, welcoming each hungry thrust of his body within her own, encouraging his deeper and deeper penetration of her as her need for him rocketed out of control.
They came together quickly and ferociously, the explosion of pleasure inside her leaving Sadie’s body trembling.
As the heat left her body and the red burst of need clouding her brain lifted, she wondered bleakly what on earth she had done. But as she made to pull away from Leon he pulled her closer, cradling her against his body.
‘No. I want you here with me, Sadie. In my arms. Heaven knows I’ve dreamed about holding you in them damn near every night since we’ve been apart.’
Silently Sadie looked at him. Her heart had begun to jump giddily around inside her ribcage, and she wanted to tell it to stop, to realise as she did that Leon was afraid of the commitment it ached for them to share.
‘And in my bed!’ Leon was continuing, his voice growing thicker with every word. ‘Not just now, tonight, but every night, Sadie. You were right when you accused me of being afraid,’ he told her abruptly. ‘But what I’m most afraid of right now is loving you, Sadie. I want you in my life full-time, with all that entails. You could never be another Miranda. I knew that all along. But to have you back out of the deal I’d spent so much time putting together, knowing how my board were likely to react when some of them had been against the whole thing from the start…’
‘What happened to your father must have been hard for you,’ Sadie said quietly.
She could see from the look in Leon’s eyes that a part of him wanted to back off from this kind of discussion, but to Sadie it was important that they talked about it. ‘Very hard for you,’ she added with soft encouragement, waiting, wanting him to open up to her and allow her into his pain.
The look on his face said that she had gone too far, trespassed too far, but Sadie wasn’t about to back off!
They had shared one very important kind of intimacy, the kind of intimacy where she had opened herself to him as a woman, and now it was time for him to open himself to her as a man!
‘Hard?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I was fourteen and my father was my hero. He had worked damn near a ten-hour day seven days a week to get the business off the ground. You should have seen the pride in his face the day he took my mother and me to see the house he had bought for us. That meant so much to him. That he was able to provide for us, to give my mother all the things she’d had to do without whilst he was getting the business up and running. He told me that one day I would take over from him…but not until I’d been to college and seen a bit of the world. He wanted me to have the opportunities he hadn’t been able to have himself! And then Andy died, and Miranda…’ Leon paused. ‘That was hard, seeing my father going virtually overnight from a man of pride and self-respect to someone…’
Unable to stop herself, Sadie reached out and covered Leon’s hand with her own in a gesture of womanly comfort and understanding.
‘You must have felt very angry, and very afraid.’ she said gently. When he looked at her she added, ‘You were only a boy, Leon. Fourteen…’
‘Fourteen is only four years off manhood,’ Leon told her curtly. ‘What happened then made me the man I am today, Sadie. A man who always puts the security of the business ahead of everything else in my life.’
He paused to look at her before adding gruffly, ‘And then you came along, and suddenly…What was happening between us wasn’t in my game plan—and you were a woman I was involved with on a business footing. When I was with you, you blew my ability to rationalise clean out of the water. All I wanted…all I needed was you. Don’t you see?’ he growled. ‘What was happening between us pushed me off base and made me feel…’
‘Vulnerable?’ she suggested softly.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply.
This man, her man, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver of fierce pleasure, was quite definitely one tough alpha male.
‘If you want to put it that way,’ he agreed, almost grudgingly.
‘And that was why you rejected me?’
Sadie didn’t wait for his reply; she could see it in his eyes. The best way to teach someone was by example, she reminded herself. And, that being the case, if she wanted Leon to talk to her about his feelings perhaps she would talk about her own first!
Taking a deep breath, she asked him slowly, ‘Have you any idea what rejection does to a woman, or at least to this woman, when she’s given herself in love to the man she thinks shares her feelings? When she’s already planning their future together, even imagining having his babies? Only to be told that she’s got it wrong, that he doesn’t want her; that he doesn’t share her feelings?’
‘You were doing that? Imagining having my babies?’ His voice was thick with awe, raw with emotion. ‘You were imagining…?’
As he took her in his arms, Leon whispered against her mouth, ‘We’ve got to find a way to make this work, Sadie. We will find a way!’
Pushing him away, Sadie warned him, ‘I won’t change my mind about the Myrrh formula, Leon. Nor about working with synthetics.’
Leon brushed his thumb against Sadie’s lips.
‘No words now, Sadie. Not when there is so much I want to communicate to you in so many other ways—with my hands, with my mouth, with my body!’ he added sensuously as he felt her lips open to caress the hard pad of his thumb.
Tomorrow he would tell her about his meeting with the chemist, and that he planned to put to his board the proposal that they invest in creating a scent which would combine the best of both natural ingredients and synthetic that could be afforded by women all over the world. But right now he had far, far more important things on his mind than mere business!
As her tongue probed the ridges of flesh on Leon’s thumb, Sadie opened her arms to him, moaning with pleasure as he bent his head to her breast and started to feather delirium-inducing caresses against its taut peak.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘YES, Raoul. I’ve told Leon that I’m prepared to sell him my share of Francine,’ Sadie confirmed patiently into her mobile.
She was still in Leon’s suite at the hotel, having spent the entire night with him, and her body throbbed blissfully with that very special physical ache that comes with sexual fulfilment.
Leon had left half an hour earlier, telling her that he had a meeting to go to but insisting that she was to stay until he returned.
‘We have a great deal to talk about,’ he had whispered as he kissed her. ‘And I do not mean the Francine contract!’
Sadie’s mouth curled into a happy smile now as she spoke to her cousin.
‘I’ve also told Leon that I haven’t changed my mind about either the Myrrh formula or creating a new synthetic scent for him,’ she warned Raoul.
‘Well, he won’t be bothered about that,’ Raoul interrupted her carelessly. ‘I’ve heard that he’s already in negotiat
ion with Arnaud Lebrun, and he’s supposed to be the best chemist in the whole of the perfume industry. If you want my opinion, you’ve been a fool to turn down the kind of opportunity Leon would have given you and your career, but it was your choice! Lebrun will give Leon what he wants! But at least you’ve had the sense to agree to sell your share of Francine to Leon,’ Raul continued, oblivious to the deathblow he had dealt her.
Numbly, Sadie ended the call. Logically there was no valid reason why she should feel the way she was right now! Leon had every right to hire someone else to do what she had refused to do. But last night he had told her that they would find a way to work things out, and she had believed that he’d meant he was prepared to compromise, just as she was herself.
But she could not have been more wrong.
Once again pain, anger, desolation and a feeling of betrayal filled her. These were now familiar, destructive and unwanted feelings for Sadie. Feelings she had told herself—and believed—in Leon’s arms last night that she would never experience again.
And what made it all so much worse was that Leon hadn’t even warned her what he was planning to do. In bed last night he had as good as told her he loved her. But how could he when…?
She was on the point of leaving when Leon walked into the suite.
When she made no move to go to him, and then stepped back out of arm’s reach when he came to her, he stood still and frowned.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ He asked immediately.
‘Was your appointment today with Arnaud Lebrun?’ she challenged him.
‘Yes, it was. But—’
Sadie felt sick with shock and pain.
‘Leon, this just isn’t going to work between us!’ she told him fiercely.
‘Last night I thought that perhaps…That given what I believed we felt for one another we might be able to reach a compromise with regard to Francine’s new scent. But though I know that logically I have no right to feel this way because you have approached Lebrun to create a new perfume for you. I just wish you had told me—that’s all. I had hoped that you were prepared to meet me halfway. I just wish that you cared enough—not just about me, but about my professional opinion, my work ethic—to want to find that compromise, just as I want to find it with you! But now…’
‘Sadie—’
‘No. It’s no good. Being involved sexually with you is just not enough for me. And I don’t even think that being involved with you emotionally is either. I’m a modern woman, Leon. I want to play a full role in my partner’s life. I want my own career too.’
‘Sadie, I went to see Lebrun to ask his advice about the feasibility of creating a new scent that was a combination of natural materials and synthetics, that was all! He’s the best in the business and I wanted to see not only if he thought if it could be done but also if it was done if it could be done within a budget that would make it affordable to every woman who wanted to wear it. I’d already decided that I was going to strong-arm my board, even put money in myself, if that was what it took to get the thing off the ground. And do you know why I was doing all that, Sadie? Do you know why I’ve been pacing my bedroom floor at night and staring out of my damn office window instead of concentrating on my business? Do you even care why? Or are you so damned intent on being right that you just can’t see beyond that? I did it for you…for my love for you and our future together. It was for you, Sadie!’
As she stared at him in silence Sadie felt sure she could hear the tiny sound of something precious breaking.
‘You should have trusted me,’ Leon told her angrily, confirming her thoughts. ‘But, no…’
Battling against her tears, Sadie gazed at him.
‘Yes, you’re right—I should,’ she agreed quietly. ‘But that goes both ways, Leon. We’re two people who feel very strongly about certain things inside ourselves. I love you, and—’
‘And I damn well love you,’ Leon growled, giving her a look that made her ache to run into his arms and demand to be told that nothing else mattered other than that love.
But even love could not shut out reality and the world for ever. Buried problems had a way of growing and erupting, and if she and Leon could not reach a compromise…if they could not trust one another now, when their love was new…
‘I asked Lebrun for his opinion because I wanted to come to you and tell you that I had changed my mind. I wanted to give you that change of mind as a gift of my love, Sadie.’
‘I would rather you had given me your trust and treated me as an equal, not as a child to be given “gifts”,’ Sadie told him huskily.
But somehow she had moved, and so had he, and they were once more in each other’s arms. From there it was just a few short, passionate moves to the bed, their discarded clothing littering the floor as they took refuge in the thing that bound them most securely together both physically and emotionally.
Through the blur of her tears Sadie saw the scratches she had left on Leon’s back, scarlet weals of passion, inflicted in an agony of ecstasy he had induced and shared.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ she whispered in despair. ‘How can we be like this with one another when we don’t trust each other? What’s happening to us now is killing me, Leon, and I’m afraid that it will kill our love as well.’
‘I know what you’re saying,’ Leon agreed. ‘We need to start afresh, Sadie. Without any hidden agenda between us. I want you to create a new scent for Francine, but you will have to create it within a certain budget. You need time to think about whether or not you want to do that. And you need time to learn to trust me as well. What do you say to us having three months apart? I know how I feel about you, but you have to trust me, Sadie, and right now I don’t believe that you do.’
‘Three months apart sounds a good idea to me,’ Sadie told him hollowly.
She was lying! Oh, how she was lying! The very thought of spending three hours apart from Leon right now was almost more than she could bear, but her pride would not allow her to say so. Why hadn’t he just talked to her, instead of consulting Lebrun? Didn’t he trust her?
Listening to Sadie agree to his plan, Leon clenched his jaw. How could he be such a fool? Right now what he longed to do more than anything else was pick Sadie up and carry her off somewhere he could have her all to himself—and for ever!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SADIE’S hand trembled as she stoppered the small precious bottle and wrapped it carefully in bubble wrap.
Her ticket was booked and there was no way she was going to give in to the nervousness and self-doubt that were making her hands tremble so much.
But what if, when she got to France, Leon reminded her that it was only three weeks since they had last been together and refused to see her? What if he insisted that they stick to their agreement not to see one another for three months? Or what if he had changed his mind altogether and simply no longer wanted her? What if…?
Sadie impatiently dismissed her wayward thoughts. Her flight was booked and her bag packed. Now all she needed to do was to place this precious phial of hope and love and compromise in her bag.
She was waiting in the departure lounge when her mobile rang. Answering it, she way surprised to hear Mary’s voice.
‘Sadie, where are you?’ Mary demanded.
‘At the airport,’ Sadie replied. ‘My flight has just been called, Mary.’ She stood up to go and join the queue lining up for boarding.
‘Stop right where you are,’ she heard Mary urging. ‘And if you aren’t sitting down then I think you ought to be!’ she added dramatically, pausing theatrically before continuing, ‘You’ve got a visitor, Sadie.’
‘A visitor?’
Sadie felt her hand start to tremble and then her whole body as the small burst of aching disbelief inside her flowered warmly into hope.
Her mouth dry, she begged. ‘Is it…is it Leon, Mary?’
It couldn’t be, of course, and she was every kind of fool for even thinking that it might be, but…
>
‘You’d just better come home,’ Mary answered her obliquely. ‘And you’d better get back here fast, because if you don’t I might just be tempted to make off with him myself.’
It was the longest drive of Sadie’s life! Mary hadn’t said specifically that it was Leon who was her visitor, but Sadie hoped and prayed with every mile passing that it was. And that he would wait. And that he would listen. And that he would still want her. And…Her heart jerked, the uneven beat sending her pulse-rate scattering live bolts of nervous excitement through her body.
Please let it be Leon.
It was dark when she finally arrived home, and at first Sadie didn’t see the dusty black Mercedes pulled to one side of her drive.
She was still focusing on it when the door of the house opened and Leon came walking out. How had he got in? Sadie momentarily wondered. Mary, of course! She had a spare key!
‘Le—’
She didn’t even get as far as finishing saying his name before she was dragged into his arms and kissed until she could hardly breathe.
‘It is you. You are here!’ she whispered shakily She was too thrilled to bother to hide her joy. ‘Mary wouldn’t say, but I hoped, and…Leon. Mmm…’ She protested as he started to kiss her again, until somehow she discovered that they were both inside her house and the door was closed firmly behind them, shutting out the outside world.
‘Let me look at you,’ Leon demanded rawly, cupping her face and studying her features. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he accused her gruffly.
‘A little,’ Sadie admitted, still breathless from his kisses. Inside her body the ache of longing which had begun pulsing there long before she had even got as far as the airport, never mind learned that Leon was here in her home, had become a demanding urge of embarrassing intensity. To try to ease it she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then gasped as she inadvertently bumped into him.