by Lynne Graham
Her sea-glass eyes widened to their fullest extent, stunned appreciation etched on her lovely face as she slowly executed a circle to take in the full effect of the gorgeous bedroom. Huge windows looked out on the starry sky and the dark rippling water so far below. Leo hit a button and blinds buzzed into place to seal them into privacy. Blinking, she turned, eyes skating hastily over the opulent bed with its perfectly draped oyster silk spread. There were paintings on the walls, honest-to-goodness oil paintings, at least one of which looked sufficiently classic and imposing enough to be an Old Master.
‘Would you like a drink? Something to eat?’ Leo enquired, wondering why he had brought her to the master suite when he usually took his lovers to one of the guest cabins for the night. He had always been a very private man.
‘No, thanks. I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of my depth with all this,’ Grace confessed, hands shifting to shyly indicate the unbelievable luxury of her surroundings.
And yet she looked as if she belonged, Leo thought suddenly, her hair a river of fire across her shoulders, framing her astonishingly vivid little face, light green eyes flickering with uncertainty against a pallor that only made her freckles stand out. She truly was a beauty in a very natural way that was entirely new to a male much more accustomed to women groomed to a high standard of artificial perfection.
‘It’s only money.’
‘Only someone with pots of it would say that,’ Grace quipped, straightening her slim shoulders. ‘We’re from very different backgrounds, Leo.’
‘There are no barriers here.’ Leo stalked closer, surprisingly light and quiet on his feet for so large a male. He reached for her hand and drew her towards him. ‘I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you how much I wanted you, meli mou.’
‘What did you call me?’
‘Meli mou?’ His mouth quirked as he brushed a stray red strand of hair back off her cheekbone. Her hair felt like silk against his fingers and she was much smaller than his women usually were, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder in spite of her fantastically high heels. Her diminutive stature gave him the oddest protective feeling. ‘It’s Greek for “my honey”.’
‘I’m more tart than sweet,’ Grace warned him.
‘Sugar cloys,’ Leo husked and he wondered if that was the very basic truth that explained his reaction to her. She was independent and outspoken and he had never met anyone quite like her before.
He stroked a finger across the pulse flickering madly at her collarbone and her breath tripped in her throat. ‘You keep touching me...’
His eyes glowed potent gold. ‘I can’t keep my hands off you. Is it a problem?’
Grace’s lashes screened her eyes. She wasn’t used to being touched and he did it with such ease and spontaneity. Her mother had been physically demonstrative, when she had been sober, and their brief time at the commune in Wales had been almost happy. But, after her mother’s death, her uncle’s family had been much more reserved and Grace had received little physical affection from them. ‘No, not a problem,’ she said in a low voice, thinking she had better watch herself with him because somehow he was getting under her skin in a way she had not foreseen.
‘Thee mou, it is as well because I’m not sure I could stop.’ Leo slid off his jacket and tossed it on a nearby chair, a lean brown hand tugging roughly at the knot on his silk tie and casting it aside.
I’m only with him to have sex, to lose my virginity and gain a little experience, Grace reminded herself doggedly. No other feelings should enter the equation. If she kept it simple and straightforward, she wouldn’t get hurt as her mother had been hurt, putting her future in a man’s hands and learning her mistake too late. She had only been a little girl when she had first found out about her father’s betrayal but the memory of her mother’s pain had lingered.
‘Hey...’ Leo turned her head back to him to stare down into her haunted eyes. ‘Where did you go just now? Bad memories?’
Grace reddened with chagrin. ‘Something like that...’
‘Another man?’ Leo gritted, appalled by the rage that flooded him at the idea that she might be thinking of a lost lover while she was with him.
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no,’ Grace countered succinctly, lifting her chin. ‘I don’t allow men to screw with my mind.’
‘Only your body?’ Leo breathed, reaching for both her hands to tug her to him.
Her copper lashes lowered and she glanced up at him from beneath their spiralling cover. ‘Only my body. I hope that’s a deal?’
‘We’re talking too much,’ Leo gritted, on fire from that provocative upward glance of hers, scarcely able to credit that she was warning him off wanting anything more than sex. Wasn’t that his line? Hadn’t that always been his line? It made him feel curiously insecure, not a sensation he enjoyed.
His mouth enveloped hers again and the piercingly sweet thrust of his tongue made her shudder, heat surging up from her pelvis, sending fingers of flame to make her nipples tingle and swell.
‘I’m going to undress you very, very slowly...’ Leo asserted, ‘revealing only one tiny piece of you at a time.’
Her tummy performed a somersault, consternation filling her as she wondered if she would be up to that sophisticated challenge.
CHAPTER THREE
LEO’S LIPS WERE aggressive and smooth on Grace’s as he lifted her and laid her down gently on the bed, breaking contact only to flip off her shoes and let them fall.
Grace breathed in deep, mastering her nervous tension, terrified of letting it show. Of course she could have told him the truth that she was a newbie in the bedroom, but she was convinced that it would seriously dent her desirability in his eyes. And being treated as if she were rather more beautiful and seductive than she was felt especially good to her at that moment. She wondered where the bathroom was, knew she would have preferred diving in there to undress before reappearing casually wrapped in a towel or something. But wouldn’t that be aping a fifties bride on her wedding night? Shyness and inhibitions were not sexy, she told herself impatiently.
‘I love your hair,’ he told her, stroking the tumbled strands as he sank down on the bed at the same time as he removed his cufflinks and unbuttoned his shirt. ‘It’s a gorgeous colour.’
‘I got called “Carrots” at school and hated it for years,’ Grace recalled with a rueful grin.
‘When you smile, meli mou, your whole face lights up,’ Leo said softly, lowering his head to claim another passionate kiss that rocked her even where she lay, her body behaving like a Geiger counter detecting radiation, strange new reactions awakening inside her.
His shirt parted, giving her a glimpse of broad, strong pectoral muscles and washboard abs that made her mouth run dry. He was excessively good to look at, what one of her friends would term ‘man candy’. The pool of warmth at her pelvis spread. He turned her over, ran down the zip and gently spread the edges back, kissing one slim white freckled shoulder and then the other and tugging her back against him.
‘Do you always go this slow?’
No, he didn’t and, considering that he was already hugely aroused, Leo had no idea why he was determined to be the perfect lover for her. ‘Depends on my mood... I want to savour you...’
He slid the sleeves down her arms and paused to appreciate the full globes filling the cups of her bra before he succumbed to temptation. With a soft little sound of impatience, he snapped loose the catch on the bra and raised his hands to cradle her superb breasts, massaging the creamy flesh, pressing her flat to explore them with his mouth and lingering over her straining rosy nipples.
‘You have amazing breasts,’ Leo muttered thickly as he dallied there, employing both his tongue and the glancing edge of his teeth to tease the straining buds.
Grace was rather more amazed at the effect he was having on her igno
rant body. A hungry ache stirred at the heart of her. All of a sudden catching her breath was a challenge and she ran her fingers through his luxuriant black hair, surprised by how soft it was and how right it felt to touch him. She had thought she might have to steel herself to respond to him, genuinely hadn’t expected to be quite so caught up in the process as she was, had even believed that throughout the process some part of her quick and clever brain would be standing back assessing and judging. Instead as he lifted her to find her mouth again Grace was engaging in some exploration of her own, hands sliding below the open shirt to trace his wonderfully honed muscular torso, skimming over the flat male nipples and the etching of crisp dark hair sprinkled there before sliding down to stroke the flexing muscles of his taut stomach.
‘Don’t...not this first time,’ Leo urged, pulling back from her to slide off the bed. ‘I’m too close to the edge.’
Grace blinked, bemused, having assumed he would be as eager to be touched as she was. And, ‘not this first time’? Was that simply his prodigious self-assurance doing the talking for him? Her body all aquiver about even the thought of a single experience and the unlikelihood of her wanting a second, Grace watched him strip off his clothing with something less than the laid-back cool she had come to expect from him.
Everything came off at once, ensuring that she had little time to be curious about what her first aroused male looked like. He was larger than she had assumed he would be, but that was only a point of academic interest, she assured herself nervously, surveying the prodding length and breadth of his bold shaft. She knew she would stretch and she envisaged neither pain nor anything else that might reveal her inexperience. After all she had gone horse riding from an early age and believed any physical barrier would be long gone. With the same focused intellectual interest, Grace wondered why she literally felt overheated when she looked at Leo naked, her body hot, her breath catching in her throat as if she lacked oxygen.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Leo remarked, coming back down to her, dropping several foil-wrapped contraceptives on the bedside cabinet, soothing Grace’s instinctive terror of what had happened to her mother also happening to her.
For a split second she was almost tempted to tell him the truth about herself but innate reserve, learned growing up in a household where she had never belonged, kept her silent.
‘I’m used to women who chatter,’ Leo admitted with a slanting grin that was irresistible.
‘I’m quiet,’ Grace admitted, sliding for purchase on the slippery surface of the bedspread and flipping it back to scramble beneath the sheets, still clad in her panties, which she whisked off under cover.
‘Someone so beautiful could never be shy,’ Leo assumed, sliding in beside her in one lithe movement to reach for her. ‘But you are a cheat... I wanted to see you...all of you.’
Grace knew she wasn’t beautiful. She had grown up with the belief that tall, thin and blonde was the epitome of beauty and all the most popular girls at school had fitted that blueprint. But when Leo studied her with wide wondering eyes she felt beautiful for the first time in her life and, even though she was convinced it wasn’t true, it made her feel special. ‘I have to admit I liked seeing you,’ she confessed tensely, striving to reward his appreciation.
‘Really?’ Leo laughed, amused by that little morsel of flattery when he was accustomed to a positive barrage of compliments in the bedroom. He admired Grace’s restraint and lack of drama even while he could hardly wait to shatter her defences and see her lose herself in the throes of passion.
He kissed her and it was like the first time all over again, his tongue thrusting into her mouth to set her alight, tiny little spasms of excitement igniting afresh to clench her womb. He pushed her legs apart, ran a forefinger along the seam there and she stiffened, knowing she was damp and knowing it was absolutely crazy to get into bed with him and be embarrassed about such a natural thing but unable to overcome her self-consciousness. What on earth had happened to her belief that she could make him a science project? she asked herself suddenly, dismayed to be losing her detachment. She closed her eyes tight while he played with the most sensitive spot on her entire body, pleasure and longing traversing her in steady waves. She gritted her teeth, suddenly terrified of getting too carried away and losing control as her hips rose involuntarily.
She made no effort to evade him when he pushed back the sheet. In fact she braced herself to tolerate the intimacy as he tipped her legs over his shoulders and homed in on the most private part of her.
‘You’re beautiful here too,’ Leo purred with a lack of inhibition that shook her and she studied the ceiling in disbelief, struggling to retain some distance from the leaps and jerks of her feverishly aroused body. Then the tip of his tongue touched her and circled her and a rolling wave of pleasure gripped her. Her eyes closed, teeth tightening to hold back a gasp but her control was broken within moments because she had never ever experienced that much pleasure. Sounds were wrenched from her parted lips and her fingers knotted in his hair as the screaming ache for fulfilment inside her built and built and she was lost in the storm of it with her heart thundering and her body writhing. And when she reached a climax, it was explosive and mind-blowing and all the superlative exaggerated words of description that once would have made her roll her eyes in disbelief.
‘You’re incredibly responsive, meli mou,’ Leo husked, finding his every expectation mirrored in the dazed pleasure in her wide eyes and the closing of her arms round him in the aftermath.
Grace was dimly aware of him reaching for a foil packet. Her body might still be leaping with pleasure but her brain was firing back on all cylinders because he had blown her expectations out of the water with his very first move.
He shifted over her, lithe and confident as a jungle cat on the hunt, and she shut her eyes tight again against the intrusion of his. It was going to happen, it was finally going to happen and she would be like almost every other woman, no longer in the dark, no longer ignorant. But it had never occurred to her before that any man could make her want him so desperately that nothing else seemed to matter. His hands cupped her hips to tilt her boneless body back into a better position and then she felt the crown of him at her entrance and she tensed at the exact same moment he thrust deep and hard. The tender tissue of her channel burned and then a sharp little sting sliced through her, provoking a cry of discomfort from her lips. Leo froze.
‘What the hell...? I hurt you?’
Forced by the unexpected to open her eyes, Grace knew her face had to be redder than a ripe apple. ‘I was a virgin,’ she admitted belatedly.
‘A virgin?’ Leo yelled, as if she had jabbed him with a red-hot poker. ‘And you’re telling me that now?’
‘It was private,’ Grace told him succinctly, her lush mouth folding into a compressed line. ‘Now that it’s done, can we just go back to where we were?’
Go back to where we were? In a different mood, Leo would have laughed at that wording. But he was in the grip of angry astonishment, his every assumption about her wiped out. He didn’t like surprises, but as Grace shifted up to him in reminder that he was still inside her he discovered that his body was much less particular. He stared down at her with stunning dark golden eyes. He was her first and there was something mysteriously satisfying about that discovery. She was so tight and warm and wet. Struggling to control his every move, he sank deeper and a breathy little sigh that certainly wasn’t a complaint escaped her.
Grace shut her eyes again, ripples of pleasure reclaiming her, that momentary stab of discomfort forgotten. She could feel his girth stretching her and his hips ground into hers with every slow, heavy thrust. He was being so careful.
‘It’s OK...you’re not hurting me at all,’ she mumbled guiltily.
His pace quickened and a deep guttural moan was torn from him as her body clenched around his. He felt so good Grace couldn’t believe
it, couldn’t believe she had lived so many years without realising what she was missing out on. A sense of wonder seized her while her heart rate began to race with enjoyment as he pushed into her harder, faster and deeper. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe for excitement; she felt as though she had stolen a ride on a comet. The excitement rose and rose to breaking point when without her volition her body jerked into another intense orgasm. Ecstatic cries broke from her lips as the white-hot heat exploded in her pelvis and left her lying limp and utterly drained but with a glorious feeling of satisfaction that was new to her.
‘Care to tell me why?’ Leo demanded, shattering her idyll. ‘Why did you pick me?’
‘You did the picking,’ Grace reminded him without hesitation, lifting her arms to break his hold on her to enable her to roll away. ‘There’s no agenda here, if that’s what is worrying you. I found you attractive and I decided it was time that I took the plunge.’
‘I would have preferred a warning,’ Leo told her drily.
‘I wasn’t expecting that jab of pain. After years of horse riding I assumed there’d be nothing there...my mistake,’ Grace pronounced with dignity. ‘But thanks for the experience. You were very good.’
Prior to his engagement, Leo had been a legendary womaniser but he felt quite ridiculously put down by Grace’s comment. He sprang off the bed and then a much more pressing matter came to his attention before he could reach the bathroom and he uttered a single crude expletive.
Grace froze at the sound of that word. When she was a child she hadn’t known it was a bad word because her mother had used it all the time. Unhappily when she had used that word in Jenna’s home, her aunt had screamed at her and put a soap bar in her mouth. She had still been throwing up when her uncle came home. The couple had had a massive row and Grace had never ever used that word again.
Impervious to her reaction, Leo had strode into the bathroom to dispose of the evidence. He reappeared, bronzed and stark naked in the doorway. ‘The condom broke...’