She didn’t decline everyone, though.
‘So you’re not …?’ one particular rake checked with Leo, before taking Lizzie off to dance.
Unfortunately not, Leo thought as he did duty dances with the women he must.
Lizzie danced and danced, just not with the man she wanted to be with.
It was work, Lizzie reminded herself, making her way over to the bar, where she sat on a stool and watched the room, though her eyes were drawn all too often to Leo.
He worked the room so well and, Lizzie realised, apart from a very occasional sip, more often than not he replaced his full glass and got a fresh one. Lizzie glanced over and saw Kara and Declan. Kara looked amazing in a long gold dress, her blonde hair in curls and worn loose. Declan was stunning in the requisite tuxedo. They were doing tequila shots at the bar and Lizzie was about to go over and say hi but, almost as soon as she thought it, Lizzie realised that they didn’t look as if they’d appreciate being disturbed!
She had never noticed anything between Kara and Declan till now.
She watched as they headed to the dance floor and just as she was starting to feel like a wallflower an astonishingly good-looking man asked her to dance.
It was just the wrong good-looking man, though, Lizzie thought. Her eyes drifted around the room, seeking Leo, but instead they landed on Declan and Kara, locked in a searing kiss, and Lizzie wanted to be as bold as them, to not care what tomorrow might bring.
Or maybe they did care because suddenly Kara left, leaving Declan standing on the dance floor, a what the hell was that look on his face.
Lizzie couldn’t dwell on others, though, all she could think about was Leo and, no, she didn’t want a second dance with this good-looking stranger. Politely she declined and as she did so Lizzie turned, and it was to Leo. Finally she got to dance with the one she wanted.
‘You look as if you’re enjoying yourself,’ Leo said to her hair.
‘I am.’
‘Not so scary after all.’
It wasn’t, Lizzie thought. She liked being back in his arms.
All the self-enforced warnings were diminishing—for both of them.
Leo could feel her spine beneath his hand and he resisted the urge to run the pad of his fingers along it.
Then he stopped resisting.
She felt her stomach curl over as his fingers lightly dusted her back and then hesitate, and she breathed deeply and sank further into him which was permission for Leo to gently resume his exploration.
‘I’ve wanted you all night,’ Leo said.
‘I’m here now.’ She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, feel the wobble in her voice as she tried to keep it light.
‘I wasn’t just talking about dancing.’
Leo didn’t need to look down to know that Lizzie was blushing—he felt the heat race up her exposed back and he stroked the blushing skin with the pads of his fingers, his touch subtle yet almost indecent.
‘What’s stopping us, Lizzie?’
‘Your track record,’ she admitted. ‘My job.’
‘It would never jeopardise your job,’ Leo said. ‘But I can’t do a thing about my track record. It’s there for a reason—I don’t do for ever.’ He thought how best to proceed. ‘Lizzie …’ He had to make things clear. He had to do the ‘I’m a bastard nothing will ever come of it’ talk, right here right now, but she halted him.
‘Leo, I’m thirty-two, I don’t need to hear the warnings.’
‘They’re not warnings, Lizzie. They’re certainties.’
‘Heeded. This,’ she said, ‘is going nowhere except bed.’
‘You’re sure?’
Till now, sex had been pleasant at times, at others a chore.
With Leo she knew she was heading towards bliss.
She felt bold, she felt wanton, she felt sexy. Francesca was right—it wasn’t just a dress and make-up, tonight she was in costume. Tonight, Lizzie realised, she could be anyone she wanted to be. And she wanted to be a woman who could do the no-strings thing, who could give in to want because … she could.
And so she answered him.
‘There’s nothing stopping us.’
She felt the warmth of his body as he pulled her in closer and closed her eyes in decadent bliss as they both stopped fighting their attraction.
‘I know what colour your dress is.’ His mouth was close to her ear and she wanted his tongue, her eyes closing as Leo stopped holding back and it was sublime. ‘It’s the colour of your skin when you get out of the bath.’ His fingers were still working her back. ‘Were you in the bath that night I called?’
‘You know that I was.’
‘I did know and I was right about Rapunzel,’ Leo said, ‘because all I want to do is let down your hair.’
She felt almost dizzy, her body a hand grenade, and as his hand moved to her hair, if he pulled even one pin Lizzie thought she might just explode.
As might Leo.
‘We’ve got to go.’
‘It’s too soon,’ Lizzie said.
‘I don’t care.’
For the first time in forever his focus wasn’t on the Hunter Clinic; for the first time in forever there was a woman who came before it.
Even if just for tonight.
They didn’t care about the driver and they were too far gone for seat belts. They were a tangle of arms and tongues, both desperate to get to Leo’s home. And to tomorrow’s shame for Lizzie, she had no idea if there was anyone in the lift when they entered because, quite simply, their lips could not be parted.
Keys were very inconvenient things.
Condoms too.
They were at his door, Lizzie patting him down as if she was about to arrest him, Leo honestly wondering if they were going to make it inside and would it matter if they didn’t, and then sense drifted in and he pulled out the key.
‘Here …’ He put the key in upside down, for his next attempt he used the Harley Street one, until finally he located the correct key and they were in.
Then a triumphant Lizzie located the second essential item, if Leo wanted in!
Still they kissed. She held his face in her hands and for a moment she moved him back just a fraction from her and met his eyes.
Leo thought she was about to halt things, to say too fast, too soon, but he smiled at her stern warning.
‘If you tear my dress …’
It was her favourite thing in the world, apart from this. She shrugged off her coat and then as his hands roamed her body Lizzie’s were equally as direct. Unzipping him, freeing him, she held him in her hands for a brief slice of time, and as she slid the condom down his delicious length it was as if the word shy had never been invented. Lizzie actually felt as if she knew who she was as he lifted her dress and hauled down her panties.
‘I’ll fall …’ Lizzie said, not exactly used to being taken up against a wall.
‘I won’t let you.’
He lifted her onto him and she wrapped her legs around him. It had to be fast, they were both on the edge of orgasm and there could be no other way, but as he filled her, as she wrapped her legs tightly around him and he pressed her down, Lizzie knew it had had to be this way for another reason—there was no changing their minds now, whatever the future, they had a past. There was no turning back.
‘Lizzie.’ His teeth were gritted in an effort to hold on but holding her buttocks in his hands, hearing the squeal escape her throat as she started to come, Leo gave in. She felt him swell further inside and Leo heard the tiny scream that had his seed race to fill her.
Lizzie had never felt anything like it—had never been taken with such force and passion. As she came she was less than a lady and when he lowered one of her legs, as her lovely shoe hit the floor, he was able to thrust more deeply. So deeply he demanded an encore, her orgasm dashing back from the wings to take centre stage. So deep and long was the second time Leo was able to open his eyes to watch, before kissing her back to the world.
By the time she walked, on shaky legs, into his lounge, they were already lovers.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LEO HAD BEEN right—it was Goldilocks.
After a blissful night of lovemaking Lizzie woke to a silver-grey morning and lay warmed by Leo’s body spooned into hers. As she felt him stir and wake up she then felt him become still as he perhaps realised just who was sleeping in his bed.
And was still there.
Lizzie stared at her dress. Her beautiful dress, which lay like a puddle on the floor, and she remembered him taking it off. She thought of her coat still on the floor in his hallway and she hoped its magic would last, that the costume she had worn last night, where she had been so bold and brave, could see her through this morning.
They had to face each other at work on Monday, which meant things had to play out well today—it was that or run screaming into the woods, never to be seen again.
She could do this, Lizzie decided. In the painful times when her mum had first been diagnosed Lizzie had learnt how to act. How to not notice her mum’s errors in conversations, how to say nothing except thank you when her third birthday card appeared in the post, because her mother had forgotten that she’d already sent one.
Yes, Lizzie could act.
‘Morning.’ She didn’t turn, just stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. ‘I won’t ask how you slept, given you’ve had as little as me.’
‘Coffee?’ Leo asked, and Lizzie nodded.