His body was warm and hard, and feeling it under her hands sent her mind into a tailspin. She half-closed her eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath.
No, he wasn’t holding on to her. No, he wasn’t trying to pin her down or take advantage of her vulnerable position in any way whatsoever. In fact, he was in the process of straightening up so that she could angle her body away from him, but the guilty pleasure she had tried so hard to deny before finally accepting it now exploded inside her like a bomb that had been waiting to detonate. She was shaking like a leaf as she turned her face up to him, and reached forward, closing her eyes and blindly searching out his mouth.
Leo stifled a groan and awkwardly shifted his weight under her, because the erection pressing tight against his zip was downright uncomfortable.
This was what he had wanted, what he had felt assured would be the eventual outcome between them—but now that the moment was here he was compelled to recognise that this wasn’t just any woman who would happily hop into bed with him at the snap of his arrogant fingers.
For Heather, this was a very big deal and for once Leo was not inclined to accept what had been handed to him on a plate with the easy presumption of a man who always, but always, got what he wanted.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the savage urge to wrap himself around her soft, womanly body, and instead gently eased her away from him just far enough so that her eyes flickered open and she looked at him in drowsy confusion.
‘What’s wrong?’ Having come this far, Heather was appalled to realise just how much of herself she was willing to commit, and just how ready she was to take the plunge and hang the consequences.
‘Nothing’s wrong for me. I just want to make sure that this is what you want to do. I want to make sure that you’re not going to pull away at the last minute and then accuse me of taking advantage of you.’
Heather settled fully against him. She could feel his erection stirring under her. Having long ago come to the conclusion that Leo was not a man who ever flirted with selfdenial, she was disconcerted by the way he was looking at her now, his fabulous eyes lazy and questioning.
‘Are you…are you trying to tell me that you’ve had second thoughts?’ she asked in a light, shaky voice, and he pulled her down towards him in a kiss of shattering intensity. Heather clung to him, shuddering as his tongue plundered her mouth, tasting the wetness of his tongue and melting faster than an ice cube in a desert.
‘I think you can feel what kind of second thoughts I might be having.’ Leo pressed himself against her and she groaned when she felt his arousal.
‘I think it’s safe to say that you’ve just crossed the point of no return.’ He shoved the dressing gown, now tangled around her, off her shoulders while she feverishly untied it from the front, still kissing him and wriggling in her efforts to loose the barrier of clothes between them.
There was something sweetly girlish about her eagerness to touch him, like a kid going wild in a candy shop, and he couldn’t get enough of her in this mood. Her soft, full breasts were squashed against his chest, and he pushed up the small vest she was wearing to circle her back with his hands. It was mind-blowingly erotic to know that she was naked against him, that there was no bra working as a potential chastity-belt, in position to save her from herself in the nick of time.
‘We should…A bedroom…’
‘Is Daniel likely to wander down here at this hour of the night?’ Leo swirled his thumbs against the sensitive sides of her breasts, tickling her with the feathery caress which made it even more difficult for her to think straight.
‘No, but it feels odd to be…doing this…here.’
‘You mean with the family photos looking down at us?’ Leo asked drily as he kissed her very slowly and very tenderly on her mouth, breaking off to punctuate his sentence, and then trailed his tongue against her swollen lips; Heather felt that she could have throttled him until he gave her just a little bit more.
‘Now that’s really done it.’ She giggled and looked up to where his father appeared to be benevolently surveying the scene.
‘My bedroom, in that case, although it’s going to take a hell of a lot for me not to yank you down somewhere on the stairs and have my wicked way.’
‘You want me that much?’
‘Too damn much for my own good. Definitely too damn much to lie here discussing it with you when I could be tearing your clothes off and losing myself in that fabulous body of yours.’ The control which Leo had thought he’d brought to the table disappeared fast under her willing submission, which was more of a turn on than he had ever imagined possible. He couldn’t quite get his mind round that. Women had always been submissive when it came to him, hadn’t they? So why did this feel so special?
They made it to his bedroom, just, tiptoeing past Daniel’s room and pausing to hear the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing as he peacefully slept with the door very slightly ajar.
By the time they were in his bedroom, Leo was barely able to contain himself. He shut the door quietly behind them and then pushed her against it, ridding her of her clothes with as much urgency as she was intent on ridding him of his, standing so close to her that the accidental touch of their bodies seemed to generate an unholy heat inside him.
He was shaking as he reached down to cup her breasts, feeling the weight of them in his hands, sending her into orbit as he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her stiff nipples while simultaneously grazing the side of her neck with his lips. He was desperate to see her, to feast his eyes on her beautiful body, but instinct told him that to switch on the light might frighten the inexperienced Heather off, and there was just no way that he was going to jeopardise what was proving to be the most erotic experience he could remember in a long time. Instead, he led her to his king-sized bed. She was fascinated by his nudity, by his impressive size. He could sense her eyes on his body even though he couldn’t make out the expression on her face.
‘I haven’t, um, done this for a while…’ Shorn of her clothing, Heather wrapped her arms protectively around her. She wasn’t getting cold feet, far from it, but it was beginning to sink in that she was now in physical competition with all the sophisticated, urban, brainy, impossibly glamorous women he had bedded in the past.
‘I like that…’ He slowly and deliberately pulled her hands down to her sides and remained holding them, trying to keep his body in check as his eyes did a leisurely and enjoyable tour of her naked body.
Acutely self-conscious now, Heather blushed furiously under his lingering inspection, just thankful that he had been thoughtful enough to keep the lights off, although the curtains in the bedroom had not been drawn, and the silvery moonlight was sufficiently bright for him to clock that she was neither tall, slender or fashionably flat-chested. In fact, she was the opposite.
‘You’re perfect,’ Leo surprised himself by saying, and Heather lifted her eyes to look at him hesitantly.
‘Don’t tease, Leo. There’s no need. I’m not ashamed of how I look or anything like that, but I’m pretty realistic about my body.’
‘No, I mean it. You’re perfect,’ he told her urgently, then, overwhelmed by the impact she was having on him, he backed her towards his bed until she found herself with the soft, downy duvet puffed up around her.
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the semi-darkness and she could easily make out the lean, athletic muscularity of his physique, the perfection with which his broad shoulders tapered down to his waist, the length of his powerful legs. The sight of him made her feel faint and excited at the same time, and the appreciative way he was looking at her revived her flagging self-confidence, introducing a spark of wantonness that she hadn’t known she possessed. Where had that come from? Hadn’t he told her that he thought she was perfect?
Of course, she wasn’t a complete fool. She had a very limited time to bask in the accolade, because his attention span when it came to the opposite sex was brief by his own admission, but he had been sincere in the compliment and it had done wonders for any lingering doubts she might have been nurturing.
‘So are you,’ she murmured boldly as he stepped towards the bed.
Those three small words fired him up in a way no litany of compliments from his other lovers ever had. He lowered himself onto the bed and confessed, shakily, that it was going to be a real challenge to make their love-making last, to give her, without rushing, the most memorable experience she would ever have.
‘I’m just so turned on,’ he further admitted, straddling her and then sealing any more conversation with his mouth as he kissed her into a state of heated abandon, without so far laying a finger on any other part of her body aside from her face. In the end, she guided his hand to her breast, but he laughed softly in her ear and told her, ‘Not yet.
‘Ever heard of tantric sex? Shall I show you how sexy words can be? I can get you so close to the edge without touching you that you’d tip over if I just breathed on you. Would you like that? Or are you too hungry for me? Your choice.’ He laughed softly, loving her compliance underneath him, knowing that she would have plenty of opportunity to show him her fire. He parted her legs and ran his fingers along the moist crease until she groaned loudly, begging him to take her.