Книга - The Greek Demands His Heir

The Greek Demands His Heir
LYNNE GRAHAM


‘Don’t Be Silly, Leo. Strangers Don’t Get Married.’Leo Zikos should be celebrating securing a perfectly convenient fiancée, but it’s left him cold. Instead it’s stranger Grace Donovan’s impeccable beauty that fires his blood. So he decides to pursue one last night of freedom…But that night, and the two little blue lines on the pregnancy test that follow it, blows Leo’s plans apart. Now he must break with his fiancée and marry Grace. She might resist marrying a man she barely knows, but Leo will claim his legacy – and he has all the riches and influence he needs to ensure his demands are met!Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/lynnegraham







‘Why did your family throw you out?’ Leo enquired directly.

Grace gave him a wry glance. ‘I think you already know why.’

‘But that news should have come from you directly to me,’ Leo told her grimly. ‘I had a right to know first!’

‘And perhaps you would’ve done were we in a relationship,’ Grace countered quietly. ‘But since we’re not, the situation is rather different.’

‘If you’re pregnant, we definitely have a relationship,’ he contradicted.

Grace wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, I am having your baby,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘But we don’t have to have any kind of a relationship!’

‘And how do you work that out?’ Leo gritted, becoming steadily more annoyed by her dismissive attitude.

‘I can manage fine on my own. I’m very independent,’ Grace informed him. ‘And as far as I know you don’t legally have any say in the matter,’ Grace went on, in an apologetic rather than challenging tone. ‘Only married fathers have those kind of rights.’

‘Then I’ll marry you.’

Grace groaned at that knee-jerk reaction. ‘Don’t be silly, Leo. Strangers don’t get married.’

Leo lifted his dark head high and surveyed her with glittering golden eyes that were mesmeric in their intensity. ‘I don’t care how we go about it, but I want our child and I am prepared to do anything to make it happen.’


Introducing Lynne Graham’s fabulous new duet, full of prestige, power and passion!

These are two alpha males you just won’t be able to put down.

The Notorious Greeks

… and the women they claim!

Whether it’s the boardroom or the bedroom, Leo and Bastien Zikos are masters of all they survey. Until they each meet a woman who has the temerity to deny them the one thing they most desperately crave …

In a true battle of wills, Lynne Graham whisks you away to glamorous destinations and epic tales of love in:

The Greek Demands His Heir August 2015

The Greek Commands His Mistress September 2015


The Greek

Demands

His Heir

Lynne Graham




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.


Contents

Cover (#ufa2586f7-8687-50af-a6d1-8f064b68d095)

Introduction (#u61b95207-1c86-5028-bac4-23d0306830a8)

The Notorious Greeks (#ucb29f2de-c8f8-5615-9f47-1341cac4f10d)

Title Page (#ub6ca1ca0-a0ab-57eb-8477-3139909f2ace)

About the Author (#uf68114ce-61ac-5c29-8a39-7155454883f3)

CHAPTER ONE (#u2c0c098a-2c7e-5431-92a6-93959493eb8b)

CHAPTER TWO (#u3d9a9173-e015-5790-9c43-946266b22238)

CHAPTER THREE (#u08863a73-7b65-50b7-aaa0-8b83622d1941)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_09542655-9370-595b-bf9d-b71941b960c7)

‘OH, YES, I should mention that last week I ran into your future father-in-law, Rodas,’ Anatole Zikos said towards the end of the congratulatory phone call he had made to his son. ‘He seemed a little twitchy about when you might...finally...be setting a date for the wedding. It has been three years, Leo. When are you planning to marry Marina?’

‘She’s meeting me for lunch today,’ Leo divulged with some amusement, unperturbed by the hint of censure in his father’s deep voice. ‘Neither of us has any desire to sprint to the altar.’

‘After three years, believe me, nobody will accuse you of sprinting,’ Anatole said drily. ‘Are you sure you want to marry the girl?’

Leo Zikos frowned, level black brows lifting in surprise. ‘Of course I do—’

‘I mean, it’s not as if you need Kouros Electronics these days.’

Leo stiffened. ‘It’s not a matter of need. It’s a matter of common sense. Marina will make me the perfect wife.’

‘There is no such thing as a perfect wife, Leo.’

Thinking of his late and much-lamented mother, Leo clamped his wide sensual mouth firmly closed lest he say something he would regret, something that would shatter the closer relationship he had since attained with the older man. A wise man did not continually look back to a better-forgotten past, he reminded himself grimly, and Leo’s childhood in a deeply troubled and unhappy family home definitely fell into that category.

At the other end of the silent line, Anatole made a soft sound of frustration. ‘I want you to be happy in your marriage,’ he admitted heavily.

‘I will be,’ Leo told his father with supreme assurance and he came off the phone smiling.

Life was good, in fact life was very good, Leo acknowledged with the slow-burning smile on his lean, darkly handsome face that many women found irresistible. He had just that morning closed a deal that had enriched him by millions, hence his father’s phone call. His father was quite correct in assuming that Leo did not need to marry Marina simply to inherit her father’s electronics company as a dowry. But then Leo had never wanted to marry Marina for her money.

At eighteen, a veteran of the wretched warfare between his ill-matched parents, Leo had drawn up a checklist of the attributes his future wife should have. Marina Kouros ticked literally every box. She was wealthy, beautiful and intelligent as well as being a product of the same exclusive upbringing he had enjoyed himself. They had a great deal in common but they were neither in love nor possessive of each other. Objectives like harmony and practicality would illuminate their shared future rather than dangerous passion and horrendous emotional storms. There would be no nasty surprises along the way with Marina, a young woman Leo had first met in nursery school.

It was forgivable for him to feel just a little self-satisfied, Leo reasoned as his limo dropped him off at the marina in the French Riviera where his yacht awaited him. Exuding quiet contentment, he boarded Hellenic Lady, one of the largest yachts in the world. He had made his first billion by the age of twenty-five and five years on he was enjoying life as never before while at the same time ensuring that, although the cutthroat ambiance of the business world was where he thrived, he still took time off to recuperate after working eighteen-hour days for weeks on end.

‘Good to have you on board again, sir,’ his English captain assured him. ‘Miss Kouros is waiting for you in the saloon.’

Marina was scrutinising a painting he had recently bought. A tall slender brunette with an innate elegance he had always admired, his fiancée spun round to greet him with a smile.

‘I was surprised to get your text,’ Leo confided, giving her a light kiss on the cheek in greeting. ‘What are you doing in this neck of the woods?’

‘I’m on the way to a country house weekend with friends,’ Marina clarified. ‘I thought it was time we touched base. I believe my father has been throwing out wedding hints—’

‘News travels fast,’ Leo commented wryly. ‘Apparently your father is becoming a little impatient.’

Marina wrinkled her nose and strolled restively across the spacious room. ‘He has his reasons. I suppose I should admit that I’ve been a little indiscreet of late,’ she remarked with a careless shrug of a silk-clad shoulder.

‘In what way?’ Leo prompted.

‘I thought we agreed that until we got married we wouldn’t owe each other any explanations,’ Marina reminded him reprovingly.

‘We may have agreed to go our separate ways until marriage forces us to settle down,’ Leo agreed, ‘but, as your fiancé, I think I have the right to know what you mean by “indiscreet”.’

Marina shot him a bright angry glance. ‘Oh, Leo, don’t be tiresome! It’s not as if you care. It’s not as if you love me or anything like that!’

Leo remained silent, having long since learnt that listening was by far the best tool to use to calm Marina’s quick temper and draw her out.

‘Oh, all right!’ Marina snapped with poor grace, tossing her silk scarf down on a luxurious sofa in a petulant gesture. ‘I’ve been having a hot affair...and there’s been some talk, for which I’m very sorry, but, really, how am I supposed to stop people from gossiping about me?’

His broad shoulders squared below his exquisitely tailored jacket. ‘How hot is hot?’ he asked mildly.

Marina rolled her eyes and burst out laughing. ‘You don’t have an atom of jealousy in your entire body, do you?’

‘No, but I’d still like to know what’s got your father so riled up that he wants us to immediately set a wedding date.’

Marina pulled a face. ‘Well, if you must know, my lover is a married man...’

Leo’s stunning clean-cut bone structure tautened almost infinitesimally, his very dark eyes shaded by lush black lashes narrowing. He was taken aback and disappointed in her. Adultery was never acceptable in Leo’s book and he had made the fatal mistake of assuming that Marina shared that moral outlook. As a child he had lived with the consequences of his father’s long-running affair for too many years to condone extra-marital relations. It was the only inhibition he had in the sex department: he would never ever get involved with a married woman.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Leo!’ Marina chided, her face colouring now with angry defensiveness in receipt of his telling silence. ‘These things always burn out—you know that as well as I do!’

‘I won’t pretend to approve. Furthermore that kind of entanglement will damage your reputation...and therefore mine,’ Leo reproved coolly.

‘I could say that about the little lap-dancer you were sailing round the Med with last summer. You could hardly describe that slutty little baggage as adding lustre to your sophisticated image!’ Marina remarked cuttingly.

Predictably, Leo did not even wince, but she flushed uncomfortably at the look he shot her. But then very few things put Leo Zikos out of countenance and regular sex was as important to him as ordered meals and exercise and indeed rated no higher than either by him. He was a very logical male and he saw no need to explain himself when he and Marina had yet to share a bed. The very fact that they had both chosen to retain the freedom of taking other lovers during their long engagement had convinced them that it would be much more straightforward just to save the sex for when they were married.

There is no such thing as a perfect wife, his father had said only an hour or so earlier, but Leo had not expected to be presented with the definitive proof of that statement quite so soon. His high opinion of Marina had been damaged because it was obvious that she saw nothing inherently wrong with sleeping with another woman’s husband. Had his own views become so archaic, so unreasonable? Was he guilty of allowing childhood experiences to influence his adult judgement too much? He was well aware that he had friends who engaged in extra-marital affairs, but he would never accept such behaviour from anyone close to him or indeed within his own home.

‘I’m sorry but I’ve had Father on my case. He’s not ready to retire and let you take over yet but he’s terrified that I’ll scare you off,’ Marina confided ruefully. ‘As I supposedly did with your brother—’

Leo tensed, disliking the reminder that until today Marina’s single flaw in his judgement was the reality that she had once enjoyed an ill-judged one-night stand with the younger half-brother whom Leo loathed. That Bastien had treated Marina appallingly in the aftermath was another thing Leo never forgot for, more than anything else, Marina was virtually Leo’s best friend and he had always trusted her implicitly.

‘Perhaps we should set a wedding date to keep everybody happy,’ the brunette suggested wryly. ‘I may only be twenty-nine but Father’s already getting scared we’re getting too old to deliver the grandkids he wants.’

Leo frowned, barely contriving to suppress the need to flinch when she mentioned children. He still wasn’t ready to become a father. Parenting required a level of maturity and unselfishness that he was convinced he had yet to attain.

‘What about fixing on October for the wedding?’ Marina proposed with the sort of cool that implied she had not the faintest idea of his unease. ‘I’m no Bridezilla and that would give me three months to make the preparations. I’m thinking of a very boho casual do in London with only family and our closest friends attending.’

They lunched out on deck, catching up on news of mutual friends. It was very civilised and not a single cross word was exchanged. Once Marina had departed, Leo reminded himself soothingly that he had not lost his temper. Even though he had agreed to the wedding date, however, his strong sense of dissatisfaction lingered. Even worse, that reaction was backed by an even more unexpected feeling, because suddenly Leo was astounded to register that what he truly felt was...trapped.

* * *

‘Nonsense, Grace. Of course you’ll go to Turkey with Jenna,’ Grace’s aunt, Della Donovan, sliced through her niece’s protests in her usual brusque and bossy manner. ‘A free holiday? Nobody in their right mind would turn their nose up at that!’

Grace gazed out stonily at the pretty garden behind her aunt and uncle’s substantial house in north London. Her thoughts were in turmoil because she was trying to come up fast with a polite excuse to avoid the supposed treat of a holiday with her cousin.

‘I mean, you’ve sat all your stupid exams now, haven’t you?’ her cousin, Jenna, piped up from the leather sofa in the snug beside the kitchen where Grace was seated with Jenna’s mother. Mother and daughter were very similar, both of them tall, slender blondes in stark contrast to Grace, who was small and curvy with a fiery mane of red hair and freckles.

‘Yes, but—’ Her pale green eyes troubled, Grace bit back the admission that she had been planning to work every possible extra hour at a local bar so that she could save up some money to cushion her when she returned to university at the end of the summer. Any overt reference to her need for financial support was always badly received by her aunt and regarded as being in poor taste. On the other hand, although her aunt was a high-powered lawyer and her uncle a very well-paid business executive, Grace had only ever been given money when she worked for it. From a very early age, Grace had learned the many differences between her standing and Jenna’s within the same household.

Jenna had received pocket money while Grace had received a list of household chores to be carried out. It had been explained to her when she was ten years old that she was not their real daughter, would never inherit anything from her aunt and uncle and would have to make her own way in adult life. Thus, Jenna had attended a fee-paying school while Grace had attended the comprehensive at the end of the road. Jenna had got her own horse and riding lessons while, in return for the occasional lesson, Grace had got to clean the riding-school stables five days a week after school. Jenna had had birthday parties and sleepovers, which Grace had been denied. Jenna had got to stay on at school, sit her A-levels and go straight to university and at twenty-five years of age worked for a popular fashion magazine. Grace, on the other hand, had had to leave school at sixteen to become a full-time carer for Della’s late mother, Mrs Grey, and those years of care and the strain of continuing her studies on a part-time basis had swallowed up what remained of Grace’s far from carefree teenage years.

Complete shame at the bitterness of her thoughts flushed Grace’s heart-shaped face. She knew she had no right at all to feel bitter because those years of caring for an invalid had been payback to the family who had cared for her as a child, she reminded herself sternly. The Donovans, after all, had taken Grace in after her mother’s death when nobody else had wanted her. Without her uncle’s intervention she would have ended up in the foster-care system and while the Donovans might not have given her love or equality with their own daughter they had given her security and the chance to attend a decent school.

So what if she was still the modern-day equivalent of a Victorian charity child or poor relation within their home? That was a comparatively small price to pay for regular meals and a comfortable bedroom, she told herself firmly. She always reminded herself of that truth whenever her uncle’s family demanded that she make herself useful, which generally entailed biting her tongue and showing willing even if she didn’t feel willing. Sometimes though she feared she might explode from the sheer effort required to suppress her temper and watch every word she said.

‘Well, then, I suppose I’m going to be stuck with you,’ Jenna lamented, sounding far younger than her years. ‘I can hardly go on a girlie holiday alone, can I? And none of my mates can get time off to join me. Believe me, you’re my very last choice, Grace.’

Grace compressed her soft full mouth and pushed her rippling fall of fiery hair back from her taut brow where a stress headache was beginning to tighten its grip. Her cousin’s best friend, Lola, who had originally planned to accompany Jenna, had broken both legs in a car accident. Sadly that was the only reason that Grace was being invited to take Lola’s place and, equally sadly, Grace didn’t want to accompany Jenna even though it was a very long time since Grace had enjoyed a holiday.

The unhappy truth was that Jenna didn’t like Grace. Jenna had never liked Grace and even as adults the cousins avoided spending time together. A much-adored only child, Jenna had thoroughly resented the arrival of another little girl in her home and Grace wasn’t even sure she could blame her cousin for her animosity. The Donovans had hoped that their daughter would see Grace as a little sister, but perhaps the fact that only a year separated the two girls in age had roused competitive instincts in Jenna instead and the situation had only worsened when Grace had unfailingly outshone Jenna in the academic stakes and eventually gone on, in spite of her disrupted education, to study medicine.

‘I’m afraid at such short notice Grace is your only option.’ Della directed a look of sympathetic understanding at her daughter. ‘But I’m sure she’ll do her best to be good company.’

Jenna groaned. ‘She barely drinks. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She doesn’t do anything but study. She’s like a throwback to the nineteen fifties!’

Della sent Grace an exasperated look. ‘You will go with Jenna, won’t you?’ she pressed. ‘I don’t want to go to the expense of changing the name on the booking only for you to drop out.’

‘I’ll go if Jenna really wants me to...’ Grace knew when to beat a strategic retreat because crossing Della Donovan was never a good idea.

While she continued to live below the Donovans’ roof and paid only a modest amount of rent, Grace knew she had to toe the line in any family crisis, regardless of whether or not it suited her to do so. As a child she had learned the hard way that her compliance was taken for granted and that any kind of refusal or reluctance would be greeted with the kind of shocked reproach that screamed of ingratitude.

For that reason the cash fund she had been hoping to top up to help her through term time would have to take a setback. More worryingly though, could she even hope to still have a job to return to if she took a week off at the height of summer when the bar was busy? Her boss would have to hire a replacement. She suppressed a sigh.

‘We’re so lucky I thought to renew your passport when I was still hoping to take Mum away for a last holiday...’ Della’s voice faded and her eyes filmed over at the recollection of her elderly parent’s passing.

‘I haven’t really got any clothes for a beach holiday,’ Grace warned mother and daughter, conscious that Jenna was extremely snobbish about fashion and very conscious of appearances.

‘I’ll see what I can find you from my cast-offs,’ Jenna remarked irritably. ‘But I’m not sure my stuff will stretch to your big boobs and even bigger behind. For a wannabe doctor, you’re very laid-back about having a healthy body image.’

‘I don’t think I can fight my natural body shape,’ Grace responded with quiet amusement, for she had grown past the stage where Jenna’s taunts about her curves could inflict lasting damage. Yes, Grace would very much have liked to be born able to eat anything she liked and remain naturally thin but fate wasn’t that kind and Grace had learned to work with what she had and exercise regularly.

* * *

A door slammed noisily and Grace came suddenly awake, sitting up with a start and swiftly realising with a sinking heart where she was.

‘I am sorry but it is forbidden for people to sleep here. It is a reception area,’ the young woman behind the desk told her apologetically.

Grace threaded unsteady fingers through her tousled mane of hair and rose to her feet, glancing at the clock on the wall with relief. It was after ten in the morning and hopefully she could now return to the apartment she was supposed to be sharing with her cousin.

The blazing row she had had with Jenna late the night before returned to haunt her. So far, the holiday had been a disaster. Possibly it had been rather naïve of Grace to assume that her cousin would not be on a holiday man hunt when she already had a steady boyfriend back home. Unhappily Grace now knew differently. Jenna had only wanted her cousin for company until she found a suitable holiday fling and now that she had found him she simply wanted Grace to vanish. And unfortunately for Grace, Jenna had met Stuart the very first day. He was a banker, loud-spoken and flashy, but her cousin was really keen on him. For the past two nights, Jenna had told Grace that she could not come back to the apartment they were sharing because she wanted to spend the night there with Stuart. Grace had sat up reading in Reception that first night but when Jenna tried to throw her out a second time she had stood her ground and argued.

‘I’ve got nowhere else to go,’ she had pointed out to her cousin. ‘I don’t want to sit up all night in Reception again!’

‘If you were halfway normal, you’d have found a man of your own by now!’ Jenna had snapped. ‘Stuart and I want to be alone.’

‘It’s a one-room apartment, Jenna. There isn’t room for anyone to be alone in a one-room apartment. Couldn’t you go back to his place tonight?’ Grace had dared to suggest.

‘He’s sharing with a crowd of six blokes. We’d have even less privacy there. In any case, my parents paid for our apartment. This is my holiday and if it’s not convenient for me to have you staying with me, you have to get out!’ Jenna hissed with a resentful toss of her head.

Recalling that final exchange, Grace grimaced and knocked on the apartment door rather than risk utilising her key because she did not want to interrupt the lovebirds. It was a surprise when Jenna opened the door. Her cousin was already fully dressed and, astonishingly, her blonde cousin smiled at her. ‘Come in,’ she urged. ‘I was just having breakfast. Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘I’d kill for a cup.’ Grace studied the bathroom door. ‘Is Stuart still here?’

‘No, he left early. He’s off scuba-diving today and I don’t know if I’ll be seeing him tonight. I thought you and I could go to that new club that’s opening up.’

Relieved by Jenna’s friendlier attitude while being irritated that Stuart’s elusiveness had caused it, Grace nodded. ‘If you like.’

Her cousin clattered busily round the tiny kitchen area. ‘Stuart wants to cool it...thinks we’re moving too far too fast—’

‘Oh...’ Grace made no further comment, knowing how touchy Jenna could be, confiding in you one moment and snapping your nose off the next.

‘There’s plenty more fish in the sea!’ Jenna declared, slamming the fridge door and straightening, blonde hair flying round her angry face. ‘If he comes calling again, he won’t find me waiting for him.’

‘No,’ Grace agreed.

‘Maybe you’ll meet someone tonight,’ her cousin mused. ‘I mean, it’s past time you leapt off the old virgin wagon and got a life!’

‘How do you know I haven’t already?’ Grace enquired.

‘Because you always come home at night and never that late. Know what I think? You’re too fussy.’

‘Possibly,’ Grace conceded, sipping her tea while wondering how soon she could make her excuses, strip off and get into bed to catch up on her sleep.

Jenna’s entire world seemed to revolve around the man in her life and she got terribly insecure if she didn’t have one. Grace’s world, however, revolved round her studies. She had worked incredibly hard to win a place at medical school, was currently at the top of her class and was convinced that men could be a dangerous distraction. Nothing was going to come between Grace and her dream of becoming a really useful person with the medical knowledge and the skills to help others. After all, she had been raised with the warning story of how her mother had screwed up her life by relying on the wrong man.

On the other hand, Grace also knew that sooner or later she would have to find out what sex was all about. How could she possibly advise her future patients if she didn’t have that all-important personal experience? But she had yet to meet anyone she wanted to become intimate with and thought it was very sad that something more than logic was required to fuel attraction between a man and a woman. After all, if only logic had ruled, Grace would have become involved with her best friend and study partner, Matt.

Matt was loyal, kind and thoughtful, exactly the sort of man she respected. But if Matt, in his wire-rimmed spectacles and the sweaters his auntie knitted for him, had threatened to take his shirt off she would have run a mile. There was not even the smallest spark on her side of the fence but she kept on trying to feel that spark because she knew that Matt would make a wonderful partner.

* * *

Leo stood in the rooftop bar admiring a bird’s-eye view of Turunc Bay. By night the busy resort of Marmaris encircled it like a multicoloured jewelled necklace. Flaring scarlet lights in the night sky announced the grand opening of the Fever nightclub. Leo smiled. Rahim, Leo’s partner in Fever, knew how to publicise such events and attract the attention of the tourists.

‘You’ve done an amazing job here,’ Leo commented approvingly, gazing down through the glass and steel barriers at the packed dance floor.

‘Let me give you a proper tour,’ Rahim urged, keen to show off his masterpiece. A renowned architect and interior designer, he had good reason to want to show off the sleek contemporary lines of his creation. Having delivered exactly what he had promised, Rahim was keen to interest Leo in making another, even larger investment.

Almost a week of solitary introspection on board Hellenic Lady had driven Leo to the edge of cabin fever. He was fed up with work, sick of his own company but in no real mood for anyone else’s. He strolled down the illuminated staircase with Rahim, his bodyguards surrounding him. The noise of the music was such that he caught only one word in two spoken to him. Rahim was talking about an exclusive hotel complex he wanted to build further along the coast but Leo was not in the right mood to discuss the project. From the landing he gazed down at the crowded floor and that was when he saw her standing by the corner of the brilliantly lit bar, light shining off hair an eye-catching shade of metallic copper...

Her? Just another woman, his brain labelled while his brooding gaze clung to her triangular face. He tore his attention from the fey quality of her delicately pointed features. Fey? he silently repeated to himself. Where had he got that strange word from? He noted a lush full pink mouth and the curling mass of glorious red hair snaking down her narrow spine. More red than copper, it also looked natural. His attention lingered, positively drinking in the swooping curves lovingly delineated by a pale lace dress. She had the figure of a fertility goddess with high full breasts, a tiny, highly feminine waist and a voluptuous bottom. His long brown fingers curled round the guard rail, a spooked sensation making the hair rise at the nape of his neck even as the throbbing pulse at his groin reacted and swelled with a very male lack of conscience or morality.

He couldn’t remember when he had last been with a woman, an acknowledgement that almost shocked Leo back to reality. Of course, when he was working he would never waste time seeking out a woman...and when he wasn’t? The necessity of explaining his engagement and specifying no-strings-attached upfront had unequivocally cooled his libido. But now, without the smallest warning, he was recalling Marina’s married lover and he was angrily asking himself why he had bothered to halt his high sex drive. After all, Marina didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t interfere with her pleasures. And was that truly what he wanted from his future wife? A woman who would never question where he went or what he did? Or demand that he love her?

Of course it was what he wanted, he reasoned with growing impatience, particularly when the alternative was jealous, debilitating scenes. Marina’s affair had put him on edge but did that affair offend him so much that he intended to break off the engagement and start looking for a more puritanical bride? That would be nonsensical, he decided squarely. He would never know any woman as well as he knew Marina Kouros.

Struggling to suppress his unusually troubled and uneasy thoughts, Leo focused on the redhead’s glorious shape. Hunger filled the hollow inside him and it was the sort of hunger he hadn’t felt in years, gnawing powerfully at him with painful persistence, ignoring his rigorous efforts to pursue a functional conversation with Rahim. In an abrupt movement of rejection, he looked away from the redhead, but every muscle in his big well-built body snapped taut. Nerves he hadn’t known he had jangled like alarm bells until Leo was forced to glance back to the corner of the bar lest he lose sight of the woman. What was it about her? Perhaps he should find out.

* * *

In receipt of a chilling glance from Jenna, who was standing at the bar with Stuart, Grace hurriedly turned her head away, colour sparking high over her cheekbones. Stuart had gatecrashed their night out. Jenna had been overjoyed and within minutes of Stuart’s appearance had made it clear that Grace was a gooseberry. Clutching the drink that Stuart had insisted on buying her, Grace sipped the sickly sweet concoction and wondered what she was going to do with the rest of her evening. Where was she to go? At least in a crowd she was virtually invisible and attracting no particular attention.

Jenna pushed her way through the crush and settled impatient blue eyes on Grace. ‘Why are you still here? I assumed you’d have left by now.’

Grace straightened. ‘I’m coming back to the apartment tonight,’ she warned her cousin. ‘I’ve spent two nights sitting up in Reception and I’m not doing it again.’

‘I can’t believe how selfish you’re being!’ Jenna complained. ‘You wouldn’t even be having a holiday if it wasn’t for me!’

‘Change the tune,’ Grace advised ruefully, weary of the constant battle to restrain her own nature and simply wanting to be herself. ‘The “be grateful, Grace” one is getting old. You asked me on this holiday and I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until we go home.’

As Grace averted her attention from her cousin’s furious face she noticed a man standing on the stairs watching her. He was drop-dead beautiful, Mr Fantasy in the flesh with black hair, gypsy-gold skin and stunning symmetrical features. He was also tall, broad-shouldered and surprisingly formally clad in a business suit, as were his companions. Somehow, though, she couldn’t drag her eyes from him for long enough to scrutinise the other men. His brows were dark and straight, his eyes deep set, glittering in the flickering lights, his nose a classic arch, his mouth a sensual masterpiece.

‘Please don’t come back to the apartment tonight,’ Jenna pleaded. ‘I haven’t got much time left to be with Stuart...’

Stuart lived in London too and Grace marvelled at her cousin’s lack of pride. He’d already spelled out the message that he wanted nothing more than a fling. Jenna flung her a last look of angry appeal before turning on her heel to return to Stuart. As Grace turned away, intending to leave the club and find a quiet café where she could read the book in her bag, she almost tripped over the large man in her path.

‘Mr Zikos would like you to join him in the VIP section for a drink.’

Involuntarily, Grace raised a brow as she glanced back at the stairs. Mr Zikos? He nodded acknowledgement and suddenly he smiled at her and in the space of a second he went from stunning to downright breathtaking, the clear-cut austere lines of his darkly handsome face slashed by an almost boyish grin that was utterly and incredibly appealing. Later, Grace swore her heart, always the most reliable of organs around men, leapt in her chest and bounced with enthusiasm, leaving her feeling seriously short of breath and oddly dizzy.

A drink? The VIP section? What did she have to lose? A bouncer undid the ceremonial velvet rope cutting off the stairs and Grace unfroze, moving forward with the strangest sense of anticipation.


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_7d65b5a1-d759-502d-a0c6-0f034094f33a)

LEO EXTENDED A lean tanned hand with unexpected formality. ‘Leos Zikos. My friends call me Leo.’

Grace touched his fingers in a glancing collision that made her teeth grit at her own ineptitude. But up close, he was so tall, so dark, so strikingly handsome that he unnerved her and given the smallest chance to scamper back down the short flight of stairs without making a fool of herself she would have fled. ‘Grace Donovan,’ she supplied a little gruffly, her heart beating very fast in what felt like her throat as she hurriedly sat down on the seat he indicated and nodding belated recognition of the presence of a second, smaller man.

‘Irish?’ Leo quirked a brow.

‘My mother was but I’m from London.’

Leo asked her what she would like to drink.

‘Something plain and simple. This...’ Grace indicated the glass in her hand with its elaborate green concoction and umbrella with a faint wrinkling of her nose ‘...is like a sugar bomb.’

After introducing her to Rahim, Leo informed her that they owned the club. Grace told him that she was a student on holiday with her cousin. A waiter arrived with a tray and champagne was served with a flourish. The first waiter was closely followed by two more, who presented plates of delicate little snacks. Leo asked her what music she would like and within the minute the DJ himself was surging upstairs and standing right in front of her while she told him.

At first Grace was entranced by the heady assault of Leo’s full attention and she sipped and she nibbled, leaning closer to politely listen to the two men discuss the couples-only complex that Rahim wanted to design. By the time the older man had extracted a plan from an inner pocket along with photos of the site and its superb beach, Grace was getting bored and, what was more, by then her favourite song was playing and she scrambled up off her seat to stand at the rail, her feet shifting in time to the throbbing beat of the music.

‘Dance?’ she directed hopefully at Leo, who was welded to the spot by the luscious view of her swaying hips.

He grimaced. ‘I don’t,’ he told her without apology, fighting the swelling at his groin.

‘No problem,’ Grace told him with an easy smile and a glint in her green eyes as she headed back down the stairs to the dance floor. Just for one night, she thought rebelliously, her thoughts still dwelling on Jenna’s humiliating attacks, she was going to be herself, her real self that she never dared to show at home. And that meant that she would do and say what she wanted, rather than maintaining her usual quiet role in which she worked to politely conform and meet other people’s expectations.

Leo was stunned by her departure. There had been no fuss, no drama, just an unobtrusive determination to do as she liked rather than try to please him. She hadn’t flirted or flattered either. His straight brows pleated in frank bewilderment. Women didn’t behave like that around Leo. Even Marina, who liked her own way, tailored herself to a neat fit of his preferences while in his company.

‘I believe you have met a woman with a mind of her own,’ Rahim remarked. ‘And talking about such women, I am married to one and if I am not home soon, I will be unpopular.’

Leo stood at the rail, broad shoulders straight as an axe blade and rigid with tension until he relocated Grace again. He noted that she was dancing just at the edge of the floor and he wondered if she planned to join him again. Or was she expecting him to chase after her? Leo didn’t chase: he had never had to go to that much effort with a woman. Consequently, he should’ve been irritated by her behaviour but he was not and he didn’t understand that.

What was it about her? She had extraordinary eyes, he recalled, as pale and translucent a green as a piece of sea glass he had once picked up off a beach as a boy. And just as the sea fascinated him, she did as well. He was down the stairs before he even knew he was planning to retrieve her.

‘Can’t...’ he informed her with a wry look when she studied him expectantly. ‘No sense of rhythm.’

Leo stood there in front of Grace like a very large statue frozen in place. Her breath hitched in her throat as she looked up into his exotically dark eyes, noting the luxuriance of his black lashes. He was gorgeous. Did he really need to dance? a little voice enquired wryly inside her head.

‘Anyone can dance,’ Grace told him softly.

He bent his arrogant dark head, his big body still infuriatingly rigid in stance. ‘I don’t do anything that I can’t do superlatively well.’

Grace grinned at that Alpha male excuse and planted her hands on his lean hips. ‘Move,’ she urged him, amused against her will by his frozen stance. ‘Feel the beat...’

The only thing Leo felt as she tugged him to her to demonstrate that elusive rhythm was the punch of lust that almost left him light-headed as he looked down into her laughing sea-glass eyes. Women didn’t ever laugh at Leo. They laughed with him. He shifted his lean hips in response to her guidance, but only to take advantage of the opportunity to yank her closer and line up that teasing, tantalising mouth of hers with his own.

In the space of a heartbeat, Grace travelled from amusement to another place entirely and it was a shockingly unfamiliar place. She had no experience of passion and suddenly there it was, shamelessly smashing down her defences and powered solely by the hungry, scorching demand of his mouth. For a split second she stiffened in shock and then she turned boneless, liquid heat rolling through her veins. His tongue plundered the semi-closed seam of her lips and she parted them for him, head falling back on her shoulders as he took immediate advantage. He plundered the moist, tender interior of her mouth with an acute sense of the rhythm he had denied, sending an electrifying shudder of piercing sexual pleasure travelling through her.

Leo lifted his head, closed a hand firmly over hers and urged her back up the stairs. Grace blinked like a sleepwalker suddenly forced awake, astonishment rising inside her that a man could actually make her feel like that...all shaky and molten and needy, her nipples tight and aching, warmth and dampness gathering between her thighs. Her own response was a revelation to her. Yes, he did kiss superlatively well, she acknowledged dizzily, and didn’t that make him the perfect man for her sexual experiment? Presumably if he was that good at kissing he would be reasonably proficient at the rest of it as well.

‘Another drink?’ Leo proffered the glass and extended the snacks, willing to do just about anything to ensure that he was able to keep his hands off her for long enough to get back in control of his unruly body. Leo did not like to lose control but he was still hard and throbbing almost painfully, his libido all too eager to continue what he had begun. But haste wasn’t cool and Leo was never hasty. He didn’t do one-night stands either, at least not since he was a teenager. But Grace drew him like a bee to a hive of honey.

Grace clasped the champagne flute gratefully in one hand, astounded to realise that her hand was trembling slightly. But then it wasn’t really Leo still having that effect on her, she told herself urgently, it was more probably the distinctly daunting knowledge that she had decided that, given the opportunity, she would make love with the man she was with. She glanced uncertainly up at him, her gaze drinking in the height and slant of his cheekbones, the strong angular jut of his classic nose, the mobile expressiveness of his wide, sculpted mouth. He was absolutely beautiful in the way only a very masculine man could be without the smallest hint of prettiness, although the jury was still out when it came to the ridiculous length of the long curling black lashes framing his remarkable eyes.

‘Are you single?’ she checked a tad abruptly.

‘Yes. Will you spend the night with me?’ Leo murmured sibilantly, his accent underscoring the syllables with a rasping edge. ‘I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I wanted you on that floor.’

His directness disconcerted Grace but pleased her as well because she valued candour. She laughed. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to say stuff like that. I made up my mind to say yes when you kissed me.’

It would be a completely practical sexual experiment, Grace reasoned nervously, striving to reassure herself about a spontaneous decision that was unusual for her. Here she was far from home and she would never see him again, so there would be no lingering embarrassment, no further meetings, and no lasting connection. She had always believed in calling a spade a spade and the two of them were both after the same thing: a complication-free hook-up. He was as close to perfect for her purposes as it was possible to get.

Relief gripping him at her immediate agreement shorn of any prevarication, Leo closed a powerful arm round her narrow waist and gazed down at her with an intense sense of satisfaction and anticipation. Her nose turned up a little at the end and there was a scattering of freckles across the bridge but he discovered that he found those flaws endearing rather than noticeable deficiencies. ‘It wasn’t flattery.’

‘If you say so,’ Grace fielded, unconvinced, utterly challenged by the concept that she had sufficient sex appeal to tax the restraint of so sophisticated and good-looking a male. ‘But outside a serious relationship sex is only a recreational pursuit.’

Taken aback by that prosaic comment and struck by an outlook that came remarkably close to his own, Leo elevated an ebony brow. ‘But a most enjoyable one.’

Grace almost hit him with the shocking survey figures on the level of female sexual dysfunction and dissatisfaction in society but decided to keep wannabe-Dr-Grace firmly under restraint. ‘I certainly hope so,’ she said, her face heating at the very thought of what she had already agreed to do with him. She fretted that alcohol could be affecting her judgement although she had only had two drinks and hadn’t finished the first.

But no, she wasn’t drunk, not even tipsy because she always got giggly if she drank too much. Yet in retrospect her agreement to spend the night with him seemed so cold-blooded that she agonised over it for a nerve-racked few minutes of insecurity. Yet wasn’t that attitude more sensible than waiting in the naïve hope that someone would eventually offer her both romance and commitment? She was almost twenty-five years old and she had waited long enough for a man to offer her a picture-book perfect solution to the loneliness she worked hard at hiding from the outside world. It wasn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future and she had to be level-headed about her prospects. Matt was a great study mate and friend but sadly not lover material.

In any case she was an intelligent adult woman and free to do as she liked if she found a suitable attractive partner, she reminded herself stubbornly. By tomorrow she would finally know what sex was all about and at least she wouldn’t have to spend another night trying to stay awake in the reception back at the apartment block. In truth, even the offer of a bed for the night was ridiculously welcome.

Leo traced a strong brown forefinger along her slim freckled arm, lingering on the fine skin of her wrist. Her skin was very soft and satin smooth and much paler than his own. ‘I will please you,’ he insisted.

A slight shiver racked Grace as if, after that kiss, her entire body had become super sensitive to his touch. She badly wanted him to kiss her again and the strength of that craving unsettled her. Never until that moment had she appreciated how powerful sexual hunger could be. Oh, she had read about it, heard about it, talked intellectually about it but all of those stories and assumptions were meaningless when set next to the actual experience. Leo Zikos would be like her personal science project, she told herself soothingly, and in the process of her research she would learn much that she needed to know.

She asked Leo when Rahim had left and for a few minutes they discussed the hotel scheme.

‘You were getting bored,’ Leo commented. ‘I should apologise for that.’

‘Is your business based on nightclubs?’

‘No, this is my only investment in that line. I started out as a corporate trader and built a property empire with my investments. Now I have hotels, mobile phone and transport companies...’ Leo shifted a hand to indicate the breadth of his interests with an elegance of movement that was compelling. ‘I believe very strongly in diversification. My father once went bust because he concentrated all his energies in one field. What are you studying at university?’

‘I’m about to go into my final year.’ Grace responded as if she had misheard his question because she was in no hurry to tell him that she was a medical student. More than one male had backtracked from Grace in the past once they had discovered how clever she was. It was surprising how many men were turned off by her high IQ.

She met his riveting dark eyes and discovered that below the lights they weren’t really dark at all. They were tawny gold and vibrant with power and a tiny shiver of naked awareness snaked down her taut spinal cord.

Leo stared down at her, a brooding quality tightening his lean dark features. He had read about pheromones and he was wondering if it was possible that she put out some strange invisible chemical message that turned him on hard and fast in a way that seemed to make no sense. After all, even if he was reacting like one, he wasn’t a teenager at the mercy of his hormones any more.

He bent his head and the coconut scent of her shampoo filtered appealingly into his nostrils but he wasn’t thinking about that when he looked at her ripe pink mouth. He moved nearer, his breath fanning her cheek. Almost imperceptibly she swayed closer. His arms tautened round her and without the smallest forewarning of what he was about to do he devoured the voluptuous promise of her lips with a passionate intensity that sent arousal roaring through him like an out-of-control fire.

The second kiss was even hotter than the first, Grace acknowledged dizzily, and she’d known it was coming, forewarned by the glitter of his eyes, the tensing of his arms round her and the quickened thump of his heartbeat beneath her palm when she was forced to plant a hand against his shirtfront to retain her balance on the edge of the seat. She had no thought of avoiding that kiss. In fact, excitement was zinging through her as an astonishing surge of awareness travelled through every nerve ending in her body, supersizing her every response.

Leo dragged his mouth from hers with the greatest of difficulty. ‘Let’s go,’ he husked.

She had only been with him a little over an hour, Grace acknowledged in dismay. I’m a slut, I’m a slut, she reflected in mortification. Maybe sometimes sluts have more fun, said another voice inside her head and she almost laughed, registering that she was on a kind of mindless adrenalin high as if she had just reached the top of a ski run. She looked up at him, her gaze skimming over the already familiar lines of his breathtakingly handsome face and her tummy turning over even as heat leapt through her lower body in a disturbing wave of reaction. ‘Go where?’

‘Back to my yacht,’ Leo advanced, urging her to her feet while carefully avoiding the scrutiny of his bodyguards. Making out with an audience was not cool and he had never done it before. What was he? A hot-under-the-collar kid? A dark flush had scored his strong cheekbones.

‘You’re here on a yacht?’ Grace frowned, surprised by the news.

‘I’ve been cruising the Med for the past week.’ Leo walked her down the stairs, but not before one of the men seated at the table across the way cleared their path. When she turned her head she saw the other two falling into step behind them. One of them was talking into one of those security earpieces she had only previously seen worn in films and the men backed into the dancers to impose a barrier around her and Leo and ensure their smooth passage across the crowded dance floor.

‘Are those men bouncers?’ she asked.

‘My security team.’

‘Why do you need a security team?’ Grace enquired nervously.

‘Protection. I’ve had a security presence in my life since childhood,’ Leo confided evenly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘My mother and her sister were Greek heiresses. Sadly, my aunt was kidnapped and held for ransom as a teenager.’

‘Good grief,’ Grace whispered in the comparative quiet of the club foyer. ‘Was she freed? I mean, did she come home again?’

‘Yes, she came home but she never fully recovered from her ordeal,’ Leo replied grimly.

Grace stiffened, registering that something pretty horrible had happened to his aunt while she was being held and she suppressed a shiver.

‘It makes more sense to guard against such risks,’ Leo declared in a lighter tone as a car drew up by the kerb and one of his guards hastened to open the door for them.

Grace was nonplussed, out of her depth and feeling it. He had to be very rich to feel the need to take such precautions. She was with a man who inhabited a totally different world from her own and she breathed in slow and deep while she wondered if she had made a rather foolish decision.

‘This is a little unnerving for me,’ Grace admitted abruptly, watching one man climb in the front with the driver while the others climbed into the second car behind them.

‘Ignore them...I do,’ Leo asserted, recognising that she was not impressed like most women but instead ill at ease with the trappings of his lifestyle.

On the drive to the marina, her breath feathered in her throat while Leo chatted easily about his recent travels and stroked the back of her hand with a lazy forefinger. The car stopped and the passenger door sprang open. In her high heels, his hand cupping her elbow to steady her, she walked a few steps and stopped dead when Leo stepped into a motorboat and extended his hand to her.

‘I... I... Where’s your boat?’ Grace demanded uneasily.

‘There...’

Grace followed his gesture and further out in the bay saw a ship’s silhouette etched against the moonlit sky. ‘It looks like the Titanic!’ she gasped because it was huge.

‘An unfortunate comparison. I can assure you that HellenicLady is seaworthy and safe.’ Leo stepped back onto the marina and bent down to scoop her up into his arms before stepping back into the launch with her.

He had acted so fast Grace hadn’t had a moment to do more than utter a startled squeak of protest. Then he set her down again, settling her into a padded seat by his side. The speedboat was racing across the sea before she could even catch her breath. A night on a yacht, she thought ruefully. Well, that might be fun, she conceded, and fun had been in very short supply since she’d arrived in Marmaris as Jenna’s pretty much unwelcome guest.

‘OK?’ Leo prompted as the launch reached the yacht.

‘I’m fine.’ Grace swallowed back her worries and allowed him to guide her up a gangway.

Leo didn’t know what had come over him. He wasn’t the caveman type but as soon as he had seen her anxious expression he had panicked, deeply unaccustomed at the idea that she might be changing her mind, and he had snatched her off the marina and got her into the launch as fast as he could. Grace Donovan brought out something in him that he didn’t like, something very basic and elemental and essentially...unnerving. Possibly once he figured out what that mystery something was he would feel better about it.

A man in a peaked cap greeted Leo, and Grace didn’t know where to look because she was embarrassed, convinced that their plans for what remained of the night had to be obvious. Leo wafted her away up another staircase and down a corridor. He spread open the heavy carved doors and invited her to precede him.

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?’

‘Melimou?’ 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 (#ulink_7d521475-4083-5219-b247-9a3ccb8c8115)

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 ignorant 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.





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