LITMIR.BIZ

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glance at Leo’s hard bronzed profile, recalling his declared intention to remove her dress. Steamy warmth engulfed her treacherous body, anticipation as potent as an electrical storm at its core. But then desire shimmied like intoxicating alcohol through her veins when Leo was close. A heady combination of memory and the physical craving he evoked put her on edge, mortified by her weakness and ill at ease with her own physical reactions.

      Leo lifted her out of the helicopter when they landed and she straightened to look in wonder at the building a hundred yards from them. ‘It’s a castle!’

      ‘Yes, but a small one. Built by a wealthy eccentric in the nineteen twenties and bought by my mother. She owned a lot of property round the world. I turned the most promising into businesses and sold the rest,’ he volunteered, walking her towards the curiously elegant castle fashioned of cream-coloured stone and set in the midst of beautiful gardens. ‘At one time I planned to turn the castle into a small exclusive hotel but once I had renovated it I decided to keep it as a bolt-hole.’

      ‘It’s hot for this time of year,’ Grace remarked in pleasant surprise, moving into the cool shadow of the tree-lined stone path that led to the castle entrance. Back in London late summer was fading into evenings with steadily dropping temperatures while here in Tuscany the roses were still blooming and the bite of autumn’s approach had yet to register.

      A cheerful housekeeper chattering in Italian met them on the doorstep. Leo introduced her as Josefina and responded smoothly in the same language before escorting Grace across the highly polished floor tiles in the hall and up the stone staircase. A selection of doors led off the wide landing but Leo headed straight for the set of double doors in the centre and into a massive bedroom with a turret at either corner. ‘Wow,’ she whispered, pulling away from him to explore the turrets, finding a bathroom in one and a fully furnished dressing room in the other.

      An ebony brow lifted, Leo watched in amusement, enjoying the expressions crossing her mobile face while their cases were being stashed behind them. ‘You like?’

      ‘I love,’ Grace confided, kicking off the high heels, which pinched. She brushed the petal of an exquisite white lily in a dramatic floral arrangement, trailed an admiring finger along the gleaming wooden surface of an antique chest of drawers and studied the big bed with its snowy white linen and ice-blue silky throw. ‘It’s so romantic.’

      ‘I don’t do romance,’ he reminded her, unbuttoning his shirt, having long since discarded his jacket and tie.

      ‘Bite the bullet, Leo,’ Grace advised in amusement. ‘This is a very romantic setting.’

      Leo stiffened, but looking away from Grace at that moment wasn’t an option; she looked so impossibly appealing. She had taken her hair down during the flight and the brilliantly colourful strands tumbled luxuriantly round her slim shoulders, glinting like her metallic dress in the sunlight coming through the windows. He moved forward, stepped behind her and ran down her zip, peeling the fabric back slowly from her shoulders while planting a kiss on the pale flesh he exposed.

      Grace held her breath, watching their reflections merge in a tall mirror with the faint blurry quality of antique glass. As he bent over her, the brush of his lips made her shiver. His hair was so black against hers, his hand so dark against her white shoulder. The dress slid down her arms and then dropped in a pool at her feet.

      ‘My turn to say wow,’ Leo growled, flipping her round to take in the full effect of her curves sheathed in a dainty white balcony bra and knickers teamed with lace hold-up stockings. ‘I like...I love.’

      ‘Th-thought you would,’ Grace stammered, her face burning with colour because standing in front of him clad in provocative lingerie filled her with stupid self-consciousness.

      ‘I’m very easy to please,’ Leo husked, tipping her breasts gently free of the silk to massage her pointed pink nipples between finger and thumb, lowering a hand to slide a fingertip beneath the edge of her panties and probe the wet heat she would have hidden from him.

      An arrow of stark hunger shot through Grace and she gasped, wanting, needing, pierced by so many sensations at once she couldn’t vocalise or think. He crushed her parted lips below his, nibbling and teasing with erotic expertise, and then lifted his head again.

      ‘I want you so much I’m burning with it,’ Leo breathed, dropping to his knees to tug down her knickers and spread her thighs. ‘And I want you to burn along with me, hara mou.’

      Grace shivered in sensual shock as he closed his mouth to the most sensitive spot on her entire body. She couldn’t believe she was standing there, letting him... All too quickly her knees shook with weakness as she drowned in the intoxicating flood of pleasure he was wrenching from her. Little breathy cries parted her lips, sounds punctuated by a low keening moan. Suddenly it was more than she could bear and it took his hands curving to her hips to keep her upright as the excitement pent up inside her surged high and took her with it in an orgasm that almost tipped her off her feet.

      But no, that was Leo’s doing as he caught her weak body up into his arms and pinned her down on the bed, leaning over her as he yanked off his clothes with an impatience she could feel in every fibre of her still-humming body.

      ‘Seems to me you’re always promising to do this slowly,’ Grace whispered.

      ‘I’m not going to deliver slow tonight either,’ Leo warned, coming down to her again naked and urgently aroused. ‘I’m too damned excited.’

      It thrilled Grace that she had the power to unleash such impatience in him. She felt the push of him against her tender flesh and lifted her legs to lock her thighs round his lean hips in welcome, the wanting building again like some monster she couldn’t sate because, even when she was fresh from a mind-blowing climax, Leo could somehow make her want him again. Her heart was hammering, her body slick with perspiration and every skin cell was on fire for him so that when he thrust deep into her, she cried out with the hot pleasure of that powerful invasion. He withdrew and sank into her again, choosing a potent rhythm that sent heat pulsing through her pelvis as her greedy body began to strain and burn and reach for the heights again.

      ‘Oh, please, don’t stop!’ she heard herself gasp in anguished excitement.

      She was soaring by then, her body jerking and convulsing with the sheer raw intensity of the pleasure washing over her. Bliss enclosed her like a warm soft cocoon when it was over but a little buzzer also went off in her head, reminding her of how Leo pulled away from intimacy in the aftermath of sex. In a sudden movement, Grace dislodged him and snaked out of the bed to head straight for the bathroom. The very knowledge that she wanted to hug him and stay close had sent her into swift retreat for fear of what she might reveal. There was no room for such sentimental behaviour within the narrow limits Leo had set for their marriage.

      A few minutes later, Leo stepped into the spacious wet room to join her. ‘What was that all about?’ he asked.

      ‘What was what all about?’

      ‘You pushed me away,’ he reminded her, angry dark eyes spelling out how he had reacted to her conduct.

      ‘That’s what you’ve always done with me afterwards,’ Grace pointed out innocently. ‘Shouldn’t I have done that?’

      Leo knew when he was being played, but then he had also never been on the receiving end of such a careless dismissal before. It had stung, it had felt ridiculously like rejection, he reasoned in confusion at his own thoughts. Before he could think any more, he reacted on instinct and closed Grace’s dripping body into his arms below the falling spray.

      ‘Things change. We’re married now. I think we can afford to be a little more affectionate,’ he declared in a rasping undertone, tugging her even closer.

      Grace hid a smile against a broad muscular shoulder. He wasn’t an irredeemable rat, she decided ruefully. Damaged by his parents’ toxic marriage, he had avoided the softer emotions all his life to date. But he could learn by example, yes, and he was one very fast learner, Grace conceded as the embrace became an unashamed hug.

      A

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