LITMIR.BIZ

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something that sounded like ‘No, Sasha’ and her legs carried her forward. She had always been a sucker for anyone in need. Stopping by roadsides to tend to hurt animals, collecting birds and trying to nurse them back to health. Once she had even demanded her mother stop the car and had rescued a lamb from a tangle of barbed wire. That lamb had been the love of her eight-year-old life, following her around in the garden every day as if it had imprinted on her.

      Lexi forgot all about the lamb as she cautiously pushed open the door to Leo’s room and peered into the gloom. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the richly furnished room, the curtains slightly parted, letting in a finger of light that fell across the end of an enormous bed.

      The man in it moved restlessly and Lexi’s eyes were drawn to the dark sheet that was tangled around his lower body. He lay on his back, one arm flung over his head, the other outstretched as if he was reaching for something. His chest was bare and utterly magnificent. Broad and lean with densely packed muscles beneath a light covering of chest hair that arrowed all the way down over his shadowed abdomen and beyond. And yes, it looked like he had a six-pack, she thought resentfully.

      Lexi couldn’t tear her eyes away as he shifted restlessly and remembered his question about whether she wanted to know what he slept in, hoping it was more than it looked like right now. He moaned again and rolled onto his side, fingers flexing and such a look of anguished despair on his face that Lexi’s heart leapt and she automatically went to him. Whatever he was dreaming about, she felt sure he’d be better off awake than asleep.

      Without even thinking, she reached down and placed her hand gently against the rounded ball of his shoulder.

      Leo’s reaction was instantaneous and, before she could draw breath, Lexi felt all the air whoosh out of her lungs as she found herself flat on her back beneath him. The expression on his face was so intense real fear rippled through her body.

      ‘Mr Aleksandrov … Leo!’ Lexi raised her hands to his naked chest and shoved against solid muscle that didn’t give an inch. Heat spiked through her as her fingers slipped to the firm muscles of his shoulders, her lower body instantly clenching in reaction to the pressure of his hard, hair-roughened thighs pressed so intimately against her own. She tried to shift against him but she was literally pinned down and then she gasped, going stock-still as she felt the hardness of his erection pressed intimately between her thighs.

      Oh, boy! Sensation the like she had never experienced arced through her body, turning it liquid, and she found herself involuntarily arching into him to assuage the ache that had sprung up deep in her pelvis.

      She knew he felt her undeniably sexual response because the hand that gripped her arm moved to the nape of her neck and then fisted in her hair as he tilted her face up towards his. She wanted to tell him he was dreaming, but she lost all sense of reason as their eyes met in the dimly lit room and everything else faded. A breath shuddered through her and as his masculine scent acted like a drug on her senses she raised her face to receive the hard promise of his beautiful mouth.

      It was as if all the tension of worrying about Ty and the second childcare centre, and Leo himself, coalesced into this moment and she gave herself over to the feel of him, moaning in pleasure as his lips crushed hers in a hard, possessive kiss.

      Excitement barrelled through her and her hands slid up the smooth skin of his back, kneading and testing the muscles as she went. His skilful tongue demanded entrance to her mouth and when she gave it their muted groans mingled hotly in the otherwise silent room. Lexi felt as if she were on fire and when his hands started roaming over her body, learning her shape, it was all she could do not to tell him to hurry up as his hands moved closer and closer to her aching breasts. She shifted again, trying to make it easier for him, and then cried out as he sensed what she needed and shoved his hand up under her T-shirt and palmed her naked breast, the rough pad of his thumb drawing an animalistic sound from her throat as it swept across her painfully sensitive nipple.

      ‘Oh!’ Her legs scissored helplessly as she tried to lift her hips under the heavy weight of his, energy building inside of her and driving her towards a nirvana she’d never felt in a man’s arms before.

      ‘Easy,’ his rough, sleep-laden voice whispered against her ear at the same time as one of his hands slid to her hips to stay her restless squirming.

      But it was as if that one word had intruded on a magical, secret world and shattered it, reality returning with a sickening thud as she recalled where she was and who she was with.

      Lexi pushed against his chest, her movements now frenzied for a different reason. ‘Leo … Mr Aleksandrov. Get off. You’ve had a bad dream.’

      He stilled instantly, hovering over her. Then his hand slipped from her bottom and he rolled onto his back.

      Lexi jumped to her feet, her body feeling both hot and cold, her breathing ragged.

      She didn’t know what to say and wondered if he’d fallen back asleep and then she heard a young child’s cry.

      Ty.

      Her thoughts a complete jumble Lexi did the only thing she could—she fled. Down the hall and straight into Ty’s room.

      Leo woke, feeling as if he had a hangover. He’d slept, fitfully and the recurring dream he’d had on and off since his brother’s death had returned last night to haunt him. Of course he knew why, but he didn’t want to think about that any more than he wanted to recall Sasha’s death. A death he had inadvertently caused.

      Leo turned his head to the side, as if that might dislodge the heavy guilt shrouding his heart, and caught the faintest trace of vanilla. Instantly another memory, a much more pleasurable one, slammed through his body and turned him as hard as stone.

      Lexi Somers. She’d woken him and he’d momentarily thought it was his father attacking him. Had he hurt her? His mind sifted through the way he’d gripped her arms and brought her under him, the feel of her soft curves, the warm V of her thighs as she’d cradled him intimately. Her taste … like the sweetest dessert …

      Leo closed his eyes. There was something about her that had called to him since they’d met, so coming fully awake to find her under him had been too great a temptation to resist.

      Chort vozmi.

      He hadn’t meant to kiss her but she’d said his name and lifted herself against him and what was a man supposed to do with that? The natural thing, of course.

      Shafts of pleasure pulsed his groin as he recalled the feel of her mouth, the touch of her fingers.

      He cursed again.

      He couldn’t remember ever being so turned on and if she hadn’t stopped him he’d have buried himself inside her with no questions asked.

      He pushed out of bed and padded into the bathroom. He didn’t bother shaving and just rolled straight into the shower, welcoming the stinging bite of icy-cold water as it lashed his shoulders and overheated torso.

      He leant his forehead against the wall and refocused his mind. He had a massive weekend planned. The maiden voyage of his new super-yacht, Proteus, which he had helped design and which he planned to use as a prototype to launch a new area of his business—building first-class environmentally powered yachts, ferries and ships. But first he had to convince the Greek environmental minister to sell him land in Thessaly for a new cutting-edge ethanol plant that could revolutionise the world’s use of friendly fuel sources and one he needed to power his future ships.

      Then there was Ty. For most of the night he’d tried to figure out how to handle things this weekend, Lexi’s questions about why he didn’t know him and her assertion of how much Ty needed him weighing heavily on his conscience. The trouble was he couldn’t look at Ty without thinking of Sasha and he couldn’t think of Sasha without getting emotional—something that made his blood curdle. Emotions led to two things in his experience—weakness or violence—neither of which he wanted to let into his life. Which was why, despite his guilt, he’d stayed away from Ty. It would have been selfish to have done anything else and the last time he’d acted selfishly his brother had lost

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