bodies remained like tensile steel, taut and rigid, only their pulses and hearts and their blood pounding, and everything focused on the lyrical thrust of their loins and the spinning spirals of pagan pleasure that was driving them slowly insane with exquisitely agonising sensation.
And when she thought she’d die of love Leo let out a deep, shuddering groan. The turmoil that had held her in its thrall slowly subsided, easing with it every muscle in her bods.
Beneath him, crushed by him as he lay for a moment in exhaustion-yet still somehow tense—she felt limp and drained. But her face shone with a radiant joy that came from every inch of her body, her heart, her soul. ‘Oh, Leo!’ she mumbled incoherently, blinded by happy tears.
And then he groaned. Once, twice, as if in despair.
His welcome weight lifted away when she wanted him to stay and to hold her in his arms. Her naked body chilled with the emptiness that was left by his absence. Dazed and confused, she struggled to lift her lids and clear her vision. Her heart missed a beat. Sounds nearby told her that he was dressing.
‘Leo?’ she murmured weakly. Even from there she could hear his harsh breathing, rasping like an angry saw. Panic clutched her heart. No, she thought. They were bonded together for ever now...
‘Yes?’
She whimpered at the curtly spoken word. ‘Didn’t you... wasn’t it... good?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Stunningly good. Highly accomplished and extremely satisfying,’ he husked, the words shooting out painfully. His eyes smouldered at her. ‘What a lot you’ve learnt since we last made love!’
‘Don’t say that!’ Unusually awkward and uncoordinated, she struggled in horror to a sitting position and watched him grimly wrench his trousers up to his waist. ‘Not so, Leo! I—’
‘Don’t try to explain,’ he growled, angrily snapping his shirt around his sweat-licked torso. Every movement tight with anger, he picked up his shoes and began to stalk to the door. Ginny had the impression that he’d turn on her like a wounded animal and savage her if he stayed. ‘Quite a sexual artiste, aren’t you, now someone’s taught you how to be uninhibited?’
‘No one taught me,’ she breathed, her throat dry with fear.
His eyes chilled every inch of her body as his scorn-filled gaze swept over it and dismissed her denial with a snort of disbelief. ‘You expect me to believe that, after your performance just now? Yes, it was “good”. For a moment there you made me forget everything. We were lovers again—but lovers as we’d never been before. And then I realised that some other man—or men—must have been teaching you the art of love.’
‘No!’ she wailed.
‘I wish I could believe you!’ he said fervently. ‘I wanted to be that man, Ginny! I wanted you to unfold that tight rein you kept on yourself. But no, some jerk I don’t even know has shown you how to gain access to your sexual well!’ He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, his face bleak with the same dark hell that he was digging for her. ‘How could you, Ginny?’ he roared. ‘How could you do it? That exhibition told me everything I needed to know. Thanks for the information. Now I’m under no illusions about you.’
Ginny covered her icy, trembling body as well as she could with her hands. ‘Leo—’ she husked.
‘Save it!’ he said curtly over his shoulder. Then he turned, his face as black as thunder. ‘I want honesty in my wife,’ he bit out. ‘Decency. A woman I can respect. Not a painted doll who uses her beauty to get what she wants. You did that with me just now, didn’t you?’
‘I—I wanted you to... care for me, to help me,’ she jerked out.
‘Sure. You let me have you because you wanted something,’ he said, his mouth curling in contempt. ‘Now I do believe the stories about you.’
Dispassionately, he studied her for long, interminable seconds while she fought the tears and her total exhaustion. She had to get up, run to him, love him into realising that everyone had misunderstood her and put her into a mould of their own making, not hers.
‘I am innocent, Leo,’ she said, wondering if she could ever crack that icy regard, the look of hauteur which reminded her forcibly that he was The Honourable Leo Brandon, born and bred with pride.
‘Like hell! I should have seen it coming. I can’t entirely blame you. That’s the kind of world you entered when you were too young to prevent your slow corruption. I know what goes on, Ginny. But we Brandons prefer to protect the honour of our wives, if only to keep the blood line pure. You’re right. Our worlds don’t mix. Pack your things. You’ve got an hour to be out of here. leave nothing behind to remind me of a very bad mistake I made. We’re finished, Ginny. I’m divorcing you.’
A harsh, guttural wail ripped out from deep inside her. But he’d gone, in a storming, door-slamming rush. Ginny slowly lifted her head, tilting it back, and closed her eyes in despair. Her white-blonde hair swept down her naked back and she registered that the tightly secured chignon had been dismantled by Leo’s hands, by his wild lovemaking. She blushed, at a loss to understand quite how a strictly brought-up woman could have abandoned herself so completely to the devils within her.
No wonder he’d been shocked. She was too, merely thinking of what they’d done, red stains working their way up from her slender feet to her mortified face. So she’d ruined her chance to show Leo that they could be lovers again by revealing an untamed and uncontrolled side of herself that he must have hated.
After all, she thought mournfully, everyone adored her Grace Kelly manner. They loved her serenity, her calmness. Leo had said that he liked the fact that she always behaved like a lady. Some lady. But that was what he’d wanted—a woman who’d project an image of breeding. And now she’d ruined that.
Her body quivered with the pleasure that had rippled through it in great roller-coaster waves. Over and over again they’d crashed through her and physically she felt totally sated. Emotionally, however...
Her perfect white teeth snagged her lower lip. It was bruised and swollen and she touched it with her finger, wondering whether Leo had always known what real, uninhibited sex was like and if she’d been a disappointment to him before because she’d never given her whole self. Till it was too late.
But he’d wanted her. Desperately. Beyond all his rigidly imposed self-control. He’d been arazy to have her and he’d hated her for that because he would have preferred to take her with cool ruthlessness and fling her aside.
Perhaps she could build on his desire. A ragged breath shuddered through her and she stood, quickly dressing. It was the only hope she had. Hastily she searched for enough of the scattered hairpins to do her chignon again and had to give up, combing the silken hair with her fingers instead. She paused as Leo’s words came back to her, jolting her with their intensity.
Divorce... Life without Leo. Cold horror iced her body. He was all she had! The only man she’d ever loved. She wouldn’t, mustn’t lose him! Especially now that she’d given her whole self to him, abandoning a lifetime of restraint to show him what he meant to her.
Frantically she ran out of the library and began to search the rooms downstairs, then hitched up her tight skirt and raced up the wide stairs two at a time.
Relief flooded through her when she heard the shower running in their en suite bathroom. Thinking of nothing else but convincing him, she went straight to the cabinet, opened the door and walked inside.
‘Leo! Listen to me!’ she begged, water plastering her hair to her scalp.
‘What the—? You’re fully clothed, Ginny! Get out!’ he said with an irritable frown.
But she held him, her arms wrapped around his waist. And instantly he became aroused. Relief burst into her mind. She had a chance. ‘Don’t turn me away, Leo,’ she said softly, lifting her face to his. ‘I can’t imagine life without you—’
‘You’re already living