kicked in as he imagined her naked with the faceless, double-crossing character who had betrayed her—he could only temper his indignation at the thought of the two of them together by imagining himself in Kayla’s bed. And that brought other problems as his body hardened in response to imagining her sobs of pure pleasure directed at him and him alone as he made himself master of her body.
But things couldn’t go on as they were. He was either going to have to come clean at some stage, he decided grimly, or end their relationship before it went any further. Neither prospect filled him with any pleasure.
He knew exactly what she thought about company men, and after the experience she had had with that lowest of the low fiancé of hers—not to mention her father—she’d be blameless for thinking he was no better. Yet staying away from her wasn’t an option he welcomed either. He was just relieved that his secretary had e-mailed him with some plans that needed his urgent attention, so that for today at least he didn’t have to think about how he could come clean with Kayla. However he chose to tell her, he knew she wasn’t going to welcome finding out...
* * *
When Leon didn’t put in an appearance that day, and didn’t come down the next morning, Kayla jumped at Philomena’s suggestion that she drive up to the farmhouse with some bread Philomena had just baked.
She’d scarcely given a thought to her ex since Leon had taken her over to that island, she realised, noticing how it seemed to shimmer in the morning sun. She couldn’t help marvelling at the difference between the two men and wondering what she had ever seen in Craig.
Had her love for him been so shallow that the first man who came along could make her forget him and the hurt he had caused her so completely? But then Leon wasn’t just any man, she reminded herself, with a sudden tightening of her breasts and that familiar stirring of heat at the very heart of her femininity. He made her feel like no other man had ever made her feel.
A throbbing excitement leaped along her veins at the memory of their afternoon on that islet, when he had driven her crazy for him, playing with her like a love-toy, winding her up only to let her run wild with delirious sensation as he had taken her to heights her mental and physical being had never scaled before.
She had wanted him so much! And it had been patently obvious that he wanted her. So why hadn’t he taken their lovemaking to its ultimate conclusion? Was it because there was someone else? But he had called her imaginative when she had broached the subject with him, so perhaps it was simply that he didn’t think she was ready to embark on a relationship with him—in which case, she decided with a delicious little shiver, it was up to her to show him that she was.
When she arrived at the farmhouse her heart gave a little leap when she saw the truck parked outside.
So he was in! She wondered if she was being too presumptuous in coming. Supposing he didn’t want to see her? Or she’d disappointed him in some way?
Feeling queasy in the stomach just from entertaining that possibility, she tripped lightly round to the glass-paned peeling doors at the back of the house. One creaked open at her less than confident knock.
When she called out there was no reply, and so gingerly she moved inside, still calling his name. He wasn’t in the sitting room, and nor did he emerge from the kitchen when she moved enquiringly towards it.
Perhaps he’d gone for a walk, she mused, standing there in the hall, wondering what to do.
About to take a look outside, she heard a sudden thud on the boarded floor above. She dumped her carrier bag with the bread she’d brought on an old pine chest just inside the door.
‘Leon?’ she called out, and when there was still no response, unthinkingly she raced up the stairs.
His bedroom was in shadow, with semi-closed shutters, but a quick glance towards the bed revealed him lying there on his back, still drugged from sleep, groping blindly for something on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Kayla moved over and, picking up a chunky little clock, replaced it on the cabinet beside the bedside lamp.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, knowing what an early bird he usually was. It was already after ten and she’d obviously woken him, she realised, guessing he’d reached for the clock and knocked it over when he’d heard her calling him.
‘I must have crashed out,’ he mumbled, drawing an arm across his forehead. His eyes were heavy with sleep and his hair was dishevelled and, like his unshaven jaw, satanically dark. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I brought you some bread. I thought you were out, but the door was open,’ Kayla responded with a nervous gesture of her hand. She was aware that she was gabbling, but it was difficult to do anything else when faced with the sight of his bronzed body, naked save for the fine sheet that barely covered his hips and certainly left nothing to the imagination. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’
‘What do you think?’ he drawled, in a voice thickened by sleep and by the involuntary response of his anatomy.
Heated colour touched Kayla’s cheeks and yet she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to his potent virility. Driven by something more powerful than her own reasoning, she dropped down onto the bed.
‘I think you must be overjoyed,’ she whispered, touching kisses to the warm, undulating muscles of his chest, using the pale, sensuous fountain of her hair to caress him as her lips moved over the tautened flesh of his tight lean waist and her hands dealt tremblingly with the sheet.
He let out a deep shuddering gasp of anticipation. ‘Why did you come?’ he asked heavily.
‘I just thought that one good turn deserved another,’ Kayla whispered, feathering kisses over his tightly muscled abdomen. She didn’t know where she was finding the courage to seduce him like this. She only knew by instinct alone that he was a man who liked his women confident and worldly, not wimpish and nursing the old wounds of a previous relationship.
‘Close your eyes,’ she ordered softly, getting up.
Leonidas’s heart seemed to stop, and then thundered into life when she came back to the bed and straddled him. She was wearing a white top with a little red skirt that swirled about her thighs, and his mind whirled in a vortex of conflicting thoughts as he realised that she had obviously removed what she had been wearing underneath.
‘Kayla. Stop this...’ He wasn’t sure whether he’d spoken the words or whether they were just buzzing feverishly through his brain.
‘Why? Is it too early for you?’ Kayla teased, excitement driving her even as her mind raced with interminable doubts.
Was she carrying things too far? Didn’t he like a woman taking the initiative? He was more down to earth and unfettered by convention than any man she had ever met. He didn’t want a woman who was anything but what he was. Not someone weighed down with emotional baggage; someone who didn’t know her own mind.
Beneath her Leonidas shivered as he felt her sliding down his body, the moist heat of her searing his skin like a molten poultice.
‘Dear—!’ He swallowed the profanity, his breathing laboured, his body on fire. He had to stop this! But as her soft mouth took possession of him his senses spun into chaos.
He had never felt so powerless, and yet at the same time so shamelessly empowered. His body was a temple of pleasure at which this amazing woman was worshipping.
He felt his size increase and harden like burning, quivering steel. His body was taut as a bow, holding back the flaming arrow it needed to release before it consumed him in its raging inferno.
He fought to contain it, the struggle almost overwhelming him. And just when he thought he had won the battle she slid along his length, positioning herself above him to take him into her.
He tried to pull back, but he was powerless to do anything but push against her slick hot wetness, groaning in defeat as he allowed himself the freedom to let her do whatever she would.
Looking