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  Angel blushed and felt an absurd burst of relief. Leo took her by the hand and led her to the bed, gently pushed her down. She watched as he came over her, huge and dark and powerful. When he’d done this just a short while before she’d felt out of her depth and overwhelmed, but now…something had shifted. There was a gentleness about Leo that was desperately seductive.

  As he took her mouth with his Angel arched herself into him, arms and hands searching to touch him, hold him. Their tongues collided feverishly, teeth nipping and biting. Angel could feel herself writhing underneath him, as if to try and feel every part of him.

  Leo took his mouth away, and Angel gave a mewl of distress which quickly turned into a groan when she felt him cup one breast and bring the aching, tingling tip into the hot cavern of his mouth. Angel’s back arched. Her hand stabbed into his hair.

  His other hand was travelling up her leg, caressing, smoothing, feeling, until he spanned one thigh. Angel’s legs fell open. He traced a path from her inner thigh to the juncture of her legs and she squirmed with intense pleasure.

  His mouth moved to her other breast as his hand and fingers found that secret sweet spot between her legs, and she had to bite back a groan when she felt him stroke along plump and moistened folds. She was so wet.

  Leo started to press hot kisses down her belly. Angel lifted her head, dizzy with desire and lust and an achy need for fulfilment. ‘Leo…please…’ She was not even sure what she was asking for.

  ‘What, Angel?’ He looked up, his voice sounding unbelievably husky, rough. ‘What do you want?’

  His fingers continued to tease, stroking her, making her hips twitch. And then, with a determined look in his eyes, he inserted two fingers inside her, going deeper, harder, and Angel gasped out loud. The feeling was so…intimate. Leo kept his hand where it was and moved up, his mouth hovering for a long moment just inches away from Angel’s breast, where a nipple pouted wantonly towards him.

  Feeling emboldened, Angel arched her back, offering herself up, and with a feral smile Leo bent his head and flicked out his tongue, teasing that hard tip until it stood tight and erect. Angel’s head fell back. His hand was between her legs, his tongue on her breast… The tightening, building deliciousness she’d felt before was happening again and she couldn’t stop it, didn’t want to.

  Just when she hovered on the edge, about to tumble down, Leo took his hand from between her legs and moved away slightly. Angel let out a faint moan of despair. She heard the rustle of a package. A condom.

  Then Leo was back and hovering over her. Broad and powerful. She could feel his body move between her legs.

  ‘Open up more for me, Angel…’

  Angel parted her legs, allowing Leo into the cradle of her hips. Holding himself in one hand, he allowed the tip of his sex to move along the wet heat of her arousal to see how ready she was. She felt a pulse throb down there and groaned. Her head went back. She could feel that smooth head, teasing along her slick folds, being moistened with her juices.

  Her hips started to buck towards Leo; she wanted him to impale her, but he drew back for a moment. His voice sounded rough. ‘Patience, Angel…’

  He bent down and covered her body with his, his chest crushing her breasts. Her nipples were like knife-points against him. Angel felt like sobbing out her frustration, but just then she felt Leo slide into her, his mouth coming over hers in as if to swallow her pain.

  She gasped open-mouthed against him. The sting of pain was there, but not as she’d felt it before. He pulled back and looked down at her. ‘Okay?’

  Angel nodded.

  She felt him push in a little further and winced. She could feel that she was so tight around him, but the awful dreaded pain wasn’t lingering. It was slightly uncomfortable, yes, but very quickly that was being overtaken with something that felt amazing.

  Angel’s heart sang, and she said breathily, ‘It’s fine, Leo…it feels fine.’

  In that moment Angel got a sense of how much Leo was holding back. She could see his shoulders shake slightly and his brow was beaded with sweat. With a deep groan Leo thrust all the way into her, and Angel gasped, her back arching on an instinct.

  She couldn’t speak. She felt so full, so right. So she spoke with her eyes and her hands, urging him to go on, to take up the rhythm, without even really knowing what she was doing or asking.

  Leo pulled back and then thrust again, taking it slow and easy for the first few times, allowing Angel to get used to him. But then she felt an urgency build up within her. She wanted him to go harder, faster. She craved it. She was answering some deeply ancient call of the most feminine part of her. ‘Please, Leo…’

  ‘Yes, Angel, yes…stay with me.’

  Leo answered her incoherent plea. With their bodies slick with sweat, he started to thrust into her, exactly as she craved with every atom of her being. Her hips jerked to meet his, to try and wring every drop out of him with each cataclysmic penetration of her body.

  Then the pinnacle of every sensation she’d ever known was reached and transcended. She stopped breathing, her eyes on Leo’s—did he know what was happening to her? He smiled as if he knew exactly what was happening, and with one powerful surge of his body into hers Angel was flung into another universe. A universe filled with exploding stars and a sweet, sweet oblivion.

  Leo lay on his back, Angel tucked into his side, his arm around her. One long, smooth leg was thrown over his. He could feel her breasts pressing into him, those sweet, soft mounds tipped with those small, hard nipples. Even now he could still taste them on his tongue, their sweet muskiness.

  Even though he’d taken her just a short time ago his body was ready for more. In fact he’d never been kept in such a state of arousal after making love. He could feel the unsteady beat of Angel’s heart, slowly coming back to normal, and her breath was a little uneven. He knew that she’d fallen into a sleep of sorts.

  Leo reeled. He’d had sex. Lots of sex. But nothing had come close to what he’d just experienced. He tried desperately to rationalise it: It had to be because she’d been a virgin. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t—Angel moved. Leo’s heart stopped; anticipation coiled deep inside him.

  Angel was aware of consciousness returning slowly, trickling back. She was tucked into Leo’s body, his arm tight around her, and everything rushed back in glorious Technicolor. She was a woman now. Leo hadn’t rejected her. Immediately she could feel moist heat between her legs, readying her for him again.

  Angel’s hand moved down over Leo’s chest, exploring the play of his powerful muscles underneath that exquisitely golden olive skin, the brush of hair that made her tingle all over. She could feel tension come into the muscles under her hand and smiled against his skin. She didn’t want words, she couldn’t speak; she just wanted him.

  When her seeking hand found what she was looking for a fiercely feminine exultation ran through her at finding him so hard and ready. She lifted her head and Leo turned to face her. He looked serious, and a little shiver of something snaked down Angel’s spine, but she quashed it. He put his hand over hers, stopping her movements.

  ‘Angel…you’re bound to be sore.’

  She came up and shook her head, putting her finger to his lips. She did ache, but it was an ache that cried out for fulfilment, not an ache of pain. She took her other hand from him and guided his hand to the juncture between her legs where he could feel for himself how ready she was.

  Leo said something that sounded guttural and then moved fast, so that Angel was on her back and he was looming over her, already moving between her legs. The ache was building at her core, and if Angel could have stopped and slowed time in that moment, she would have.

  ‘Yes, Leo…this is what I want…please.’

  He bent his head said close to her mouth, ‘Well, since you ask so nicely…’

  When Angel woke again, the curtains were open and sunlight flooded her room. For a second everything was a blank. And then she became aware of certain a
ches and sensations in her body that weren’t usual. As her consciousness returned fully everything came back in glorious Technicolor, and her heart tripped before starting up again at double speed. She knew that Leo wasn’t in the bed; she’d somehow known that immediately.

  It stunned her slightly to know how quickly her life had changed one hundred and eighty degrees. This time yesterday she’d still been a virgin.

  Last night Leo had made her a woman. He’d taken her to a paradise she’d never dreamed existed. Heat suffused Angel from head to toe. And yet she couldn’t stop a smile from breaking across her face. It was impossible to ignore the fact that her body felt as if it had been awoken from a deep, cold sleep…

  But just as quickly her smile faded again, when the enormity of it all sank in. How could she be feeling like this for someone who had so coldly set out to take her because he wanted her and wanted to punish her? She frowned minutely, staring at the ceiling. She felt confused; Leo had taken her innocence with such devastating generosity that she reeled. Several times she’d seen the strain of his efforts to hold back, as if he was afraid he’d hurt her.

  Angel lifted the sheet and looked into the bed, ignoring the signs of having been seriously seduced on her body, the faint bruises and reddish marks. There was no blood. Angel let the sheet drop; she knew rationally that there wasn’t always necessarily blood, but there was a stinging between her legs that spoke of the potential of it if Leo hadn’t been so gentle. And yet she could remember the desperation with which she’d urged him on, even when he’d tried to hold back for her sake.

  With a burgeoning feeling of something huge in her chest Angel got out of bed and pulled on the robe which still lay on the floor. To think of how Leo had pushed it off her shoulders with such singular intent made Angel blush all over again.

  Without really thinking of what she was doing, Angel went to the door that connected their rooms. After hesitating for the merest moment, she turned the handle and went in.

  She stumbled to a halt when she saw Leo standing at the mirror of his wardrobe, knotting a tie. His eyes merely flicked to her through the mirror and then back to his task, with no change in expression. She hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it hadn’t been that. Angel was immediately tongue-tied. Leo looked so distant and intimidating in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. He looked like the phenomenally successful businessman he was. And nothing like the tender lover of last night. She suddenly knew she’d been an abject fool.

  His eyes flicked to Angel again, and she felt heat rise in her face when she registered how cool they were. One dark brow rose quizzically. ‘Was there something you wanted, Angel?’

  Was there something you wanted, Angel? Angel balked and died a tiny death in that moment. Was this the same man? Acting as if the most cataclysmic thing on the earth hadn’t just happened? But then, she realised in sick horror, it hadn’t—not for him. If anything, last night for him must have been excruciatingly banal. How could it not have been, with a complete innocent?

  She shook her head vaguely. ‘I just…’ I just what? she mocked herself bitterly, cursing her impulse to come in here. How could she have disregarded everything that lay between them, forgotten why she was there?

  A lot of things were impacting upon Angel, all at the same time. Leo turned from the mirror, his tie perfectly knotted, his shoulders broad and awesome in the jacket, hair smoothed back, jaw clean shaven. Aloof.

  Very quickly Angel assessed the situation, her brain working overtime. She brought her hands to her robe and tightened it, barely registering the way Leo’s eyes dropped there for a split second. She tipped up her chin, forcing her voice to be cool. ‘I was just wondering what time the stylist will be here? You did say that you’d have someone come today?’

  Leo’s jaw clenched and he strolled nonchalantly towards Angel, barely leashed power in every step. A flash of memory—those muscular thighs between hers last night—made a light sweat break out over Angel’s top lip. She fought not to retreat, not to show that she was barely holding it together in the face of his obvious distance. He stopped a few feet away, his gaze sweeping up and down in a blistering moment that nearly scuppered Angel’s precious composure.

  ‘You were an eager student last night, Angel. I can see our time together being most…enjoyable.’

  Angel burned inside. With humiliation and, more treacherously, with hurt, in response to his whole demeanour and his calling her eager. She had been desperately, awfully eager. She had fallen into his bed more easily than a ripe apple falling from a tree. She wanted to lash back, and hitched her chin a mite higher.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, as I have so little experience to compare it to. But for what it’s worth last night was…pleasant enough.’

  Leo laughed out loud, a big burst of sound that made Angel flinch. When he looked at her his eyes flashed a warning, and a mocking smile played around his sensual mouth. Angel had to fight against the pull in her belly, the desire to just stop and look at it. She dragged her gaze back up to his.

  He stepped even closer and put out a hand, touching her jaw. Angel clenched it.

  ‘Sweetheart, I know exactly how it was for you. I felt every ripple of every one of your orgasms, so don’t pretend that it was anything less than pleasant.’

  Angel knocked his hand away, dying somewhere inside. ‘Like I said, you’d know so much more than me. I’m sure the novelty won’t last long.’

  Leo calmly replaced his hand, taking a firmer grip on Angel’s jaw. ‘On the contrary,’ he drawled, ‘I don’t see this novelty fading for some time. You’re all fire underneath that angelic exterior, and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more of it. This is only the beginning.’

  With that, he dropped his hand and stepped back. Angel thought for a split second that she saw some chink in his composure, and it had her heart beat hard in response. But then he looked at his watch and said crisply, ‘The stylist will be here at noon, followed by someone to give you some beauty treatments. We’ve got our first public outing tonight, Angel—a ball to celebrate my taking over Parnassus Shipping as CEO. It should be fun for you. It’s at the Grand Bretagne, where you’re more intimately acquainted with the dirty sheets. I’ll be back later. Wear something appropriate for your first viewing as my mistress.’

  He ran a finger down her hot cheek. ‘I’m looking forward to stirring things up with you by my side.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS LEO sat in a meeting in his new boardroom later that day, to his utter chagrin he found he wasn’t concentrating on the discussion—which didn’t disturb him too much; he was already two steps ahead of everyone else in the room. All he could think about was Angel and last night. And how she’d looked this morning when she’d come into his room, the lurch he’d felt in his chest when he’d seen her hesitation. How hard it had been to stand there and see her softly flushed face, those huge blue eyes, and not rip her robe from her body and spread her underneath him again.

  His body was tight with arousal even now—not a state he welcomed in the middle of the day, surrounded by work colleagues, and with Ari Levakis looking at him with a small frown. Leo smiled.

  But it was futile. He kept getting flashes of moments: when he’d thrust into her for the first time and heard that telltale indrawn gasp, how tight she’d clamped around him, how sweetly she’d opened up for him, allowing him to sink deeper and deeper. How her skin had tasted, like sweet musk and crushed roses.

  Like sweet musk and crushed roses? Leo gave himself an inner shake. He had to get it together. Angel Kassianides was a piece of work.

  For a moment that morning he’d thought that he’d seen something achingly vulnerable in her face, and it had made him close up inside. Close up against the inevitable attempt of a woman to turn intimacy into something emotional. But then, when he’d walked over to her, she’d been composed and cool. So much so that he knew he’d be a fool if he trusted any of her reactions for a moment.

  She was his mistress, she was his, an
d the thought of the evening to come, when he could parade her in public and know that he was her only lover, was tantalising in the extreme.

  Angel sat beside Leo in the back of his car later that evening. Her throat ached with a huge lump. She hated the fact that she was so raw about what had happened. All day she’d not been able to get out of her head the coolness Leo had subjected her to that morning. Right now, she didn’t think she could ever let him touch her again, but just then, as if to mock her assertion, she felt a big hand close over hers, where it lay on her leg, and her blood started to speed up.

  ‘You look beautiful tonight.’

  Angel exerted iron control over her emotions and turned slowly to face Leo, not a hint of her inner turmoil showing on her face. She smiled and it felt brittle. ‘Well, you paid enough for it.’

  Leo’s eyes were dark, with those golden lights lurking in their depths, already undoing some of Angel’s rigid control. She left her hand lax in his, even though she wanted desperately to pull away. His dark tuxedo elevated his appeal to another level. And he just said, softly now, while shaking his head, ‘Money has nothing to do with true beauty. And you are, Angel, truly beautiful.’

  Leo found that he was saying the words with a reverent sincerity that he couldn’t help. When he’d walked into her room earlier he hadn’t known what to expect. His heart had beaten a curious tattoo, and he’d found that his chest had been tight with anticipation. She’d been standing at her window, slender back to him. He’d seen many women, in many beautiful gowns for his pleasure, but none he’d ever seen had taken his breath away before they’d even turned around.

  The dress was floor length, and a deeply turquoise colour. Silk. Apart from that Leo hadn’t known much, because he’d felt dizzy with lust. It draped and fell in such a way as to turn her into some sort of goddess creature. Her hair was twisted up and held in place by a flower of a similar colour to the dress.