His fingertips brushed the front of her thigh, and the soft quiver became an involuntary and uncontrollable convulsive shudder. She could feel Leon’s lips nuzzling the back of her neck, just below her ear. His hands moved with aching slowness up over the front of her body towards her breasts.
With a small moan Sadie pressed back against him.
‘What is it?’ he murmured against the ear. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
His hands were doing incredible things to her breasts, making her ache for the feel of his mouth against her tight, eager nipples. But Leon did not seem to share her own surging urgency. Instead he continued to stroke and caress her, nibbling little kisses against her neck, sliding his hands over her soap-slicked body. His touch was arousing her to such a frantic pitch that she moaned sharply in frustration and opened her legs, mentally begging him to touch her intimately.
‘What is it?’ he asked again softly, when her ecstatic writhings wouldn’t be stilled. ‘What do you want?’
‘You know,’ Sadie moaned, desperate to grab hold of his hand and place it against her body, but unable to do so because of the way he was still stroking her.
‘Tell me,’ Leon urged huskily. ‘Tell me what you want me to do, Sadie. Show me how you want me to touch you…how you want me to love you…Is it this you want?’ he asked warmly as his hand caressed the curve of her hip and slid down over her belly before cupping her sex.
Sadie gasped as she felt the impatient swell of her body, too wrought up to be able to tell Leon what was happening to her. But somehow he knew, she realised, because he turned her round and stared down into her wild open eyes as his fingers answered the urgent need of her body and the fierce, tight explosion of her orgasm brought her into trembling release.
Sadie was awake, but she did not want to open her eyes just in case it had all been only a dream and Leon wasn’t actually in bed beside her after all. She knew it must be morning, even with her eyes closed. Somehow she could feel the brightness of the day through her eyelids. If Leon wasn’t there…
Cautiously she moved her body, still heavy and soft with satisfaction and love.
Love! Her heart turned over inside her chest. She loved Leon so much…Just the thought of him was enough to—
She stiffened abruptly as the restless movements of her body brought her into contact with warm male flesh. It had happened! She hadn’t just imagined it! Leon was here!
Bubbles of joy and excitement fizzed through her blood. With her eyes still closed Sadie nestled closer to him, fitting her body into the curve of his. She could smell the warm, musky scent of him—and it was more aphrodisiacal than any man-made perfume. The soft hair on his chest was tickling her nose. Tenderly she rubbed her lips against his skin, delighting in the secret stolen pleasure of being able to do so whilst he was still asleep. Smiling to herself, she stroked her fingertip lazily along his arm, so different from her own, all powerful muscles and sinews.
Against her body she could feel his stirring. A female shiver of pleasure slowly caressed her own body.
Snuggling further down his body, she teased her tongue-tip around his navel, her hand reaching out to touch and then hold him. It was an extraordinarily sensual and tender thing to feel him growing within her hold, at once both vulnerable and powerful.
Experimentally she started to caress him, enjoying his body’s response to her and rewarding it with a soft kiss.
This was an intimacy she hadn’t imagined she would ever want to experience, but suddenly she knew just how much she did. The brief touch of her lips became a more intimate and sensual exploration.
‘Enjoying yourself?’
The low, groaned words shocked through her. Lifting her head, she turned to look up at Leon. She had been so lost in the enjoyment of what she was doing that she hadn’t even realised he was awake.
‘I…’
‘I certainly was,’ he told her thickly, his voice soft with pleasure, ‘so don’t let me stop you…’
‘What time will they be bringing the replacement hire car?’ Sadie asked Leon drowsily as she responded to the slow drift of his hands on her body.
They had made love, and then slept, and now Leon was caressing her again.
‘Soon,’ he told her wryly, removing his hand with obvious reluctance. ‘I suppose we’d better make a move.’
There was a note in his voice that made Sadie look enquiringly at him.
‘I swore that there was no way I was going to let this happen,’ he told her ruefully.
‘But you wanted it to?’ Sadie questioned him.
‘Do you really need to ask?’ Leon responded, his voice wry with self-mockery.
Leon’s mobile rang as he walked into his hotel room several hours later. He’d just left Sadie at her own room.
‘Brad.’ He smiled as he recognised the voice of his godfather, the company’s and his own solicitor. ‘I was going to ring you later, to give you an update on what’s happening with the Francine acquisition. Yes, I know things are taking longer than we originally expected,’ Leon agreed, still smiling. ‘There’s been a bit of a complication with the junior shareholder, made more difficult by the fact that she almost backed out of the deal.’
Briefly Leon explained to his godfather exactly what had happened. His smile turned to a frown as he heard Brad asking worriedly, ‘What do you mean? We aren’t talking about the woman we saw at the trade fair, are we, Leon? Because she looked to me…’ He took a pause, and then went on even more worriedly, ‘Your father almost lost the business and the shirt off his back, thanks to a conniving, lying woman, Leon, and by the sounds of it you’re in danger of having the same thing happen to you!’
‘Brad, Sadie isn’t like that,’ Leon stopped him curtly.
‘How can you know that, Leon? You’ve already said that she’s causing problems.’
‘Brad, Sadie is not another Miranda.’
‘You can’t be sure of that, Leon. You’re carrying a mighty heavy responsibility on your shoulders—we both know that! Hell, you’re a man, Leon, and only human. I understand that. But if you’re wrong, you don’t need me to tell you how much damage that could do to the business.’
‘You worry too much, Brad,’ Leon told his godfather affectionately before ending the call, but his frown deepened as he walked over to the window. No matter what his personal feelings for Sadie were, he could not afford to do anything that might put the business at risk.
Sadie was not another Miranda Stanton. He was sure of it. But what if he was wrong? Whatever risks he was prepared to take with his own emotions, he was not prepared to take any with the financial security of the business.
Miranda Stanton!
He had been fourteen, and still mourning his grandmother, when to everyone’s shock his father’s business partner had died of a heart attack.
Andy and his father had been at school together, and even though the business had originally been Leon’s father’s idea, he had generously offered Andy a share in it. They had started out with nothing, but by the time Leon was thirteen the business was beginning to do very well.
And then Andy had got married—to a much younger woman—who none of them had liked.
‘If a woman has gold-digger written all over her then that woman is Miranda!’ Leon could remember his mother sighing.
Leon could also remember his father coming home one night and telling his mother that he had to go and see the bank. Andy was in a bit of a financial mess, due to Miranda’s insistence on an expensive lifestyle, and had asked Leon’s father to buy him out of their business.
Generously, because of Andy’s desperation, Leon’s father had given him the money before the legal documents confirming the buy-out had been signed. A week later, whilst on holiday with Miranda, Andy had had a heart attack and died. And a week after that Miranda had informed Leon’s father that she wanted and intended to have the full cash value of Andy’s half-share in the business.
It had been useless for Leon’s father to
protest that Andy had already had the money, and she had known about it. She had pointed out that Leon’s father had no legal documentation to prove it.
Leon’s father had not given up easily. The matter had even gone to court. But of course legally there had been no proof.
In order to buy her out and meet his legal costs Leon’s father had had to mortgage the business up to the hilt, and sell the family home. The family had gone from living in comfort to living from hand to mouth. His parents’ smiling faces had become pinched and strained.
Leon had hated Miranda for what she had done to his family. He had vowed then and there that what had happened to his father would never happen to him! And now here was Brad, suggesting that Sadie was potentially another Miranda!