Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

‘But you’re also probably disappointed,’ Max breathed and gritted his teeth, suddenly feeling furiously out of his depth, wondering where he was planning to go with the dialogue and finally registering just how off his game he was that he didn’t actually know.

‘No. I don’t think I am,’ Tia murmured, huge blue eyes opening to dreamily survey him, pale fingers smoothing from his shoulder down over his chest in a considering caress that blanked his mind and locked his tongue, because the one thing Max did know at that precise moment was that he wanted her hands all over him.

Max lowered his dark head, drawn by forces he didn’t even understand. She might want some ideal, perfect male but guess what? She was getting him and she could learn to deal, he thought, with the kind of raw aggression that powered him through the business world. He focused on that soft, pouty mouth and went back hungrily for more, smiling into the kiss as her spine arched and her whole body reached up to him, responding to his expertise, wanting him.

Long brown fingers smoothed along her thigh and when she emerged from that kiss he was working his sensual path down over her squirming length and at some stage of the proceedings her knickers had gone and she felt shockingly, wickedly naked. But before she could even process that discovery, Max parted her thighs and began to do something she had read about but had never dreamt she would actually experience.

The wave of heat and mortification that pulsed through her shaken body was intense. In an abrupt move, she reached down and snarled her fingers into the black luxuriance of his hair and then he licked her, there, where she had never dreamt she would be so intimately touched, and such a pulse of shattering excitement gripped her that she fell back helpless against the pillows.

He did it again and she gasped, neck lifting, breasts straining, suddenly in the hold of something seemingly much stronger than she was. Her body writhed of its own volition, a crazy pressure building at her aching core, and her nails dug into his shoulders. He was ravishing her, tormenting her with pleasure, she thought wildly, in thrall to pure sensation. She trembled, shook, emitted muffled cries, utterly out of control, her entire being locked to the feeling of his fingers entering her previously unbreached body. His tongue flicked across the tiny bundle of nerves he had exposed and it was as though her body detonated, the pressure peaking and the aftershocks passing outward, sending a coiling energy blast of delight to pull at her. Sated, dazed, she fell back against the pillows in wonderment at what sex was all about.

‘No, you do not get to go to sleep now, bella mia,’ Max warned her thickly, sliding up her relaxed body to gaze down at her with molten golden eyes awash with hunger and need.

And Tia realised for possibly the first time that it wasn’t all about her and guilty colour washed her face, a new tenderness sliding in its wake as she noticed the tension etching his lean, darkly handsome features. As he lifted her legs and tilted her up to him, she only just restrained herself from wrapping her arms round him and hugging him for giving her a superlative introduction to the physical that bore no resemblance to the sexual horror stories she had been subjected to earlier that evening.

‘I hope this doesn’t hurt much but it might,’ Max breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I haven’t been with a virgin before.’

‘That’s all right,’ Tia framed in a rush, stretching up her head and claiming a kiss from that wide, sensual mouth that had taught her the meaning of pleasure.

As Max kissed her back, doing that flick of the tongue thing again that enthralled her and reanimated the heat in her pelvis, she felt him push against her tender flesh, inch by inch pushing for entry into her untested body. She was insanely conscious of his every tiny movement, equally aware that he had prepared her as well as he could. And it seemed to work until he drove deeper and there was a sharp pinch of pain that forced an involuntary gasp from between her parted lips. And he stopped.

‘No...go on,’ Tia urged, gritting her teeth, her body even more primed than she was for the great reveal, indeed the churning liquid heat in her pelvis craving exactly that development.

Max thrust home, crazily aware of her lush inner walls clenching round him. ‘So good,’ he ground out helplessly, revelling in every tight, hot, wet atom of her welcome and somewhere around then he lost himself as he had never lost himself in a woman before.

Hands clenched on her hips, he pulled back and then plunged into her again, hard and fast. The shock of it thrilled through her tender body like a storm warning. It was the most extraordinary pleasure she had ever experienced. As he pounded into her, her hands clawed in his hair and then into his shoulders and then down his back, the excitement and the pressure rising and rising until she could no longer contain it. Her heart thundering in her ears, her head jerking back and forth on the pillows, she felt that mighty surge of sensation gripping her womb and throwing her high as outer space again. She thrashed beneath him, unable to contain the ecstasy as convulsions quaked through her satia

ted body.

In the aftermath she felt so heavy, so languorous, she was bemused. ‘That was...don’t have the words...’

In bed or out of bed, Max rarely had words with women, preferring to escape intimacy with silence on the sensible grounds that what wasn’t said couldn’t be misinterpreted. But Tia had both arms and both legs wrapped around him and he was trapped. ‘That was the best sex I’ve ever had,’ he mumbled thickly, his head now aching so badly he couldn’t think straight.

In consternation at that awareness, Max reeled out of bed, as dizzy and disorientated as a drunk, and he finally appreciated that there was something badly amiss with him, something worse even than his usual punishing migraines. ‘Sorry, feeling weird,’ he framed with difficulty. ‘Think I must be overtired...’

Tia leapt out of bed as he sank down on the rug. ‘You need a doctor,’ she gasped.

‘Don’t want a doctor,’ Max told her predictably.

Fortunately, Tia discovered that a doctor was easily obtained by the helpful hotel staff. The minutes that followed her call were frantic. Between fetching Max a glass of water and finding and getting some clothes on her naked body before registering that Max was naturally equally naked, she felt harassed and anxious and very guilty. It was concussion, she knew it was, having seen the effects before in the convent infirmary. Max rambled on about his susceptibility to migraines and the medication he wanted her to get from his room but Tia only grabbed clothes from the built-in units in his room.

Persuading him to get back into the bed was a challenge but he didn’t appear to own pyjamas or a dressing gown and the only item of clothing she managed to get him into was a pair of boxers. By that stage the doctor was at the door and she had to answer it flustered and barefoot, but such was her apprehension for Max that she wasn’t concerned.

The young, chatty doctor wanted Max to have a hospital scan but Max was as immovable on that score as concrete laced with steel. For some reason, he didn’t like hospitals and he didn’t like scans. After considerable pressure from the worried doctor, who was equally convinced that Max had concussion from the blue-black bruising and the swelling that was visible when his hair was parted, Max agreed to attend the hospital the following morning. Discussing the treatment Max required, Tia saw the doctor out of the suite.

‘Tia...’ Max called almost as soon as she was out of his sight.

Breathless, Tia sped back and studied him, wondering what was normal for Max because the doctor had asked her that question when telling her to look out for abnormal behaviour. But how much did she know about the man she had just slept with? Next to nothing, came the answer. Ashamed of that reality, Tia reddened.

‘I can’t simply lie here in bed like I’m ill!’ Max bit out in frustration.

‘You have to. You’re very dizzy and if you fall I couldn’t get you up on my own,’ Tia pointed out sensibly, her practical nature taking charge. ‘It’s midnight anyway and it’s only for a few hours.’

‘I don’t go to bed at midnight like your grandfather. In fact I’m used to late hours and little sleep,’ Max murmured drily, studying her from below the lush black fringe of his lashes, barely contriving not to flinch. There she was: his beautiful downfall, the film-star beauty ruffled but no less appealing, golden hair tumbled round her heart-shaped face, blue eyes sparkling. She had a sort of effervescent glow about her. Knowing that he was about to douse that glow didn’t improve his mood.

‘Tia... I didn’t use protection,’ he divulged in a harsh undertone of self-blame.

‘What do you mean?’ she prompted uncertainly.