by Lynne Graham
‘I can’t wait any longer,’ Leandro confessed, coming over her and pinning her hands to the bed beneath his while he slid between her thighs. His brilliant eyes smouldered pure gold as he stared down at her. He had never wanted anything or anybody as much as he wanted her at that moment. He had never known such a high of sexual intensity. With her raven hair spread across his pillows, her crystalline green eyes shimmering and her voluptuous mouth swollen from the onslaught of his, he thought she was irresistible.
Molly cried out as he drove into her resisting flesh with one urgent thrust. His power was too potent to be denied and he forged a bold passage into her honeyed depths, stretching and filling her to capacity.
‘I hurt you!’ Leandro exclaimed and stilled.
‘No, it doesn’t matter!’ Molly protested, for she was embarrassed and the discomfort was already ebbing as her receptive body slowly adjusted to him. He felt amazing inside her and a rising tide of heat consumed her again. ‘Don’t stop.’
Leandro was astonished by what her behaviour in combination with her body was telling him. His ebony brows drew together in a questioning frown. ‘Dios mio! Are you a virgin?’
‘Was,’ Molly countered awkwardly, keen not to discuss the matter just at that moment.
His lean, darkly handsome face was taut. ‘You should have warned me, mi gatita.’
‘It felt too private to mention,’ Molly admitted uncomfortably.
Leandro dealt her an incredulous look and then he flung back his proud dark head and laughed with rich appreciation. ‘You make me smile.’ He dropped a teasing kiss on her bemused brow and shifted his lean hips, reacquainting her with his presence until she gasped in shaken response.
The hot, hungry heat burned inside her again, her body eagerly quickening to the sexual dominance of his. He sank deep into her and withdrew again and repeated that torturous cycle again and again until she was shaking and arching beneath him, almost driven out of her mind by the urgent desire he had ignited. Nothing mattered but the satisfaction she was reaching for and the delirious excitement of the pace he set. Tiny feverish tremors passed through her. She moved against him, caught up in the intensity of her hunger. When she reached orgasm, it was as if the whole world stopped and flung her sky-high. Waves of exquisite pleasure gripped her and she writhed under him in an ecstasy of abandon. In the throes of the same satisfaction, he shuddered and drove deep and she lifted her hips to receive him and held him close in the aftermath.
Afterwards she was in a state of sleepy wonderment at what she had just learned about her own body’s amazing capacity for enjoyment. She wanted to stay awake because she had never before felt so close to another human being and she loved that sense of intimacy, but she had also never felt so tired in her life. He kissed her and he muttered some Spanish stuff.
‘I don’t speak the lingo,’ she mumbled sleepily.
‘I’m too tired to speak English.’
‘So shut up and go to sleep,’ Molly countered, snuggling up to him and closing a possessive arm round him.
In the moonlight, Leandro elevated an ebony brow and turned her over so that she was lying on her side. A mark at the base of her spine caught his attention. A scar? His finger traced the tattoo of hot-pink lips. He pushed back the sheet and saw another illustration on her ankle. It was of a tiny trail of silvery blue stars. He smiled, covered her up again and tugged her back against him. She was totally different from any other woman he had ever met or bedded. Definitely not Duquesa material-but the perfect candidate for the role of mistress.
Why not? In bed she was pure enticement and as hot for him as he was for her. He had a very healthy sex drive and too many years had passed since he was able to give his libido a free rein. The idea of having relaxation time with a warm, willing woman like Molly at the end of a long stressful day at the bank was immensely appealing. He enjoyed the fact that she talked to him on a level as if he were an ordinary person. She was comfortable and confident within herself. He couldn’t ever remember a woman telling him to shut up before-even as a joke. She was novel, she was fresh and he was bored and determined to break free of the web of duty and responsibility that entrapped him. Just for once, Leandro mused, he was going to do exactly what he wanted to do and to hell with the consequences!
Wakening, Molly lifted her lashes and registered that she was lying in a strange bed in an equally strange room. It was still dark but the dawn was lighting up the distant horizon. The décor had a cool art deco style and the room was really large. Only someone very rich could afford that amount of space and that kind of furniture in a city as expensive as London. The events of the previous night flooded back to her and she went rigid. She had slept with Leandro and she couldn’t even pronounce, never mind spell, his surname. As she sneaked a leg towards the edge of the bed to get up a long masculine arm closed round her and drew her back.
‘Don’t even think about leaving, querida,’ Leandro husked, his breath stirring her hair. ‘It’s only seven.’
‘This is really embarrassing,’ Molly mumbled. ‘I don’t even have a toothbrush with me.’
Leandro worked hard at not laughing at that inept admission. ‘I have a spare. I’ll order breakfast. I have something I would very much like to discuss with you.’
All Molly wanted just then was a magic wand to wave that would whisk her from being naked in his bed back to the sanctuary of her own bedroom. Her clothes were scattered on the polished wood floor. I’m a slut, she thought wretchedly, a total slut.
Leandro was talking on the bedside phone in Spanish at a great rate. He sounded like someone accustomed to rapping out instructions. But what did she know about him? He was amazingly good-looking? Chivalrous towards humble waitresses? Fantastic in bed? Averse to the cold? A widower? Well, these days that last fact did tell her something about his character, she reasoned. He had been prepared to commit to a future with someone and had got married at a reasonably early age, which was unusual.
‘I’ll use the bathroom next door,’ he told her lazily.
To his list of attributes, Molly added a plus for tact. Without turning her head, however, she waited until she heard the door snap shut on his departure before she scrambled out of bed, gathered up the clothes she had been wearing the night before and raced into the en-suite bathroom clutching them.
Her curls looked as though she had stuck a finger in an electric socket. She groaned out loud and rifled the drawers of the vanity unit for the toothbrush she had been promised. The corner shower was digitally operated so she couldn’t work out how to use it and made do with washing at the sink as best she could. As she dressed she was conscious that her body ached even worse than it had after the charity mini-marathon she had done with Jez the previous year.
She had a dim erotic memory of wakening during the night and making love with Leandro again. She had made the approach, which had resulted in his long, achingly slow and spellbinding seduction that had made her cry out his name at the top of her voice. She cringed at the recollection of her audacity while she fiddled with her hair, struggling to tame her wild curls into some semblance of order without the aid of her usual weapons. Only when she no longer had any excuse to linger did she emerge from the bedroom. She only knew one thing: had she had the chance to go back to the previous night she would still have chosen to stay with him and experience what had followed.
The dining room enjoyed a stunning view of the Thames. A waiter was there presiding over a trolley stacked with a wide selection of food and Molly was astonished by the concept of anyone buying in breakfast for two complete with service. But her wide eyes still swivelled straight across to Leandro, who was poised by the window. He commanded the scene, sheathed in a superbly tailored black pinstripe suit that was the very epitome of banking chic. He looked sinfully beautiful but cool and remote. Her tummy gave an uneasy lurch as if she were under threat. She didn’t know how to behave or what to say to him.
With an authoritative nod, Leandro told the waiter he co
uld leave because they would serve themselves. Her face flushed as she carefully avoided a direct meeting with his thickly lashed dark eyes, Molly wiped damp palms down the sides of her fitted black skirt. It was obvious to her that ordering people around came very naturally indeed to Leandro. She had never been more conscious of her lowly status than when she was standing there still garbed in her work clothes while he summarily dismissed the waiter from his duties.
Conscious her tummy was rumbling, she lifted a small box of cereal and put it in a bowl before taking a seat. The apartment was even more opulent than she had initially appreciated and she felt more like a fish out of water than ever.
‘Last night…’ Leandro hesitated, searching for the right words with which to outline his offer as he helped himself to fresh fruit. ‘It was fantastic.’
‘Hmm.’ Molly nodded, her mouth too full to speak and even if it hadn’t been she had no idea what she might have replied to that surprisingly intimate comment. Clothed and in daylight, Leandro was horrendously intimidating. She could barely credit that she had spent the night in his arms.
Leandro breathed in deep. ‘In fact it was so incredible that I want to hang onto you, querida.’
Molly almost choked on her cereal. ‘Hang onto me?’ she parroted without comprehension.
‘I lead a very busy existence in which I rarely have time to lighten up, which is one very good reason why I would like you to become a part of my life. I like your cheerful attitude and I need to relax more,’ Leandro imparted levelly. ‘We both have something that the other needs. It would be an exchange of mutual benefit. You would enjoy the financial security to indulge your ambition to be an artisan potter and I would be happy to make that possible.’
Her smooth brow had indented and her almond-shaped eyes were bright with bewilderment. ‘What on earth are you trying to say?’
‘That I would be prepared to buy you somewhere suitable to live and money need no longer be a source of concern for you,’ Leandro spelt out softly. ‘No more waitressing-I would cover all your expenses. It would be my pleasure to do so.’
Molly studied him fixedly, her heartbeat thumping so fast and loud that it felt as if it were trapped in her tight throat. ‘Why would you offer to buy me somewhere to live? Why would you want to pay my bills? Exactly what kind of a relationship are you offering me?’
‘I want you to be my mistress and stay in my life, querida. In the background of my life rather than the forefront of it, it is true,’ Leandro conceded, belatedly wondering whether she was capable of being discreet. ‘But you would still be important to me.’
As he quantified his objective, Molly had turned pale and then suddenly colour ran up like a banner beneath her creamy skin and burnished it to hot pink. Anger strongly laced with outrage left her light-headed and threatened to erupt from her like a volcano. Her jewelled eyes fiery with disbelief, she rammed her hands down flat on the table top and pushed herself upright. ‘You arrogant, condescending rat!’ she launched at him furiously. ‘Your mistress? What was last night supposed to be? A trial run for the position? You have no business even suggesting such a thing to me!’
‘You don’t need to use abuse to make your point,’ Leandro censured with freezing cool. ‘In my world such arrangements between men and women are common and accepted.’
‘Not in mine!’ Molly gasped, stricken by the awareness that if he had just asked to see her again she would have snatched at the opportunity. Instead he had put an offensive commercial price on any future relationship and made it very clear that she wasn’t good enough to occupy any more equal or public role in his life. That clear fact hurt like a knife twisting inside her, echoing as it did the painful rejections she had had to deal with throughout her life. Not good enough. Sometimes it seemed to Molly that she was never good enough for anything she really wanted.
Leandro, his lean, strong face impassive, continued to study her with a detachment that chilled Molly to the marrow. ‘You can’t be that naive.’
Leandro had never been with a woman who didn’t want to profit from being with him in some way. Even as a teenager he had been the target of elaborate female stratagems designed to attract his interest and entrap him. Fabulous wealth was a very powerful draw. He had learned young that sex was invariably offered in the expectation that the act of sharing his bed would be rewarded with frequent bouts of financial generosity. And then there were the women who didn’t primarily want his money, but who had their social ambitions squarely set on marrying him and using his ancient name and aristocratic lineage to gain an entry to the most exclusive and privileged stratum of Spanish society.
‘Listen to me-I don’t need anyone but myself to make my dreams come true,’ Molly told him half an octave higher. ‘I certainly don’t need any man to keep me and I never will! I manage fine on my own-’
‘You’re capable of being more than a waitress,’ Leandro contended grimly.
‘And a great deal more than being your mistress too!’ Molly launched back at him in heated challenge. ‘However low I may sink in life, you can be sure that I’ll never be desperate enough to surrender my self-respect and sell myself to you for sex!’
‘Shorn of melodrama, was that a no?’ Leandro surveyed her with level dark as midnight eyes, his lean, powerful face tight with reserve and cool. Displeasure radiated from him like a force field but his self-control, unlike hers, was absolute.
‘Yes, that was a no, and now I think it’s time I cleared off and went home.’ Her voice sounded choky and tears were stinging the backs of her eyes. ‘How could you belittle me with a sleazy offer like that? I’m not interested in being some dirty little secret in your life!’
‘It wouldn’t be like that between us. I only want to keep you close-’
‘But only in the most demeaning way!’ Molly cut in with biting scorn. ‘Not as an equal. You wear your belief in your superiority like a medal, don’t you? But I’m not some little toy you can buy to entertain yourself in your free time and where do you get off suggesting that I am?’
Affronted by her sustained verbal attack, Leandro unfolded from his seat to his full imposing height and viewed her with sardonic eyes. ‘You were happy enough to be with me last night. Did I treat you like a toy?’
Molly’s cheeks burned hotter than fire, as she suspected that she had been more guilty of treating him like the ultimate adult woman’s plaything the night before, for she had fully satisfied all her curiosity. ‘Last night was last night. I didn’t know what was on your mind then. I liked you until we had this conversation-’
A black brow quirked. ‘Did you? I would have said that you wanted me the same way I wanted-and still want-you. Can you really switch off like that?’
Taut as a bow string, she stared back at him, knowing that it would not be so easy to switch off her responses or forget that overwhelming passion that had proved so very addictive. His stunning eyes rested on her, cool and unreadable. ‘Yes,’ she lied curtly. ‘Yes, I can. I’m not a forgiving person, either!’
Molly stalked out to the hall where she had seen her coat lying across a chair. She had only snatched it up when it was removed from her grasp and politely extended for her to slip into by Leandro.
‘You really put the “o” into offensive with your offers, but, hey, you’ve got exquisite manners!’ Molly sniped as she dug her arms into the sleeves and spun back round to face him.
Leandro nudged her coat out of his path and slid a business card into the front pocket of her white blouse. ‘My private phone number. For the moment when you come to appreciate what you’re passing up.’
‘That moment will never come-I’m making a lucky escape from a guy who belongs in the Dark Ages and still thinks it’s all right to treat women like sex objects!’ she hissed back.
Leandro curved lean fingers to her cheekbones to hold her steady and plundered her soft pink lips in a smoulderingly sexual kiss that lit a fire in her pelvis and made her tremble. ‘You’ll come running back-you won’t be
able to help yourself, mi gatita,’ he forecast huskily. ‘I won’t let you go. That’s a promise.’
He didn’t have her phone number, he didn’t even know where she lived, so Molly wasn’t too concerned by that macho assurance, which set her teeth on edge. She walked into the lift with an oddly bereft feeling dogging her mood. She refused to acknowledge it and her thoughts were soon turned to much more practical matters when she discovered that her car had acquired a parking ticket since she had left it the evening before. Such penalties were incredibly expensive and she was, as always, broke. With a grimace of annoyance, she drove off.
Leandro called his security team to ensure that she was followed. There was no way he was letting her go again. The more she fought, the more he wanted her for he now recognised her absolute uniqueness. She wasn’t after his money or his social pedigree, but she did want him very much. Purely as a man. He had no doubt whatsoever on that score. Indeed a hard slanting smile of amused satisfaction banished the grim cast of his handsome mouth. He remembered her in his bed last night. She had carefully nudged him awake, her Cupid’s bow mouth soft and coaxing and pure dynamite on his shoulder and his chest before travelling to more sensitive places as she became ever more enterprising. He recalled her helpless giggles when she got it wrong and the white hot glory of pleasure engulfing him when he showed her how to get it right. No way was he letting her walk away from him now. In the most basic terms and on a level that appealed to his every atavistic masculine fibre, she was his discovery and his creation.
It was only when she was gone and he was striding out to his limousine to head for the bank that Leandro stilled and realised in shock that the night before he had been guilty of a glaring oversight. He had not used condoms with her and, bearing in mind her lack of experience, it was unlikely that she was taking any contraceptive precautions on her own behalf. He swore soft and low in Spanish, stunned by his omission. Although, given the five childless years of his marriage, it was a challenge for him to believe that there could be a genuine risk of her falling pregnant by him…
