AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hayley was still standing at the salon window watching as Marnie opened the car door and there was Leon in the driver’s seat, his jaw shadowed, his black hair ruffled. She felt her pulse pick up speed as he turned to slant her that slow and sexy smile.
‘Hi,’ he said softly.
‘Hi.’
Keeping her greeting as casual as his, Marnie slid into the passenger seat and snapped her seat belt shut. How quickly she had adapted to being a rich man’s lover! His discreet squeeze of her thigh made her shiver and a rush of something powerful flooded through her as their gazes met. But there was no kiss. Nothing to indicate he’d been missing her while he’d been away. Leon Kanonidou didn’t do public declarations of affection. Just as he didn’t do romance, or commitment, or marriage—though he’d never told her why and she’d never asked. They didn’t have that kind of soul-searching relationship.
But that was okay.
That was what she had signed up for, wasn’t it?
‘Like to go for a drive?’ he questioned as he started up the engine. ‘We could watch the sun go down somewhere along the river. Maybe have a drink on the way.’
The dying September day might be growing dusky, but it was still light enough for Marnie to notice the tension which was forming deep grooves on either side of his lips. Was that jet lag? she wondered. ‘We don’t have to. You look tired—and I’ve been on my feet all day,’ she said, suddenly realising how much the backs of her calves were aching. ‘Why don’t we go...’ she nearly said home, until she realised that sounded a little presumptuous, so she quickly changed course ‘...back to yours?’
‘Okay. Back to mine it is.’ Leon switched on the ignition and glanced in his rear-view mirror as he pulled away. ‘Why don’t you tell me about your day?’
Out of the corner of his eye Leon could see her clasping her hands together on her lap, before beginning to chat. Slowly at first and then, as she got more into her stride, her account became rapidly laced with irreverent anecdotes and a few impersonations of the salon’s clientele, which for once failed to make him smile.
His mouth hardened as he drove into the underground garage of his block. Deep down, he was grateful she had refused his offer of a drive because he was worn out after his trip and dreading the week ahead. He switched off the engine. Sex would ease some of the tension. It always did.
The elevator from the garage took them straight to his apartment and as Marnie removed her rather ugly coat he felt the instant flare of hunger. He stared at her with a bemusement which was rapidly overtaken by desire, despite her sartorial shortcomings. Beneath the coat she wore a plain and frumpy blouse and skirt, along with a pair of shoes whose only possible attribute—surely—was that they could be described as comfortable. But at least she had untied her hair, letting it fall into a silken tumble which rippled down over her luscious breasts, in the style she knew he liked. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever met and yet she dressed like a middle-aged secretary.
He shook his head a little, still slightly irritated by her stubborn rebuttal of his suggested gifts, despite the fact that they’d been seeing each other for weeks now. She hadn’t let him buy her anything. No clothes. No jewels. No shoes. Nothing. Not a single trinket had ever made its way from him to her and he found that deeply frustrating. No woman had ever refused his gifts before and sometimes he found himself wondering if she thought he would regard her more favourably if she rejected his generosity.
But at other times he chided himself for his cynicism because—quite simply—she took his breath away. He let his gaze drift over her now, unable to lose his faint air of incredulity. Wondering how it was that, despite her modest wardrobe and lack of sophistication, Marnie Porter could provoke in him the most powerful physical response he’d ever experienced. A response which was all-consuming, instant and automatic. She was doing it now, without doing anything—just regarding him with those watchful grey eyes which gave nothing away.
He had tried to analyse her appeal, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes he thought it was because she made him laugh and challenged him all at the same time. At others, because she seemed genuinely unimpressed by his wealth. Was it because she didn’t bore him with questions about how he felt—or, even worse, give him chapter on verse on her own feelings? Or was it more primitive than that? Maybe it was all tied up with him having been her only lover. Maybe he was more old-fashioned than he’d thought.
Exclusivity was a powerful entity, he concluded wryly, his lips softening in anticipation. And purity was a surprisingly potent concept. He could feel a sweet aching in his balls as hot, hard desire flooded through him. A desire strong enough to take his mind off the forthcoming engagement which was looming ever closer in his diary with all the allure of an execution.
Deliberately, he leaned back against the wall. ‘Come here,’ he instructed softly, his concerns drifting away as she went straight into his waiting arms. Wasn’t it remarkable that she knew intuitively when to be docile and when to be dominant and, right now, he was the one who needed to be in total control. He kissed her for a while. A long while. Until her breath had begun to quicken. Until he was so hard that he wanted to explode. But he liked making himself hold back—and that was part of the control too.
‘How...how was your trip?’ she asked breathlessly, as he slid her blouse from her shoulders.
‘Predictable.’
‘Oh?’
As her skirt pooled to the ground, he put his hand between her thighs and felt her shiver as his thumb alighted on her sensitive nub, already slick with desire. ‘Well, we could talk about my trip,’ he said unevenly, flipping her round so that now it was her back pressed against the wall. ‘Or we could talk about how wet you are and how much I want to be inside you again, after a wait which has felt almost unendurable.’ He swallowed. ‘The choice is yours, Marnie.’
‘That’s not...fair,’ she said weakly as he pushed aside the damp gusset of her panties and grazed his fingertip down over her soft folds.
‘Isn’t it? How would you like me to be fair, then, agape mou?’ he mocked, his movement pausing. ‘Do you want me to stop? To fix you a drink, and remark how beautiful the trees look from the terrace?’
‘No,’ she husked. ‘You know I don’t.’
He gave a soft laugh as he unzipped himself and let his trousers fall, before stroking on a condom and hooking up her legs, so that her thighs clamped themselves deliciously around his hips.
He could have come immediately but tempered his own desire until she was engulfed by satisfaction, until her curvy body tensed with waves of release and she shuddered out his name.
With one final jerk he let go and spilled his seed—pumping ecstatically until at last he stilled inside her spasming flesh.
Afterwards, he kicked off his jeans and carried her into the bedroom, laying her down in the centre of his bed so that her hair was spread like rippling gold against the pristine white of the pillow, thinking how exquisite she looked with her eyelids hooded and that dreamy smile curving her lips. Deftly, he removed the rest of their clothes and pulled her into his arms, so that her soft flesh moulded against his beneath the duvet.
‘I really am the most inattentive of hosts.’ He pressed his lips into her hair. ‘Want me to get you a drink now?’
‘No, thanks. And for what it’s worth—I have no complaints about your hosting skills,’ she said, rolling over onto her stomach and fixing him with that curious grey gaze. ‘I’m more interested in how you are. You look stressed.’
