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As for the rest of him, she glossed her eyes over in haste because really there was rather more than she had dimly expected, but nature had made men and women to fit, so she wasn’t going to stress about that aspect. He came back to her with a wolfish smile that blitzed her thoughts as much as his kisses because she was just enthralled, all her inexperience and insecurities overwhelmed by his breathtaking appeal.
‘You are so beautiful,’ Gio told her and, for Leah, it seemed as though she had been waiting all her life for such words. She didn’t believe it was true but on such an occasion he was allowed to exaggerate, she thought forgivingly.
Having released her hair from its topknot, Gio was watching that fabulous mane of black ringlets spill across the pillows, taking in the shining brilliance of her dark honey eyes, the reddened allure of her luscious mouth, and hunger took him by storm as he came down over her and ravished her lips again.
A little bit later, Leah discovered that her undergarments had magically disappeared, and the smoothness with which those items had been removed bothered her a little because it warned her that he was much more experienced than she was. And she didn’t want to think about that for some reason she couldn’t explain. She didn’t like to think of theotherwomen he had learned such skills from. And she knew that such a thought was ridiculous in a woman who had declared upfront that she was willing only to consider a one-night stand but there it was, denying her own feelings was beyond her: she was jealous as hell of any woman who had ever touched him.
‘You’re so quiet,’ Gio purred, gazing down at her with smouldering eyes semi-screened by lush black lashes.
‘Do you know that you have lashes longer than the average girl’s? No?’ Leah went beet-red. ‘That’swhyI should keep quiet—’
‘I don’t mind quirky,’ Gio broke in with a surprised laugh of appreciation, big hands curving to the full firm curves of her breasts, thumbs gently skimming her prominent nipples. ‘In fact quirky is refreshing.’
Rather belatedly, because everything had seemed to move so fast to her, Leah registered that she was naked for the very first time with a guy, and she could feel a wash of heat blossoming on her entire skin surface, but his touch on her sensitive peaks was sending an arrowing flame to the very heart of her, making her shift her hips under his weight. And then she could feel him against her, long and hard and urgent, and that ache between her thighs intensified.
Gio ran his lips down the side of her neck to where it met her shoulder and she gasped, because inexplicably that touchthereseemed to light up her every nerve ending. She smelled like sunshine and fresh laundry, and he inhaled deeply, amazed by how evocative such natural scents could be. She panted as he lingered at her throat and tipped back as he glided lean fingers down over her quivering tummy, skated through the landing strip of curls below and circled the most sensitive spot on her whole body. Her spine arched, her teeth gritting on a powerful wave of response. He shimmied down the length of her and found the same place with his mouth and his fingers and his tongue.
‘Oh...’ Leah gasped, utterly awash in more sensation than she had ever known. It was as if a fierce pulse was beating through her while her heart thumped even faster, and she was so overpowered that she just closed her eyes tight and let the intoxicating wave of climbing pleasure take over.
Her reaction excited Gio as much as though he were with his very first woman and he was way too involved in that urgency to even consider what was so different. He raised himself to grab a condom from the nightstand by the bed and tore the foil open with his teeth, dimly acknowledging that he was struggling to stay in control while revelling in the excitement of that unique experience. Even the taste of her mouth drove him wild, he conceded, stealing another kiss with driven insistence, already knowing that no one-night stand was likely to sate him...but she’d change her mind about that,of courseshe would.
Leah felt him push past her tender entrance, even lifted herself a little as he canted up her hips and then he was driving into her, giving her what her entire being was keyed up to demand.
‘You’re so tight,’ he proclaimed at almost the same moment as the burning stretch of his invasion became uncomfortable for her. A second later he withdrew to gain greater traction and drove back into her hard and fast. It hurt and she jerked just as he repeated the movement. The next time was less painful and, indeed, her breath caught in her throat in surprise when a renewed wave of hunger mixed with pleasure turned her pelvis into a cauldron of hot, melting liquidity.
His urgent rhythm ramped up her growing excitement. Her heart was thumping so hard it left her breathless. She wanted more, in fact her whole body was primed to a peak of burning need, so that every thrust of his body into hers felt agonisingly good and necessary. The surge of exhilaration engulfing her carried her to a dizzy high and then her body convulsed and broke into a million pieces and in the same instant she soared in an ecstasy of pleasure.
‘Extraordinary,’ Gio husked in her ear, dragging in a shuddering breath that shifted his broad chest against her, muscles rippling below his hair-roughened golden skin. He was bemused by the unexpected discovery that simple sex could bethatgood and a slashing smile at his own surprise lightened his lean, dark, serious features.
Leah looked up at him in a daze of satiation, struggling to hide a surprise even stronger than his because until that moment she truly hadn’t thought she had missed out on much by not experimenting more. He eased back from her to spring out of the bed and then registered that for the first time ever his precautions had failed him.
‘Are you using contraception?’ he asked tautly.
Leah blinked in consternation. She had taken the pill the whole time she was with Oliver on the assumption that eventually their relationship would become more physical, only it hadn’t done and in frustration at that lowering truth she had dumped her pills after he ditched her. ‘Er...no,’ she muttered awkwardly.
‘Unluckily for us, the condom broke,’ Gio told her as he slid out of the bed, only then seeing the smear of blood on his thigh. He froze and lifted pale glittering eyes to her mortified face. ‘Would it be crazy of me to ask if you were a virgin?’
As the ramifications of what he had told her set in, Leah cringed in sharp dismay. Nobody knew more about unplanned pregnancies and their unwelcome consequences than Leah, who had grown up virtually without a father. ‘We don’t have to talk about that,’ she murmured flatly. ‘And we may have had an accident, but I doubt that anything will come of it...my system’s irregular.’
‘Right,’ Gio breathed between gritted teeth, already blaming himself for not having discussed contraception beforehand with her. Checking that his partner was additionally protected was an extra precaution he had practised for years after his divorce. Unhappily he had stopped being that careful because no such accident had ever occurred to him before. But what were the odds of conception? he asked himself with sudden impatience. One mishap, one chance, pretty good odds in his favour, he decided, repressing any further concern.
Without further ado, Gio disappeared into the bathroom and Leah flopped back weakly against the pillows, trying not to recall her mother, who had once joked that she was fertile enough to fall pregnant just by looking at the wrong man. Oh, why, oh, why had she stopped taking the pill? But she knewwhy. At the time she hadn’t envisaged ever being with a man and certainly not on a casual basis. Regret and insecurity threatened and, in the midst of that attack, Leah leapt out of bed and began to scrabble for her clothes at speed.
‘What are you doing?’ Gio asked from the doorway.
‘I thought I’d take a shower downstairs and then go home—’
Gio reached for the hands she had filled with her clothes and she fumbled to continue holding them, but they fell to the polished floor. ‘I don’t want you to leave... I want you to stay.’
Disconcerted, Leah clashed with the silvered glitter of eyes bright as diamonds in his lean, darkly handsome face. Her heart performed a somersault and her tummy shimmied with butterflies. His tousled dark head lowered to hers and her hands went up into his hair to tug him down to her. The need to touch him again was frighteningly instinctive and it had nothing at all to do with the defensive ‘let’s escape’ urge that had been controlling her only seconds earlier. His mouth claimed and captured hers and her head swam and her knees wobbled as an intoxicating rush of hunger awakened every nerve ending afresh...
Dawn was the merest hint beyond the blinds when Leah woke up. Her lashes fluttered with confusion until she remembered and then she almost groaned out loud at the embarrassing prospect of having to rise and finish cleaning the house while the male beside her was still in residence. She eased out of bed with all the nimble quietness of a cat burglar, gathered up the clothes she had dropped and crept downstairs. Spike was waiting at the foot of the stairs for her.
Dressed after a lick and promise of a brief wash in the cloakroom, she registered the time and decided to try and finish the outstanding work before departing. Once she had one of the solid mahogany doors closed, the noise she made would not carry far, she reasoned, heading quickly into the nearest room with her implements. No, she wasn’t going to have regrets, she told herself. What was done was done. She wasn’t about to slut-shame herself for doing something that most women had done long before her. She had made a decision and she stood by it.
Having dusted at speed, she winced as she had to stretch to vacuum a corner. She ached all over; she ached as though she had run a marathon overnight. Her face burned. He had proved to be sexually demanding but he had made the whole experience a positive one. He had been respectful and considerate, and she was grateful for that. That aside, however, the passion, the wild intensity of their encounter had shocked her.
Gio sat up in the empty bed and glanced at his watch with a frown. He had slept in and that was most unlike him. He studied the space where Leah had been and his frown grew even darker. Where was she? He rarely spent the whole night with a woman and, since he had chosen to do so with her, her absence irked him. A faint noise from the ground floor, however, followed by a low wuffly little bark, released his tension and made him smile. Vaulting out of bed, he went for a shower. He would tell Leah the truth, he conceded as the water pounded him. Being Mr Nobody from Nowhere had been entertaining, but it was a lie and he could not continue lying to her, at least not if he intended to spend more time with her. An empty weekend loomed ahead of him and he could see no reason why he should not spend it with Leah. True, it had not seemed empty before he had met her, he conceded; indeed hehadbeen looking forward to his own company.
