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‘I don’t want to enter into a “try before you buy” scenario, Leo. I’m worth more than that,’ Letty assured him, throwing her head high, her honey-blonde tresses blowing in the breeze, her clear gaze reflecting the light bouncing off the sea. ‘I won’t come cheap or easy. I’ll make demands. I’ll have expectations. I have no idea how a mistress behaves but I would imagine that if a woman is dependent on a man’s continuing interest she has to refrain from demands and expectations.’
Leo slid fluidly out of his shirt and draped it round her in a gesture that startled her. ‘You’re cold,’ he said simply.
‘I assumed it would be warmer,’ she admitted as he closed an arm around her to walk her back towards the beach house. ‘But my winter clothes would be too warm.’
‘I’ll take you shopping,’ Leo told her calmly. ‘So, yineka mou, if I’m now yours, what next have you in store for me?’
Letty chuckled. ‘I was rather hoping you’d take the lead there. I haven’t had sex before.’
Halfway into the house again, Leo stopped dead and turned to look at her with startled dark golden eyes. ‘You mean—?’
‘Yes. No experience at all,’ she admitted with an uneasy shrug.
Leo was frowning. ‘But why?’
‘Wasn’t interested enough to bother before. Clearly,’ Letty murmured with hot cheeks, ‘you float my boat, which is very apt for a shipping tycoon.’
Leo laughed with rich appreciation and swept her towards the stairs. ‘I can’t wait to get you into that bed,’ he admitted frankly. ‘Since that night in the car, you’ve been playing a leading role in all my fantasies.’
Warmth filtered into Letty’s chilled body at the concept of figuring in Leo’s fantasies. She guessed that it was the unexplored sensual side of her nature which enjoyed that admission of his and then she drew in a stark breath, wondering how he would react when he realised that she was a perfectly ordinary young woman with no box of bedroom tricks with which to amuse a sophisticate. Would he stay faithful then? She swallowed hard on her insecurities, censuring herself for holding such a low opinion of her own powers of attraction. Maybe sex was just sex to Leo and he didn’t look for bells and whistles as well, but it was hard to credit that a practised lover couldn’t offer much more than she could.
‘Leo…’ she began anxiously.
‘Stop fretting, Letty,’ Leo urged with his glimmering smile. ‘Don’t spoil the moment. I will also be sure to discreetly break the news to your grandfather that you came to me pure as the driven snow. That will set him back on his heels and teach him to respect you more.’
‘Leo, for goodness’ sake!’ Letty broke in, mortified by the idea.
‘No, you should be proud rather than apologetic or embarrassed,’ her bridegroom told her with conviction as he closed a hand over hers to tug her inexorably up the stairs. ‘I haven’t been with a virgin since my own first experience. I was sixteen and in the grip of first love. It was a demoralising episode.’
‘Why?’ Letty asked starkly.
‘She was lying—she wasn’t a virgin, and within the space of a week she was bedding one of my friends,’ Leo confided with a sardonic slant to his lean dark features. ‘Following on from my dysfunctional relationship with my stepmother, who was already giving me the come-on, it soured my outlook on women. I promised myself that I’d never fall in love again and I turned my back on the sentimental stuff. It was the most sensible move I ever made.’
Letty put that little fact along with the other stuff she had garnered about Leo’s background: the licentious and vindictive stepmother he had endured in his infatuated father’s hasty second marriage, the mother he barely remembered, the disillusionment provided by his first love. Grief and hurt and distaste had made him distrustful and pessimistic and his experiences as an adult had only reinforced that outlook. Yet, at the same time, he loved his nephews and nieces enough to surrender his freedom in an attempt to give them a happier and more secure life. There were two sides to Leo, Letty acknowledged, a loving side and a dark cynical side, and she wondered which side would take precedence in their marriage.
A practical sexless marriage about to become a real marriage. The shock of realisation that she was about to embark on that challenge shrilled through her taut length and jolted her because she was taking a risk on Leo, and Letty generally avoided risks. And Leo was a huge risk, a man only prepared to accept the concept of fidelity at the point of a gun. In a tempest of doubt, Letty turned pale and flicked at one of the dried flowers scattered across the silky bedspread.
‘What are these?’
‘Rosemary.’ Leo shrugged. ‘An ancient Greek belief in the power of rosemary to enhance fertility.’
‘I thought rosemary was for remembrance,’ Letty muttered uncertainly. ‘But I suppose I should mention that I’m not on the pill.’
Leo laughed with rich appreciation, dark golden eyes alight with amusement. ‘With four little children up in that house on the hill, that’s not a risk I will take…unless, of course, you ask me to.’
Letty coloured. ‘Er…no, thanks, not just yet.’
‘Relax,’ Leo purred, enclosing her taut body in the circle of his arms. ‘You don’t have to worry about stuff like that. I will take care of everything.’
Letty bridled at that assurance, her fierce independent spirit rebelling. ‘I take care of myself, Leo,’ she said drily.
Leo quirked an ebony brow. ‘Not any more. That’s my department now.’
‘We’ll see,’ Letty muttered.
‘No, we won’t,’ Leo contradicted, long brown fingers knotting into the breeze-blown tangle of her hair to tug her head back as he crushed her parted lips under his, every ounce of mastery in his erotic repertoire powering that kiss.
