He felt her orgasm gripping her; spasm after spasm of such vibrant intensity that its sheer strength brought him to his own completion.
As she lay in his arms, her body trembling in the aftershock of her pleasure, her damp curls a wild tangle of soft silk against his chest, he heard her gasping shakily, ‘That was wonderful, my wonderful, wonderful lover.’
And then as he looked down into her eyes she closed them and fell asleep, with all the speed and innocence of a child.
Broodingly Leo studied her. There was no doubt in his mind that she was a plant, bought and paid for with Jeremy Driscoll’s money.
And he, idiotic fool that he was, had fallen straight into the trap that had been set for him. And he suspected, now that he had time to think things through properly, that this was something more than Jeremy Driscoll supplying him with a bedmate for the night.
Jeremy was simply not that altruistic. Not altruistic in any way, shape or form, and Leo knew that he had not mistaken the dislike and envy in the other man’s eyes earlier in the day. Jeremy knew that he, Leo, was not about to change his mind. Not unless Jeremy Driscoll believed he had some means of forcing him to do so.
Now, when it was too late, Leo remembered the newspaper article Jeremy Driscoll had been reading,
For a man in his position, an unmarried man, the effect of a public exposé, a woman selling her kiss-and-tell story to one of the national newspapers, would not be devastating. But Leo would be pilloried as a laughing stock for being so gullible and, as a result, would lose respect in the business world. If that happened he would not be able to count on the support and belief he was used to. No businessman, not even one as successful as Leo, wanted that.
He got out of bed, giving Jodi a bitter look as he did so. How could she lie there sleeping so peacefully? As though…as though…Unable to stop himself, Leo felt his glance slide to her mouth, still curved in a warmly satisfied smile. Even in her sleep she was somehow managing to maintain the fiction that what had happened between them was something special. But then no doubt she was a skilled actress. She would have to be.
The reality of what he had done pushed relentlessly through his thoughts. His behaviour had been so totally alien that even now he couldn’t imagine what had possessed him. Or, at least, he could, but he couldn’t understand how he had allowed it to get so out of control.
Or why he was standing beside the bed and continuing to look at her, when surely his strongest urge ought to be to go and have a shower as hot and strong as he could stand until he had washed the feel, the scent, the taste of her off his body and out of his senses. But for some incomprehensible reason that was the last thing he wanted to do…
Just in time he managed to stop himself from reaching out to touch her, to stroke a gentle fingertip along that tender cheekbone and touch those unbelievably long, dark lashes, that small, straight nose, those soft, full lips.
As though somehow she sensed what he was thinking, her lips parted on a sweetly sensual sigh, her mouth curling back into another smile of remembered pleasure.
What the hell was he doing, letting her sleep there like that? By rights he ought to wake her up and throw her out. He glanced at the alarm clock supplied by the hotel. It was two o’clock in the morning, and he told himself that it was because of his inbred sense of responsibility that he could not bring himself to do so.
It just wasn’t safe for a woman—any woman, even a woman like her—to wander about on her own so late at night; anything could happen to her!
But he wasn’t going to get back in that bed with her. No way!
Going into the bathroom, he pulled on the complimentary robe provided by the hotel and then made his way into the sitting room, closing the bedroom door behind him as he did so and snapping on the light.
The first thing he saw was the almost empty cocktail jug and the glass Jodi had drunk from.
Grimacing, he pushed it to one side. She had even had the audacity to order a drink on Room Service. Because she had needed the courage it would give her to go to bed with him?
He warned himself against falling into the trap of feeling sorry for her, making excuses for her. She had known exactly what she was doing…Exactly…He frowned as he moved a little uncomfortably in his chair.
He was wide awake now and he had some work he could be doing. When his would-be seducer woke up they were going to need to have a short, sharp talk.
There was no way he was going to allow Jeremy Driscoll to blackmail him into backing out of the contract he had made with his father-in-law.
Still frowning, he reached for his briefcase.
CHAPTER TWO
RUBBING her eyes, Jodi grimaced in disgust at the sour taste in her mouth. Her head ached, and her body did too, but they were different sorts of aches; the ache in her body had a subtle but quite distinctly pleasurable undertone to it, whilst the one in her head…
Cautiously she moved it and then wished she had not as a fierce, throbbing pain banged through her temples.
Instinctively she reached across, expecting to find her own familiar bedside table, and then realised that she was not in her own bed.
So where exactly was she? Like wisps of mist, certain vague memories, sounds, images, drifted dangerously across her mind. But no, surely she couldn’t have? Hadn’t! Frantically she looked to the other side of the large bed, the sledgehammer thuds of her heart easing as she saw to her relief that it was empty.
It had been a dream, that was all, a shocking and unacceptable dream. And she couldn’t imagine how or why…But…She froze as she saw the quite unmistakable imprint of another head on the pillow next to her own.
Shivering, she leaned closer to it, stiffening as she caught the alien but somehow all-too-familiar scent of soap and man rising from the pillow.
What had been vague memories were becoming sharper and clearer with every anxious beat of her heart.
It was true! Here in this room. In this bed! She had. Where was he? She looked nervously towards the bathroom door, her attention momentarily distracted by the sight of her own clothes neatly folded on a chair.
Without pausing for logical thought she scrambled out of the bed and hurried towards them, dressing with urgency whilst she kept her gaze fixed on the closed bathroom door.
She longed to be able to shower and clean her teeth, brush her hair, but she simply did not dare to do so. Appallingly explicit memories were now forcing themselves past the splitting pain of her alcohol-induced headache. She couldn’t comprehend how on earth she could have behaved in such a way.
She had been drinking, she reminded herself with disgusted self-contempt. She had been drinking, and whatever had been in that potent cocktail Room Service had sent up to the suite had somehow turned her from the prim and proper virginal woman she was into a…an amorous, sexually aggressive female, who…
Virginal! Jodi’s body froze. Well, she certainly wasn’t that any more! Not that it mattered except for the fact that, driven by her desire, she hadn’t taken any steps to protect her health or to prevent…
Jodi begged fate not to punish her foolishness, praying that there would be no consequences to what she had done other than her own shocked humiliation.
Picking up her handbag, she tiptoed quietly towards the bedroom door.
Leo was just wondering how long his unwanted guest intended to continue to sleep in his bed, and whether or not five a.m. was too early to ring for a room-service breakfast, when Jodi reached for the bedroom door.
Even though his body ached for sleep, he had been furiously determined not to get back into his bed whilst she was in it. One experience of just how vulnerable he was to her particularly effective method of seduction was more than enough.
Even