‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ Red-faced with embarrassment and something more she refused to recognize, Helen tried to wriggle free. ‘Put me down.’
‘Certainly.’ He moved and somehow instead of his hands on her waist one long arm held her clasped firmly against his big body. His other hand twisted in the waving mass of her hair, tipping her head back.
She stared at him like a mesmerised mouse. She saw his dark head lower. He wouldn’t… he couldn’t be going to kiss her…
‘But first…’ Even as her own lips trembled in expectation of his kiss his firm lips brushed the tender skin of her throat.
The warm moist flick of his tongue seared her skin, sending a starburst of tiny tremors racing along every nerve in her body. His sensuous mouth closed over the suddenly racing pulse in her neck and paused to suck lightly before trailing a string of kisses up her throat in a slow, seductive path to her lips.
‘No.’ Helen choked and tried to resist but a strange warmth began to unfurl in the centre of her being, her body betraying her as a rising tide of totally new emotions flowed through her.
‘No,’ she murmured again, but it was more of a moan, her lips helplessly parting beneath the heady pressure of his mouth to accept the subtle penetration of his tongue. His hand tightened on her nape and he kissed her with a slow, seductive passion that stoked the unfamiliar warmth into a flame that seemed to melt her bones. She had never known a kiss could be so exquisite she thought dreamily, never known anything so pleasurable existed.
She sighed when he broke the kiss, and groaned as he bit the soft lobe of her ear, his warm breath curling around the inner whorls.
‘Do you still want me to put you down?’ His deep, husky voice resonated through every cell in her body.
Helen stared dazedly into the smouldering blackness of his deep set eyes, and the temptation of total capitulation to the unknown pleasure he was offering urged her to say no. His hand at her nape stroked down to splay over her bare shoulder blades holding her close to the muscular wall of his chest, her breasts inexplicably tightening at the contact. His mouth covered hers again and he was kissing her as she had never been kissed before, deeply, erotically. She shuddered and clung to him, the flames of desire burning ever higher, and when he finally lifted his head she was helpless against the storm of heated sensations roaring like wildfire through her.
He lifted his head and drawled thickly, ‘Well, Helen, must I put you down?’
The ‘no’ of surrender hovered on the tip of her tongue. His hand slipped down and drew her into the hard heat of his lower body. Crushed against him, she felt the rigid length of his masculine arousal against her churning stomach, and in a moment of clarity she realised what she was inviting.
‘Yes. You—you…’ She panicked, and, lost for adequate words, she shoved her hands against his chest and began to struggle like a deranged idiot. ‘You animal.’
Something deadly flickered in the depths of his eyes, then it was successfully masked. ‘All right, I heard you,’ he drawled mockingly and lowered her to the floor.
CHAPTER SIX
HOT AND FLUSTERED, Helen staggered back a few steps and frantically tried to assimilate what Leon had just said and done and why. He had told her she was hopeless at kissing, she wanted to yell at him, her body strumming with the opposing emotions of fury and a frustration she had never experienced before.
He had said their marriage was one of convenience… but whose? She asked the question she should have asked herself the minute he’d suggested marriage. Certainly not hers. She had left her home and come to live in a foreign country to accommodate him and his lifestyle, and if he thought for one second she was going to accommodate him in bed as well he was in for a rude awakening.
She grasped the bath sheet tightly around her. ‘What do you think you are playing at?’ Her eyes blazed a brilliant violet up to his. ‘Ours is a marriage of convenience and don’t you forget it.’
‘A convenient marriage, yes, but also a legal marriage, and as such you must know it is usual to consummate the union.’ His dark cynical gaze held hers and she stared back in appalled amazement. ‘If anyone is playing around here it is you.’
‘Me?’ she screeched. She could not believe the turn of events. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
He shook his dark head dismissively. ‘Oh, come on, Helen,’ he drawled as he lessened the space between them. ‘Who do you think you are kidding? I am no fool. Your earthy little moans, the soft flush of arousal colouring your skin are a complete give-away,’ he declared throatily, and reached out to brush a strand of hair over her shoulder, not the least fazed by her angry outburst. ‘You want this just as much as me. In some cases I believe a bit of game-playing can spice up a jaded sex life, but in our case it is not necessary, I can assure you.’
Helen stilled, her eyes widening in confusion on his ruggedly attractive face. She could not believe what she was hearing. His strong hands curved over her shoulders and he stared down at her, his firm lips curling in a knowing, sensual smile, all confident, virile male.
‘I will make it great for you, believe me.’
It was his colossal conceit that finally got through to her and from being confused she was instantaneously contemptuous. ‘No, you arrogant jerk.’ She hissed like a spitting cat and shoved him hard in the chest, catching him unawares and ducking free from his hands.
His face darkened, all traces of humour vanishing from his granite-like features. ‘It is a bit late for outraged virtue,’ he drawled derisively, his dark eyes narrowing on her flushed furious face. ‘You can’t pretend you are an innocent, Helen. You are an adult woman, with a woman’s needs. True, Nicholas might have curtailed your love life a little, but I saw the very convenient arrangement you had with Mick the security guard. And as for the outfit you wore today, it simply screamed sex. So no more games.’
He thought Mick was her sexual partner, and her fairy styled dress was sexy. She almost laughed out loud. The man must live on another planet. She shook her head in amazement at his misconceptions. ‘I am not—’ was as far as she got.
‘Oh, yes, you are.’ He looped an arm around her waist and deftly swept the towel from her body.
For the first time in her adult life she was totally naked in front of a man, and the shock held her rigid. Protectively she closed her eyes against the flush of embarrassment colouring her skin and instinctively she leant away from him. But that was a mistake.
‘Exquisite. Helen of Troy could not have been more beautiful.’ She heard his deep-throated murmur and her eyes slowly opened.
‘All my fantasies in one perfect little package,’ he husked, his incredibly dark eyes lifting briefly to hers and she was paralysed by the intensity of his gaze as he subjected her to a slow, raking appraisal.
For what seemed an age he just looked at her. Then his hand lifted and the pad of one finger traced the upper curves of her breasts and the valley between with a tactile sensuality that stopped her heart. She drew in a much-needed ragged breath. How could such a slight touch be so seductive? she wondered desperately. But in a second her desperation turned into helpless capitulation as he urged her closer. Her body leapt in response at the brush of his naked thighs against her own, her legs suddenly losing the power or will to support her as she swayed against him.
Her breasts felt oddly swollen, and a heady sensation seemed to thicken and slow the blood flowing through her veins. His long fingers splayed to cage the fullness of one breast in the palm of his hand and slowly, very