pay the legal costs. Being a wife and mother is a vocation,’ she said gently. ‘I want children, yes, but... not if it means living in remote Scotland with no neighbours for miles and miles. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Maybe when I’m older and I’m ready to settle down—’
‘I feel so angry, Ginny.’
They were both breathing in a heavy rhythm. Her breasts rose and fell against his hard, lean chest. Grim-faced, he detached one hand and slid it between them, undoing the lowest pearl button.
Maybe this is the way, she thought hazily. They’d get close, be united again. Another button slid free. Control was slipping from her grasp. The need and the hunger for Leo—to share his body, to be comforted by its closeness—was overriding everything else.
‘Give me a little time to earn the money for the costs,’ she croaked as his hand brushed her naked skin beneath the jacket. Desire filled his face. Desire for her. With Leo, she could face anything. Debt, relentless, grinding hours of work, public shame—anything. ‘I’ll be less preoccupied from now on. It was only the terrible pressure of the trial that caused the problems between us,’ she said, not too convincingly. ‘Now that’s over—’
‘You’ll be working twice as hard to keep bankruptcy at bay.’ Leo appeared to be engrossed in the tantalisingly slow process of working the last cluster of pearls through the buttonhole. The jacket swung free, exposing the swell of her breasts. Leo’s lips parted and he whispered in a slow breath of anticipation. ‘Beautiful. I’d forgotten how beautiful.’
‘Leo!’ she breathed, filled with joy.
He reached out with a questing finger to stroke each half-hidden curve. She threw her head back and moaned, suspended in delight. It was a long time since she’d been touched. Her appetite had been suppressed and now it seemed insatiable.
‘Ginny!’ he muttered, his voice shaking with a barely controlled passion. It might have been anger or desire or despair. She couldn’t tell. And she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be held in his arms.
CHAPTER TWO
SLOWLY Leo reached out to draw the jacket from her shoulders. He held its soft folds halfway down her arms so that it acted like a strait-jacket. His avid eyes devoured her high, trembling breasts and suddenly she flinched, distressed by the mixture of anger and lust in the way he studied her.
‘Love me,’ Ginny begged.
‘You want me to be your slave, like the others,’ he said brutally.
‘No! Don’t do this to me, please, Leo—’
He let the jacket slip to the ground. She made to cover her nakedness with her hands, too stunned to think of running away. And there was something compelling about the way he looked at her, something that caught in her guts and twisted and speared her with an undeniable need. Her lashes lifted and she begged him for love with her huge tawny eyes.
‘You want pity?’ he muttered. ‘Or are you acting as I’ve seen you act before, putting on a wistful face to dazzle your public? Hiding your real feelings...’
‘No,’ she whispered, shaking her head. It was heavy. Her whole body felt lethargic and languid. But he wanted sex, and anger drove him, not affection. ‘You know I find it hard to let go, that it takes me a while before...’
She gasped. His arm had drawn her to him. Deliberately he moved her body against his, lightly, tantalisingly, with the finesse of a master with years of experience. The softness of his shirt brushed her nipples and he groaned, giving them a delicate squeeze between his finger and thumb. Just enough to sharpen her hunger, to send needles of desire bursting into each breast. She heard herself moan, felt her pelvis contract and hated herself for being so easily controlled.
‘What are you?’ murmured Leo. ‘Who are you? Witch or angel? A false, heartless woman with an ego larger than Napoleon’s, or perhaps—’
‘I’m no angel. But I’m innocent,’ she protested, reeling under the torment of his fingers. Her breasts felt tight and hot, the flesh glowing for him. Beneath her frantic hands, his shirt moved over his satin skin and she had to force herself not to rip the buttons open and lay her mouth on his breast. Now she had to keep her head and defend herself all over again. To her husband. Or lose him for ever.
Taking a deep breath, she said jerkily, ‘I—I warned you when we married that the media would tell l-lies about me and...’
She lost the thread of her sentence. Her head turned from side to side in pleasure as Leo forced his thigh between her long, silk-clad legs and she couldn’t resist making a small, squirming movement because it might help to hold her need till she’d explained. And then, she thought hazily, they could make love freely, without hate and suspicion.
‘Oh, Leo!’ she whispered, knowing what he was going to do.
His hands were sliding down her hips. They reached the edge of her skirt and slowly, watching her, his velvety gaze flicking from her softly parted lips to her drowsy eyes, he wriggled it up till it was around her waist. Now there was only silk between her hot hunger and his linen-clad knee.
Leo’s jaw tightened when he looked down at the length of her exposed legs. Black Lacroix stockings topped with a deep band of Calais lace. Dove-grey satin briefs. ‘Hell!’ he growled thickly. ‘How could any man not be tempted by you?’
‘I—I freeze them off,’ she rasped, incapable of breathing steadily.
‘Irresistible,’ he said, smouldering grey eyes and brutally tentative fingers hypnotised by the gap above her stocking-tops.
Her pelvis pushed forward a little in demand before she could stop the movement and he smiled in triumph. Ginny closed her eyes in despair because he still didn’t believe that she had been faithful to him. His mouth brushed hers, making her tremble. His palms rotated on her nipples, warm, merciless, till they thrust in shameful dark peaks, elongating painfully, begging for the moistness of his mouth.
Panting, driven crazy, she abandoned all restraint and began to unpick his buttons, feverishly fumbling with them as if she were drunk. ‘Make love to me,’ she said urgently, lifting her beautiful, flawless face.
Leo’s mouth hovered a millimetre above hers. ‘You are the most desirable woman in the world,’ he husked. ‘Envied by millions, coveted by millions.’ Something dark came into his expression. ‘However, for the time being,’ he whispered into her parted lips, their breath mingling, ‘you can consider yourself exclusively mine.’
She wanted to be exclusively his for hours. Leo prided himself on long, sensual lovemaking sessions. Unconsciously, she gave a luxurious stretch of her body. ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, please, Leo.’
‘I’ve wanted to make love to you since the moment you walked in. I’m more than ready.’ He took her hand and placed it on his groin. She groaned to feel him so hard, to feel the leap of heat against her trembling fingers.
‘Leo,’ she whispered. ‘Make love to me properly. Long and slow. As you used to. Please, darling. Please.’
Desperate to persuade him, she stood on tiptoe and slid her hands to his head, pressing it down and kissing him with all her heart and soul. With a wriggle of her hips, she gyrated on the thigh that was thrust between her legs and moved her breasts
