closed his hand over hers, and as Marnie looked down at his tanned fingers wrapped around her paler ones she pictured his naked limbs entwined with hers, dark against pale, hard against soft.
She was intensely aware of his hard thigh muscles pressed up against her. He reached out and wrapped a lock of her long hair around his finger, and her breath became trapped in her throat when he gently tugged to make her turn her head towards him. The hard gleam in his eyes had been replaced with a sultry smokiness that turned her bones to liquid.
Leandro felt Marnie relax and was confident he had won her over. His hunger became more urgent as he tipped her chin up and plundered her soft, moist lips without mercy, wanting to punish her just a little and remind her that he called the shots in their affair.
Her eager response fanned the flames of his desire. He had taught her well, and she was no longer shy and inexperienced as she had been in the early days of their affair. When she pushed her tongue into his mouth his heart slammed against his ribs, his desire a potent force that strained against the zip of his trousers.
Lifting his head, Leandro was satisfied to see rosy colour on her cheeks, and saw that her blush continued down her throat and spread a warm stain over the upper slopes of her breasts. This was how he had pictured his mistress while he was away: flushed with desire and her brown eyes soft with sensual promise.
Leandro’s words had allayed some of Marnie’s concerns that their relationship did not mean as much to him as it did to her. She rested her hand on the bulge beneath his trousers and smiled when he groaned. ‘Did you miss me while you were away?’
‘Of course I missed you.’ He gave a rough laugh. ‘After two weeks without sex I am seriously frustrated, cara.’
‘I wasn’t only talking about sex.’
But her tiny flicker of doubt wavered as he crushed her to him and sought her mouth again, kissing her with a possessive intent that thrilled her. Passion ignited into an inferno between them and she forgot everything but the need to feel his hands on her body.
He pushed her back against the leather seat and leaned over her. ‘Dio, I’ve wanted this so badly,’ he said thickly.
Marnie allowed herself to sink into the bliss of Leandro’s kiss. Too many nights without him had made her body extra-responsive, and she gave a low moan when he slipped his hand into the front of her dress and stroked her breasts through her sheer lace bra. When he rolled her nipples between his fingers she almost leapt off the seat as starbursts of pleasure arrowed down from her breasts to the hot, moist core of her femininity.
He gave a husky laugh. ‘This is what I missed. Your beautiful body, ready and eager for me. I’m impatient to get you home so that I can undress you.’ He traced the neckline of her dress with his forefinger. ‘Is this a new dress? Did you buy it for the party? When I walked into the restaurant I was blown away by how sexy you looked.’
She remembered how unsure of herself she had felt while she had waited for Leandro to arrive at the restaurant. If he felt proud of her, perhaps she would feel more his equal.
‘Leandro,’ she murmured, when he tore his mouth from hers to allow them to draw breath. ‘Do you wish I had a better job than waitressing?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being a waitress,’ he said indistinctly, busy nibbling her earlobe before trailing his lips down her throat and moving purposefully towards her cleavage.
‘But wouldn’t you like me to have a high-flying career, like the women you employ at your company?’ she persisted.
‘I’ve dated career women, and to be frank it was a nightmare trying to align our schedules and arrange to meet when we happened to be on the same continent. I like knowing that you’re at home waiting for me when I get back from work.’
Marnie was disappointed by Leandro’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for her to have a career, but at the same time her foolish heart quivered because he’d said that he looked forward to coming home to her every evening. She drew an unsteady breath when he eased the stretchy neckline of her dress and her bra down and cupped her breasts in his palms, so that he could flick his tongue across one nipple and then the other. The sensation of him sucking each tender peak was electrifying.
Dazed with desire, she decided to wait and tell him about the opportunity she had been offered to study astronomy at NASA until later—after they had assuaged their hunger for each other that was now at fever pitch after their two-week separation.
Leandro pulled her onto his lap and thrust his hand beneath her skirt to stroke the strip of sensitive bare skin above the lace band of her stocking tops. Shivering with longing, she let her thighs fall open to allow him to move his hand higher, to the place where she longed for him to touch her.
‘You are hungry,’ he drawled, satisfaction thickening his voice as he eased his finger beneath her thong and discovered the slick wetness of her arousal.
A voice in the back of Marnie’s mind taunted her, telling her that her weakness for Leandro was shameful. She didn’t want to appear needy, but the truth was she did need him. Before she had met him she’d felt empty and alone.
He pushed another finger into her and moved his hand with rhythmical strokes, in and out, faster, deeper, taking her higher until she couldn’t think of anything but the beauty of what he was doing to her.
‘Leandro...’ She clung to his shoulders as she felt the first exquisite spasms of her orgasm.
‘That’s right, baby. Come for me,’ he said thickly.
Overwhelmed with pleasure, she pressed her face into his neck and breathed in the spicy scent of his aftershave. Her heart clenched with emotion. She had missed him so much, and from the size of the rock-hard erection she could feel beneath her bottom he had missed her as badly.
Minutes later the car drew up in Eaton Square and Marnie quickly tugged her dress into place before the chauffeur opened the door. Leandro kept his arm around her waist, as if he knew that her legs felt unsteady, and they hurried up the steps of the house.
As they entered the hallway he kicked the front door shut and pulled her against his hard body, his hands roaming over her with feverish urgency. He curled his fingers into the soft mounds of her buttocks before running a hand up her spine and unzipping her dress. With his help the black velvet slipped down to expose her semi-sheer bra, through which her dusky nipples were clearly visible.
Leandro gave a growl that sent a shiver of anticipation through Marnie. She wanted him now—this minute.
He must have sensed her desperation, because he lifted her and sat her on the marble table in the hall, pushed her skirt up to her thighs.
‘I can’t wait long enough for us to get upstairs to the bedroom,’ he said hoarsely.
Her heart lurched when she saw the feral hunger in his eyes. But a familiar sound that she had grown to hate shattered the sizzling sexual tension.
‘Your damned phone!’ she muttered.
‘I’ll switch it off,’ he promised.
But as he pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket he glanced at the screen and stiffened.
‘Cara, I’m sorry, but I have to take this.’
