being overtaken with something that felt amazing.
Angel’s heart sang, and she said breathily, ‘It’s fine, Leo … it feels fine.’
In that moment Angel got a sense of how much Leo was holding back. She could see his shoulders shake slightly and his brow was beaded with sweat. With a deep groan Leo thrust all the way into her, and Angel gasped, her back arching on an instinct.
She couldn’t speak. She felt so full, so right. So she spoke with her eyes and her hands, urging him to go on, to take up the rhythm, without even really knowing what she was doing or asking.
Leo pulled back and then thrust again, taking it slow and easy for the first few times, allowing Angel to get used to him. But then she felt an urgency build up within her. She wanted him to go harder, faster. She craved it. She was answering some deeply ancient call of the most feminine part of her. ‘Please, Leo …’
‘Yes, Angel, yes … stay with me.’
Leo answered her incoherent plea. With their bodies slick with sweat, he started to thrust into her, exactly as she craved with every atom of her being. Her hips jerked to meet his, to try and wring every drop out of him with each cataclysmic penetration of her body.
Then the pinnacle of every sensation she’d ever known was reached and transcended. She stopped breathing, her eyes on Leo’s—did he know what was happening to her? He smiled as if he knew exactly what was happening, and with one powerful surge of his body into hers Angel was flung into another universe. A universe filled with exploding stars and a sweet, sweet oblivion.
Leo lay on his back, Angel tucked into his side, his arm around her. One long, smooth leg was thrown over his. He could feel her breasts pressing into him, those sweet, soft mounds tipped with those small, hard nipples. Even now he could still taste them on his tongue, their sweet muskiness.
Even though he’d taken her just a short time ago his body was ready for more. In fact he’d never been kept in such a state of arousal after making love. He could feel the unsteady beat of Angel’s heart, slowly coming back to normal, and her breath was a little uneven. He knew that she’d fallen into a sleep of sorts.
Leo reeled. He’d had sex. Lots of sex. But nothing had come close to what he’d just experienced. He tried desperately to rationalise it: It had to be because she’d been a virgin. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t—Angel moved. Leo’s heart stopped; anticipation coiled deep inside him.
Angel was aware of consciousness returning slowly, trickling back. She was tucked into Leo’s body, his arm tight around her, and everything rushed back in glorious Technicolor. She was a woman now. Leo hadn’t rejected her. Immediately she could feel moist heat between her legs, readying her for him again.
Angel’s hand moved down over Leo’s chest, exploring the play of his powerful muscles underneath that exquisitely golden olive skin, the brush of hair that made her tingle all over. She could feel tension come into the muscles under her hand and smiled against his skin. She didn’t want words, she couldn’t speak; she just wanted him.
When her seeking hand found what she was looking for a fiercely feminine exultation ran through her at finding him so hard and ready. She lifted her head and Leo turned to face her. He looked serious, and a little shiver of something snaked down Angel’s spine, but she quashed it. He put his hand over hers, stopping her movements.
‘Angel … you’re bound to be sore.’
She came up and shook her head, putting her finger to his lips. She did ache, but it was an ache that cried out for fulfilment, not an ache of pain. She took her other hand from him and guided his hand to the juncture between her legs where he could feel for himself how ready she was.
Leo said something that sounded guttural and then moved fast, so that Angel was on her back and he was looming over her, already moving between her legs. The ache was building at her core, and if Angel could have stopped and slowed time in that moment, she would have.
‘Yes, Leo … this is what I want … please.’
He bent his head said close to her mouth, ‘Well, since you ask so nicely …’
When Angel woke again, the curtains were open and sunlight flooded her room. For a second everything was a blank. And then she became aware of certain aches and sensations in her body that weren’t usual. As her consciousness returned fully everything came back in glorious Technicolor, and her heart tripped before starting up again at double speed. She knew that Leo wasn’t in the bed; she’d somehow known that immediately.
It stunned her slightly to know how quickly her life had changed one hundred and eighty degrees. This time yesterday she’d still been a virgin.
Last night Leo had made her a woman. He’d taken her to a paradise she’d never dreamed existed. Heat suffused Angel from head to toe. And yet she couldn’t stop a smile from breaking across her face. It was impossible to ignore the fact that her body felt as if it had been awoken from a deep, cold sleep …
But just as quickly her smile faded again, when the enormity of it all sank in. How could she be feeling like this for someone who had so coldly set out to take her because he wanted her and wanted to punish her? She frowned minutely, staring at the ceiling. She felt confused; Leo had taken her innocence with such devastating generosity that she reeled. Several times she’d seen the strain of his efforts to hold back, as if he was afraid he’d hurt her.
Angel lifted the sheet and looked into the bed, ignoring the signs of having been seriously seduced on her body, the faint bruises and reddish marks. There was no blood. Angel let the sheet drop; she knew rationally that there wasn’t always necessarily blood, but there was a stinging between her legs that spoke of the potential of it if Leo hadn’t been so gentle. And yet she could remember the desperation with which she’d urged him on, even when he’d tried to hold back for her sake.
With a burgeoning feeling of something huge in her chest Angel got out of bed and pulled on the robe which still lay on the floor. To think of how Leo had pushed it off her shoulders with such singular intent made Angel blush all over again.
Without really thinking of what she was doing, Angel went to the door that connected their rooms. After hesitating for the merest moment, she turned the handle and went in.
She stumbled to a halt when she saw Leo standing at the mirror of his wardrobe, knotting a tie. His eyes merely flicked to her through the mirror and then back to his task, with no change in expression. She hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it hadn’t been that. Angel was immediately tongue-tied. Leo looked so distant and intimidating in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. He looked like the phenomenally successful businessman he was. And nothing like the tender lover of last night. She suddenly knew she’d been an abject fool.
His eyes flicked to Angel again, and she felt heat rise in her face when she registered how cool they were. One dark brow rose quizzically. ‘Was there something you wanted, Angel?’
Was there something you wanted, Angel? Angel balked and died a tiny death in that moment. Was this the same man? Acting as if the most cataclysmic thing on the earth hadn’t just happened? But then, she realised in sick horror, it hadn’t—not for him. If anything, last night for him must have been excruciatingly banal. How could it not have been, with a complete innocent?
She shook her head vaguely. ‘I just …’ I just what? she mocked herself bitterly, cursing her impulse to come in here. How could she have disregarded everything that lay between
