Mediterranean Nights: The Mistress Purchase / The Demetrios Virgin / Marco's Convenient Wife. PENNY JORDAN

and he needed it badly—because he wanted to make good the vow he had made in his grandmother’s name and memory: that women the world over would be able to enjoy and afford the perfume she had so longed for as a young woman.

      When that had been done he could give himself time to court Sadie, and to love her. Not until then. And right now he had the night to get through!

      At least they weren’t going to starve whilst they waited for their replacement vehicle. Thanks to Sadie. Leon closed his eyes, reliving that moment when she had handed him the olive. An innocent Eve, indeed!

      His erection stiffened and once again he muttered an imprecation under his breath. He was thirty-four years old, for heaven’s sake, and well past the age when he ought to be getting a hard-on just thinking about sex.

      But he wasn’t just thinking about sex. He was thinking about Sadie! And he was thinking about love! Thinking about it. Aching for it—and for Sadie!

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      IT WAS gone eleven o’clock. In the kitchen of the mas, Sadie suppressed a small yawn and cast a wary look at Leon.

      They had eaten a meal together earlier in the evening, and Leon had once again refused any of the wine—although why he should have done so Sadie had no idea, since he was not going to be driving after all.

      She had had some, though! To give her the resilience to get through the evening? To help her to block out the savage and aching longing driving through her, urging her to take the kind of provocative sexual action she would normally not just have totally deplored but refused to even consider? Her? Seduce Leon? Her brain said no way, but her emotions and her body ached. If only…

      Luckily, all the beds in the mas possessed bedclothes, and Leon had managed to turn on the hot water, so at least she would be able to have a shower before she went to bed.

      A shelf of books in the TV room should have provided her with some means of passing the time and removing herself from Leon’s presence, but stubbornly, and with alcohol-underpinned courage, she had refused to do so, remaining instead in the kitchen even though it was now over two hours since they had finished eating.

      ‘You’re tired,’ Leon announced in a clipped voice. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’

      Why didn’t she remove her unwanted company from his presence was more like it, Sadie reflected bitterly, but she kept her thoughts to herself as she smothered another yawn. She was tired, she admitted, but strangely she was reluctant to leave the kitchen.

      Strangely? Since when had it been remotely strange for a woman in love to want to leave the company of the man she loved? Sadie derided herself mentally.

      A woman in love? She was in love with Leon? Well, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?

      All right, she admitted angrily. All right! But that didn’t mean…

      That didn’t mean what? she questioned herself mercilessly. That didn’t mean that right now she just ached to leave her chair and go over to him and wrap her arms around him? To kiss her way all along his jaw and tease her fingers through his hair? She wanted to taste the texture of his skin and explore the deliciously tempting outline of his mouth, whilst her free hand tugged his tee shirt out of his jeans and slid beneath it to feel the male strength of his chest, and then—

      Frantically Sadie fought to reign in her rioting thoughts! Her face was burning, she knew, and no wonder. Perhaps it might be wiser if she did go to bed!

      ‘You’re right,’ she told Leon huskily. ‘I am tired. I will go to bed.’

      Yes, she needed to get away from him before her body went totally out of control with longing and she ended up making a grab for him and putting her wanton thoughts into action!

      Defiantly, she poured herself another glass of wine and picked it up. She had lied about being tired. She was far too wound up emotionally for sleep, but perhaps the wine would help her to do so.

      Leon exhaled his pent-up breath in a savage sigh as he watched Sadie walk away from him. Morning couldn’t come fast enough for him. How the hell was he supposed to do anything so mundane as sleep when he knew that Sadie was lying there in the next room?

      No way was he tired yet. He decided he would walk round the gardens of the mas and try and get his feelings under control.

      Gathering up the underwear she had rinsed out, Sadie padded naked from the bathroom to the bedroom. The mas was certainly well equipped, and she was enjoying the luxury it provided. She envied Leon his stay here.

      She found she couldn’t get Leon out of her head as she restlessly prowled around the bedroom, the glass of wine forgotten. And besides, a mere glass of wine wasn’t capable of subduing her longing… her love…

      Leon stared back towards the mas. Sadie would be in bed by now. The savagery of the need that gripped him tensed his jaw. He could see the swimming pool, the water shimmering in the moonlight. His body needed cooling down and his thoughts needed exorcising!

      He reached the side of the pool in a few strides, stripping off his clothes by the edge, and launching himself into a neat dive that sliced the water almost silently.

      A fierce front crawl took him the length of the pool and back.

      Still wide awake, Sadie went to her bedroom window. It looked out onto the pool area of the garden, and her whole body stiffened as she saw Leon in the water.

      She watched him for several seconds before going into her bathroom and pulling on the bathrobe she had found there.

      Like a sleepwalker she opened her bedroom door and made her way quietly and purposefully through the mas.

      When she reached the pool, Leon was swimming towards the opposite side. Calmly she took off the robe and left it beside the pool. Unlike Leon, she did not dive into the pool, preferring instead to slide her body into its deliciously warm water.

      She was a good swimmer. Her stroke was perhaps not as powerful as Leon’s, but still very accomplished and sleek, and it carried her speedily through the water to where Leon was just executing his turn.

      She could see the look in his eyes as she reached him and put her feet down on the tiled floor of the pool. Here at the shallow end the water was just lapping the lower curves of her breasts, nudging erotically at her nipples before retreating to expose them fully, its touch a sensually warm caress that heightened her already aroused senses.

      ‘Sadie—’

      She could hear the harsh warning in his voice but she ignored it. Up above them the sky was a midnight-blue cover sprinkled with brilliant white diamond stars. Sea and pool merged into a shimmering infinity, reflecting the brilliance of the moon. Nightscape lighting had turned the gardens of the mas into a place of mystery and fantasy.

      The only sound to disturb the warm silence were the lap of the water and their own breathing. Leon’s was measured, but harsh, as though he was fighting to control it, and her own was so rapid with excitement that it was making her feel almost faint. Leon was standing up in the water, with his back against the tiles, and Sadie could see his expression quite clearly. He looked, she thought giddily, like some Greek god come to life, with his dark hair and strong chiselled features. And his body… Her heart did a dangerous slalom from what felt like a great height, and then skidded to a thudding halt against her ribs.

      Leon’s body, she admitted, gulping in air, was just the most sexy male body she had ever seen in her life! She had thought that bodies like Leon’s only came courtesy of a Michaelangelo or a Leonardo. His torso was a perfect V shape, his shoulders impressively broad, his chest solid but not overly muscled, tapering into his waist. She itched to spread her fingers across his chest and to savour the silky warmth of the soft darkness of his body hair. Her heated gaze dropped helplessly to where the narrow line of hair disappeared beneath the water. Like her, he was naked…

      Sadie could feel her breasts swelling and her nipples tightening.