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

one trembling hand to his body.

      ‘Sadie.’ Leon’s low-voiced growl warned her of her danger, but she refused to stop. The pleasure of touching him was going to her head like champagne.

      She took another step closer and then pressed both her hands flat against his chest. Lifting her head, she touched her tongue-tip to the hollow at the base of his throat, savouring the hot, salt male taste of him.

      Lost in what she was doing, she didn’t see the storm signals or smell the dangerous scent of brimstone in the air. One minute she was standing in front of Leon, shivering with the knowledge that all that was keeping them apart was the soft surge of the water whilst her lips closed on the fierce pulse in his throat, and the next she was literally being imprisoned by Leon’s arms as they wrapped themselves punishingly around her and his curses rang savagely in her ears.

      ‘Are you crazy?’ she heard him demanding furiously. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? Do you think I’m made of stone?’

      Stone… No, of course not. Leon was all wonderful gorgeous, sexy, woman-arousing, hunky maleness, all hard muscles and solid flesh, excitingly scored with that enticing line of hair that her fingers just ached to explore, Sadie decided feverishly.

      She wasn’t even aware that she had spoken her thoughts out loud until she felt Leon’s teeth nip sharply at her ear and heard him tell her rawly, ‘That’s it. You’ve just sent my self-control into lunar orbit. Hell, Sadie!’

      His hands gripped her, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her buttocks as he dragged her through the water and into his own body.

      The feel of him against her skin to skin turned her belly soft with hot desire. Impetuously she moved her hips against him, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his mouth down towards her own.

      She knew that she ought to be shocked by the brazenness of her own behaviour, but instead something inside her was urging her on, Leon’s mouth was on hers and no way was the kiss he was giving her reinforcing the verbal protests and denials he had given earlier.

      He was kissing her with a hot passion that more than matched her own, his hands rhythmically kneading her buttocks as he did so.

      She could feel him against her, excitingly hard, as his erection rubbed stiffly against her belly. Even the movement of the water seemed to echo the rhythmic thrusts of their bodies as her hips responded to the pressure of his hands, pulling them together.

      The reflection of the stars and moon danced on the rocking water. Helplessly Sadie closed her eyes to its mesmerising glitter, only to be subjected to the even more mesmeric effect of Leon’s kiss.

      She could feel her whole body responding to its passionate demand as she arched up on her toes and pressed herself into him. Her bare breasts were rubbing against his chest, her nipples so aroused by their contact with his body that fierce spirals of sensation coiled from them to flicker like lightning through her.

      Their bodies were slickly wet from the pool water, but the heat inside her was generating another kind of wetness within the swelling lips that protected her sex. And not just a wetness, but an ache. Such an ache that she found herself wrapping her arms even more tightly around Leon’s neck as she ground her hips into him in open female demand. Her body ached—hurt even—with her need for him.

      ‘You want me here… now?’ she could hear Leon demanding thickly as he wrenched his mouth from hers.

      Deprived of contact with his mouth, Sadie began to kiss and lick her way along his throat, savouring every taste of him. When she reached his jaw she ran her fingertips experimentally over the shaved line of his beard, exhilarated by the sensually rough feel of him.

      His sex, when she touched it, would feel just the opposite—smooth and sleek, the skin tight where it strained over his erection.

      Her whole body began to burn and shake, and she made a small, very female growl low in her throat as she nipped urgently at Leon’s ear.

      Did he really need to hear her say the words? Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he feel what was happening to her?

      She slid her hands into his hair and tugged it until he once more bent his head towards her.

      Against his lips she told him fiercely, ‘Yes. I want you. Yes, here—and yes, now!’

      She punctuated each word with a kiss, gasping as Leon cut off her breath with her last word, taking her mouth with a savage primitive hunger that sent her blood roaring through her veins and made her weak with reciprocal longing.

      His hands were touching her everywhere. Stroking her shoulders, her arms, cupping her breasts and then kneading them with loving attention until she was shuddering pre-orgasmically with hot rivulets of pleasure.

      The feel of the pads of his thumbs against her nipples made her cry out—a low, guttural sound that had his hands slipping down, one to grasp the side of her waist, the other stroking over her stomach and then lower, parting the swollen lips of her sex and stroking against her wet eagerness.

      At no time in her life had there ever been anything like this! There never had been and never would be again, Sadie acknowledged dizzily as her body responded to Leon’s sensual stroking touch with violent, almost climactic little shudders of pleasure.

      Instinctively she reached for him, clasping him in her hand, her eyes widening in shock as she realised that she could not fully encompass him.

      He felt hot and hard, his sex swollen. Shockingly, she had a sudden savage, surging ache of need to have the feel of him against her lips, to caress and explore him, slowly and thoroughly, but she knew her own body wasn’t going to wait for much longer.

      As though she had verbalised her urgency and need to him, Leon suddenly grasped her by the waist and lifted her against him.

      Eagerly Sadie opened her legs and wrapped them around him, gasping with pleasure as she felt the first thrust of him within her, urging him to move faster and deeper as she clung to him, offering the full pleasure of her body.

      The water around them was pounding against the side of the pool in increasingly fast waves, but Sadie wasn’t aware of the movement of the water, only the rhythm of their bodies as they rocked together in frantic, desperate need. She could feel the tight circling of her orgasm beginning, her stomach and her thighs tensing as she reached for it, crying out her pleas and praise to Leon.

      She could see the rictus mask of his face above her as he drove harder and deeper into her eager flesh. Voluptuously it tightened around him, increasing the intensity of their pleasure.

      ‘Yes… Yes!’ she moaned. ‘Yes. Just like that, Leon… just like that… Mmm… yes. Just—’

      The broken sob of her voice was suspended as her whole body tensed and then exploded in a fierce succession of rhythmic contractions.

      She could feel the hot surge of Leon’s own release pulsing into the warm darkness of her body.

      Release, bliss… peace…

      She could feel how much she was shaking as she clung to Leon, knowing she was not actually capable of standing on her own two feet.

      She felt his lips brush against the dampness of her face.

      ‘Tears?’ he whispered. ‘I hope they are tears of pleasure?’

      ‘Do you need to ask?’ Sadie challenged huskily.

      He lifted her out of the water and put her on the side of the pool. Still trembling in the aftermath of her orgasm, she watched as he hauled himself out.

      ‘Stay there,’ he ordered her gently.

      Dreamily she watched as he went and picked up her discarded robe, returning with it and wrapping her in it.

      ‘Time for bed,’ he told her softly, and then he swung her up into his arms and carried her inside.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘BUT