Redeemed By His Stolen Bride. ABBY GREEN

an effect on him.

      For a man who had slept with some of the world’s most beautiful women, and who’d been sexually active since he was a teenager, he was finding lately that sexual liaisons had become merely satisfactory. More often than not disappointing. But here, now, he hadn’t done much more than kiss Leonora and already he was having the most erotic experience he’d had in a long time. If ever.

      His instincts about her had been right. She was exquisite. Every line of her body sleek and perfect. Her skin was like silk. Her breasts were perfectly shaped. And her nipples—His mouth watered again, just at the thought of how they’d tasted and stiffened against his tongue.

      She was looking at him with huge eyes. As if she’d never seen a man before. Part of him was irritated that she could get to him with such a rudimentary act—was he so jaded that faux innocence turned him on?

      Enough playacting.

      Gabriel divested himself of the rest of his clothes.

      Leonora watched as Gabriel efficiently undressed, revealing a body honed and densely muscled. And hard. She couldn’t stop her eyes widening on his arousal, thick and long.

      He came down on the bed, resting over her on both hands. She suddenly felt trepidatious. What if he noticed straight away how inexperienced she was? What if it hurt? What if he was too—?

      ‘You don’t have to do this, you know…’

      He bent down and surrounded one still sensitised nipple in the hot wet heat of his mouth. Leonora’s back arched.

      She panted, ‘What…? Do what…?’

      He lifted his head, a sexy smile playing around his wicked mouth. ‘Put on the innocent act. You don’t have to play games to entice me, Leonora. I’m enticed.’

      Before she could respond to that he was ministering the same exquisite torture to her other breast. Act? What act? She couldn’t think straight. Not when he was massaging one breast with his fingers and nipping at the other with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue.

      His tongue trailed down under her breasts to her belly, dipping into her navel before moving further. Leonora tensed as he came close to the juncture of her legs. He tucked his fingers under her panties and tugged. She lifted her bottom off the bed in silent acquiescence. He pulled them down her legs and off completely. Then one stocking and the other followed them to the floor.

      Now she was totally naked—like him. And yet she didn’t feel self-conscious. Just…hungry. Aching. Empty inside. As if something was missing.

      He was looking at her, his eyes roving over her body, and her self-consciousness returned. She was suddenly acutely aware that she didn’t conform to current beauty trends by waxing every inch of her body. But Gabriel wasn’t looking remotely repulsed.

      He came down beside her, his hand resting on the cluster of dark curls between her legs. ‘I like a woman to look like a woman.’

      He kissed her then, stopping any words or more coherent thoughts. The feeling of pleasure that he liked her as she was quickly became something far more urgent as he pushed her legs apart and his hand explored further, through those tight curls to the secret place where she ached for his touch.

      She gasped into his mouth when his seeking fingers found her, wet and ready. He massaged her, stroking her with expert fingers into a level of excitement that had her arching off the bed, pleading incoherently for something just out of reach, a shimmering promise of ecstasy she could almost taste.

      He was relentless, teasing her to the point where she thought she would die if he didn’t just—

      But then, with one deep thrust and a twist of his fingers, Leonora was finally released from the tension, and she soared high on a wave of pleasure so exquisite she cried out, her hands instinctively reaching for Gabriel’s wrist to stop his movements, her throbbing flesh over-sensitised.