The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

the truth about herself but innate reserve, learned growing up in a household where she had never belonged, kept her silent.

      ‘I’m used to women who chatter,’ Leo admitted with a slanting grin that was irresistible.

      ‘I’m quiet,’ Grace admitted, sliding for purchase on the slippery surface of the bedspread and flipping it back to scramble beneath the sheets, still clad in her panties, which she whisked off under cover.

      ‘Someone so beautiful could never be shy,’ Leo assumed, sliding in beside her in one lithe movement to reach for her. ‘But you are a cheat... I wanted to see you...all of you.’

      Grace knew she wasn’t beautiful. She had grown up with the belief that tall, thin and blonde was the epitome of beauty and all the most popular girls at school had fitted that blueprint. But when Leo studied her with wide wondering eyes she felt beautiful for the first time in her life and, even though she was convinced it wasn’t true, it made her feel special. ‘I have to admit I liked seeing you,’ she confessed tensely, striving to reward his appreciation.

      ‘Really?’ Leo laughed, amused by that little morsel of flattery when he was accustomed to a positive barrage of compliments in the bedroom. He admired Grace’s restraint and lack of drama even while he could hardly wait to shatter her defences and see her lose herself in the throes of passion.

      He kissed her and it was like the first time all over again, his tongue thrusting into her mouth to set her alight, tiny little spasms of excitement igniting afresh to clench her womb. He pushed her legs apart, ran a forefinger along the seam there and she stiffened, knowing she was damp and knowing it was absolutely crazy to get into bed with him and be embarrassed about such a natural thing but unable to overcome her self-consciousness. What on earth had happened to her belief that she could make him a science project? she asked herself suddenly, dismayed to be losing her detachment. She closed her eyes tight while he played with the most sensitive spot on her entire body, pleasure and longing traversing her in steady waves. She gritted her teeth, suddenly terrified of getting too carried away and losing control as her hips rose involuntarily.

      She made no effort to evade him when he pushed back the sheet. In fact she braced herself to tolerate the intimacy as he tipped her legs over his shoulders and homed in on the most private part of her.

      ‘You’re beautiful here too,’ Leo purred with a lack of inhibition that shook her and she studied the ceiling in disbelief, struggling to retain some distance from the leaps and jerks of her feverishly aroused body. Then the tip of his tongue touched her and circled her and a rolling wave of pleasure gripped her. Her eyes closed, teeth tightening to hold back a gasp but her control was broken within moments because she had never ever experienced that much pleasure. Sounds were wrenched from her parted lips and her fingers knotted in his hair as the screaming ache for fulfilment inside her built and built and she was lost in the storm of it with her heart thundering and her body writhing. And when she reached a climax, it was explosive and mind-blowing and all the superlative exaggerated words of description that once would have made her roll her eyes in disbelief.

      ‘You’re incredibly responsive, meli mou,’ Leo husked, finding his every expectation mirrored in the dazed pleasure in her wide eyes and the closing of her arms round him in the aftermath.

      Grace was dimly aware of him reaching for a foil packet. Her body might still be leaping with pleasure but her brain was firing back on all cylinders because he had blown her expectations out of the water with his very first move.

      He shifted over her, lithe and confident as a jungle cat on the hunt, and she shut her eyes tight again against the intrusion of his. It was going to happen, it was finally going to happen and she would be like almost every other woman, no longer in the dark, no longer ignorant. But it had never occurred to her before that any man could make her want him so desperately that nothing else seemed to matter. His hands cupped her hips to tilt her boneless body back into a better position and then she felt the crown of him at her entrance and she tensed at the exact same moment he thrust deep and hard. The tender tissue of her channel burned and then a sharp little sting sliced through her, provoking a cry of discomfort from her lips. Leo froze.

      ‘What the hell...? I hurt you?’

      Forced by the unexpected to open her eyes, Grace knew her face had to be redder than a ripe apple. ‘I was a virgin,’ she admitted belatedly.

      ‘A virgin?’ Leo yelled, as if she had jabbed him with a red-hot poker. ‘And you’re telling me that now?’

      ‘It was private,’ Grace told him succinctly, her lush mouth folding into a compressed line. ‘Now that it’s done, can we just go back to where we were?’

      Go back to where we were? In a different mood, Leo would have laughed at that wording. But he was in the grip of angry astonishment, his every assumption about her wiped out. He didn’t like surprises, but as Grace shifted up to him in reminder that he was still inside her he discovered that his body was much less particular. He stared down at her with stunning dark golden eyes. He was her first and there was something mysteriously satisfying about that discovery. She was so tight and warm and wet. Struggling to control his every move, he sank deeper and a breathy little sigh that certainly wasn’t a complaint escaped her.

      Grace shut her eyes again, ripples of pleasure reclaiming her, that momentary stab of discomfort forgotten. She could feel his girth stretching her and his hips ground into hers with every slow, heavy thrust. He was being so careful.

      ‘It’s OK...you’re not hurting me at all,’ she mumbled guiltily.

      His pace quickened and a deep guttural moan was torn from him as her body clenched around his. He felt so good Grace couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe she had lived so many years without realising what she was missing out on. A sense of wonder seized her while her heart rate began to race with enjoyment as he pushed into her harder, faster and deeper. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe for excitement; she felt as though she had stolen a ride on a comet. The excitement rose and rose to breaking point when without her volition her body jerked into another intense orgasm. Ecstatic cries broke from her lips as the white-hot heat exploded in her pelvis and left her lying limp and utterly drained but with a glorious feeling of satisfaction that was new to her.

      ‘Care to tell me why?’ Leo demanded, shattering her idyll. ‘Why did you pick me?’

      ‘You did the picking,’ Grace reminded him without hesitation, lifting her arms to break his hold on her to enable her to roll away. ‘There’s no agenda here, if that’s what is worrying you. I found you attractive and I decided it was time that I took the plunge.’

      ‘I would have preferred a warning,’ Leo told her drily.

      ‘I wasn’t expecting that jab of pain. After years of horse riding I assumed there’d be nothing there...my mistake,’ Grace pronounced with dignity. ‘But thanks for the experience. You were very good.’

      Prior to his engagement, Leo had been a legendary womaniser but he felt quite ridiculously put down by Grace’s comment. He sprang off the bed and then a much more pressing matter came to his attention before he could reach the bathroom and he uttered a single crude expletive.

      Grace froze at the sound of that word. When she was a child she hadn’t known it was a bad word because her mother had used it all the time. Unhappily when she had used that word in Jenna’s home, her aunt had screamed at her and put a soap bar in her mouth. She had still been throwing up when her uncle came home. The couple had had a massive row and Grace had never ever used that word again.

      Impervious to her reaction, Leo had strode into the bathroom to dispose of the evidence. He reappeared, bronzed and stark naked in the doorway. ‘The condom broke...’

      Grace sat up in horror. ‘What?’

      ‘Breaking you in probably strained it,’ Leo retorted with deliberate curtness because it was just one more unexpected development that he didn’t want.

      ‘It...burst?’ Grace whispered. ‘But