The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит

straps of her dress down her shoulders. Alyse stood still, her gaze fastened on him as he reached behind her, and with one sensuous tug had her dress unzipped. It slithered down her body and pooled on the floor, leaving her in only a skimpy white lace bra and matching pants—honeymoon underwear, barely serving their purpose, unless it was to inflame—which it did.

      Leo let his gaze travel slowly across her barely clothed body, revelling in the beauty of her, desire coiling tighter and tighter inside him.

      He placed one hand on her shoulder, sliding it down to her elbow, smoothing her skin. She drew a shuddering breath.

      ‘Are you cold?’

      ‘No.’ She shook her head and, needing to touch her more—everywhere—he slid his hand from her elbow to her breast, his palm cupping its slight fullness as he drew his thumb across the aching peak. Alyse let out a little gasp and he smiled, felt the primal triumph of making her respond.

      ‘I know this is new for you,’ he said quietly and he saw a flash of something almost like anguish in her eyes.

      ‘Leo...’ She didn’t say anything more and he didn’t want to waste time or energy on words. Smiling, he brushed a kiss across her forehead and then across her mouth before he unhooked her bra and slid it off her arms. He drew her to him, her bare breasts brushing the crisp cotton of his shirt, and even that sensation made him ache. He wanted her so very much.

      ‘What about your clothes?’ she asked shakily and he arched an eyebrow.

      ‘What about mine?’

      ‘They’re on you, for starters.’

      He laughed softly. ‘I suppose you could do something about that.’

      Her fingers shook only a little as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, the tips of her fingers brushing his bare chest. He stood still, everything in him dark and hot from just those tiny touches. Then she finished unbuttoning it and pulled it off his shoulders, her gaze hungry as she let it rove over him, making him darker and hotter still.

      His breathing hitched as she smoothed her hands over his chest, down to his abdomen, and then with a little, mischievous smile her fingers slipped under the waistband of his trousers.

      He sucked in a hard breath as with her other hand she tugged on the zip, her fingers skimming the hard length of his erection. ‘Alyse...’

      ‘Only fair,’ she whispered with a trembling laugh, and Leo’s voice lowered to a growl as he answered,

      ‘I’ll show you fair.’

      He pulled her even closer to him so her breasts were crushed against his bare chest and kissed her with a savage passion he hadn’t even known he possessed, the self-control he’d prided himself on for so long slipping away, lost in a red tide of desire.

      And she responded, her arms coming up around him, her tongue tangling with his as she matched him kiss for kiss, their breathing coming in ragged gasps as the shy gentleness of their undressing turned into something raw and powerful and almost harsh in its intensity.

      He’d never felt like this before. Felt so much before. He wanted and needed her too much to be alarmed or afraid by the power of her feelings—or his own.

      Alyse’s mind was dazed with desire as Leo drew her to the bed. Ever since he’d led her from the dinner table she’d tried to find a way to tell him the truth, that she wasn’t a virgin. His obvious assumption made the need for disclosure all the more vital, yet somehow the words wouldn’t come. And when Leo had kissed her, and undressed her, and touched her...

      Then she’d had no words at all.

      She didn’t remember how they ended up lying on the bed, Leo sliding off her underwear and then his own so they were both completely naked. It had all happened so quickly, yet she felt as if she’d been waiting for this moment for ever.

      And still she hadn’t told him. Maybe later, she thought hazily as Leo bent his head to her breast and she raked his shoulders with her nails, her body arching off the bed as he flicked his tongue against her heated, over-sensitised skin. After. She’d tell him after.

      She felt Leo’s hand between her thighs, his fingers sliding deftly to the damp warmth between them and her hips arched instinctively as he found her centre.

      ‘You’re lovely,’ he murmured as he touched her, brushing kisses across her mouth, her jaw, her throat. ‘So lovely.’

      ‘You are too,’ Alyse answered, her voice uneven, and he laughed softly.

      He slid a finger inside her and she felt her muscles instinctively clench around him. A wave of pleasure crashed over and drowned out any possible attempts at speech or thought. Leo’s touch was so knowing, so assured, and her fingernails dug into the bunched muscles of his shoulders as he rolled over her, his clever fingers replaced by the hard press of his erection.

      Alyse arched her hips, welcoming this glorious invasion, the sense of completeness she ached to feel with every fibre of her being.

      ‘This might hurt just a little,’ he whispered and she closed her eyes against a sudden, soul-quenching rush of shame.

      She couldn’t lie to him, not even by her silence. Not now, not about this.

      ‘It won’t, Leo,’ she choked, her anguish all too apparent to both of them. ‘I’m—I’m not a virgin.’

      She felt him poised above her, could feel the heat and strength of him so close to her; another inch or two and he’d be inside her, as she so desperately wanted. She arched her hips reflexively, but he didn’t move.

      Alyse let out a shudder of both longing and despair. Clearly she picked her moments well.

      Leo swore under his breath and eased back. ‘What a time to tell me,’ he said, his voice coming out in a groan.

      ‘I didn’t—didn’t know how to tell you,’ she whispered miserably.

      Leo rolled onto his back and stared up at the woven-grass roof of the hut, his chest heaving with the effort of stopping at such a critical moment.

      ‘Obviously it’s a distressing memory,’ he said after a moment, his eyes still on the roof. ‘You must have been very young.’

      ‘It was.’ She took a breath, hating that they were talking about this now, in such an intimate moment, a moment that had seconds ago promised tenderness and pleasure and perhaps even the first fragile shoots of a deeper and more sacred emotion. ‘And I wasn’t that young. I was twenty.’

      She felt Leo still next to her, every muscle in his body seeming to go rigid. Then he turned his head to stare at her, and everything in Alyse quailed at the sight of the cold blankness in his eyes. ‘Twenty?’

      ‘Yes—at university.’

      ‘You slept with someone at university?’ he repeated, sounding so disbelieving that Alyse flinched.

      ‘Yes—do we have to talk about this?’

      ‘I don’t particularly relish the conversation myself.’ In one fluid movement Leo sat up and reached for his boxers.

      Alyse felt her throat thicken as disappointment and frustrated desire rushed through her. ‘Leo, I’m sorry. I suppose I should have told you earlier, but we never had any remotely intimate conversations, and frankly I just wanted to forget it ever happened. That’s no excuse, I know.’ He finished sliding on his boxers and just picked up his shirt. ‘Are you—are you angry? That I’m not a virgin?’

      He let out a bark of humourless laughter and turned to face her. He looked as cold and remote as he ever had—only worse, because she’d seen his face softened in sleep or with a smile, his eyes warm with laughter and then hot with desire. Now he was reverting once more to the icy stranger she knew, the man who made her despair. ‘You think I’m angry that you’re not a virgin?’

      ‘Well—yes.’

      He