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

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      Frantically she tensed her muscles, squeezing her thighs together as she felt the surge of longing rocket through her.

      As though he guessed what was happening to her, Leon cupped her hip, his fingers kneading her rhythmically.

      She was leaning fully against the tree now, letting it take the weight of her body whilst Leon’s hands sensitively explored every inch of her, making her quiver from head to foot in open longing.

      When his hand stroked gently between her legs she groaned huskily and shuddered.

      ‘Sadie…’ As Leon took her hand and placed it against his own body she almost sobbed with pleasure. Her hands were long and slender, but the hard swollen length of him extended beyond her outstretched fingertips. Sadie closed her eyes, pleasure a dark velvet blanket of sensuality behind her eyelids. She ached as though she had a fever for the feel of him inside her. She’d had no idea there could be desire like this—instant, immediate, hot and hungry, a need that burned everything else into oblivion and drove a person relentlessly until it was sated.

      No doubt in Leon’s eyes, she decided helplessly, she was totally unworldly and naïve not to have experienced something like this before. Unlike him!

      How many times… how many women…? That thought burned through her in a hot agony of molten jealousy that stiffened her whole body.

      ‘Sadie?’

      Suddenly they both heard voices somewhere lower down the path. Immediately Leon released her and bent to pick up the shawl which had fallen from her shoulders.

      Tucking her hand through his arm, he guided her back to the path. She was shaking so much she suspected she would have stumbled if he hadn’t been holding on to her.

      Unable to keep her feelings to herself, she burst out emotionally, ‘I don’t believe this is happening.’

      ‘You don’t believe or you don’t want to believe it?’ Leon challenged her.

      Tiny tremors of reaction were still seizing her body, and Sadie knew that Leon must be aware of them. What an idiot he must think her, to get in such a state over a mere kiss. Only for her it hadn’t been just a kiss, had it? For her…

      ‘It’s all right, Sadie,’ she heard him telling her gently, when she was unable to answer his question. ‘Will it help if I admit that I’ve been caught as much off guard by what happened back there as you? I can’t pretend that I haven’t spent all evening imagining what it would be like to take you to bed, but…’

      ‘I… I don’t do things like this,’ Sadie told him stiffly, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable. ‘I don’t make a habit of… of this sort of thing. You might…’

      ‘I might what?’ he asked, disconcerting her when he guessed accurately. ‘Were you thinking that I might go to bed with a different woman every night of the week? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

      Embarrassed, Sadie shook her head.

      ‘I don’t have any right to… to pry into your private life,’ she told him awkwardly. ‘It’s just that I don’t want you to think that I…’

      ‘I haven’t been to bed with a woman in over five years,’ Leon told her curtly. ‘I don’t happen to approve of anyone sleeping around just for the hell of it. It’s cheap and it’s a health hazard. What happened tonight was—’

      ‘You don’t have to explain. I understand!’ Sadie rushed in quickly. He was going to tell her that it had been a mistake, that things had got out of hand.

      ‘You do? I wish to hell that I could say that,’ Leon came back at her with harsh grimness. ‘Right now—’ he stopped and shook his head whilst Sadie held her breath, aching to have him complete what he had been going to say, and at the same time a little fearful in case he did!

      They had almost reached the door to her room.

      ‘Do you have any plans for tomorrow?’ Leon asked her abruptly as he stood in front of her.

      They were almost as close as they had been earlier, when he had kissed her. If she were to just shift her weight from one foot to the other she would be even closer!

      Sadie looked at him. Her body was already overruling the cautious anxieties of her heart and the stern warnings of her head, telling her very forcibly that the only plans it wanted to have, included Leon and preferably complete privacy!

      ‘Well, no… not really.’ As her heart jumped and thumped around her ribcage, with an adrenalin-fuelled cocktail of complex emotions, Sadie berated herself inwardly. Why on earth hadn’t she told him she was already busy, as she would normally have done? What was happening to her? Never in her life had she chosen danger over safety. It just wasn’t her style!

      Maybe it hadn’t been, a little voice inside her head mocked her, but that had been before she’d met Leon!

      ‘I’m driving out to see a mas I’m renting for the summer tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me?’

      ‘You’re spending the whole summer here?’ Sadie commented, unable to conceal her envy at the thought of being able to spend weeks on end enjoying the sunshine in a mas, as Provençal farmhouses were called.

      Yes… I have a variety of business interests on the continent, and the farmhouse I am planning to rent would make an excellent base for me to work from.’

      They were outside her door now, and the light on the wall illuminated Sadie’s expression as she looked up at him.

      ‘A farmhouse?’ she questioned, a little uncertainly.

      ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic,’ Leon commented wryly. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like the countryside?’ he asked her.

      Immediately Sadie shook her head.

      ‘No, I love it,’ she told him vehemently.

      ‘So?’ The querying rise of Leon’s eyebrows warned her that he intended to get an answer.

      ‘Well, it’s just that… Well, I just didn’t think that you would be a country person. One always assumes, somehow, that a businessman will be city-based.’ Sadie began, and then stopped, biting her lip.

      But to her relief Leon didn’t take offence at her comment, simply shrugging his shoulders and telling her easily, ‘I do have an apartment in Sydney, it’s true. It’s convenient for business, but given the choice I’d much rather spend my time at the winery my parents own, way out in the country. They’re retired now, or supposed to be, but Dad’s already talking about putting new vines in and upgrading their wine, despite the fact that he’s got a bad heart and ought to be taking things easy!’ He stopped and apologised. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear about my family.’

      Sadie flicked her tongue-tip over her lips, aching to admit that there was nothing she wanted to learn about more—unless it was every tiny detail about Leon himself. What made him laugh, what kind of food he liked, which side of the bed he liked to sleep on… where he most liked to be touched and kissed… where…

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