‘Don’t let him in,’ she begged tensely.

‘I won’t,’ Leo promised.

‘I h-hate him. I never want to see him again.’

‘I will not let him in,’ he repeated gently.

But Rico called out her name again hoarse with emotion and Leo felt her fingernails dig into the back of his neck while the two of them listened to his housekeeper make some stern response.

‘My heart’s beating so fast I can’t breathe properly,’ Natasha whispered breathlessly.

A spark of challenge lit Leo’s eyes. He should have contained it—he knew that even as he murmured the challenging, ‘I can make it beat faster.’

If he’d said it to distract her attention away from Rico, it certainly worked when her mouth parted on a surprised little gasp. Leo raised a ruefully mocking eyebrow, feeling the buzz, the loin heating, sex-charging, challenging buzz.

And he leant in and claimed her mouth.

It was like falling into an electrified pit, Natasha likened dizzily as not a single part or inch of her missed out on the high-voltage rush. She’d never experienced anything like it. He crushed her lips to keep them parted, then slid his tongue into her mouth. The sheer shock feel of that alien wet contact stroking across her own tongue made her shiver with pleasure, then stiffen in shock. He did it again and this time she whimpered.

Leo murmured something, then slid his arms around her so he could draw her closer to him and deepen the kiss. The next few seconds went by in a fevered hot rush. She felt plastered against his muscled torso. She could hear Rico shouting. Something hard and ridged was pushing against her front. The wildly disturbing recognition of what that something was sent her deaf to everything else as her own senses bloomed with an excited sparkle in response.

It was crazy, she tried telling herself. She didn’t even like Leo Christakis yet here she was drowning in the full on power of his heated kiss! In all of her life she had never kissed anyone like this—never felt even remotely like this! It was like throwing herself against a rock only to discover that the rock had magical powers. His hand skated the length of her spine to her waist, then pressed her even closer, at the same time that he increased the pressure on her mouth, sending her neck arching backwards as he used his tongue to create a warm, thick chain reaction that poured through her entire body like silk.

Natasha heard herself groan something. He muttered a very low, sensual rasp in response. Then Rico called out to her again, harsh and angry enough to pierce into her foggy consciousness, and she wrenched her mouth free.

Trembling and panting with her heart pounding wildly, she stared up at this man while her mind fed her an image of the way Rico had been enjoying Cindy across his desk.

As if her sister knew what she was thinking, her phone began to ring in her purse.

The scald of betrayal burned her up on the inside.

‘For God’s sake, Natasha, let me talk to you!’ Rico’s rasping voice ground out.

Revenge lit her up.

Leo saw it happen and knew exactly where it was coming from. Sanity returned to him with a gut-crushing whoosh. She was going to offer herself to him, but did he want her like this, bruised and heartbroken and throbbing with a desire for revenge on Rico, who could easily charge in here and catch them?

As they had walked into Rico’s office and caught him.

Natasha leant away from Leo and began unbuttoning her jacket with shakily fumbling, feverish fingers.

Leo released a sigh. ‘You don’t want to do this, Natasha,’ he said heavily.

‘Don’t tell me what I don’t want,’ she shook out.

The two pieces of fabric were wrenched apart to reveal a white top made of some stretchy fabric that crossed over and moulded the thrusting fullness of her two tight breasts.

Leo looked down at them, then up into her fever-bright eyes, and wanted to bite out a filthy black curse. As she wrenched the jacket off altogether, he reached out to try and stop her, only to freeze when he read the helpless plea that had etched itself on her paper-white face.

If he turned her down now, the rejection was going to shatter her.

Her smooth white throat moved as she swallowed, those kiss-warmed lips parting so she could whisper out a husky little, ‘Please…’

And he was lost, Leo knew it. Even as she took the initiative away from him by winding her arms around his neck again, he knew he was not going to stop this. Lifting his hands up to mould her ribcage, he stroked them down the tight white fabric to the sexy indentation of her waist in an exploring act that rolled back the denials still beating an urgent tattoo in his head.

Her mouth was a hungry invite. Leo raked his hands back up her body again and this time covered the full perfect globes of her breasts. She fell apart on a series of gasps and quivers that sent her body into an acute sensual arch, fingernails digging into his neck again, hair suddenly tumbling free in a glorious roll of fine silken waves down her back. She was amazing, a stunningly complicated mix of prim, straight-lace and pure untrammelled passion with her lily-white skin and her lush parted mouth, and her breasts two sensational mounds that filled his hands and…

The front door slammed.

Rico had gone.

If Natasha recognised what the sound meant she did not make a response. Her eyes still burned into him with the fevered invitation she was offering.

Time to make a decision, Leo accepted grimly. Continue this or put a stop to it?

Then her fingernails dug deeper to pull his mouth back down onto hers and the decision was made for him.

Natasha felt his surrender and took it with a leap of triumph that bordered on the mad. She became aware of the power of his erection pressing against her again, instinct made her move against it. He muttered a low, throaty response and he was suddenly tightening his hold of her and drawing her to her feet. Next he was swinging her up into his arms and carrying her, the kiss still a seething hot fuse that frazzled her brain and had her heart pounding to the beat of his footsteps echoing on oak flooring as he headed across the hall and began climbing the stairs.

It was the moment that Natasha saw a small chink of sanity. Her head went back, rending the kiss apart as she opened her eyes to look deep into Leo Christakis’s heavily lidded dark eyes before she glanced around her as if she’d been woken up suddenly from a dream.

It was only then that she realised that the hallway was empty. No one was there. No Rico witnessing his betrayed fiancée being carried to bed by her soon-to-be new lover. No housekeeper containing her disapproval and shock.

‘Changed your mind now you don’t have a witness?’ Leo’s hard voice swung her eyes back to him again.

He’d gone still on one of the stairs and the look of cold cynicism was back, lashing his skin to the bones in his face.

‘No,’ Natasha breathed, and she discovered that she meant it. She wanted to do this. She wanted to be carried to bed and made love to by a man who genuinely wanted her—she wanted to lose every single old-fashioned and disgustingly outmoded inhibition she possessed!

‘Please,’ she breathed softly as she leant in to brush a kiss across the hard line of his mouth. ‘Make love to me, Leo.’

There was another moment of hesitation, a glimpse of fury in the depths of his eyes. Then he was moving again, allowing her to breathe again though she had not been aware of holding her breath. He finished the climb up the stairs and carried her into a sultry summer-warmed bedroom with pale walls and big dark pieces of furniture. A red Persian rug covered most of the polished oak floor.

Then he really shocked her by dumping her unceremoniously on the top of a huge soft bed.

As Natasha lay there blinking up at him Leo stood looking down at her, his expression as hard and cynical as hell. ‘Stay there and pull yourself together,’ was all he uttered before he turned around to walk back to the door.