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The smooth olive planes of his darkly handsome features were taut. Ebony brows pleated with concern, he reached for her hands and drew her towards him. His dark golden eyes were welded to her flushed and defensive face. ‘Theos mou, I am very sorry. If I had known, if I had even suspected that you hadn’t returned because something had happened to you, I would have looked for you and I would have been there for you. I thought you had walked out on me.’
Maribel was bewildered. Why would he have thought such a thing? She could not think that he met with rejection of that nature very often. Or was it common for women to behave in such a way after a one-night stand? She didn’t want to ask him. She did not want to linger on the subject. She was afraid that her sensitivity might prove all too revealing to a male as shrewd as he was.
Leonidas finally understood why she had said she didn’t like him. He was shaken that it had not once occurred to him that she might have had an accident, that there might have been a genuine explanation for her vanishing act. He could not understand why his usual clear-sighted logic should have deserted him that day, or why his reaction had been out of all proportion to the event. But he did recognise the consequences. ‘I let you down,’ he said gravely. ‘I very much regret that, mali mou.’
Maribel was taken aback by the sincerity in his lustrous gaze. Her slender fingers smoothed his in a comforting gesture full of all the warmth she would have denied. ‘It’s all right…you didn’t know—’
His wide, sensual mouth twisted. ‘It’s not all right. I should have enquired. I could have been there with you. But I was arrogant—’
‘I know, but you’re not about to change,’ Maribel told him ruefully. ‘Not without an ego transplant.’
Reluctant amusement assailed Leonidas. He lowered his handsome dark head and claimed her soft pink mouth in a passionate onslaught that made the world go into a frantic tailspin around her…
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN the world stopped spinning, Maribel found that Leonidas had propelled her into a bedroom with a soaring ceiling, dimmed lights and a bed the size of a small golf course. ‘Is this where you throw orgies?’ she asked helplessly.
‘You need have no concern on that score. I saw enough of that kind of nonsense growing up with Elora,’ Leonidas retorted with derision.
Maribel was transfixed by that frank admission about his late mother. It didn’t seem the right moment to tell him that her comment had simply been a bad joke, voiced without thought.
‘Aside of the staff, you are the only woman ever to cross the threshold of this room,’ Leonidas declared.
Merriment relieved her momentary tension, for she assumed that he was teasing her. ‘As if I’d swallow that fairy story!’
‘But it is the truth. I have never brought a woman in here before. I have always preferred to keep my bedroom private. It is very rare for me to sleep the whole night through with anyone.’
‘You did with me…what was I? An aberration?’
Long brown fingers framed her flushed cheekbones. Her violet-blue eyes subjected him to an unwaveringly direct appraisal. There was no downward and quick upward glance designed to entrap, none of the studied flirtatious moves he was accustomed to receiving from her sex. Instead there was a sincerity he found much more appealing. Slowly a smile began to chase the gravity from his beautifully shaped masculine mouth. ‘I would say that addiction would be a more apt description. Here I am back again and that is not like me, hara mou. So you must have something unique.’
Something unique? Elias, Maribel filled in ruefully for her own benefit. She could hardly fault him for trying to make his bride feel special on their wedding night. In and out of bed he was too experienced not to know what pleased a woman. He kissed her again with a sweet, intoxicating fervour that soon turned hot and sensual with the dart and plunge of his tongue.
All the tensions of the day found exit in the stormy hunger that took her in a burning tide of desire. Her breath came in short quickened gasps. She stretched up to him, pressing her slim, supple body to his to exchange kiss for kiss with an urgency she could not hold back. He stripped off her dress with impatient hands and lifted her clear of its folds.
Tawny eyes smouldering with purpose, Leonidas stepped back a few inches to get a better look at her. The delicate turquoise lace lingerie revealed rather more than it concealed of her tempting curves and his gaze gleamed with appreciation. ‘I like,’ he told her sexily against her reddened lips, curving strong hands to her hips to fold her up against his lean, tough, muscular frame.
