The Virgin's Secret (8 page)

They sat down. Leo looked at Angel darkly, but she was avoiding his eyes. Straightening her cutlery, her napkin. She was up to something. She had to be. Trying to disarm him for some reason. He reminded himself that she'd been home earlier, and of course she must have taken advice from her father. Leo cursed himself. The fact that he didn't trust Angel was not in question, so why was he trying to decipher her behaviour? The only behaviour that concerned him was her good behaviour as his mistress, on his arm and in his bed. Anything above and beyond that was of no interest to him.

Angel was doing her best to eat the deliciously prepared dinner, but it tasted like sawdust in her mouth. All she could see, all she could think about, was the man eating his dinner at the head of the table to her left. Her eyes kept being drawn
to his hands, how powerful they looked. The tension mounted and mounted, especially when she thought of those hands in other places. On her.

Leo, however, seemed happy to concentrate on his food. Angel had countless questions bubbling on her lips: did he expect to sleep with her tonight? What would he do when he discovered how inexperienced she was? Would he reject her outright, as Achilles had? And why did that thought hurt so much? Why was she so consumed with him when he was all but blackmailing her into his bed?

Angel had never felt more confused, and very, very vulnerable. The silence, she was sure, was Leo's way of unsettling her, reminding her she was here for just one purpose. A purpose she was woefully ill prepared for. He wasn't even attempting small talk. When she felt something brush against her bare legs under the table she let out a startled cry, and dropped her knife to the floor with a clatter.

Just then the housekeeper came back in—Leo had introduced her to Angel earlier as Calista—and Angel saw that it had just been a cat. Her cat. After profuse apologies, and her knife being replaced, they were alone in the room again.

Leo put down his knife and fork and Angel jumped minutely.

‘Why so tense, Angel?'

She looked warily at Leo. His eyes were dark, like mysterious pools. He was all hard angles and shadows. A dark line shadowed his jaw after a day's growth.

‘I…' She couldn't articulate a word. Something dense was in the air around them all of a sudden, something tangible and electric.
Was this desire?

‘No appetite?' he asked then innocuously, with a raised brow.

Angel just shook her head and watched, dry-mouthed, as
his gaze fixated on her mouth. It tingled. God, why couldn't she be immune to him and stand up in disgust and tell him if he touched her she'd call the police? Because then he'd probably call the police himself, send her away, and Delphi and Stavros would be back to square one. Worse, with the ensuing media storm.

However, those very good reasons aside, with the heavy weight of inevitability, the real reason sank into her head: she wanted him to touch her. The truth was shocking when she acknowledged it. Despite everything, she
wanted
him to touch her. Had done from the moment she'd seen him emerge from the pool…and from the moment he'd kissed her on the terrace. Since that night she'd had dreams, when she'd woken in sweaty tangled sheets, aching… And it killed her to admit it. Especially when she'd all but written sex off after her first experience.

Her hormones had turned traitor and were in league with this man.

Leo suddenly pushed his plate away and stood up, towering over her. His eyes glittered with a dark promise. A muscle popped in his jaw. ‘I find that my appetite for food has gone, too.'

There was something rough in his voice that resonated deep within her. When he held out a hand, Angel hesitated for a second before putting her hand in his. She told herself this was just part of the agreement. She was securing Delphi's freedom and happiness. He wasn't throwing her to the police with accusations of theft. All she had to do…all she had to do… She stumbled as Leo led her from the room. They encountered Calista on the way, and Leo explained in rapid Greek that they were both tired and going to bed.

Angel's cheeks burned as Leo led her up the stairs. She was
mortified. She tried to tug her hand back, panic making her voice high. ‘She's going to know exactly what we're doing.'

Leo's voice was hard. ‘You're my mistress. I should hope so. And if the gossip here is anything like in New York, it'll already be halfway round Athens by morning that I have taken Angel Kassianides into my bed.'

H
IS
stark words rendered Angel mute. She felt she had no choice as Leo led her into his bedroom. She chastised herself; there was always a choice. But her choice to retain her dignity and walk away would have an effect on the person closest to her.

And she found as Leo kicked the door shut with one foot and led Angel further in, close to his massive bed, that the desire to walk away was disturbingly elusive. She hated to admit it to herself, but was she using Delphi in some way to justify this?

Disgusted with herself, because that was a very real possibility, Angel wrenched her hand free from Leo's. The very pertinent fact of her virginity had also been easy to push down to somewhere she didn't want to explore. But now it was rising again. How could it not, when it was about to become an issue?

Angel backed a few feet away from Leo and stood tall. ‘I'm not going to just fall into your bed like some concubine.'

His mouth tightened. ‘No, there's a more modern word: mistress. You'll fall into my bed like the mistress you are. I'm sure you've done it for countless others, Angel, no need to be shy.' He smiled, and it was cruelly mocking. ‘It's lucky I caught you between lovers.'

‘How…?' Angel asked shakily, the wind taken out of her sails. ‘How do you know I don't have a lover?'

Leo walked over to where she stood. ‘Because I've had you followed since I left Athens and your every move reported back to me. So you see, Angel—' here Leo reached out and tucked some wayward hair behind her ear ‘—I know that you must be dying to get a taste of the life you've undoubtedly been missing, thanks to your father's excessive greed.'

He lifted up her hands, which were dry and a little rough from all the cleaning she'd been doing. Each time she'd had to scrub a toilet she'd imagined the day when she'd be polishing the white gold of one of her jewellery designs.

With no clue as to what was in her head, Leo brought her hands up to his mouth and kissed them one by one, making Angel's heart speed up even as delayed shock made her useless.
He'd had her followed?

‘You can't deny that you aren't craving the easy life again, Angel, and I can provide that for you.'

Bitterness that he had so little idea of who she really was made Angel say, ‘Just temporarily, though.' She knew saying that would most likely give him the impression that she was greedy, and she hated that she cared.

He quirked a brow and dropped her hands, but kept hold of them. ‘It's up to you, Angel. It depends on how much you please me in bed…'

Bed.
Panic exploded in her gut. He thought she was experienced, really experienced. And, to give him his due, most of the girls in her peer group were. She and Delphi, they were a breed apart—always had been, thanks to Tito's excessively controlling nature, and the fact that he'd had Angel all but locked away in a remote school for most of her teenage years. It was why their sister Damia had rebelled and come to such a tragic end.

‘Leo, I don't think you understand—'

He came even closer and snaked a hand around her neck, drawing her mouth up to meet his. ‘There's nothing to understand, Angel except
this.'

Leo tipped her chin up, and before she could react his mouth was on hers for the second time in just twenty-four hours. So much had happened in so little time that Angel's head reeled, but it was all being washed away as Leo's mouth moved seductively against hers, eliciting a response that she couldn't deny.

With a muted groan of despair at her own helpless reaction, Angel let her hands find their way to Leo's chest, where they clung to his shirt. She had to hang on or she'd fall down in a heap. She could not understand how this man had such an instantaneous effect on her, but he did.

His tongue sought hers and made her insides melt into a pool of lust, just by stroking it. Their mouths clung. Angel remembered the study and her awfully wanton response, how he'd left her so unsatisfied. But she didn't have time now to feel humiliated; all she could feel was that new-found ache, growing again.

Leo's hands were on the back of her dress; the zip was being drawn down. Angel pulled away and looked up. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and her heart was thumping so hard she felt faint. Her mouth felt bruised and swollen. She could only stand there as she felt a cool breeze whistle over her skin as the zip descended. All the while Leo was holding her gaze and not letting her look away.

When the zip was all the way down, to just above her buttocks, Leo pulled Angel in close again and smoothed his hands up and down her naked back. Electric shocks of sensation made her shudder; the tips of her breasts tingled. She
felt him undo the clasp of her bra. Things were moving quickly…too quickly.

Jerkily Angel pulled away from Leo's caressing, distracting hands. The dress gaped forward slightly, and she put up her hands to stop it falling. She knew now that she'd blocked out the reality of what it would mean to do this.

But just when she went to open her mouth to say something Leo started pulling off his own clothes. Her eyes grew huge, and between her legs she throbbed when he stood before her naked, like a proud warrior. His broad, superbly muscled chest and shoulders had been awe-inspiring when she'd seen them, but when her gaze dropped Angel's breath stopped altogether.

A taut, flat belly led down to a thatch of dark hair from which sprang a truly intimidating erection. Angel had only ever seen one man in this state, and that would never have prepared her for
this
. Leo stood proud, legs apart, thighs heavily muscled, cradling his impressive masculinity.

There was a blur of movement and Angel felt her dress being pulled away and down her arms. Suddenly it lay in a pool of black at her feet. She gave a squeal of protest but Leo was remorseless, and somehow, with an economy and efficiency of movement that took her breath away, she stood before him in just her panties. Her hair fell about her shoulders. She put an arm across her breasts and a hand down to cover between her legs.

Leo chuckled darkly, ‘There's really no need to act the innocent…'

‘But I'm not—'

‘Enough talking,' he growled, and stopped her words with his mouth again, his naked body coming into hot and immediate contact with hers. Angel's brain went into meltdown. He
took her arm away from her breasts, and Angel's brain nearly short-circuited when she came into contact with that turgid erection.

Despite the wild excitement that flared through her body she wasn't ready for this. She'd never be ready for this. She'd had some dim and distant hope that perhaps she could pretend, that her virginity might not be glaringly obvious, but that hope laughed in her face now.

Leo was backing her towards the bed, pushing her down. Things were moving too fast. She had to stop him, even though knowing that he was naked and feeling his smooth olive skin next to hers was turning her thoughts to mush.

Angel couldn't bear for them to get to the point she'd reached before with Achilles and have Leo look at her with the same awful dawning horror on his face when he found out she was a virgin. Angel could remember the excruciating pain, the awful humiliation when Achilles hadn't been able to penetrate her. He'd shouted at her, told her she was frigid, that no one would want to sleep with her because she was a virgin.

And even though Angel felt in her body instinctively that
this
was different, that the same outcome wasn't assured, her brain was warning her of the pain and humiliation to come. And she knew that, however bad it had been with Achilles, to face the same from Leo would wound her so much more deeply, and that knowledge alone was enough for her to call a halt.

With a mammoth move, Angel pushed at Leo's chest. One of his hands was travelling up her leg, and already she could feel herself weakening, moistening. Her body wasn't hers any more.

She shoved again, and knocked his hand away with enough
violence to make it sound like a slap, ‘No!' The sound echoed in the room.

Leo's movements stilled over her.

She looked up at him and bit her lip. All she could see were the strong planes of his face. He too was breathing harshly.

‘I…I have to tell you something.'

After a long moment Leo pulled back and reached over to put on a lamp beside the bed; it cast out a warm pool of low light. Abruptly he plucked his jeans off the floor and pulled them on roughly, standing up.

Angel felt very exposed and sat up, grabbing the sheet and pulling it around her.

Leo stood with hands on his hips, jeans undone. She could see the bulge of his arousal. He oozed such potent virility in that moment that Angel knew she was right to stop this now; she was no match for him. He needed a woman with experience, a woman to equal him, a woman like the women she'd seen on the internet. She felt sick.

‘Well, Angel? This had better be good.'

Angel would have stood, but the sheet was tucked into the bed so she sat awkwardly, holding it against her. She looked down for a moment, gathering her courage, and felt the welcome curtain of her hair around her face.

She looked up finally, and spoke at the same time as Leo.

‘Angel—'

‘I'm a virgin.'

They both stopped. Leo looked at her. A strange stillness seemed to come into his body, and the air grew thick with atmosphere around them.

‘What did you say?'

Angel gulped. ‘I said that I'm a virgin.'

Leo shook his head. ‘No, it's impossible.'

Angel felt the cold trickle of humiliation come into her body. This was going to be so much worse than she'd envisaged. On an impulse to cover up properly she scooted quickly from the bed and plucked her dress off the floor, stepping into it and pulling it up over her chest, clutching it there with her hands.

She looked at Leo and fought to stay standing in the face of his obvious disbelief. ‘I'm afraid it is possible. I'm not what you…' She bit her lip. ‘I've never been anyone's mistress.'

Leo's hand came out in a slashing movement; anger throbbed in his voice. ‘You're lying. This is some game you're playing. I've told you, Angel, I don't play games.'

‘Neither do I,' she said miserably. ‘And believe what you want, Leo, but I don't think it would take long to prove you wrong.'

Leo just stared at her, his hands bunched into fists on his hips. It was as if he was trying to see inside her very soul.

Angel couldn't take the intensity of his regard. She looked down and stupidly felt she had to apologise. She quashed the impulse. ‘We didn't…there hasn't exactly been the opportunity to discuss…' She stopped. Mortified.

Leo's tone had gone from angry to icy. ‘You could have informed me when I told you I was going to take you as my mistress.'

Angel looked up, stung, anger rising. To think that she was going through this humiliation
again
. ‘How? Was I supposed to just come out with it?'

Leo just glared at her, a muscle popping in his jaw. Angel felt deflated all of a sudden. She backed away. Leo didn't let her escape his blistering gaze. ‘Dammit, Angel you should have told me.'

He stilled then, and instinctively Angel grew wary. He
asked silkily, ‘Did you come back here to sleep with me after discussing your options with your father? Like some kind of sacrificial virgin?'

Horror rose from Angel's gut. She shook her head. ‘No.
No.
How could you think such a thing? My father isn't even here, he's gone to London.'

Leo raked a hand through his hair, making it flop with unruly sexiness onto his forehead. Angel's belly clenched even now. She was aware of a pervading sense of hollow disappointment. Evidently he wasn't willing to sleep with her, to take her innocence. Suddenly she couldn't bear to be so vulnerable in front of him for a moment longer.

‘I'm going to go back to my room.'

After a long moment Leo just nodded, and said darkly, ‘I think that's a good idea.'

Leo watched Angel walk out of the room, the gaping dress showing the slender length of her smooth back in a curiously vulnerable way. He felt pole-axed. Winded.
She was a virgin
. Or was she? He cursed himself. As she'd said herself, it wouldn't take much to find out, and if he took her now, as he was aching to do, and she was telling the truth…he'd hurt her.

So if she was telling the truth she hadn't had countless lovers, hadn't been mistress to other men. It meant that his belief in one aspect of her behaviour had to be amended. For a second he again had the sickening suspicion that this was all part of some plan concocted with her father. Lead him on and drop the bombshell. But then he remembered the look of abject horror mixed with disgust on her face when he'd suggested that. It had been too real to ignore. She'd said her father hadn't even been there, and that would be easy enough to prove. Something uncomfortable lodged in Leo's chest.

He sat down on the edge of his bed and dropped his head
for a moment. How the hell did someone like her remain a virgin till the age of twenty-four? For some reason he wasn't prepared to look too closely at why that might be.

He suddenly remembered when they'd been in the study the previous evening. He'd brought her to certain orgasm, or very close. He'd been disgusted to find himself so out of control in that moment. Bringing a fully-clothed woman to orgasm—a woman who had just been caught stealing from his family! At the time he'd dismissed her reaction, not believing it, thinking she was acting. But if her reaction had been genuine it would explain the shocked look on her face, her embarrassment.

Hadn't he felt compelled to pour her that drink? And then her agitation had led her to knock the glass out of his hand…Leo looked up again at the door she'd just walked through. The certainty hit him that she was telling the truth. You couldn't fake that kind of innocence.