STORY EXCERPT

Aisha Wendell’s gaze rested upon the man she’d never thought to see again and her lips curved upward in a gesture of appreciation she hadn’t given them her permission to express. She had never been able to stop thinking about Leo over the years, no matter how hard she’d tried. And she’d tried pretty damned hard.

“Hello, Leo,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “It’s been a while.”

Aisha gave Leo a subtle once over, unable to find anything to quell her appreciation—at least physically. The years since they’d last met had been good to him. He was still a solid wall of muscle, drop-dead, ruggedly good-looking with a thick mane of dark hair that fell across chocolate brown eyes. The five o’clock shadow decorating his chiseled jaw only added to the tough, bad-boy aura that challenged a gal to effect a reform. Shame she happened to know he liked himself just the way he was. A class-A bastard who’d walked out on his wife the moment the going got tough and Melody had needed him the most.

“What brings you to these parts?” Leo asked. “Bit off the beaten track for a city girl like you, isn’t it?”

“I could say the same thing for you.”

“I’ve been here for a while. It suits me.”

“I saw the name over the door, but didn’t think it could be you.” Liar! “If I’d known, I’d have asked for an alternative assignment.”

“You really are the sponsor’s representative for this tournament?” Leo asked, looking like he didn’t want to believe it.

“I really am.” She flashed a saccharine-sweet smile. “Get used to it.”

“I didn’t know you worked outside of the States.”

Aisha flexed a brow. “Any reason why you should know?”

Leo half turned away from her. “None whatsoever.”

And even less reason to be interested, was what he left unsaid. Aisha was glad that she wasn’t trying to impress him. If she had been, his air of aloof disinterest would have angered her to the point of retaliation. And she happened to know that few people came out on the winning side if they went up against Leo’s sharp brain.

Ask Melody.

They were still standing a few feet apart, warily sizing one another up, and in Leo’s case, probably trying to decide what problems Aisha planned to cause for him. Wouldn’t you like to know! He didn’t believe her arrival in Nevella was an accident, and since it wasn’t, since she’d pitched for this assignment, there wasn’t much she could say to dissuade him from that view. Keep him guessing, she thought, hoping it would give her an edge.

The barman had given up all pretense at polishing glasses and was watching them avidly. Leo broke the impasse by striding toward her and turning her by the shoulders. She reacted to the touch of his hands, damn it, even through several layers of clothing. Her reaction was of the worst possible variety—liquid seeping, nipple hardening, sensation streaking—infuriating and entirely inappropriate. Aisha was Melody’s best friend and firmly in her corner when it came to her ongoing battle with Leo. She absolutely didn’t want to jump his bones. Hold that thought.

“Let’s talk outside,” Leo said abruptly.

She had little choice but to walk through the door, which, ever the gentleman, he opened for her, standing back to let her pass through it first. It was cool out on the terrace, but Leo, jacketless and in a T-shirt, didn’t appear to notice. A dog barked in the distance and a women shouted a rapid-fire string of Spanish at some hapless guy working in her garden. It didn’t sound complimentary. There was a fast-flowing river tumbling over a rocky bed directly below them. The mountain water was crystal clear and she leaned on the railing, allowing the spray to touch her face and hair as she breathed in the cleansing air, taking a moment to think what to say when Leo started asking intrusive questions about her presence in Nevella. And she knew he would ask. Leo wasn’t the passive type and would go on the offensive immediately.

He didn’t like her. He’d thought five years ago that she’d encouraged Melody to go against him. She hadn’t, but he hadn’t believed it then and wouldn’t now. She had convinced herself that she’d be able to see him, plead Melody’s case, and suppress the feelings she’d always secretly harbored for her friend’s dish of a husband. But just standing there absorbing the full force of his hostility had already convinced her otherwise. His contempt for her cut to the quick and she couldn’t even hold his gaze.

Some ambassador she was turning out to be, she thought with a wry smile.

“It’s peaceful,” she said, making an effort to appear conciliatory. Her reasons for being here aside, she needed this job and he could most likely get her thrown off it, given the influence he wielded around these parts. “I can understand why you like it here, away from all the hustle and bustle.”

“I doubt that very much.”

She turned to look at him, discouraged by the steely timbre of his voice. He stood in the lea of the building, arms folded across his muscular chest, hair blowing in the breeze. He uncrossed his arms and distractedly pushed it back into place, watching her with a speculative, not altogether complimentary gaze that unsettled her. It was as though he could read her innermost thoughts, thereby robbing her of any mystique. She had nothing to apologize for, she thought, starting to feel angry as he continued to look, finding fault but not speaking. He was the one who turned tail and ran when Melody had needed him the most, and Aisha was left picking up the pieces of her friend’s shattered dreams.

“The committee organizing this European poker tour was looking for an experienced host to keep this leg running smoothly,” she told him. “The person they had lined up had to drop out unexpectedly.” Well, that much was true. “I have that experience, as you know. I fancied seeing some of Europe, persuaded the organizers to give me the assignment and…well, here I am.”

“Tell them to get someone else.”

That did it. Aisha had been holding on to her temper by the sheer force of her will, playing nice with a man who wasn’t always nice back because she needed to make him see reason. But enough was enough. No one pushed her around without her pushing them right back.

Harder.

ADULT EXCERPT

“You need to tell me what you like, darlin’,” he said softly, running his fingers repeatedly through her hair. “I’m deeply into all that pain-pleasure shit, but I don’t want to push you beyond your comfort zone.”

“I love it, too,” she replied. “I love being whipped, but I’m willing to place myself in your capable hands. I am only here to give you pleasure, Master.”

“That’s my good, beautiful girl.” He cupped the curve of her lovely, heart-shaped face tenderly in the palm of his hand. “So beautiful,” he said, devouring her delicate features with his eyes. “So, so beautiful.”

Leo was confident in his ability to giving a woman what she wanted, even if she didn’t always know what it was that she did want from him until he revved her motor. But with Aisha he felt uncertain and apprehensive—afraid he wouldn’t meet her expectations simply because satisfying a woman had never mattered to him more.

He shook off the feeling, kicked off his jeans, and stood before her, naked and aroused. He heard her sharp intake of breath as she took in the view, and hoped her gasp was fuelled by admiration rather than trepidation. He’d received many compliments about his dimensions from women over the years and equally envious comments from men. How would Aisha respond? His cock, rigid and pulsating, jutted aggressively almost all the way to his belly button, and it was all her fault. He wanted her so much it was like an addiction. And yet this time yesterday, he’d had no idea he would ever see her again and had his obsession well under control.

“See what you do to me,” he said, fisting his shaft and giving her a better view of the goods on offer.

She moistened her lips. “I bet you said that to all the girls.”

“Can’t remember being this rigid for a long time. Probably never.” He chuckled. “You have a lot to answer for, Ms. Wendell.”

He abandoned his cock in order to reach behind her and unfasten her bra. Her heavy breasts fell into his waiting hands, plump and inviting. Pausing only to tweak the nipples, he curtly ordered her to her knees. She fell down in front of him almost before he finished issuing the demand, breathing heavily, her eyes shimmering. He reached down for her breasts and slid his cock between them, putting considerable pressure on her flesh in order to hold himself tight between the heavenly mounds. His cock was so engorged that a good four inches poked out towards her mouth each time he thrust his hips forward.

“Taste me, darlin’,” he said breathlessly. “Make me bigger for you.”

Her tongue darted out to greet his head each time he pushed it towards her sweet lips. She lapped at first, sucking up the drop of pre-cum that seeped out, then got more adventurous when he kept his hips flexed forward and sucked him into her mouth.

“Yeah, that’s it, babe. Now you’ve got your mouth full.”

Leo closed her eyes, absorbing the glorious sensations as she continued to work on him, content for now to let her take the lead. He clenched his teeth against the urge to shoot his load deep into her throat. He loosened his hold on the outsides of her breasts as his control weakened and he was obliged to move himself out of range of that magical tongue of hers before he disgraced himself. His thumbs pushed down hard on her solidified nipples, making her groan as his nails dug into them.

“I’d sure like to cream your throat, darlin’, and I will, later. But right now, I guess we need to do something about your needs.”

He released her breasts and pulled her to her feet. Her lips were moist and she licked them with the tip of her tongue—a sensual gesture that made Leo groan and his cock twitch violently.

“Let’s get you out of these.”

He unfastened her jeans and knelt so he could peel them down her endlessly long, addictively shapely legs. His hands possessively caressed the skin as he bared it. He nipped at the area behind each knee—a badly neglected erogenous zone. She murmured something incomprehensible and sank her fingers into his hair as he knelt before her, inhaling her feminine aroma, resisting the urge to bury his head between her legs and suck out the first of many orgasms he had planned for her.

She was wearing a tiny excuse for a pair of panties that matched the bra he’d already stripped from her. He chuckled when he discovered they were soaked through, worse than useless.

“Not doing you much good,” he said. “Might as well be rid of them.”

He pulled them down and threw them aside, leaning back on his haunches to study the prize he’d just unwrapped.

“Perfect,” he said softly, running a hand reverently over her waxed pussy. “Just perfection.”

He kissed her again. At the same time he ran his hands beneath her ass and lifted her from the ground. She got the message and wrapped those lovely long legs around his waist, clinging to him like a delectable vine. His cock was so engorged that it pushed against the entrance to her pussy like a heat-seeking missile locking onto its target. He resisted the urge to lower her onto it. He’d waited so long for a moment he’d never thought would come that he had no intention of rushing proceedings.

Aisha, the minx, wasn’t showing similar restraint. She, deliberately it seemed, bounced in his arms, causing her nipples to rub against his chest and her breasts to squash against it like ripe melons. Holy fuck, it was the most exquisite torture! Leo was famous for taking two subs at once into the dungeon and satisfying them both at least once each before he even thought about coming himself. But tonight, with a provocative Aisha naked in his arms, he was closer than he could ever recall being to losing control.

“Why the hell have we waited so long?” he asked, almost to himself, as he broke the kiss and put her back on her feet.