Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 25

CHAPTER FOUR

‘NO, PLEASE DON’T tell me it’s been great!’ Grace urged Leo with a rueful laugh as, ever gracious, he saw her into the speedboat that would whisk her back to the real world, rather than the fantasy in which she had ordered her own personal perfect breakfast directly from Leo’s personal chef.

‘Why not?’ Leo demanded, strangely unsettled by her apparent good humour at leaving him.

‘Because you know it’s been a disaster for you from start to finish but you’re too polite to say it. I was absolutely not what you expected,’ Grace pointed out bluntly, taking a seat in the launch.

Leo, rarely put out of countenance, felt heat sear his cheekbones and thought that she really was extraordinarily unusual for her sex, when she said exactly what she thought and felt without chagrin, revealing not an iota of the vanity he had believed that every woman possessed. ‘I will be in touch—’

‘Not necessary,’ Grace cut in briskly as if he were a five-year-old importuning a busy teacher.

His strong jaw line clenched. ‘I will decide what’s necessary,’ Leo delivered, losing patience.

From the upper deck, Leo watched the launch convey Grace back to the marina. He was assailed by a vague sense of something unfinished...of regret? His jaw set hard as granite. He had almost asked her to stay with him until it was time for her to fly home. Why? She had spoken the truth, after all: it had been a disaster. Instead of an experienced woman and a sexual marathon he had landed a virgin and then there had been the mishap with the condom. His teeth gritted together. When he had registered that for some inexplicable reason he was in no hurry to see Grace leave, his blood had run cold on the suspicion that he was feeling more than he was willing to feel for any woman, and from that point on he had been keen to see her depart. Yet the sound of her sobbing his name in orgasm still echoed in his ears and his body hardened as he remembered all too well the tight, hot feel of hers. From his point of view, although there had been too little of it, the sex had been stellar. In fact there had been something oddly, dangerously addictive about Grace Donovan and getting rid of her fast had been absolutely the right action to take!

* * *

Three weeks after that day, Grace did a pregnancy test in the bathroom of her aunt and uncle’s home.

Her nerves were shot to hell and her mood had been on a steady downward slope for days when her menstrual cycle had failed to kick in on the expected date. Unfortunately pregnancy tests were very expensive and Grace had forced herself to wait until there was little risk of the test providing her with a potentially false result that would require yet another test to be done. And now she was bracing herself for the moment of truth even while her training had already provided her with good reason to be afraid. The very last thing she had required earlier that week was a blatantly impatient text from Leo Zikos asking for news that she did not yet have, so she had simply ignored it.

Her breath hissed in her dry throat when she studied the result: positive. Hell roast the wretched man, she thought ridiculously, why couldn’t he have been sterile? Instead they were both young and healthy and the odds had not been in their favour. Pregnant! Fear and no small amount of horror made Grace break out in a cold sweat because nobody knew better than her how very hard, if not impossible, it would be for her to complete her medical studies with a child in tow and no supportive partner. Suddenly she was furious with herself for not having protected her own body better simply because she had failed to foresee the need. She had assumed that she would always be in total control and Leo Zikos with his stunning dark eyes had shown her different. But at what cost?

Leo...stray thoughts and recollections of Leo had littered the past weeks while Grace had struggled to put the entire episode behind her and continue as normal. She had discovered that she had a softer, dreamier side to her character that she had never suspected. Well, so much for that, she thought cynically, stuffing the pregnancy-test paraphernalia back into the plastic bag to be discreetly dumped. Would she tell Leo? Undoubtedly she would tell him...eventually but not until she had decided what to do. Right at that minute she had more to worry about than taking time out to contact a male who had nothing other than money to offer her in terms of support. She suspected that Leo would expect her to have a termination and when she refused to give him a ‘tidy’ conclusion to the development he would be furious and resentful of her decision.

Would he be the exact opposite of the father she had never met? Grace wrinkled her nose, not wanting to think along those lines. She was too intelligent not to be aware that her mother had fed her daughter a steady diet of her own martyred bitterness. Sadly, Grace had been too young to be told such things, too innocent to be anything other than deeply hurt by an absent father who had never felt the need to look for his eldest child. Her father had other children now; she knew after finding him on Facebook that she had half-siblings with the same red hair, the children of the woman he had married after deserting her mother. Yet her father had pleaded for Grace to be given the chance of life before she was even born and how could she do any less for her own baby?

Grace adored babies, but she had believed that the opportunity to have children lay far, far away in her future. And now that everything had changed she was struggling not to think in either personal or sentimental terms about the baby. After all, after her own chequered experience as a child she knew that the best possible option for her baby would be an adoption by two parents with a stable home and everything Grace herself was currently unable to provide.

Didn’t she owe her child the very best possible start in life? What on earth could she give in comparison? Her own mother had frankly struggled to cope with the weighty responsibilities of being a single parent. Keira Donovan had often resented her daughter, blaming her for the loss of her youthful freedom. There had always been a shortage of money for necessities and Grace had often been left in the care of unsuitable babysitters. Most telling of all, Grace was painfully aware of how much she herself had longed to have a stable father figure when she was a child. She was terrified of failing her own child the way her mother had failed her. But while her brain reminded her of all those distressingly practical facts, a more visceral response to motherhood deep down inside her was agonised by the concept of handing her baby over to someone else to raise.

The locked door rattled. ‘Grace? Are you in there?’ It was her aunt’s voice, sharp and demanding.

Lifting the bag, Grace unlocked the door and prepared to step past the older woman.

Instead Della Donovan laid her hand on Grace’s arm to prevent her from walking away. ‘Are you pregnant?’ she demanded thinly.

Bemused by the question when she had not shared her concern with anyone, Grace stiffened, her brows lifting in a startled arc. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

‘Oh, that could be my fault.’ Jenna sighed with mock sympathy, pausing at the top of the stairs. ‘I was behind you in the checkout at the supermarket and I couldn’t help noticing the test...’

Grace lost colour. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant,’ she admitted stonily.

Her aunt, always a volatile woman, immediately lost her temper. By the time she had finished shouting, threatening and verbally abusing her niece for her morals, Grace knew where she stood and that she could no longer remain in her aunt and uncle’s home. Della had said things about Grace and her late mother that Grace knew that she would never forget. White as paper and numb with shock in the aftermath of that upsetting confrontation, she went into her room, phoned Matt and pulled out her suitcase; there was nothing else she could do. Her life, the life she had worked so hard to achieve, was falling apart even faster than she had feared, she acknowledged with a sinking heart.

* * *

At the outset of that same week, Leo had texted Grace but she hadn’t replied and he was tired of waiting and waking up in the middle of the night wondering...

In little more than two months’ time he was getting married and Marina had made him more than aware of that fact by calling him to ask his opinion on various questions of bridal trivia that he couldn’t have cared less about. Nothing more important had entered those conversations and it had convinced him that he was the only one of them with doubts.

Sadly, even the smallest doubt had not featured in Leo’s original blueprint for his future. He fixed on a goal, made decisions, brought plans to fruition and that was that. He didn’t do wondering about what if! He understood perfectly why he had ended up with Grace Donovan that night. He had been angry with Marina and full of misgivings about what their future together might hold. Regrettably, however, that still did not explain why Grace had hit him like a torpedo striking his yacht below the waterline. It did not explain why she had given him the most incredible sexual experience of his far from innocent life to date or why given the smallest excuse he would have repeated that night.

Consequently, he had checked out who Grace Donovan was while he waited to hear from her and what he had learned from that comprehensive investigation had only made him more confused. Her early childhood had been appalling and her adolescence not much kinder. It was a credit to her strength of character that she had achieved so much, regardless of those disadvantages. Yet there was still so much he didn’t understand. Why would a young woman as well-informed as a fifth-year medical student not take extra contraceptive precautions? And why had she avoided telling him what she was studying? He had also taken on board the reality that an unplanned pregnancy would probably wreak greater havoc on her life than it would on his.

When the curiosity, the unanswered questions and the need to know whether or not they had a problem rose to a critical level, Leo refused to wait to hear from Grace any longer. He gave his driver her address and compressed his lips, annoyed that Grace was forcing him to confront her. How could he walk away and hope for the best? How could he possibly risk marrying Marina without knowing for sure? The answer to both questions was that Leo could not ignore the situation, being all too well aware of the likely repercussions should Grace prove to be pregnant. On a deeper level, however, Leo could simply not believe that his legendary good fortune with women would crash and burn over something as basic as a sperm and an egg meeting in the wrong womb.

An hour later, Leo was considerably less naïve, having struck a blank at Grace’s former address. The frigid blonde in her forties who accepted his business card changed her attitude a little once she noticed his limousine and became more helpful but Leo still couldn’t get away fast enough. He really wanted nothing to do with a woman who had thrown out the mother of his future child—a phrase with a shocking depth he could not quite digest at that moment—like some pantomime little match girl and who had earlier in the dialogue referred witheringly to Grace in unjust terms that had implied she was some high-living veteran slut.

Thee mou, he was going to be a father...whether he liked it or not. Leo breathed in slow and deep, traumatised by the concept, and rang Marina straight away.

‘Oh, dear,’ Marina sighed with what he rather suspected was bogus sympathy. ‘That rather tops my misbehaviour with my married man, doesn’t it? What do you want to do?’

‘We’ll meet up and talk.’

‘No, I suspect that right now you need to be doing that with the baby’s mother, not with me,’ Marina remarked heavily. ‘What a ghastly mess, Leo!’

Leo ground his teeth together but there was nothing he could say in his own defence. He felt as though his smooth, perfectly organised life had been violently derailed without warning. Were all his carefully laid plans about his future domestic life to come to nothing now because his contraception had let him down? he questioned bitterly. He swore under his breath and gave the driver the second address he had acquired while wondering exactly who Matt Davison was and what his connection was to Grace. It was not that he was possessive, of course, it was solely the unpleasant awareness that Grace Donovan was very probably going to be the mother of his first child and the nature of her character mattered much more now than it had the night they had met.

Was he already travelling down the destructive path his father had trodden before him? His bitterness hardened. No, he was not going to marry one woman for her wealth while another, poorer one carried his child and thankfully love didn’t enter the picture in any way. Anatole Zikos had married Leo’s mother while loving his mistress and had never conquered that craving. Leo prided himself on being infinitely more down-to-earth and less emotional than his father. While his situation with Grace might be starting out as a mess, he would swiftly organise the threatening chaos into something more acceptable that both he and Grace could live with.

Grace was humming under her breath while she cooked supper, grateful that the smell of the chicken and vegetables didn’t stir up nausea the way the scent of anything fried seemed to do. At least her studies hadn’t started yet. She was at the start of a reading week, set aside for home study.

The doorbell went and she wondered if Matt had forgotten his key. Her friend’s parents had died when he was eighteen, leaving him with the means to buy his own apartment. She was comfortable living in Matt’s guest room but, concerned that she was taking advantage of his good nature, she had taken over the cooking and the cleaning to demonstrate her appreciation of his hospitality.

Barefoot, she padded out to the hall, a slim, casually clad figure in skinny jeans and a striped navy and white sweater, her vibrant long hair restrained in a braid that hung halfway down her back.

‘Leo...’ she pronounced numbly, shattered to find the leading character in her daydreams in the flesh on the doorstep.

‘Why didn’t you answer my text?’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t have an answer for you at the time.’

Leo was so close to Grace that he could tell she was wearing no make-up and the sheer glow of her creamy cheeks and bright pale green eyes knocked him flat. She was even more beautiful than he remembered and a fleeting memory of her pale hands stroking down over his stomach gripped him, resulting in a stirringly strong surge of lust that he very much could have done without.

‘Your aunt threw you out.’

‘So, that’s how you found out where I was living! My uncle came to see me the day before yesterday. He asked me to come home with him but I don’t want to cause trouble between them, so I can’t,’ Grace admitted, distinctly overpowered by Leo’s proximity because she wasn’t wearing heels and without them Leo towered over her, all broad shoulders and long powerful legs, arrogant dark head tipped back to gaze down at her. And looking up at that moment seemed a definite mistake because his brilliant dark golden eyes were framed by black curling lashes as long and striking as any she had ever seen on a man. He had absolutely gorgeous eyes that froze her to the spot and made her stare while her heart rate accelerated, her mouth ran dry and a knot of undeniable excitement tightened and then unfurled in her chest.

It’s just attraction, you dummy, she scolded herself a split second later, her skin already cooling with dismay at the strength of her reaction to him. But Leo Zikos was an extraordinarily handsome man and it was hardly surprising that she was reacting to that reality, particularly when she had already slept with him and knew that below his business suit he was even more incredibly fanciable and impressive than he was clothed. That last inappropriate thought struck Grace with such effect and so much embarrassment and self-loathing that her pale skin flamed scarlet, mortified heat crawling over her entire skin surface.

‘I’ve never seen anyone blush that deeply,’ Leo confided in wonderment, watching the flush trail down her long white throat and dapple that fine skin with a warmer colour.

‘You’re supposed to pretend you didn’t notice, not embarrass me about it further,’ Grace told him roundly. ‘I used to go through agonies blushing when I was a kid. It’s the fault of my fair skin—it’s very conspicuous.’

Leo didn’t know where the conversation had gone, but then he hadn’t come with a prepared script, and as she strolled back into the kitchen to tend a steaming wok a key sounded in the front door and someone else arrived. Leo wheeled round to inspect a fresh-faced young man in his twenties with brown hair and bright blue eyes behind earnest spectacles.

‘Matt...meet Leo,’ Grace said quietly.

‘Oh, right...er...’ The hapless Matt managed to smile at Grace and then deal Leo a very different look of angry disapproval. ‘Of course, you’ll want to talk. Take him to the living room. I’ll take charge of whatever you’re cooking.’

‘Thanks, Matt,’ Grace said comfortably, pressing open a door off the hall and waving a guiding hand in Leo’s direction.

Leo’s talent had always been reading other people and he clearly saw Matt’s suppressed hostility and Grace’s complete unawareness of it and probably of its most likely source.

‘What’s Matt to you?’ Leo asked the instant Grace closed the door.

‘A good friend...and thank goodness for him. At such short notice the university couldn’t find me decent accommodation anywhere but a hostel, so I was grateful for Matt’s invite,’ Grace proffered truthfully. ‘Matt and I are on the same course.’

‘Why did your family throw you out?’ Leo enquired baldly, stationing himself by the window of the small room, which was cluttered with books, many of them lying half-open.

Grace gave him a wry glance. ‘I think you already know why.’

‘But that news should have come from you directly to me,’ Leo told her grimly. ‘I had a right to know first!’

‘And perhaps you would’ve done were we in a relationship,’ Grace countered quietly. ‘But since we’re not, the situation is rather different.’

Even greater tension filled Leo, stiffening the muscles in his broad shoulders, his clean-cut strong jawline hardening at her stubborn reminder of facts he considered to be more destructive than helpful. ‘If you’re pregnant, we definitely have a relationship,’ he contradicted.

Grace wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, I am having your baby,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘But we don’t have to have any kind of a relationship!’

‘And how do you work that out?’ Leo gritted, becoming steadily more annoyed by her dismissive attitude.

‘I can manage fine on my own. I’m very independent,’ Grace informed him. ‘I’ll continue with my studies, hopefully have the baby during the Easter term break and give it up for adoption.’

‘Adoption?’ Leo was thoroughly disconcerted and stunned by her solution, that being a possibility he hadn’t even considered. ‘You’re planning to have our child adopted?’

Grace pleated her slender fingers together to conceal the fact that her hands were trembling while she battled to tamp down her distress. ‘I know it won’t be an easy decision to make when the time comes, Leo. I don’t want to give my child up but I was brought up by a single parent until I was nine years old and my mother really did struggle to meet the demands of that role.’

‘But—’ Leo clamped his lips shut on an instinctive protest while he fought to master emotions he had never felt before. Of course her reference to adoption had taken him very much by surprise. Even so, the very thought of never knowing his own child and not even having the right to see him or her genuinely appalled Leo. Even his own instinctive rejection of her proposition was a revelation that shocked him. ‘I don’t think I could approve that option.’

‘As far as I know you don’t legally have any say in the matter,’ Grace retorted in an apologetic rather than challenging tone. ‘Only married fathers have those kinds of rights.’

‘Then I’ll marry you.’

Grace groaned at that knee-jerk reaction. ‘Don’t be silly, Leo. Strangers don’t get married.’

Leo lifted his dark head high and surveyed her with glittering golden eyes that were mesmeric in their intensity. ‘I don’t care how we go about it but while you may not want our child, I do and I am prepared to raise that child, should that become necessary.’

It was Grace’s turn to be thrown off balance and she paled. ‘When it comes to my preferences, it’s not a matter of my wanting or not wanting the baby...it’s much more a matter of what I can offer my child and how best I could meet my child’s needs. And the truth is that as a student with no home of my own or current earning power, I’ve got very little to offer.’

‘While I on the other hand have a great deal to offer and could help you in any way necessary,’ Leo cut in succinctly. ‘And in the short term I think it would be best if you came to live in my London apartment.’

‘Your apartment?’ Grace echoed in disbelief. ‘Why on earth would I move into your apartment?’

‘Because that’s my baby you’re carrying and I intend to be fully involved in giving you whatever support you need until our child is born,’ Leo declared without hesitation.

‘I’m perfectly comfortable here with Matt.’ Grace groaned, her brow tightening with stress because Leo was saying things and offering options she had not anticipated and she had already spent several days anxiously worrying over her alternatives before coming to the conclusion that adoption was the most sensible answer to all her concerns. Now Leo was demanding a share of that responsibility and complicating the situation with his own ideas.

‘Staying here with Matt is unwise,’ Leo murmured drily.

‘In what way? He’s a very good friend.’

‘But that’s not all he wants to be,’ Leo incised. ‘Matt is in love with you.’

Grace was aghast. ‘That’s complete nonsense!’

‘A friend would be relieved when the father of your child arrived to take an interest in your predicament. But a would-be lover feels threatened and annoyed and that’s what he is,’ Leo spelled out impatiently. ‘You’re not stupid, Grace. Your very good friend wants you living here with him because he’s in love with you.’

‘That’s completely untrue.’ Strikingly taken aback by his contention, Grace turned away in an uncoordinated half-circle. She was picturing Matt, his behaviour and his caring ways while wondering if it was possible that she could have been so blind that she had not noticed the depth of his feelings for her. ‘What would you know about it anyway?’

‘I only know what I saw in his face once he realised who I was,’ Leo said grimly. ‘You’re really not doing him any favours staying on here...unless of course you’re planning on returning his feelings?’

‘Er...that would be a no,’ Grace muttered guiltily while recognising the terrible unwelcome truth in Leo’s arguments. If it was true that Matt wanted more than friendship from her, it was equally true that there was no prospect of her offering it. The intensity of her attraction to Leo had concluded for ever any prospect of her trying to make more of her relationship with Matt. From the instant Leo had taught her of her own capacity to feel so much more mentally and physically than she had ever dreamt she could feel, her former conviction that she and Matt would make a great couple had died.

‘Then move into my apartment where you will not be under pressure,’ Leo advised softly.

Grace wanted to slap Leo for cutting through all her possible protests by employing the one credible argument calculated to make her think again. Matt spent a lot of time with her. Matt was always there for her, eternally helping her and discussing her worries, but she was doing Matt a disservice by living with him if he was hoping for more than friendship from her. In that scenario the sooner she got out of Matt’s home and put some distance between them, the better, she reasoned guiltily.

‘When?’

‘I see no point in wasting time. Why not now? You can’t have that much stuff to pack. You’ve only been here a couple of days,’ he pointed out smoothly, reining back any hint of satisfaction in his demeanour.

Matt was threatening to get involved in a situation that was none of his business and Leo wanted him eliminated before he interfered and caused trouble.

Waiting in the small reception room, he listened to Matt raise his voice and Grace mute hers as she explained that she was moving out. The mother of his child, historically not a happy role in his family experience, but if adoption was in the offing he needed to come up with a viable alternative. Grace hadn’t even paused to consider the idea when he’d suggested marrying her. Cynical amusement filled Leo because he was too clever to cherish illusions about what made him so appealing to the female sex in general: first and foremost his great wealth followed by his looks and his sexual prowess. Yet Grace had thumbed her nose at that winning combination, doing what no other woman had done before in rejecting him. Although she had not rejected him the night when it all began, Leo savoured with an appreciation that was yet to pall in spite of the news he had received earlier.

A battered suitcase, two boxes of files and a pile of books now littered the hall. Matt insisted on helping them transport Grace’s possessions out to the waiting limousine and Leo’s driver climbed out in consternation to whisk the case out of his employer’s grip while two of his bodyguards grabbed up the boxes.

‘Look after her...don’t hurt her,’ Matt breathed in a charged and warning undertone before Leo could climb into his limousine.

‘I won’t,’ Leo countered, his accented drawl curt and cool, his ego challenged by the tone of that advice.

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Grace lamented, because she was already suffering second thoughts. Leo had extracted her from Matt’s flat at the speed of light.

‘Right now, you need time out to decide what you want to do next,’ Leo told her levelly. ‘A few days...a few weeks, whatever it takes. You shouldn’t be trying to make life-changing decisions virtually overnight.’

‘You don’t want me to go for adoption?’ Grace said, her slim frame tensing, her fingers folding together tightly on her lap.

‘Adoption entails you cutting me out of the situation entirely. Why would you want to do that?’ Leo queried softly. ‘I am willing to help in every way possible. There are other options and I think you should consider them.’

Grace breathed in slow and deep, fighting the sense that he was putting her on the spot because she knew that was unjust. She was in a highly stressful situation and any decision she made would put her under pressure. ‘This year of my degree I have to spend a lot of time working long unsocial hours in hospitals. Coping with that while pregnant will be a challenge.’

‘We can find some way to work around the problems. I’ve made an appointment for you with a doctor, who’s a friend of mine,’ Leo told her quietly. ‘We’re calling in with him first—’

‘A doctor? Why, for goodness’ sake?’ Grace demanded impatiently.

‘I want confirmation of your pregnancy and the reassurance that you are in good health,’ he admitted quietly.

Grace breathed in deep, suppressing her frustration. He had a right to that official endorsement, she reasoned ruefully.

Leo’s friend was in private practice and her pregnancy test was processed at supersonic speed before the suave, smoothly spoken doctor gave her a brief physical check-up and the usual advice offered to pregnant women.

Having satisfied Leo’s request, Grace was quiet when she slid back into his limousine and thinking about her baby. Possibly she had been a little too quick to consider the avenue of adoption, a solution that would enable her to continue her life after the birth as though she had never been pregnant. Obviously the idea of reclaiming normality had appeal but what sort of normality would it be when she had to live for ever after with the awareness that she had given up her baby? A cold chill clenched Grace’s spine at the prospect of that ultimate consequence. Adoption was final and could well sentence her to live with a secret heartbreak and sense of loss for the rest of her days. Suddenly, the chance to think at her leisure, while not having to worry about where or how she lived or what other people thought, shone like the most luxurious indulgence in front of her. Leo, she dimly appreciated, could talk a lot of good sense when it suited him to do so.

When they arrived at the block of exclusive apartments where Leo lived, his guards and her luggage went in the service lift, imprisoning her with Leo in the opulent confines of a far smaller and less utilitarian lift. She met his stunning eyes once and her heart stuttered as she immediately turned her head away, only to be greeted with a mirrored reflection of him instead: the luxuriant blue-black hair she wanted to tousle with her fingers, the arrogant angle of his head and the firm jut of his jaw, the sheer blazing confidence that inexplicably drew her like a magnet. Her mouth drying, she swallowed with difficulty. She felt out of step with herself, challenged to recognise the stranger she became in Leo’s presence, a stranger with random, often inappropriate thoughts and no control over her own body.

‘Stop fighting it,’ Leo growled soft and low, his abrasive accent purring along the syllables.

Grace glanced up. ‘Fighting what?’

‘This...’

And he reached for her, pulling her up against his big powerful frame with easy strength. In unmistakeable contact with the long, hard length of his erection Grace’s tummy flipped and her knees turned to water. Dangerous heat shimmied between her legs.

‘It’s crazy—’

‘The most powerful craving I’ve ever felt,’ Leo sliced in. ‘I felt it the first time I saw you. I fought it to let you walk away. But I’m done being sensible.’

Completely disconcerted by that blunt admission, Grace parted dry lips. ‘But—’

‘No...buts, meli mou,’ Leo husked against her cheek, his breath fanning her parted lips. ‘The words you’re looking for are Yes, Leo.’

A strangled little sound of amusement escaped Grace. ‘I hope you’re the patient type?’

‘Not even remotely.’ Strong arms banding round her, Leo lifted her up against him and claimed her mouth with a voracious driving passion that curled her toes and made her nails dig into his shoulder. When she made a half-hearted attempt to evade him his arms merely clamped tighter round her while he delved deeper into her mouth to send a current of fire arrowing through her quivering length. He tasted spicy and sweet and so unbelievably good she couldn’t get enough of him. She was barely aware of the lift doors whirring open or of the momentary separation of their mouths as he cannoned into a doorway with a muffled Greek expletive. Indeed the entire experience was like a time out from her brain because a hunger she couldn’t fight had taken control.