Читать книгу Accidental Baby - Ким Лоренс, KIM LAWRENCE - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU’LL get those lovely shiny shoes dirty if you come in here,’ Jo warned. The sight of the long legs attached to those shoes instantly put an end to a peaceful half-hour during which she’d managed not to think about anything taxing. She took her time straightening up to give her racing heart time to slow. ‘I’m feeding Napoleon.’

For a man who often bemoaned the fact that his clients could be sentimental about their animals, Bill Smith often brought home a selection of waifs and strays—occasionally one was just too unappealing or antisocial to be found a permanent home. Napoleon, a particularly vile-tempered billy-goat was one of this number, a permanent fixture for many years now.

‘A man could be excused for thinking you didn’t want me near you.’ He kept a wary eye on the goat. ‘That animal has never liked me.’

She couldn’t have asked for a more innocuous conversation; there was certainly nothing in his manner to explain her tumultuous pulse-rate and shaky knees.

‘Normally I’d say you shouldn’t endow animals with human characteristics, but in this case. . . I’ll tie him up—the bill might be hefty if he decides to eat that rather smart suit.’ Loose Italian styling in dark grey made him appear almost a stranger. ‘We don’t usually dress for Sunday lunch,’ she joked, to cover her growing confusion.

‘I don’t think I’m invited,’ Liam responded drily. ‘Your dad told me you were here.’ One dark brow quirked meaningfully. ‘I’ve a meeting, in Manchester,’ he added, casually smoothing down his silk tie.

Jo put down the plastic bucket and, hands thrust in the pockets of her jeans, she stepped out into the weak morning sunlight. ‘You’ve seen Dad, then. Was it very awful?’

‘You could say we had a frank exchange of views. His view being that I’m a selfish, untrustworthy bastard who has taken advantage of his hospitality by seducing his daughter.’

She winced whilst acknowledging privately it could have been worse. Dad’s language the previous night had been a lot less restrained. ‘I’m sorry, Liam, but he’s a bit upset right now.’

‘I didn’t say I disagreed with him.’

‘Don’t you start,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve had enough of that nonsense from him! I told Dad if anyone did the seducing it was me!’ Unpalatable though it might be, this was a fact and she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. Chin tilted, she dared him to contradict her.

Something flickered at the back of his eyes. ‘That must have gone down well. I’m surprised he didn’t turn the dogs on me.’

Jo smiled a little wanly as she thought of her father’s motley collection of other people’s rejects—one thing they all had in common was extreme docility. ‘If he had they might have drooled you to death. Do you remember when—?’

‘We need to do some serious talking, Jo.’ His expression made it clear he didn’t share her desire to reminisce. ‘You can’t act as though nothing has changed.’

He’s telling me that! ‘You prefer Greek tragedy? I’ll polish up my heart-rending sobs, shall I? You don’t have to tell me nothing is ever going to be the same—I’ve worked that out even hampered by my limited intelligence.’

He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Point taken, Jo. You just seem so. . . so calm about all this.’

She had to smile at that. He had no notion of the blind panic that had seized her when she’d first realised she was pregnant. ‘Your life doesn’t have to change fundamentally because of this.’ It was only natural he’d be concerned—having fatherhood thrust upon him was bound to be an unsettling experience.

His fingers tightened over the curve of her collar-bone and she winced. ‘Sorry,’ he grated, dropping his arm. ‘You’re assuming I couldn’t cope with the demands of fatherhood.’

The anger emanating from his tense body confused her. ‘I’m sure you could cope, I’m just saying you don’t have to. I’ll be fine on my own. . . ’ The blast of fury from his blue eyes made her voice trail away.

‘Only you won’t be on your own, you’ll have my child.’

She suddenly realised she’d been naive not to expect this possessiveness, but it genuinely hadn’t occurred to her.

‘And the child will have you too, but not on a full-time basis. That’s all I was trying to say.’ Considering the obvious depth of his feeling she was prepared to overlook his hostility.

‘But you’ll grant me visitation rights.’

‘We won’t need anything like that,’ she said, shocked by his suggestion and the bitterness in his tone.

‘You say that now, but what about later when a new Justin is back on the scene? Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to be a part-time father?’

What was he saying? They both knew nothing else was possible. She couldn’t believe this was Liam talking; he was like a stranger—a stranger, furthermore, she didn’t much like. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

‘I’m making a valid point. I’m not prepared to leave the future to take care of itself, not when it’s my child we’re talking about.’

‘Our child,’ she said quietly.

‘Pardon?’

‘Our child,’ she said, her voice moving swiftly up the scales. ‘You keep saying my child this, my child that. I am involved in this,’ she reminded him sarcastically. ‘What a fool I was to assume that this would be easier because we’re friends! If I had to have a one-night stand I wish I’d had it with a stranger! It would have made things a lot easier.’

Under his tan Liam went white and the vivid colour of his eyes seemed more pronounced by contrast. ‘We’re all wise in retrospect. It would seem you’re stuck with me as the father of your child, Jo. You’d better come to terms with the fact I’m not about to disappear.’

‘Not even to Manchester,’ she reminded him. ‘If we’re talking priorities. . . ’ She could see from his expression that her jibe had hit home.

‘I have to go,’ he bit back. ‘If I could avoid it I would. I know the tuning stinks, but I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll talk.’

‘I’ll be at work tomorrow.’

‘Stay here and wait for me.’

He had a very elegant way of moving, but Jo was in no mood to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of his retreating back. Maybe Liam was accustomed to people jumping when he started flinging his orders about, but he’d discover she wasn’t one of them. Wait here for me indeed!

‘Thanks, Justin, you don’t have to do this, you know.’

‘Despite the way things turned out, Jo, I hope we can still be civilised,’ he replied rather stiffly. But then Justin, she reflected, never had been a casual person.

‘I’m really grateful,’ she said warmly as he stacked the books she passed him into a packing case. She looked around the half-empty office with sad eyes. To her mind her personal imprint was already vanishing from the small room along with the pot plants and books.

‘I wish you’d let me speak to my colleague about unfair dismissal proceedings,’ he said with a disapproving frown. ‘It’s all most irregular—you deserve compensation.’ His legal bram disliked seeing her waste an opportunity for recompense. ‘I’d represent you myself, but it’s not my field.’

Jo was touched by his offer. ‘No, I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to,’ she said firmly. ‘Besides, they were very careful not to say, We’re sacking you because single parents aren’t good for the image of MacGrew and Bartnett,’ she recalled bitterly. No, it had been all exquisitely polite. ‘There was only ever a verbal agreement that I’d be offered the partnership this year—you know that, Justin. They didn’t actually sack me—I could have accepted a demotion.’

‘But they knew you wouldn’t.’

The shake of her head conceded this. It hadn’t mattered to her four years ago that she’d been taken on as a token female in the well-known, but deeply conservative, firm of accountants. She had been given an opportunity to show how good she was at competing with the very best. She’d thrived on the competition.

Up until now it had seemed her tactics had paid off, she’d made her mark. She’d been so good for business that she had been unofficially told she was about to be offered a partnership. At twenty-seven, she would be the youngest partner they’d ever had. That was until she’d been summoned into the boardroom that morning. A ‘reduction in her workload’ was the way they’d put it.

‘Well, I think their whole attitude belongs in the Dark Ages,’ Justin said sternly.

Despite her simmering anger and sense of injustice, Jo almost smiled. She’d never imagined she’d see the day when the ultra-conventional Justin would side with contemporary morality. Despite his looks, which made him appear rather dangerous and dashing, he really was an old-fashioned traditionalist at heart. In reality he was only dangerous in a court of law, where, by all accounts he was a ruthless litigator. Justin was a classic example of the welltried maxim ‘Don’t judge a book by the cover’, she reflected.

She cursed as the pile of papers she was carrying slipped to the floor. She dropped to her knees and began gathering them up. Justin joined her; she was rather surprised he was risking getting dust on his immaculate pinstriped trousers. Justin took a great deal of pride in his appearance and she doubted he ever wore anything that hadn’t been exclusively tailormade for him.

‘I can’t understand how you’re being so calm. When I suggested we get married, your work was the reason you gave for turning me down. Now just a few months later here you are jobless . . pregnant.’

Barefoot and starving, she silently added. ‘Thanks, Justin, it had slipped my mind,’ she responded drily.

‘I thought giving you an ultimatum, walking out, would bring you to your senses. I never thought. . . ’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘It didn’t even occur to me this would happen. I wanted a child, it was you who said you weren’t ready,’ he accused, his voice thickening.

‘I’m so sorry, Justin.’ Recognising the depth of his feeling, she touched his shoulder. She’d never actually thought he’d take his moral blackmail to its logical conclusion, and when he had she’d been devastated.

Justin looked at her hand. ‘Things could have been so different,’ he said, covering her hand with his.

‘Oh, Justin!’ What could she say? She hadn’t been able to commit herself to a more formal alliance even to save their relationship. The sense of loss was still there, but time had given her a fresh perspective on the situation and she found she could hardly recall the raw emotions of their traumatic parting now.

I must be shallow and fickle, she concluded miserably. What she’d felt for Justin had just never been going to lead anywhere; her feelings had been too superficial. She could hardly believe now she’d been so traumatised.

‘I wish it was my baby you were carrying, darling.’

I don’t, Jo realised guiltily. The strength of her certainty came as something of a shock.

‘Well, it isn’t, mate, it’s mine.’ Liam was watching the tender scene with a distinctly jaundiced eye.

‘Liam, what are you doing here?’ This guilt thing was getting rather tiresome.

‘The question is what are you doing here? I thought we arranged to meet back home this morning!’

‘You arranged,’ she told him pointedly. ‘I can’t put my life on hold while I wait for you to put in an appearance.’

‘From what I hear, your life, at least professionally, has been put on hold. Couldn’t you just do nothing until I got back? Have you really handed in your notice?’

‘Call me peculiar, but I don’t feel I’m cut out to be the office junior,’ she snapped back, placing her sheaf of papers back on the desktop

‘They made it that obvious?’

‘It’s constructive dismissal.’ Jo was grateful for Justin’s intervention; the last thing she felt like doing was explaining the whole saga yet again.

‘I didn’t ask you! What’s he doing here anyway?’ Liam asked Jo belligerently after dismissing Justin with a sneer. ‘And what sort of idiot lets a pregnant woman go heaving around packing cases?’

‘How dare you talk to Justin like that?’ she gasped incredulously. ‘I know you’re not exactly happy about the situation, but it doesn’t give you the right to abuse my friends. For your information I asked Justin to help me.’ This wasn’t strictly true but Liam needed putting in his place with a firm hand.

Justin stood up, flicked an imaginary speck of dust off his dark trousers and straightened the rose in his lapel. ‘I expect Jo was looking to her more reliable friends.’

This blatant provocation took Jo’s breath away and she suspected Justin might be regretting it too. Liam was looking quite simply murderous. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his long-legged frame was physically intimidating, she had to admit. The black leather jacket, white tee shirt and jeans he wore served to emphasise the stark contrast between the two men. Whilst it might have been Justin’s looks which had initially attracted her, it had been the undemanding nature of their relationship which had kept them together. By comparison Liam was a very demanding and unreasonable sort of man.

Liam topped Justin’s six feet by several inches. They were both dark-haired but there the similarity ended. Liam’s hair wasn’t nicely trimmed, it was thick and silky, inclined to wave and at the moment touched his collar. She knew the length and lack of style weren’t a fashion statement, he just habitually forgot to keep hair appointments. Liam had the same olive colouring as his father and, with his rather prominent nose and thick, slanted eyebrows, he had none of Justin’s smooth good looks. What he did have in abundance was sex appeal—buckets of the stuff.

‘You sound like you have something to say, Wood. Don’t stop,’ Liam drawled, ‘I’m fascinated.’

Jo pulled at the collar of her silk shirt with a hint of desperation. The air-conditioned room was suddenly stifling. Why had she never noticed how, well, noticeable Liam was before?

‘Jo, what’s wrong?’ Liam’s sharp, anxious enquiry seemed to come from a long way off. ‘Get out the way, you idiot, she’s going to faint.’

‘Don’t fuss,’ she complained weakly as she was firmly laid down on the carpet.

‘Stay where you are,’ Liam barked. ‘You want to let the blood get to your brain—let’s face it, it’s not that easy to find.’ His fingers touched the inner aspect of her clammy wrist where her pulse was lively enough. ‘Have you done this before?’

‘Done what?’ Even when she closed her eyes the black dots still danced across her vision.

‘Fainted,’ came the impatient reply.

‘I’ve never fainted in my life.’

Liam bent his head to catch her words. ‘Give me strength!’ Strength didn’t seem to be something he lacked as he lifted her up into his arms. ‘Get out of the way!’ he snapped as he collided with Justin in the doorway.

‘You’ve spilt the water,’ Justin complained, empty glass in hand. ‘You can’t do that!’ he objected sharply as Liam shouldered his way past.

‘What is it I can’t do?’

‘Abduct her.’

‘Grow up, man!’ Liam recommended tersely. ‘I’m quite happy to exchange pleasantries with you at a time of your choosing.’

Pistols at dawn, my seconds will call on yours, Jo thought, swallowing an inappropriate giggle.

‘Only right now Jo needs to get out of this place.’ She saw him dismiss the small space she’d worked so hard for with a fastidious sneer before he strode off leaving Justin staring after him, a frustrated expression on his red face.

Justin wouldn’t do anything as undignified as chase after them, she knew that. He certainly wouldn’t have made a spectacle of himself by carrying her through the heart of the plush building.

‘Poor Justin.’ It obviously hadn’t occurred to Liam to do anything as obvious as ask her whether she required being rescued—dragged off like a sack of flour. Finesse never had been one of his more striking traits.

Liam snorted. ‘Poor Justin, my foot! He couldn’t wait to get out of the room when things went pear-shaped back there.’

There was a spot just between his shoulder and the angle of his square jaw that could have been created for the specific use of supporting her aching head. ‘He’s not very good with illness—not that I’m ill.’

‘If you’d told me that earlier I wouldn’t have caused untold injury to my back.’

Even though she was still angry with him, she laughed weakly. ‘I could probably walk now.’

‘Don’t spoil it, Jo, I’m quite enjoying myself,’ he confided against her ear. ‘All these years wasted perfecting my modern man technique,’ he complained. ‘Modern man, my foot! These women go a bundle on the caveman style. I’ve never been on the receiving end of so many come-hither looks in my life! Women never fail to amaze me!’

‘Glad to be of service. Who are you planning to drag off to your cave?’ Who was he kidding? He was always on the receiving end of come-hither looks. The resignation with which she generally viewed the peculiar tastes of her fellow females seemed to have deserted her for the moment.

‘Your cave seems the best destination.’

‘My keys are m my bag, which is in the office—we’ll have to go back.’ The thought of backtracking and being the focus of all those curious eyes again made her cringe.

‘I’ve got a key, remember. If I go back in there I’ll probably throttle that overdressed, self-opinionated bore.’

‘What a trusting soul I was to give you a key,’ she said wearily.

‘Meaning what, exactly? It works both ways, remember: you’ve got my key. Do you want to sit in the front or lie in the back?’ he asked as they reached the underground car park. He placed her carefully on the floor and unlocked the four-wheel drive he drove.

‘I’m not an invalid,’ she snapped, displaying her independence by climbing into the front seat. ‘And what I mean is, I had watering my plants in mind when I handed over the key, not assaulting my friends. You’ve been watching too many Rambo movies.’

He started up the engine. ‘If life was as simple as it is in action movies I’d be a happy man,’ he admitted, with a lamentable lack of shame for his ludicrous behaviour. ‘There are roadworks at the junction so make yourself comfortable, it’ll be a long ride. You told Wood I’m the father?’ His eyes flickered to her face.

Sensational, thrillingly blue eyes that were part of his Celtic heritage. She’d never associated sensational and thrilling with Liam’s eyes before. She suddenly experienced a deep longing to step back in time and have their relationship back on its smooth, familiar footing.

‘Before your dramatic announcement, you mean? Yes, I did.’ Just as well—the poor man would probably have had an apoplexy if he’d first learnt the truth that brutally. ‘I think I owed Justin the truth after all we’ve had together.’

Liam’s nostrils flared and he made a sound of disgust.

‘Does it bother you he knows? Is it meant to be a secret?’ she shouted, her indignation rising at his sneering response.

Jo saw the flicker of anger in his eyes as he shot her a swift sideways glance. ‘It seems I was the only one not in on the secret—he probably knew before me,’ he accused thickly. ‘Forgive my confusion but I’m obviously out of date. The last time you spoke about Justin, he’d broken your heart. Or don’t you remember the occasion?’

‘I’m hardly likely to forget, am I?’

‘Neither am I, Jo.’ The inflection in his deep voice sent the colour flaring in her cheeks. ‘You didn’t tell me he wanted to marry you.’

‘No.’ She’d been distracted. Had he forgotten, or was he remembering what she had said that night?

The possibility that he was recalling the same things she was made the fine, downy hair on her forearms stand on end. A shiver slithered slowly down her spine as, dry-mouthed, she risked a swift look in his direction from under the sheltering sweep of her eyelashes.

He’d come hotfoot in response to her tearful phone call when Justin had walked out on her. She’d been too absorbed by her own misery to register the lines of exhaustion bracketing his mouth and the tell-tale shadow on his jaw. He’d held her whilst she’d wept, murmuring soothing nothings in appropriate places, sliding his fingers tenderly through her damp hair, pushing the tangled strands off her hot forehead and gently patting her back. When the storm hadn’t abated his lips had replaced his fingers on her damp cheeks, across her forehead, the tip of her nose.

Finally, when her sobs had subsided, she’d given an exhausted sigh. ‘What would I do without you?’ His tenderness brought a lump of emotion to her throat and made her voice husky. She put all the gratitude, warmth and love that filled her heart to overflowing into the kiss she pressed on his lips.

The sudden tension in him communicated itself to her immediately. Had she offended him? ‘I’m sorry. . . ’ she began, suddenly horribly afraid she’d overstepped some invisible boundary.

His blue eyes were burning with a strange light. She was ill prepared for the sudden weakness that pervaded her limbs—it went bone-deep. His glance flickered to the bare curve of her right shoulder, exposed where the baggy neck of her nightshirt had slipped. A sharp, painful sound swiftly cut off emerged from his chest.

Holding her upturned face, his thumbs running down the length of her jaw, he bent closer. Like a sleepwalker he repeated her own impulsive action exactly. It should have been chaste, clinical even, their lips were modestly closed. It wasn’t!

Frantic! When he lifted his mouth from hers she felt frantic. It couldn’t stop! He had to do that again, surely he could see that too? Through half-closed eyes she tried to read the hard lines and angles of his face.

His laugh grated on her sensitised nerve-endings. ‘Feel better now?’ He wasn’t reading the right page of the script. She shook her head in a gesture of denial; this wasn’t the time for prosaic words.

She felt a spurt of anger as he ruffled her hair, a need to lash out. Why must he always treat her like a child?

‘Do you feel better?’ she enquired in open challenge. She didn’t even try to understand the compulsion which drove her.

She couldn’t plead error in retrospect; it was quite deliberate when her hands moved under the hem of his shirt. Fingers spread, palms flat, she slowly slid her hands up over his flat, tight belly and higher still to the muscle-packed expanse of his chest. Nothing, she decided, could feel better than his warm, satiny skin—the texture was intoxicating. The deep shudder that rippled through his immobile form must have involved every muscle in his body.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

If his voice had been icily cold it might have doused the fire in her brain, but it wasn’t—it held a husky rasp that made her tremble even harder. Tremble, yes, I am, she realised, feeling oddly objective about this discovery.

‘We both know what I’m doing, Liam.’ Her voice was husky but incredibly calm. Calm was the last thing she felt, she felt reckless, and drunk on power. ‘It’s what I’ll do next that’s got me wondering.’

‘You’re not yourself.’

‘You’ve no idea what a relief that is.’ Herself was miserable, depressed. . . repressed, a small voice added.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’

‘I know that these buttons are hellish difficult. Could you help. . . ?’

He caught her wrists then, roughly, and pulled them away from his body. ‘Don’t play games.’

This had to be the most humiliating moment of her life! ‘Don’t look at me as if I’m an axe murderer! All I want is a kiss. If it’s too much trouble, don’t bother!’ she yelled, feeling totally mortified. She tossed her head and ripped her hands from his grasp. She held only a tenuous hope of salvaging even a shred of pride.

She didn’t get more than a step away before he reached her and, with one arm around her waist, lifted her feet off the ground. The impetus of his action as he turned her around drove them forwards until her back was against the wall. The breath was driven from her body.

Her head dropped forward. No wonder he was angry. She was acting like some sort of. . . of sex-starved tart. His hands were on her shoulders and she could feel his nearness from the heat of his body. She was too ashamed to look at him.

‘I’m sorry, don’t hate me. . . ’ Her voice cracked.

‘Hate? Oh, God, Jo, I could never, no, don’t cry again, darling. I know you’re feeling rejected; the bastard, I’d like to kill Justin,’ he said viciously. ‘You don’t need to indulge in casual sex to prove you’re desirable.’ She wanted to deny this analysis but he kissed the corner of her mouth, then the other corner. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but you’ll be better off without him.’

She did shake her head in denial this time, and the next kiss hit dead centre. He pulled back, but only a fraction. Jo opened her eyes; she still had her eyes open when they moved forward simultaneously. Her lips parted and there was only a momentary delay before he accepted her offer. He didn’t just accept it, he took the initiative out of her hands in a big way. She’d never experienced anything that came close to the onslaught of his lips and tongue as his teeth tugged and nipped, his tongue tasted and explored. Her body was filled with a languorous heat, her senses swam, she ached!

‘This is crazy!’ The groaned words were wrenched from him. He might have acknowledged insanity, but that didn’t stop his lips from continuing to strain hungrily against hers. His hands slipped to her hips barely covered by the plain cotton nightshirt she wore. The contact made her body jerk.

‘That’s lovely, don’t stop,’ she begged throatily. Lovely, exciting, sizzlingly erotic, it was all that and more! Jo had never felt so primitively aroused in her life. As her feet left the floor she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. She arched her back and provocatively pressed her slim, lithe body as close to him as possible.

‘Your skin’s so soft, so smooth.’ His tongue strayed over the graceful curve of her collar-bone for a moment and she whimpered with delirious pleasure.

Blindly, panting hard, Liam reached behind her for the door. More luck than judgement brought their erratic progress, interrupted as it was by gasps and moans as each new sensation was explored and enjoyed, to her narrow bed. He fell with her onto the bed, impressing her body into the soft mattress.

Her trailing arm sent the bedside light crashing onto the floor. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said as he lifted his head. She didn’t want to illuminate the scene, she didn’t want anything to intrude on the unreal quality of this incredible episode. Dark was safer.

If she paused long enough to think that it was Liam who was pulling her nightshirt over her head, and Liam whose tongue was tasting every inch of her aching breasts, it would spoil everything. She’d be left with the paradox of why she wanted—no, why she needed him to.

His need was as great as hers, even through the layers of his clothes she could feel that. He was in the grip of a desire just as blind as the one which drove her to rip at his shirt and curse softly with frustration as her fingers fumbled over the buckle of his belt.

When he took control of that problem she encouraged or very possibly distracted him with soft kisses pressed on the strong curve of his back. He lay back down and she eagerly insinuated herself closer to him, only to be momentarily thrown off her stride when he sat up again, laughing.

‘What?’ If he changed his mind now the consequences might well be fatal!

‘I’ve still got my boots on.’ Faint laughter still rumbled in the vault of his chest.

Laughter was rapidly replaced by frantic murmurs when he returned to her. Imprisoned by his heavy, hair-roughened thighs, her nostrils filled with the warm, masculine, aroused scent of his body, she lost what little control she had and every inhibition that had ever restrained her.

She wanted to taste him, touch him, and she did so with joyous abandon. The strength of his body and its eye-opening muscularity delighted her. He guided her forays with a firm hand, and in his turn touched her until her harsh gasps echoed in the dark room.

Over the years, she knew, he’d had enough practice at such things, but there was nothing slick or polished about him now. His responses were raw, his elegant, strong hands shook and his body trembled as though he were struggling against an invisible barrier. The next day her body bore the marks of his urgent caresses.

Waking at some point in the night, Jo’s mind instantly went into replay mode. The culmination of their wild, unrestrained coupling had resulted in an equally violent release. Sleepily, she tried to make sense of it. She didn’t have a strong sex drive, did she? I actually shouted! She sat up with a jolt. No. ‘I screamed!’ In the darkness the blush spread over her body.

Her action in the confined space sent the quilt slithering onto the floor. Run or retrieve the quilt? Not a complex decision, but one that taxed her flustered mind at that moment. If she hadn’t sat there dithering Liam wouldn’t have woken up!

He rolled over onto his side and threw his leg over her hip. The weight of his thigh immobilised her. ‘What did you say?’ The purr of his deep, sleepy murmur made her tense.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Yes, you did.’ He paused, obviously trawling through his sleepy recollections before coming up with the goods. ‘You said, “‘I screamed.”’

‘Nonsense.’ She tried to pull the rumpled sheet up from the bottom of the bed.

‘You did, you know. You said—’

She didn’t need reminding of what she’d said, it was branded on her memory. ‘Don’t!’ she shrieked, putting both her hands firmly over what she hoped was his mouth. It was—despite the pressure of her fingers his lips parted and his tongue flickered over the centre of her palm.

She might have denied the words but she couldn’t deny the arousing quality of the damp touch. It was ridiculous but all the strength left her body in a silent whoosh. She fell forward and put her hands out to cushion her fall. It was all part of the weird conspiracy that Liam found her hands had been replaced by the soft contours of her breasts. It wasn’t an exchange he appeared to have any problems with.

‘A gift from the gods,’ he murmured as his mouth closed around one swollen rosy peak. His actions no longer had the raw urgency of earlier, but as she lay, her body spread-eagled over his, she couldn’t doubt the strength of his arousal.

She moaned and tried to raise herself up on her elbows. ‘We can’t do this.’

Liam’s hands came up to cover the curve of her buttocks, his thumbs hooked around the angle of her hipbones. ‘Actually, it wouldn’t be that difficult and there’s a strong possibility it would be pleasurable.’ Her breath caught sharply as his tongue unexpectedly traced the still damp area of her nipple. ‘You are so sensitive it’s incredible, especially there.’

‘Everywhere.’ With you, anyway, she realised in bewilderment.

The whispered admission brought a deep purr of male satisfaction from his throat. ‘Then I’ll have to be very attentive. You’ll have to tell me if there’s anywhere I miss.’

‘You can’t say things like that to me.’

‘Why, don’t you like to hear them?’ The taunting quality in his deep, caressing tones made her throat ache. Her body was taut and trembling with anticipation so she couldn’t immediately allow herself to accept. Excitement was building inside her until she couldn’t breathe.

‘You’re sorry for me.’

‘Lust isn’t pity.’

‘Is this lust?’ He tugged her down until her face was level with his, her breasts were crushed against his chest and her knees were either side of his thighs.

‘Does it need to have a name,’ he groaned, ‘when it feels so good? You smell of me. You taste of me.’ His open mouth moved over her neck. He obviously found the discovery exciting—his body surged suggestively against her.

‘I want to. . . ’

‘What, sweetheart? What do you want to do to me?’ His breath was warm and fragrant on her cheek. His hands moved slowly, sensuously over her back, down the curve of her thigh. He flexed her knee and ran his thumb over the sensitive skin of her instep. ‘If I tell you what I like, will it help?’

Every wicked, honeyed syllable was fraying the edges of her doubts and inhibitions until they snapped. ‘I want. . . want to do everything to you,’ she half sobbed. ‘And I want you to do everything to me.’

That was the end of her resistance and the beginning—the beginning of an experience that was infinitely more intimate than their earlier frantic encounter. A slow, sensuous voyage of discovery where the power of the word was as great as the power of taste and touch.

And such words—she couldn’t think now about the things she’d said without her skin burning. She hadn’t even suspected that the male mind could contain such erotic fantasies—she ought to have been shocked, but each velvet syllable that had dripped like honey from his lips had aroused her to even greater heights of passion.

‘I’ve been thinking.’

Totally disorientated, she blinked and tried to focus her glazed vision. Her own thoughts had absorbed her so deeply she couldn’t immediately respond.

‘Are you all right?’ he persisted.

‘Yes, fine.’

‘You looked a bit strange there for a minute.’

‘Don’t fuss.’ Just as well I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, she reflected grimly. It isn’t healthy, this constant preoccupation with an incident best forgotten. What’s wrong with me? It was a one-off—well, two-off to be accurate—the result of a freak set of circumstances, nothing more. Forget it ever happened, wasn’t that what Liam had said? He’d only slept with her out of pity, she reminded herself.