A Debt Paid in Passion

Her hands splayed on his smooth waist while her thoughts receded behind a kiss that began to consume her. Sweet, deep arousal, a sensation she hadn’t felt in months, twined through her, coiling deliciously. It felt so good to be held. The way his breath hissed and he plundered her mouth as though he was slaking a lifetime of need caught her as nothing else could, making her strain to match his voracious desire.

As his hands slid over her shape, she wriggled and pressed into his touch, reveling in the way he shifted her into the hard plane of the door so he could sandwich her with his weight. When his hot hand rode up her bare thigh under the leg of her shorts and found no underpants, he groaned and nipped a line down her neck while his flat hand shaped the globe of her bottom, squeezed gently, massaged and claimed.

She arched her breasts into his chest and her hands went to where his rampant stiffness was nearly piercing a hole through the light silk of his pants.

“Yes, touch me,” he said raggedly and bared himself, wrapping his hand over hers with a crushing grip. His mouth came back to catch her cry of surprise while his own hand went up the front of her thigh, fingertips unerringly finding her plump, aching center and drawing a line into the wet slickness. The circling touch of his fingertip against the tight knot of nerves struck bolts of need into her core, driving her to push against his touch, squeeze him tight, kiss him with complete abandon.

He bared her breast and bent his head. She thought, I’m nursing.

The reality of what they were doing crashed into her. She shoved him back a step, dislodging his touch, making him stagger and lift his head.

There were so many reasons to be aghast. Her appalled fear must have shown on her face. His glazed eyes met hers and he drew in a breath of shock.

Maybe he was equally horrified to see whom he’d accidentally fallen into kissing.

Just the nearest woman. The one who was handy.

Hurt knifed into her abdomen, twisting painfully. Freshly humiliated, Sirena elbowed past him and fled to her room.

* * *

She slept late. That beastly man had sneaked into her room after she fell asleep and stolen the baby monitor. He was at the breakfast table when he should have been in his office. Why he wasn’t going into the city to work escaped her. It had been nearly a month since he’d had a full day there.

“Lucy?” she prompted, looking past him.

“I gave her a bottle, but she didn’t take much. She’s down, but probably not for long.”

At least that gave her an excuse to avoid him while she disappeared to pump the ache out of her swollen breasts. He was still at the table when she returned. He wore his I’ve-got-all-day-so-don’t-bother-stalling face.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said flatly, veering her gaze from the way his muscled shoulders filled his ice-blue shirt. If only she wasn’t so hungry. She folded a leg under her as she took a seat and reached for a piece of cold, buttered toast, biting into it mutinously.

He set aside his tablet and leaned his forearms where his place setting had been cleared.

“I know you can’t make love yet. I wouldn’t have taken it that far. I didn’t have protection either and I sure as hell don’t want to get you pregnant again.”

The bite of toast in her mouth turned coarse and bitter. All the hurt she’d been bottling and ignoring rose in the back of her throat to make swallowing difficult. She rose up from her chair with what she hoped was enough indignation to cover her wounded core.

“Do you think I don’t wish every day that Lucy’s father was anyone but you?” She heard the cut of his breath and knew she’d scored a direct hit, but there was no satisfaction in it. She had zero desire to stick around and gloat.

She was almost to the door when he said with sharp force, “Because I don’t want to risk your life again. Given how dangerous I’ve learned childbirth can be, I don’t intend to put any woman through that ever again.”

The statement was shocking enough to make her hesitate. She glanced back, certain he couldn’t be as serious as he sounded. His still posture and set jaw told her he was incontrovertibly sincere.

“Millions of women sail through pregnancy and deliver without any trouble,” she pointed out. “You don’t know how you’ll feel in future, with a different woman.”

He only gave her that shuttered look that told her any sort of discussion on the matter was firmly closed. She was wasting her breath if she thought she could reason with him. His rigid expression was so familiar, his certainty that he was right so ingrained and obvious, she felt her lips twitch in amusement.

It was the last reaction she expected. Her body was still humming with unsatisfied arousal, which only increased her aggravation and trampled self-worth. Her heart had shriveled overnight into a self-protective ball, but for some reason his misplaced, oddly gallant statement uncurled it a bit. He was showing the protectiveness she so admired in him, and it was directed at her. Well, all women, maybe, but it still felt kind and yes, there was even a weak part of her that took comfort in knowing he wasn’t likely to fill his life with children by other women. The thought of him making babies with someone he actually loved had been quietly torturing her.

“What’s funny?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she assured him, pressing a hand to her hollow stomach as it growled.

He rose with impatience to hold her chair. “Sit. Eat. You need the calories.”

She returned to slide into her chair as his housekeeper brought a plate of eggs and tomato.

To her consternation, Raoul sat down again.

The memory of last night blistered her as the housekeeper left them alone. She had tossed and turned after their rendezvous, trying to figure out how it had happened. For her it was simple: she still reacted to him. For him...convenience? It had to be. He wasn’t going into the city to work or to work out his kinks.

Blushing with anger and remembered excitement, she stared at her plate, picking at her food with the tines of her fork. That wild moment was going to sit between them like the wall of resentment over the missing money, filling all of their interactions with undercurrents. She needed her own space.

“I should be able to move into my flat after my next appointment,” she said.

He made a noise of negation.

She set her chin to disguise the leap in her heart. She was still processing that he hadn’t actually insulted the hell out of her a few minutes ago. Was he resisting her leaving because he wanted her here?

Pressing her knotted fists into her lap, she asked, “Sooner, then?”

“Never. I want Lucy full-time. That means you have to stay, too.”

The words went through her like a bomb blast, practically lifting the hair off her head and leaving her ears ringing. Unexpected yearning clenched in her and last night’s excitement flared like stirred coals reaching toward a conflagration. Warning bells in her head clanged danger, danger.

“There you go testing my incision again,” she said, and scooped eggs into her mouth as though the matter was closed. It was. “No,” she added in case he needed further clarification.

“Why not?” His challenge was almost like idle curiosity. Pithy and confident he’d eventually get his way.

She goggled at him. “That train wreck last night for starters,” she blurted, face seared with a mask of humiliated embarrassment. If he’d made a pass and she’d rejected him, that would be one thing, but the way she’d responded had been horribly revealing. She dropped her gaze, wishing she could take back her reaction, especially when it occurred to her he might use it to get what he wanted.

“So the chemistry between us is alive and well. We’ve successfully ignored it in the past. Maybe we’ll even look at resuming that side of our relationship once you’re fully recovered. It’s got nothing to do with my desire to raise my daughter.”

Sirena choked. “What relationship? What chemistry?” Incredulous, she leaped to her feet without being aware of it. Her entire being rejected everything he was saying. It was so cruel she couldn’t bear it. “I’m moving back to my flat as soon as the doctor clears me.” She threw her napkin on the table and started to walk out again.

“You’re going alone,” he said in an implacable tone that chilled her to her marrow. “Lucy is staying here.”

Slam. Here it was. The brick wall she had always known he would push between her and her child. Had she actually felt herself softening toward him? He was a bastard, through and through. And it hurt! He was hurting her by treating her this way and he was hurting her by not being the man she wanted him to be.

“That is not what our legally binding agreement says,” she whirled to state.

“Keep your lawyer on retainer, sweetheart. We’re going to rewrite it.”

He wasn’t bluffing. Her heart twisted while the rest of her, the part that had lost to a bully once before, put up her dukes. She had never wanted to physically harm anyone in her life, but at this moment a swelling wave of injustice pushed her toward him in aggressive confrontation, muscles twitching with the desire to claw him apart because he was striking at her very foundation.

He rose swiftly as she approached, surprised and instantly guarded, taking on a ready stance, his size the only thing that stopped her from lashing out with everything in her.