A Ring to Secure His Heir

Feeling the blush begin as far down as her chest, Rosie winced and nodded.

‘Maybe it’s being pregnant,’ Alexius suggested lazily, scanning her glowing face framed by her moonlight-pale fall of hair with a growing hunger of his own that had nothing to do with his stomach. He ached for her in the most painful of ways and it brought out primal instincts he hadn’t known he possessed.

‘Maybe the baby likes protein.’

‘Why were you talking to yourself?’

Rosie closed the doors of the refrigerator. ‘Just thoughts I was having … I couldn’t sleep …’

Like an agile cat, Alexius shifted soundlessly a couple of steps closer. ‘Thoughts about me?’

Rosie settled scornful green eyes on him. ‘Why on earth would I be thinking about you?’

‘Why would I be thinking about you?’ Alexius traded, very much in unfamiliar territory because he had never before discussed feelings or thoughts with a woman.

‘I’m stressing you out?’ Rosie suggested teasingly, trying to kick her brain back into gear, trying not to let her gaze linger on him the way it wanted, needed to as if being away from Alexius even for just a few hours left her with a deficit she had to meet.

‘Thee mou … you’re so beautiful, moli mou.’

Rosie almost laughed out loud but then she saw his eyes and realised that he meant it, truly believed it at that moment and gratification blossomed inside her. For a long, timeless moment they exchanged a look and her heart began to thump really fast in her chest. A hand closed round her wrist and exerted a gentle tug to draw her closer. Brain, she shouted inside her head, heart rate rocketing like an express train, brain, get back here right this minute. His hands closed around her waist as he lifted her to him and their mouths clashed with the frantic, feverish longing that powered them both. She tasted him and she couldn’t get enough of that taste. You weren’t going to do this, her brain reminded her at that point. Shut up, she told it, fingers delving into luxuriant black hair as she strained against him, her body in an electrifying state of anticipation that she couldn’t quell. She kept on kissing him as the ache between her thighs built and thrummed through her like a storm warning.

‘I’ve never stopped wanting you since that night,’ Alexius growled, thrusting back the door into the hall and heading for the stairs.

‘Was that a complaint?’ Rosie asked through swollen lips, thrilled that he had gone on wanting her in spite of his failure to call and the subsequent bombshell of her pregnancy, but all the while knowing that there were other more important things she should be thinking about.

‘No. You make me feel alive for the first time in years,’ Alexius fired back, taking the stairs two at a time with her cradled securely in his arms like a captive. ‘I like it, but I don’t like it when I can’t touch you.’

The admission jerked a tripwire in Rosie’s brain. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this …’

‘We haven’t done anything yet,’ Alexius reminded her darkly.

Her hand lifted to trace the frustrated curve of his sensually full mouth while her eyes connected with the hungry urgency of his. The desire, she realised, was a two-way street and the knowledge strengthened her: she was not the only one suffering withdrawal symptoms, feeling weak in the hold of fighting off those unwelcome promptings. She couldn’t be near him without wanting to touch him and perfectly understood his frustration at not being able to touch her. He kissed her again, his tongue delving with erotic skill, and the world spun dizzily around her. He dropped her down on a mercifully well-sprung bed in a lamplit room even larger than her own and straight away, separated from that big powerful body of his and the devastating allure of him, she remembered what she had wanted to ask him about.

‘Who’s Adrianna?’

Engaged in unzipping his jeans, Alexius glanced

at her with a frown of surprise. ‘Someone I slept with months ago.’

‘Not a serious relationship, then?’ Rosie pried helplessly.

‘I don’t do serious.’

Rosie knew that strategy very well, had enjoyed several first dates with men who couldn’t relax until they had assured her of the same thing. It had amused her that a man could feel the need to warn her off before either of them even got to know each other, but for some reason it did not amuse her when the same phrase fell so smoothly from Alexius’s lips. ‘So, why were the journalists asking about her, then?’ Rosie persisted doggedly.

‘Adrianna gave several interviews to magazines implying that there was more between us than a brief affair. That happens a lot to me with women,’ Alexius admitted, coming down on the bed beside her like a naked bronzed god, or at least a massively aroused naked bronzed god.

‘Aren’t you the popular one? My goodness, it’s no wonder you have an ego the size of the sun!’ Rosie quipped.

Alexius laughed, the tension in his features roused by her questions vanishing. He didn’t always know where he was with her and that was another first for him with a woman. ‘Have I?’

‘Totally,’ Rosie whispered, lying back on his big bed and feeling remarkably like a seductress. It was the way he was looking at her, those light eyes glittering against his brown skin and eating her up as though she were an amazingly desirable creature and she liked the feeling.

‘It doesn’t impress you, though, does it?’

‘No, but I was impressed when you ran up the stairs carrying me,’ Rosie told him truthfully, allowing a hand to settle on a broad bronzed shoulder, exulting in the heat and strength of him.

‘You don’t weigh any more than a child.’