Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

‘Not as much as I want you, bella mia,’ Roel ground out, ripping off her last garment with more haste than care. ‘You’ve taught me that two weeks can feel like two lifetimes.’

He spread her thighs and discovered the hot, damp ache of her most secret flesh. As he explored her slick, wet heat a sobbing sound of frustration was wrenched from her and she arched in a frenzy of helpless impatience. Positioning her with strong hands, he plunged into her in one powerful movement. It was intolerably exciting. A surging wave of pleasure splintered through her. All control was gone. He was taking her to the outer limits of an exquisite peak of sensation. When it claimed her in a wild climax of shattering intensity, he smothered her cries with the cloaking heat of his mouth.

In the aftermath she was shell-shocked by her own abandonment.

Withdrawing from her, Roel stared down at her with stunned golden eyes. ‘I can’t believe we just did this…I can’t believe you’re lying naked across my desk.’

It needed only that one reminder for Hilary to recall both her surroundings and her unclothed state. She leapt off his desk like a scalded cat. She wanted to crawl under it and hide but not before she got herself decently covered again. Fighting hands that were all fingers and uncoordinated thumbs, she struggled back into her bra and pants. All around her the silence seethed.

‘You’re banned from my office,’ Roel drawled coolly.

‘Sorry…s-say that again,’ she stammered weakly, engaged in hauling up her dress with frantic hands.

‘I think you staged a deliberate power play. You came here dressed to kill with a purpose,’ Roel condemned with outrageous co

ol.

Hilary almost flung herself at him sobbing with raging hysteria. He thought she had planned her own downfall? He thought she was proud of having been spread-eagled across his desk? Was he out of his mind? Face bright red with shame, she wriggled in an agitated effort to pull up her zip for herself.

‘From the minute I came through that door, you had only one thought in your mind. Don’t you dare blame me…thanks,’ she muttered in absent aside as, noticing her acrobatic twists, he flipped her round and took care of her zip. ‘Who locked the door? Who ignored me when I tried to remind you of where we were? Who told me two weeks without sex is like two lifetimes?’

‘Hilary—’

‘And the same second you get what you want, you start acting like I threw myself at you,’ she ranted at him feverishly, because while she was still shouting and simultaneously heading in the direction of the door she could pretty much avoid looking at him. ‘Who flattened me on that desk with lustful intentions? Believe me, wild horses wouldn’t get me back inside this bank!’

Roel swept up her coat and extended it.

‘You’ve got lipstick on your shirt,’ she told him with considerable satisfaction.

Glittering golden eyes ensnared hers with bold determination. ‘Can we do this again soon?’

Hilary stared at him in mortified disbelief. ‘After you virtually accused me of setting this up?’

‘I’d like to set you up for a repeat visit, cara mia.’

‘Dream on!’ Hilary flung at him.

‘I’m a connoisseur,’ Roel murmured smoothly. ‘And sex that good is rare.’

Paling, Hilary veiled her eyes and dropped her head. He was so unemotional. With only a handful of words he could virtually flay the skin from her bones. Sex that good is rare. Just when had she forgotten how he felt about her? Just when had she forgotten that he thought of her as a gold-digging, lying cheat, who had taken advantage of him when he was vulnerable? Vulnerable. She studied Roel: a superb male animal in peak physical condition. A guy who looked at her with lust and cool mingled. A guy quite capable of having sex with her and then forgetting she existed. In short, someone likely to hurt her a good deal if she didn’t watch out…

‘This isn’t going to happen ever again,’ Hilary swore, spinning on her heel and heading for the door in a blind need to escape the scene of her own downfall.

‘Not for the next twenty-four hours at least,’ Roel conceded with velvet-smooth precision. ‘I leave for Zurich this evening. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.’

Hilary considered several counter-attacks of the don’t-hurry-home variety before deciding that any such response would be less than impressive after the mortifying way she had behaved with him. In chagrined silence she left his office. A knot of executive types wearing perplexed expressions was waiting outside. Everybody backed away to let her pass. Convinced that what she had been doing was somehow written on her pink-cheeked face, she walked to the lift at speed.

He had somehow discovered the magic combination that transformed her into a woman who acted like a slut. For that alone, she should hate him, she told herself. But at that point she recalled Roel’s own initial reactions in the aftermath of their intimacy. He had been knocked off balance by the passion that had betrayed them both. He had also informed her that she was banned from his office. Banned as though she was possessed of such overpowering appeal that only a complete embargo on her presence could keep him on the sexual straight and narrow.

She tossed her head back. A very slight swing assailed her hips while a cheeky grin of one-upmanship dared to tug at the tight line of her compressed lips.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE next day one-upmanship was not in Hilary’s thoughts when she contemplated her breakfast with an appetite that had once again chosen to disappear. She was actually feeling quite nauseous. Not for the first time in recent days either, she reflected. Had she picked up some virus? But it was not as though she felt truly ill, more as though something was not quite right.

Only while she was considering that conundrum did it dawn on her that her body was behaving oddly in other ways as well. A quick calculation on her fingers suggested that her period was a few days overdue. She recounted, but accurate dates evaded her because she had never bothered to keep a record of her cycle. She was getting her dates mixed up, she told herself. About there she froze on a very much belated acknowledgement that, from that very first night she had spent with Roel, she had done nothing whatsoever to protect herself from becoming pregnant. And nor had he.

Everything that had happened with Roel had happened so fast. Their intimacy had not been a pre-planned event. At no stage had she even thought of the risk that she might conceive a child. Had Roel been as thoughtless as she had been? Or had he assumed that she was taking the contraceptive pill? For goodness’ sake, why was she working herself up into such a state?