The Millionaire's Pregnant Wife

As his fingers, those clever fingers, found her nipple, teasing it to the hardness of stone, she closed her eyes, drowning in pleasure and a raging hunger she couldn’t possibly have denied. She leaned forward, finding his mouth with hers, greedy to taste, frantic to give.

So she was generous, Luke thought in a rush of gratitude. Hadn’t he known she would be? Hadn’t he known how perfectly her breast would fit his palm? How the scent of her hair would envelop him?

He had to have her. He’d been a fool last night to think he could walk away from her without a backward look.

Rearing up, carrying her with him, he covered her with his body. His kiss deepened until he could scarcely breathe, his heart hammering in his ears. Or was it her heart? Swiftly he hauled her sweater further up, baring her exquisite breasts, all ivory curves and pink tips in the pale light. As he flicked her nipples with his tongue, desperate to taste her, she arched to meet him, her eyes wide-held, shining dark with desire. Her hips moved beneath him, nearly driving him out of his mind. He thrust once, twice, against the denim of her jeans, and heard the tiny cry as her breath caught in her throat.

He had to have her, Luke thought again, striving to breathe past the tightness in his chest. But not here. Not in this joyless house, in a bed not his own, where he’d been visited by nightmares.

He said jaggedly, “Kelsey, we’ve got to stop. God knows I want you. But this isn’t the time or the place.”

Had he ever done anything so against every instinct in his body? So contrary to his own impulsions?

Kelsey was clutching him by the shoulders, her nails digging in his flesh. His voice seemed to come from such a long way away that she had to struggle to take the words in. Stop, he’d said. We’ve got to stop…

Her body, so lissom, so wanton, was a stranger to her. And it was he who’d brought that about. His skillful mouth, his roaming hands, had changed her into a woman she scarcely knew.

She pushed hard against his chest, shaking her hair back, yanking at her sweater to hide her nakedness. Swiftly Luke brought a hand up to still hers. “Wait,” he said huskily, “let me look at you.”

“I—”

“You’re so lovely… Stroking you is like stroking a pearl, smooth and exquisitely shaped.”

Poetry was the last thing she would have expected from Luke Griffin. Dumbstruck, Kelsey watched his eyes wander from her shoulders to her peaked breasts, then lower to the gentle narrowing of her waist and the dip of her navel. The expression on his face brought sudden tears to her eyes. Had anyone ever looked at her like that? As though she was the most beautiful creature in the world?

It was he who then pulled her sweater down. Smiling at her, he patted her on the bottom. “Up,” he said. “We’re going to finish those boxes today if it’s the last thing we do.”

How could he switch so quickly from assaulting her with pleasure to everyday practicalities? This isn’t the time or the place… Did that mean he still wanted to make love to her? His words, those lyrical words that had melted her heart, they must have meant something…mustn’t they?

She still had her hiking boots on, she noticed distantly.

“Kelsey, are you okay?”

He was untangling himself from the sheets. He was, as she’d suspected, stark naked. Her eyes skittered away from him. “Fine,” she said in a choked voice.

“Coffee,” he said authoritatively. “An order from the boss.”

Kelsey stood up, her eyes flicking over the unmade bed, the tattered wallpaper. Anywhere but at him, in this dingy, too-small bedroom, where a man’s body had drowned her in desire. With a strangled gasp she fled the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Briefly she leaned against the panels, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. Her exit had been about as undignified as her entrance. Neither had been even remotely sophisticated.

She was beginning to hate that word.

Behind the panels she heard the floorboards creak as Luke moved around the room, and she took to the stairs as fast as she could. He’d better be fully dressed when he came downstairs, or she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.

She could have eaten him alive, devoured him without a thought for the consequences.

For once, Kelsey was glad to be in the archaic kitchen, where she now had a small area clean enough that making coffee had become a comfortable routine. As the scent of Colombian blend teased her nostrils, she hooked her bra, patted her cheeks with cold water, and tried very hard to think.

Torrid sex. She now knew exactly what it felt like.

Wonderful. Overwhelming. Powerful. Frustrating. Oh, she could go on forever.

But was it what she wanted?

Freedom to be herself, to be on her own, was what she wanted. If torrid sex translated itself into an affair with Luke Griffin—even a short-lived affair—wouldn’t she lose something she’d craved for years?

Or would she berate herself for cowardice instead? Sex, so she’d read, was supposed to free the creative impulse, feed the artistic muse. Somehow she didn’t think what had happened upstairs in that gloomy bedroom had had much to do with her muse.

With a wry twist of her mouth, Kelsey decided caffeine was necessary for tackling such philosophical issues. But at least she’d distanced herself from that woman in the bedroom who would, in an instant, have begged for more, more, more…

She was seated at the table in the room down the hall, busily working, when Luke wandered in ten minutes later. “Great coffee,” he said absently, and sat down at the adjoining table.

Just as if he hadn’t kissed her senseless only minutes ago, she thought furiously, flicking through a pile of bank statements and subduing several shrewish replies.

“Did I forget to lock the door last night?” he added. “Is that how you got in?”

“I climbed the Virginia creeper up to your room.”

He gave a choked laugh. “A cat burglar—where did you learn to do that?”

“In the ivy on the old oak tree behind our house.”

“I must remember to keep the silver locked up when you’re around.”

“You do that.”

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

He was openly laughing at her, teeth gleaming, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Her own teeth gritted, she fought against his charm. “I’m glad I amuse you.”

“You do more than amuse me—that’s the problem,” he said. “But why did you bother climbing the creeper? Why didn’t you just go home?”

“I thought you might have broken your neck on the back stairs.”

“You were worried about me?” he said, taken aback.

She was scowling at him. “Yes.”

“Oh,” Luke said. He wasn’t used to anyone worrying about him; he wasn’t at all sure he liked the sensation. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “And now we’d better get to work. We’ll quit at noon for lunch.”

If she was smart, Kelsey thought, she’d quit right now. She took another sheaf of papers out of the box and bent to her task.

She had a delightful profile, Luke decided, her nose straight, her chin with a decided firmness. She was certainly no push-over. Unfortunately, she was no sophisticate either.

He had to have her. That hadn’t changed. Even though he’d doused himself in a tepid shower and done his best to conjure up images of Clarisse and Lindsay.

His best hadn’t been good enough. They’d dropped off his radar. Kelsey was the one he wanted. And Kelsey wanted him. She was twenty-eight years old, he thought, old enough to know that affairs, by definition, didn’t last. Besides, after bringing up three boys, she must be all too ready to break out.