Page 18 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

Kaya stared at him. It was dark out here and she could feel the cold collecting around them, trying to find a way past her layers. His eyes were dark and glittering and he was looking at her with deadly seriousness. Suddenly the confines of the car felt very, very oppressive and the atmosphere had become electric.

Her eyes widened. When she drew in a sharp breath, she almost couldn’t release it, and when she did it was on a wrenched shudder.

‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do. This is all I’ve ever known. Okay, I knew I’d have to leave the house—I accepted that. But I just thought I’d have time to come to deal with it.’

‘I told you, I’m not going to force you to pack your bags and leave first thing.’

‘I still have so much clearing left to do. I never realised how much could accumulate in the space of a handful of years, and I haven’t even begun to go through Julie Anne’s rooms yet.’

‘That’s the locked room?’

‘She has a suite. She liked pottering there—watching telly and doing admin. It’s cluttered. I still have to go through her things, and it’s going to be awful.’

She broke eye contact but her heart thudded painfully inside her and she gripped the steering wheel for dear life.

For the first time since he’d appeared in her life, changingeverything, Kaya felt the prick of tears behind her eyes. All the arguments, all the determination to try and get him to appreciate the legacy he had inherited, had leeched out of her and she was left feeling hollow inside.

She felt his hand cover hers and heat washed over her. She looked down at his hand and then at him. She didn’t want to move because she didn’t want him to take his hand away. She liked the heat of it burning through her jacket, jumper and the million and one layers underneath.

It was a shameful acknowledgement and it left her feeling weak. It left her feeling...as if she wanted more. More than just his consoling hand on hers, more than just his kindness because he could see that she was all over the place.

She wanted him to touch her properly. She wanted him to sweep her into his arms, to kiss her, hold her close and whisper heaven only knew what in her ear. Not sweet nothings, because she was sure that wasn’t something he did.

Confused and out of her depth, Kaya tried to work out what it was, exactly, she wanted this man to do. Did she want the one thing she had always promised herself she would never want—sex for the sake of sex? For them to be two ships passing in the night with no love involved and no plans for a future? It was horrifying and scary to think that she could jettison her hard-held beliefs for someone who couldn’t have been less appropriate.

Frankly, it beggared belief.

But she was still sitting still and she still hadn’t asked him to move his hand, and when she did finally find her voice, she barely recognised it.

‘We should go in. It’s getting cold out here.’

‘We should.’

‘You’re looking at me,’ Kaya heard herself whisper and her heart skipped a beat when he smiled at her. It was the sort of smile she imagined he would deliver when he was with a woman and wasn’t busy arguing with her. A slow, toe-curling, sexy smile that made the world stop turning.

‘It’s no hardship.’

Kaya had no idea what would have happened next if he hadn’t been the first to pull back, to rake his fingers through his hair and then glance outside briefly, taking hold of a situation that had felt dangerously out of control.

She jerked back, all in a fluster. Her breath was rapid, as if she’d been running a marathon, and when she opened her mouth nothing emerged.

It was a relief when he let himself out of the car, moving round to her side to open the door. Out here the snow was still thick and deep in the places where it hadn’t been cleared.

The tyres had left skid marks through the snow like slanting exclamation marks where she had screeched to a stop, dark and muddy against the pristine white.

Kaya didn’t notice any of this. She was just aware of the beating of her heart, the racing of her pulse and the guy opening the car door.

That would be why she lost her footing. Why else? She clambered out of her four-wheel drive, and didn’t pay a scrap of attention to the deep furrow of snow banked up at the side. She didn’t trip over anything, she just tumbled into a fall—an awkward, clumsy fall—and his lunge to catch her was as clumsy because of the impediment of the snow.

But catch her he did, and he swept her up in one easy movement.

For a millisecond, Kaya luxuriated in the feel of him, his hardness against her, the strength of his arms around her. A millisecond of stolen, treacherous pleasure.

‘Put me down!’

‘Just as soon as we’re inside. Don’t lock the car. I’ll come back to fetch my computer.’

‘I don’t need you carrying me!’

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