Page 36 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

His fingers brushed hers as he handed her the glass, and heat flooded her.

‘This is a beautiful place, Leo.’

‘Isn’t it? My first purchase after my first million. Two important firsts.’

‘Lucky you, being able to afford somewhere like this. Do you come here often?’ Kaya knew that she was buying time, which was pointless, because there was only so long she could do that.

‘When I can. I find that relaxation has never been my thing, having bought somewhere specifically tailored for that very purpose. I over-estimated my need for down time.’

‘I was surprised when you told me that you were here. I guess I didn’t see you actually going through with that plan. I don’t know why.’

‘It was a last-minute decision.’

He flushed at the admission because it reminded him of why he was here: too much over-thinking for a guy who preferred action; too much getting lost in a whole lot of memories about what had felt so good, and missing the woman who had done that—the woman sitting in his kitchen, warily watching him as though he might pounce at any minute. And that journal playing on his mind—those little clips of things his mother had secreted away in a box, hiding her past from prying eyes.

He’d left it all behind, and had seen no point in dragging the past into his present, but he had not been able to leave those feelings behind him. He had spent a lifetime bitterly side-lining the woman who had chosen to abandon him, and he had had to revisit those assumptions and make his peace with a completely new image of her.

His life had been put in a spin cycle, and not even the familiarity of the high-octane fast lane waiting for him in New York had been able to clear his head. So he’d come here. Except, he could do without being reminded of that fact, because it signalled a weakness he found hard to accept in himself. It smacked of running away.

This wasn’t how he had foreseen their first few hours panning out: Kaya sitting in guarded, monosyllabic wariness at the kitchen table while his mood plummeted ever deeper into incomprehension and impatience.

He smiled slowly, wolfishly, and strolled towards her until he towered over her and she looked up at him. It was there. He could see it—the low, burning flame of desire—and he felt a kick of triumph, because this was what he felt comfortable with. He knew how to deal with this. He could handle the physical a lot better than he could handle the turmoil of emotions. He’d had to deal with an onslaught of emotions recently, and now seemed just about the right time to put such annoyances to bed.

With a good following wind. Andsoon—the sooner the better.

He stroked the side of her face, a lazy trail on her satin-smooth cheek, and his nostrils flared as he saw her eyes wide and her eyelids flutter.

‘I don’t know how I could have forgotten how beautiful you are, Kaya,’ he murmured huskily, moving to pull a chair close, and sitting so that he was more or less straddling her chair, his thighs on the outside of hers, his finger still on her cheek, not breaking that physical connection. He contoured her mouth with his finger, tugged the softness of her lower lip and then let that wandering finger go further, tracing a path along her neck, across her shoulders and then over the tee-shirt that was just about snug enough for him to conjure up the ripeness of her breasts, the way her nipples swelled to his touch.

‘Leo...’

‘I’ve missed the way you say my name.’ He dipped his hand down, down, down...and pushed it gently underneath the tee-shirt until he was cupping her thin bra...and cursing the fact that she had worn one, because he was so turned on by her that he didn’t want the impediment of any restrictive clothing between them.

Kaya heard his words go over her head. Her mind was foggy and all she was conscious of was his touch. The way he made her body feel, the way he could make it sing... Lord, how she’d missed that—missedhimand missedthat.

In a trance, her mind emptied and she sighed and tilted her body back in the chair, conscious of him easing down her bra so that it was underneath one breast, pushing it up.

Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted as he rolled up the tee-shirt, taking his time, then closing his mouth over her nipple and flicking his tongue across the sensitive surface as he suckled and pulled it into his mouth.

She was drowning, clutching the seat of the chair until her knuckles were white, and she slid a little lower as he continued to suckle.

In her mind, she pictured the raw beauty of his body, hard for her, throbbing in its need. She half-opened her eyes, saw his dark head moving at her breast and the fog began to clear. Horror replaced pleasure. How could all that tension, anxiety and sickening panic be swept away by one touch?

She froze for a couple of seconds and then wriggled away. When she glanced down, when he detached from her breast, she saw that her nipple was slick with the wetness of his mouth and she dragged her tee-shirt down without bothering with the bra.

‘Kaya...’ He groaned, flinging himself back into the chair and closing his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them to look at her, there was naked desire in the slumberous depths of his dark eyes.

‘That shouldn’t have happened!’

‘What are you talking about? I need you. You need me. Let’s go to bed. Let’s make love.’

‘This isn’t... Leo...’ Kaya swept shaky fingers through her hair. She was appalled by her weakness, appalled by how quickly he had been able to rouse her, appalled by how shamefully eagerly she had succumbed to his caresses.

‘What’s the matter? You don’t know what you’re doing to me.’

‘You think I’ve come here to pick up where we left off?’

‘Haven’t you? Because that’s what your body was telling me a minute ago.’

---