Page 17 of A Nine-Month Deal With Her Husband

But her temporary paralysis didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Ben was kissing her as though she held all the secrets to the universe and the answers to her most burning questions. And she never, ever, wanted to stop.

Their kiss was as hot as the wind outside was cold. Fireworks flared under her skin and the world faded away, the snowstorm and the howling wind forgotten. Ben placed his hand on her lower back and pulled her to him, her stomach pushing into his oh-so-hard erection, heady proof he wanted her.

Needing her hands on his skin, she pulled his shirt from his pants with rapid tugs and sighed when she encountered the heat of his back, his muscles and the bumps of his spine. She pushed her hand between his back and the band of his pants, frustrated when she couldn’t go any further. Their tongues tangled and Ben dialled up the heat by covering her lace-covered breast with his big hand, his thumb swiping across her already hard nipple.

This felt so good, he feltamazing. She loved the way he made her feel... Millie wanted more. She wanted everything. Immediately.

Millie reached for his shirt, but she’d barely tugged it an inch upwards when he dropped his hands and yanked his mouth off hers.What?Why did he stop? She wanted more...so much more. Their heavy breathing filled the room, interspersed by the screeching wind outside.

Ben ran his hands over his face and tugged his shirt down, and Millie noticed he was a shade paler than he was before. Millie hauled in a deep breath and slowly, oh so slowly, lifted her gaze to meet his. He didn’t, thank goodness, look as remote as he normally did. There was a faint flush in his cheeks and his eyes glittered with frustration and need.

He wanted her and their attraction was now an out-of-control wildfire blazing through drought-ravaged forests. For the first time in years, she wanted to fling herself into that firestorm, to taste fire on her tongue. She really wanted a tour of his bedroom. And his bed.

Millie knew how to ask for what she wanted, she was Icelandic enough to be direct. ‘Shall we continue things upstairs?’

Ben released a half-laugh, half-snort sound. Was he upset she asked first, because she put what they were both thinking into words? She hoped not, those attitudes were so last century. She was a liberated woman and while she wasn’t in the habit of asking guys to sleep with her, she couldn’t remember when last she did, shecould.

She tipped her head to the side. ‘I thought that men liked it when a woman takes the lead? You know, less pressure, making it easy?’ Right, she was beginning to feel a bit idiotic, as though she’d misread the situation. She might be liberated, but she was very out of practice. Had she done something wrong? Gone too fast? Come on too strong? What?

‘Right, since you’re not tugging me up the stairs, I presume that’s not something you want to do.’ She threw up her hands and pulled a face. ‘So what do we do now?’

His gaze, as it so often was, was steady and sincerity replaced lust.

‘Now, we take a breather and I see what I can find to feed you. When last did you eat?’

Really? How was she supposed to think about food when he was all she wanted to feast on? Millie rubbed her hands over her face. She’d had a cup of coffee on the plane and hadn’t eaten breakfast.

‘How did we go from a hot kiss to talking about food?’ she asked, puzzled.

He sighed. ‘Millie, you’re in my house, through necessity, not by choice. I don’t want you to feel pressurised or coerced into doing anything you don’t want to. I kissed you, that’s as far as I’ll go.’

‘But I told you I wanted—’

She tipped her head to the side, silently waiting for him to explain. After lifting his hands and dropping them in an I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing gesture, he spoke again. ‘Look, I never expected to be this attracted to you. Wanting my wife was the last thing I expected and I’m feeling a bit off balance. I expect you are, too.’

Unbalanced? No, she felt as though she’d been sideswiped by an avalanche.

His thick eyebrows pulled together. ‘It’s been a long, strange day, a puzzling one. We haven’t seen each other for more than a decade and we’ve been thrown into sharing my house for a day, maybe more. We’re getting divorced, you want a baby. We both want to see each other naked. What was once a simple deal is now complicated.’

His sensible words obliterated her impulsiveness. Millie folded her arms and rocked on her heels, feeling a little embarrassed and, dammit, grateful. While she’d been happy to skip into the inferno, he’d looked beyond their hot-as-the-inside-of-the-sun attraction to consider the consequences. She’d been impetuous, he thoughtful.

Millie wished she could argue with him, but she couldn’t. Ithadbeen an exceptionally weird day. And now, below the lust, the longing, a streak of hesitation pulsed, a layer of should she, shouldn’t she? She’d felt off balance all day and was old enough to know it wasn’t a good time to step on to a sexual merry-go-round. Nothing good came out of impulsively throwing yourself into a man’s arms...

‘Right, point taken,’ Millie admitted.

‘I’m backing off because it’s the right thing to do right now, Millie. But if you decide I’m what you want later, you just have to ask, and I’ll have your clothes off so fast your head will spin.’

Millie blinked, letting his words sink in. Getting the firestorm that they created inside her under control.

‘I’m going to head to the kitchen and distract myself by looking for something to eat for supper.’

‘Ben—’ Millie sighed. She didn’t want him to go, he couldn’t stay. She wanted him to kiss her again. She needed to find her room and take a sanity break.

She was supposed to be breaking their ties, not forging new ones. She’d come to Iceland to close the book, to put her past on the shelf, to move on.

She had to be a sensible adult.

Divorce, pregnancy, baby, a new life, her own little family. She’d made her plan—there was no space for a brief affair with her never there, stranger-husband. Ben wouldn’t be a part of her future, no man would.

---