by Annie West
‘I was doing you a favour. Your lawyers thought so. You should have seen their relief when I explained what I wanted.’
‘You think I live my life to please lawyers?’ His fingers clamped harder.
‘I was doing the right thing.’ Her chin jutted and her brilliant eyes met his unerringly. ‘You didn’t want a permanent wife. If you had, I’m sure you’d have expected a pre-nup. Circumstances have changed and I wanted you to know I’m not hanging around, aiming for a share of your wealth.’
Not hanging around? Was that why her passport was out? Warning jangled, and Thierry yanked her body full against his, soft to his rigid frame. He let go of her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her, pinioning her.
Memory assaulted him. Of that woman last night, her body pressed to his, her lips against his mouth. And all he felt was disgust. Because she hadn’t been Imogen.
It was his wife he wanted. No one else.
That truth had hammered at him all day. There’d been no evading it, no matter how he’d tried.
Imogen had burrowed under his skin, destroying his interest in other women. That was bad enough. Worse was the fact she now acted as if she didn’t want him! She deliberately provoked.
‘What did I ever do to suggest I believed you were after my money?’ His words were sharp as a lash, and he felt her tense. He breathed deep, nostrils flaring as he dragged in the scent of damp, sweet woman. ‘When have I ever insulted you as you’ve insulted me? You make me look like a mercenary, gullible fool, scared you’re going to fleece me. A man who needs saving from his own decisions!’
‘That wasn’t my intention.’ Her eyes widened. This close, he caught the shock in those sherry-brown depths.
‘You think I’m so incompetent I need protecting from my actions?’
‘I think you’re overreacting.’ Her finger jabbed his chest. ‘I saw your expression after the doctor said I wasn’t ill. I saw your doubts.’ She tried to stare him down. ‘You were wondering if I’d deliberately misled you, weren’t you? You suspected I was some gold-digger who’d set up an elaborate scam.’
Fury spiked in Thierry’s gut, because for a split second the question had surfaced. That was what his lawyer had warned. But Thierry had dismissed the idea. Instead, he’d trusted her, ignoring any such doubt as unworthy.
How many men would have done that?
Besides, Imogen’s reaction at the doctor’s news had been absolutely genuine.
‘What you saw was shock,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. ‘You’ll pardon me for that, given everything that went before. Or are you the only one allowed to be taken by surprise?’
‘It was more than surprise. You were quiet. You weren’t...’ For a split second he’d have sworn he read vulnerability in her expression but then she shoved her finger into his chest again, as if he were at fault.
He, who’d done nothing but look after her from the start!
‘Weren’t what?’ he growled.
She shook her head and a slick ribbon of dark hair slid over her shoulder. ‘You’re saying you weren’t regretting this marriage? You weren’t regretting me?’
‘You think I’d rather the doctor had confirmed you were dying? That’s what you think of me?’
Deliberately, he lashed his anger higher, ignoring the fact there was a grain of truth in her words—he’d never expected to have a real marriage, only a short-term solution to the problem of caring for Imogen and her child.
Her eyes held his. ‘Why are you so angry, Thierry?’ Her breath came in short bursts that pushed her breasts against his torso and sent need quaking through him. Being close to her spun him out till he teetered on the brink of control. ‘I don’t understand. I was trying to do the right thing, making it clear I didn’t expect more from you.’
He stared down at the mutinous line of her mouth. The mix of anger and hurt in her eyes.
Why was he angry?
What she said made sense. Yet he didn’t want that sort of favour. At some deep, primitive level her action carved at his honour, his masculine pride.
Was it the careless way she spurned the fortune he’d worked like a slave to secure that needled? Or that he couldn’t conquer the unfamiliar mix of emotions she’d stirred?
Or was it that the gesture felt like a rejection of him?
He hadn’t known rejection since he was twenty and Sandrine had chosen another man. Since then he’d ensured his liaisons were short and easy, ones he could walk away from without a backward glance. Always he was in control—the hunter, the seducer, the one to leave.
The thought of Imogen spurning him made him wild. The fire spread from his belly, coursing out in molten waves.
‘Why have you got your passport out?’
She blinked. ‘I wondered if I should book a flight to Australia. Clearly, you’re not going to want me here long term.’
‘Clearly?’
Her eyes skated away from his, and he felt something loosen inside.
‘I don’t belong here, Thierry. That’s obvious.’
He ignored the strange, queasy sensation her words provoked. ‘You were going to run away?’
Her gaze met his again in a clash that should have struck sparks. ‘Of course not. I was waiting till you came home to talk about it.’ For the first time he read hesitation in her expression. ‘Now you’re here we can discuss it. Just give me time to get dressed.’ She gripped the towel tighter and made to take a step back. But he didn’t let her go. Instead, his arms closed hard around her.
Imogen’s head jerked up, consternation battling something he couldn’t identify in her expression.
Why was she worried? She wasn’t afraid of him. She’d made that clear. She was ready to walk out on him.
‘No.’ The word emerged from his tight throat. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
She scowled and shoved her hands against his chest as if to push him away. The movement shifted the towel, revealing a tempting sliver of peachy, pale skin. ‘What’s wrong with you, Thierry? I don’t understand.’
Nor did he. That made his anger burn brighter. The fact that it was instinctive, uncontrollable, totally inexplicable.
He just knew that none of this was right.
He’d be damned if he’d let her leave before he worked it out.
‘Then understand this.’ Hauling her to him, he took her mouth in a swooping kiss that started as punishing but morphed in a heartbeat to urgent, hungry, demanding. Desperate.
A moment’s hesitation, a stillness that made something like fear rise in him, then her lips opened beneath his like a fragile blossom responding to sunlight.
This was what he wanted. What he’d craved. Imogen’s fragrance, her taste, invaded his senses, a sweet, addictive flavour that blasted the back off his head as she tentatively moved her mouth against his.
One arm lashed about her waist and his other roved up to cup the back of her neck, supporting her as he bowed her back. She clung to his shirt and he knew a surge of triumph.
A shudder racked her, and he felt it from his mouth, down all the places where their bodies melded, right to the soles of his feet, braced wide to support them both. His brain told him to pull back; he was being too rough. Then he heard her little throaty moan, tasted it in his mouth.
He knew that sound. Imogen losing control. Imogen turning to flame and rapture in his arms. Imogen abandoned and eager.
Thierry’s anger drained and with it the fear he’d refused to acknowledge. Fear that he’d lost her. Energy coursed through him; arousal weighted his groin and turned his body from flesh and bone to forged metal.
In a single, unhesitating movement, he swept an arm beneath her legs and scooped her up against his chest. Still they kissed, their lips fused with a passion that obliterated all else.
Her ar
ms crept higher till he felt her fingers against his neck, holding tight. He wanted to whoop in exultation. Except that would mean lifting his mouth from hers. And the way she was kissing him, as if she’d been starved of him, just as he’d been without her... He refused to give that up.
Thierry spun round, lifting his eyes just enough to navigate into Imogen’s bedroom.
Six strides and he was beside the bed. An instant later and she fell onto the coverlet, and he with her, arms around her, his body pressing her down. She hitched her arms tighter around his neck and pressed her mouth urgently against his.
With one hand he wrenched back the towel from her damp body, his fingers brushing soft flesh and dissolving his brain. Urgently, he fumbled at his belt buckle. He couldn’t recall ever being this desperate, this uncoordinated.
He breathed hard through his nostrils, trying to find focus. He would have lifted his mouth but Imogen gripped his skull so hard he succumbed to mutual hunger and contented himself with fumbling one-handed.
One slim, bare leg slid alongside his, then folded over the back of his thigh, as if trapping him against her.
Did she really fear he’d withdraw now?
Not with the taste of her on his tongue, vanilla sugar and feminine spice. Not with her mouth demanding, playing, teasing his. And her body moving sinuously beneath him. Those tiny, circling movements drove him insane. He had to get naked, quickly, before he lost it.
He’d lost count of the weeks since he’d had Imogen. It felt like half a lifetime. The need for her rose, eclipsing all else. Finally, he wrenched his belt undone, then the button on his trousers. But in the process the back of his hand brushed the soft, warm skin of her belly.
A shaft of awareness struck him. Not sexual awareness but something new. Something powerful and tender. Bracing himself better on his other elbow, he turned his hand and spread his palm over her stomach.
There was a roaring in his ears, a pounding like a hundred horses behind his ribcage, and a strange new sense filling it. It was wonder, possessiveness and a fierce tug of protectiveness all rolled into one.
Imogen’s head fell back and suddenly he could breathe again, though in rasping breaths so harsh they tore at his lungs. Or maybe that was because of the look in her eyes. It was something like wonderment and it erased his searing temper in an instant.
Thierry slid his hand lower, entranced by the incredible silky texture of her flesh and the fact that his child lay nestled there.
He wanted to pound himself against her, fill her hard and fast till they lost their minds in ecstasy. But thought of the child gave him pause. Exultation warred with caution—the primitive against the civilised.
‘Our baby,’ he murmured, stunned by the reality of it.
Imogen’s hand covered his, gently pressing. Her eyes glowed as if he’d just given her the best compliment in the world.
‘I thought you didn’t really want it.’
He shook his head. In truth he hadn’t thought too much about it as a living, breathing child. He’d focused on getting through the pregnancy, seeing Imogen cared for. Intellectually, he’d understood there was a baby, but touching her belly, knowing that new life lay just centimetres below his palm... It was a humbling experience.
He shook his head. ‘I would never reject it.’ That, at least, was the truth.
* * *
Imogen lay panting, watching expressions flicker across Thierry’s strong features. He’d taken her from zero to two hundred in a heartbeat with that glorious, savage kiss that had melted her bones. Now his tenderness threatened to melt her heart.
Our baby. Finally, he’d said it. More than said it. He felt how special this was—it was there in his touch, his stillness, his expression.
Suddenly, he was moving and Imogen bit back a cry as he levered himself away. She had to clench her hands to stop herself reaching for him.
But he didn’t go far, just pulling back far enough to strip the towel wide, leaving her completely exposed. He bent, his mouth grazing her belly softly in a caress that drew her skin tight with wanting and wonder.
Imogen looked down at his glossy dark hair against her skin, that proud face, his large, capable hand clamping her hip while his lips skated across the place where their baby lay.
Her heart turned over at Thierry’s tenderness, and stupidly, tears pricked the back of her eyes. Rapidly, she blinked them back.
‘You really do care about the baby.’ The revelation tightened her throat.
His eyes met hers and connection throbbed between them, strong as the beat of her heart. ‘Of course I care.’
Imogen shook her head, confused by what she thought she saw in his eyes. ‘There’s no need for this...us.’ She stumbled over the words, hating the idea that, for the sake of their baby, he might pretend to want her too.
‘No need?’ His dark brows scrunched together.
She tried to hitch herself higher in the bed but his weight imprisoned her.
‘You don’t want me. There’s no need to pretend.’
‘Not want you?’ His eyes rounded.
Imogen looked away, too aware suddenly of her nakedness. ‘When I went to your room, when I wanted you, you rejected me.’ Sheer pride kept her voice steady when it felt like she was crumbling into a thousand humiliated pieces.
‘Listen to me, Imogen.’ His hand was warm and compelling as he cupped her chin, turning it so she was forced to meet his gaze. ‘I never, not even for a moment, stopped wanting you.’
‘But—’
‘But I tried to ignore that because I needed to look after you. I thought you were too sick, too fragile—’
‘Fragile!’ Her eyes bulged.
Thierry nodded. ‘I was trying to protect you from me.’ Slowly the grim line of his mouth eased into a rakish smile that made her heart dance. ‘But you’re not ill now, are you?’ His voice grazed her nerves like suede on silk.
Imogen opened her mouth to argue, to probe, but abruptly he was gone, sliding down her body. ‘Thierry?’
He positioned himself low, his strong hands urging her thighs up and out, leaving her wide open to him. Imogen’s breath stalled, her protest disintegrating as those midnight-dark eyes snared hers. His mouth dipped to touch her in that most sensitive spot and a shiver of powerful excitement shot through her. She’d waited so long for his loving. Wonder filled her at the idea he, like she, had suffered from the careful distance they’d maintained.
Imogen swallowed hard, but before she could formulate words his mouth caressed her again. This time the bolt of pleasure rocked her to the core.
Seconds later, her heart quivering from the smoky expression in his eyes, the flames erupted and her whole body lit up from the inside. The climax was more powerful than any Imogen remembered. She found herself sobbing his name, her hands biting his shoulders as waves of pleasure rolled through her.
Afterwards he didn’t smile. There was no satisfaction like he’d shown in the past when she hadn’t been able to contain her response to him. His expression was serious, completely intent as he gently lowered her legs, stroking her thighs till the racking shudders of ecstasy abated.
Through half-closed eyes she watched him undress, revealing the lean, powerful body that was so superbly masculine and honed to perfection. His movements were methodical and slow, as if he didn’t understand how much she needed him, even after that climax. No, because of it. She needed Thierry, his body joined with hers.
Finally, he covered her with his hard frame, careful to take his weight on his arms. Heavy thighs pressed against hers, the rough silk dusting of his chest hair tickled her nipples and she sighed, relishing his heavy erection nudging her.
Imogen clutched his shoulders, trying to draw him closer, but he resisted, his jaw locked in an expression of determination that flummoxed her. But soon she u
nderstood.
It wasn’t enough that he’d already reduced her to white-hot ash with that blast of sexual release. He was determined to do it again, with his superb body and his hand between her legs.
‘I want you. Now,’ she gasped, letting go of his shoulder and reaching for him. But she’d barely brushed her fingers across that hot erection when he captured both her wrists and shackled them above her head with one hand.
‘Thierry!’ But his mouth met hers, stopping her complaints, and all the while he made love to her with a slow, sure eroticism that made her tremble all over again. Heat sparked anew and she jerked hard beneath his touch as rapture took her.
How long he pleasured her she didn’t know but she saw stars over and over again. Her breathing fractured and her body was limp and boneless from an overload of delight.
All the while those dark eyes held hers, his touch sure and fatally sensual, dragging response after response from her. Imogen told herself she should have stopped him, demanded what she wanted. But how could she when it seemed he knew her better than she did? He played her body like a maestro conducting a symphony. A symphony that left her euphoric and sated.
She felt as if those caresses had indelibly imprinted him on her body, marking her as his, so that in future she’d respond to no man but him. She was lost in the heady delight of his touch, his slow, seductive kisses and the magic he wove.
Finally, he came to her, joining them with one slow surge that brought him right to the heart of her. For an instant he held steady there and she wondered if she’d ever know again such a sensation of being one with another being. It was wonderful and scary and, despite her exhaustion, arousing.
Wrapping her arms around his slick torso, she held him close. He was determined to take things slowly, his movements measured, despite the way his heart pounded. Looking up, she saw the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the grit of a jaw locked, as if in pain. His heat was like a furnace, branding her.
A flash of suspicion hit. Was he afraid he’d injure the baby? Was that what kept his powerful body so tight?
As soon as the notion surfaced she knew it was true. He’d been mightily aroused from the moment he’d confronted her in the bathroom and still he held himself in check.
