by Kim Lawrence
‘I don’t want my child growing up with a father he sees every other weekend. I want to be an integral part of his life.’
‘I appreciate that,’ she said softly. ‘But you have to see that living under the same roof, but leading separate lives, is a non-starter even in a house as big as Underwood.’
He frowned. ‘Who said anything about leading separate lives?’
Megan went pale. ‘Well, naturally I just assumed…’ She swallowed and directed a questioning look at his chiselled features. ‘You’re not serious…?’
‘I’m deadly serious,’ he assured her grimly. ‘Actually I’ve never been more serious in my life.’
Megan lifted a hand to her spinning head. ‘You want us to live together…? Live together like…share the same…?’ She gulped and began to shake her head vigorously.
‘Isn’t that what I’ve been saying? It’s the practical solution.’
‘I don’t want to be practical,’ she wailed. ‘I want…’ Her eyes lifted to his and she stopped dead just before she blurted out the forbidden, I want you to love me!
Luc wasn’t sympathetic. ‘You don’t want to be pregnant but you are; people do things they don’t want to all the time.’
Megan found this contention deeply depressing, she had to assume that living with her came under the heading of Things he didn’t want to do. His what’s-your-problem attitude stemmed from the fact he was willing to do anything for the sake of his unborn child.
There were any number of flaws in his reasoning, which Megan suspected had more to do with emotion than common sense, but she had to admit he made his case pretty effectively. If she said no she would be putting her own selfish needs before those of their unborn child. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself.
‘What about love?’
Luc studied her in silence for a moment before responding, ‘You want me to say I love you?’
‘I want you to consider the very real possibility that one or both of us will fall in love for real at some point. What’s that going to do to our child?’
‘I’m not going to fall in love with anyone.’
‘It’s not something you plan.’ She could attest to this personally. Had she planned to walk into that flat and find a man who would change her life totally? ‘And you may have given up hope of finding a soulmate, but I haven’t.’
Luc’s regard became cold as stone as his eyes narrowed on her flushed defiant face. ‘Did you have anyone in particular in mind?’
Megan frowned; his soft query confused her. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘He wouldn’t happen to be called John, would he?’
‘John? I don’t know any—’ She broke off, a bubble of laughter forming in her throat. ‘John…you mean John Saxon, my estate manager?’
How many Johns did she want? he wondered sourly. ‘The John who runs the estate single-handed, the one who is waiting your return with bated breath.’
‘John is very attractive, but he celebrated his sixtieth birthday last year. It was a great night—his wife, three sons and eight grandchildren were all there,’ she said, taking malicious pleasure from the bands of dark colour that appeared across the angles of his cheekbones.
‘Were you jealous? My God!’ She gaped, studying his face. ‘You were, weren’t you?’
Luc’s mouth thinned. ‘I don’t want another man bringing up my child.’
‘Well, there’s not much chance of that happening in the near future,’ she admitted.
‘So you’re not planning on falling in love?’
‘That’s an extremely stupid question.’
‘Humour me and answer it.’
‘Like I already told you, it’s not the sort of thing you plan,’ she retorted, studying her feet. ‘But as I can’t rule it out totally at some future date,’ she lied, ‘you’d better get used to the idea.’
His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I don’t damn well want to get used to the idea!’
‘That’s not a very sensible attitude.’
‘Sensible!’ His sensual upper lip curled in derision. ‘Sense doesn’t come into any of this. No buts,’ he added before she had even opened her mouth. ‘Just sit there and be quiet while I make you some food.’ He scanned her face with an unnerving laser-like intensity before pronouncing, ‘You look absolutely awful.’
Luc was efficient in the kitchen, but then, she thought, he did everything efficiently. The omelette, which he filled with mushrooms and chives from a pot on the window ledge, was delicious. The crusty bread he spread with butter was equally tasty.
Luc brought the food to her on a tray, which she balanced on her lap. He didn’t eat; he just sat and watched her, which ought to have put her off, but once she started eating Megan discovered she was so ravenous that nothing could stop her enjoying her impromptu meal.
‘Thank you, that was delicious,’ she said primly when her plate was clean.
‘I feed all the women I get pregnant.’
The self-recrimination in his voice made her frown. ‘I don’t blame you you know.’
He removed the tray and shot her a strange look. ‘I know you don’t.’
Megan puzzled over his somewhat enigmatic response as she listened to him banging things in the kitchen area. After a long, exhausting drive and all the days tension, a full stomach and the warm fire had a predictable effect.
She’d just close her eyes for a few moments.
The next thing she knew the room was in darkness. Her fingers touched an unfamiliar throw that was laid over her. Totally disorientated, Megan sat bolt upright with a start.
‘Don’t panic,’ a voice in the darkness soothed.
It all came flooding back. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘That you did.’ Luc flicked the switch of a table lamp and a gentle glow illuminated the big room.
‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’
She ran a hand over her hair and found one side was sticking up. She tried to pat it down. Luc was the sort of person who didn’t get sticky-up hair; he was the sort of person who managed to look perfect no matter the situation. Now was no exception to this rule. Looking at him, she was engulfed by a wave of longing so intense it hurt.
He looked amused by the question. ‘For what reason?’
‘Well, I can’t drive back home tonight…’ Her glance drifted towards a darkened window. ‘What time is it anyway?’ she wanted to know.
‘Ten.’
‘What?’ she groaned, pushing aside the throw. ‘I’ll never find a hotel room now.’
‘There’s a perfectly good bed upstairs.’ He saw her expression and he gave a cynical smile. ‘And a perfectly good sofa here, which I will take, and,’ he added, ‘there are clean sheets on the bed.’
Megan was not happy with the arrangement but she accepted the inevitable with as much good grace as possible under the circumstances.
There were no blinds on the roof windows in Luc’s big bedroom so she could lie in bed and see the stars above. She could also see the time on the dial of her watch.
She consulted it now and found that it was three-thirty, five minutes later than the last time she had looked! Perhaps a drink of milk might help…?
The getting of the milk involved going downstairs where Luc was sleeping. But, she reminded herself, Luc sleeping wasn’t a problem—it was Luc awake that she had to worry about.
Without switching on the lights she slipped quietly downstairs. She winced and froze warily when the electric light from the fridge spilled out into the dark room. Tensely she waited…but no voice in the dark demanded to know who was there…
Clearly Luc was a deep sleeper.
Obviously she was relieved. She didn’t want him to wake up and find her there; that would be really stupid.
Her foot on the bottom step, she stopped and turned back…Impulse…? Isn’t this what you planned to do all along? Her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would wake the sleeping man. Isn’t that what you want…?
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nbsp; With a frown she dismissed the intrusive voice in her head and stood looking down at the shadowy sleeping figure. She couldn’t see his face, but the blanket spread over him had fallen down to waist level as he slept, revealing that he was naked at least from the waist up. Below…? Do not go there, Megan!
She looked with longing that made her throat ache at the smooth, supple line of his strong back and the deliciously defined musculature of his broad shoulders. The muscles low in her belly cramped.
What am I doing? She pressed a hand across her tight, aching breasts. If he woke up now what would she say? I couldn’t resist a quick peek…? In the darkness a flush of mortification spread over her skin.
She was literally about to turn away when a deep voice enquired, ‘Well, are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to get in?’
Megan froze like a startled animal caught in the beam of a strong headlight as Luc flipped over onto his back.
‘You’re awake,’ she gasped stupidly.
‘Of course I’m awake.’ The scathing derision in his voice was mingling with a distinguishable note of strain.
In the semi-darkness their eyes locked.
Still holding her gaze, he flung back the thin blanket and Megan saw that his naked state extended below the waist. Her entire body started to shake; even in this light there was no mistaking his state of arousal.
‘There’s no room,’ she protested weakly.
‘Underneath me…on top of me…’
Megan gave a low moan of sheer lustful longing. She pulled the tee shirt he had given her over her head in one smooth motion. She stood poised, her pale body gleaming translucently and heard his sharp intake of breath.
‘Your feet are cold and you’re shaking!’ he said as she slid in beside him.
‘So are you,’ she discovered. ‘You have no idea how much I have wanted to touch you,’ she admitted, running her hands over the lean, smooth contours of his body and making him shake a lot more.
‘Tell me about it,’ he invited.
Megan did.
At some point in the night he carried her upstairs to the big bed.
When she complained that the bed had gone cold Luc laughed throatily and said that there was a tried and tested method of warming up a bed.
As he pulled her beneath him and touched her in her most secret places with a skill that was simply devastating she wondered if he had utilised his bed-warming skills with anyone else in this particular bed.
She pushed aside the intrusive question and let the tension flow from her body. Why spoil what was perfect by wanting more? What Luc was giving her was more than she had ever imagined experiencing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LUC, behind the wheel of Megan’s car, stopped in the village to fill the car with petrol. Megan took the opportunity to nip to the village shop, which was next door. The place, which smelt of newly baked bread, was amazingly well stocked. Megan peered at the amazing selection of cheese and cooked meats in the cold cabinet and the attractively displayed local organic vegetables, commenting on the fact to the woman behind the counter.
‘If we want to encourage people to shop locally and not go to the big supermarkets in town we have to give them what they want.’
This sounded like good business sense to Megan, who left with some locally produced cheese, which the woman had personally recommended, as well as the two fat Sunday newspapers she had come in for.
Luc was sitting in the car waiting for her when she got back, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. She slid in beside him. They had agreed to drive in shifts—at least, she had agreed and he had said nothing at all, which to save argument she had decided to believe equalled assent.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Like there’s so much choice? Though you can get pretty much what you want in the shop. I bought some blue smelly cheese.’ Luc laughed when she attempted to read the Welsh label on it.
‘I know the one and it is delicious, but you can’t have any.’
Megan’s chin went up. ‘Because you say so.’ If he thought he could go around issuing autocratic decrees left and right and she would meekly sit there and take it, he was in for a disappointment.
‘Because you’re pregnant and pregnant women should not eat, amongst other things, soft cheeses.’
‘Really…?’
His sensual lips curved upwards. ‘Really.’
Megan shook her head; this being pregnant was a minefield. ‘How on earth did you know?’
He inserted the ignition key. ‘I’m well read, talking of which…’ His pained glance touched the pile of newspapers on her knee. ‘What do you intend to do with those?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat them. What do you think I’m going to do with them? I’m going to read them.’
‘While I’m driving?’
‘Well, not while I’m driving.’ What was his problem?
‘Broadsheet newspapers?’
‘You prefer tabloids?’
His lips moved in a spasm of fastidious distaste as she selected a paper and cheerfully tossed the other one over her shoulder. The pages scattered over the back seat. His thoughts were diverted from the unreadable quality of crumpled papers when Megan then crossed her legs, long, sexy, go-on-for-ever legs. She proceeded to balance one edge of the paper precariously on one knee, leaving the other to flap against the driving mirror.
‘I’d prefer you didn’t distract me while I’m driving.’ Luc, whose eyes were riveted to the expanse of smooth, rounded thigh her knee-crossing action had exposed, fully appreciated the irony of his comment.
Tight-lipped, she folded the paper with a lot of loud sighs. ‘Am I allowed to talk?’ she enquired spikily when she had disposed of the newspaper in the back seat. She had seen him look at her legs and was excited and trying desperately not to show it.
‘I’m a captive audience.’
Megan looked at his hands on the wheel, and a freeze-frame image flashed across her retina—an image straight from a fantasy, only it hadn’t been, had it…? She really had sat astride him and pinioned his hands above his head? Not that he had seemed to mind very much.
The memory of her depravity and how much she had enjoyed it sent her body temperature soaring by what felt like several hundred degrees in the space of a single heartbeat.
‘I don’t feel like talking,’ Megan grunted, turning her face away from him. She looked out the window and tried really hard to concentrate on the scenery. In direct contradiction of her earlier comment she almost immediately added, ‘About last night…’ Did she imagine that his hands tightened on the wheel?
Up to that point neither of them had commented on the sleepless night they had shared. Megan, exhausted, had drifted off to sleep near dawn. When she had woken up she had been alone, a holdall sitting in the middle of the bedroom. Then Luc had walked into the room minus clothes and modesty!
Megan, who had been taking a sly peek into the bag, almost fell over. Her eyes had moved in helpless approval of the sleek, muscular lines of his incredible body. His skin, still dusted with water droplets had gleamed the colour of old gold.
A disturbing half-smile had played about his fascinating lips as he’d continued to towel his dark hair dry.
‘I can think of better uses for that towel,’ she croaked, tearing her hungry eyes from his body.
‘It’s not like you’ve not seen it all before, and I think you’re wearing enough for both of us,’ he commented, turning his amused attention to the blanket she had arranged sarong-wise to cover herself. ‘Nice outfit, but not really suitable for the journey. You’d better get a move on,’ he added casually, flicking the towel in her direction. ‘There’s a severe gale warning out for later. I don’t fancy getting caught in the middle of a storm. You do remember agreeing to me moving in on a trial basis?’
Last night, she would have agreed to anything he’d suggested. The way she remembered it she pretty much had. Once Luc had got over his concern about
sex not harming the baby, he had been pretty inventive.
‘I remember everything.’
She still did, which made bringing up the subject now hard, but she had to know.
Luc slowed at a crossroads and squinted up at the signpost partially hidden by a hedge. ‘What part of last night specifically did you have in mind?’
‘It was all pretty incredible,’ she responded with a husky catch in her voice. Beside her she was aware of Luc inhaling sharply. ‘At least I thought so…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I have to know…’
He slid a teasing look at her flushed face and turned left onto a quiet country road. ‘If it was good for me?’
She shook her head, then, aware that his attention was on the winding road, explained. ‘I have to know if you slept with me because you wanted to get me to agree to you moving in.’
There was a long silence. Megan risked a peek at his profile, it was totally unreadable as he concentrated on the road ahead.
‘In a kind of look-what-you’d-be-missing sort of way?’
Megan’s heart sank. There was no anger in his voice, his manner was almost indolent, but the deliberate pauses in between his words just screamed with it.
‘If that had been my motivation, would it have worked?’
Megan heaved a massive sigh. ‘Oh, God, yes…totally,’ she admitted. ‘I have absolutely no will power where you’re concerned,’ she revealed rashly.
A long sibilant hiss escaped through his clenched teeth, as if this piece of devastating honesty was the last thing Luc had been expecting to hear.
‘I had no ulterior motive last night beyond the fact I haven’t thought of anything else but having you in my bed since that first time. Does that make you feel better?’
Megan didn’t reply, she couldn’t, her vocal cords simply didn’t function—for that matter nothing else did either. Better, he had said! Catatonic might be more apt.
