LITMIR.BIZ

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palms, his thumbs stroking over the hardening points of her nipples. Against her back, she could feel the potent evidence of his desire, hot and swollen and forceful, and the memories it roused in her made her senses swim.

      His fingers were busy with the buttons on her blouse now, easing them swiftly and efficiently from their fastenings, letting the soft white cotton ease apart. One hand slipped inside the white lacy cup of the bra underneath, drawing a shuddering sigh of response as she felt its caress against the smooth slope of her breast.

      ‘Morgan!’

      It was a choking cry of delight, of appeal, of surrender all in one, and she whirled round in the confining hold of his arms and crushed the aching tips of her breasts against his chest. Her arms went up around his neck, her fingers lacing in the darkness of his hair, and she drew his head down urgently to hers.

      His kiss felt like coming home. Hard and demanding, it pressed her lips open to the hungry invasion of his tongue, his hands twisting in her hair, fingers clenching around her skull, bringing her even closer to him.

      Heavy waves of desire rolled over her, hot and thick and hungry, swamping her mind and driving away almost all coherent thought. All coherent thought but one. Because now the word that she had dodged away from, the word she had feared, had been unable to face since she had known she would have to see him again, was the only thing that was clear inside her thoughts. Over and over it repeated, again and again, swirling round the inside of her skull like a litany of need.

      Love. That was the word she had been avoiding; the word she couldn’t bring herself to consider. It meant too much, hurt too much, laid her open to too much danger.

      But now she knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer. She still loved Morgan, always had loved him, would always love him. That was the cruellest irony of their situation. She had been forced into making him believe that she no longer loved him, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. She loved this man more than all the world, and only the love of one other human being, her child, could ever have forced her from his side.

      But now Morgan was back. His arms were round her, his lips on hers. She could see the passion in his darkened eyes, the flare of colour on the carved cheekbones, and she knew there was no way she could deny herself this. Her hands shook with the pent-up need of long months apart, making her fumble with buttons on his shirt in her haste to touch him. Really touch him. To feel the heat and smoothness of his skin under her urgent fingertips.

      ‘Easy, angel…’ Morgan murmured, his voice thickened by a matching desire, but she shook her head frantically, too overwhelmed, too lost in sensation to heed.

      At last she reached her goal, smoothing her palms over the warm flesh, the springing dark hairs with a deep sigh of satisfaction. She wanted to touch him everywhere, couldn’t get enough of him.

      ‘Morgan…Morgan…’

      She muttered his name restlessly, feverishly, the two syllables the only sound her mouth could form in between the hungrily snatched kisses as she added the unique taste of his skin to the thousand other sensations that were bombarding her awareness.

      ‘Ellie!’

      On a groan of surrender Morgan gave up all attempt to speak and swept her up into his arms. Shouldering open the door, he took her through the small living room, down the corridor, and into the ground floor bedroom. One of his cases still lay where he had dumped it on the unmade bed, but he violently kicked it aside, almost falling onto the mattress, taking Ellie with him.

      With more haste than gentleness he rushed her shirt and the delicate bra underneath it from her yearning body, and now it was his turn to use her name as a form of incantation, an expression of longing that could not be held back.

      ‘Ellie…Ellie…’ he muttered over and over, hands twisting in her tumbled hair, smoothing over her skin, sliding under her breasts, lifting them to the heated attentions of his lips.

      The first, almost gentle kisses on the creamy slopes soon changed in the space of a frantic heartbeat to hungrier, more passionate caresses. The sharp tug of his mouth on one achingly sensitive nipple made Ellie cry out in shock and delight, her body writhing in uncontrolled response to the stinging pleasure. Pushing aside his loosened shirt, her fingers clenched over the powerful bones of his shoulders, closing over hard muscle, feeling it bunch and move under her grip.

      ‘I want you…I want you…’

      She could hardly believe it was her own voice she heard, it sounded so rough and raw. But she seemed to have lost control of her tongue and the muttered plea escaped of its own volition.

      ‘You’ll have me, angel…’ was Morgan’s breathless, laughter-shaken response. ‘Just as soon as I can get rid of these—these damn clothes!’

      The red skirt was too tight, the fastening too time consuming for his hunger and, abandoning with a rough, exasperated curse the attempt to open it, he reached for the hem instead, pushing it violently up over the slender length of her legs, to bunch in crumpled disorder around her waist.

      Because of the warmth of the summer, she wore no tights or stockings and the small scrap of satin and lace that was the only delicate barrier to his demanding hands was soon discarded, tossed aside without a care for where it landed.

      ‘You too…’ Ellie muttered, fingers made clumsy with need as she tugged at the buckle of his belt, yanking it loose.

      He helped her with the single button underneath. She heard the faint rasp of the zip sliding down and caught her breath in sharp anticipation. It felt as if a hungry fire blazed deep inside her, sending rivulets of heat out through every nerve, pulsing between her legs, and she couldn’t wait for the thrusting force of his possession to ease the yearning ache.

      But something had changed. Above her, Morgan had stilled, his face changing suddenly. His expression darkened and he looked deep into her passion-glazed eyes, frowning as he searched for some answer there.

      ‘Ellie—we can’t…’

      Disappointment and the savage bite of frustrated need scythed through her like a heated sword. Totally at the mercy of her clamouring body, she turned a bruise-dark gaze on his hard, set face.

      ‘Yes, we can! We can!’ she protested as, unbelievingly, she saw him shake his head. ‘Morgan!’

      ‘Answer me one question, Ellie. Are you protected? Are you on the pill or…?’

      If he had slapped her brutally in the face he couldn’t have brought her out of the heady delirium faster or more cruelly. Ellie could only stare at him in shocked distress until, slowly and unwillingly, her mind began to realise just what he had said and why.

      Are you protected? Oh, she knew that question of old. Knew how he could express it in a way that sounded like concern for her and for her alone. But she knew the truth. And the truth was that Morgan Stafford had made it plain that he had never wanted children. Not with her, not with anyone.

      ‘No…’ she managed shakily, and the look on his face, the shock in those deep blue eyes said it all.

      Already he was withdrawing from her, moving back, putting a distance that was more than physical between them. One that tore at her heart with the pain of both the present and a past when this had divided them so savagely.

      Are you protected? He wanted to protect himself against the possibility of a child he didn’t want being created as a result of their lovemaking.

      But the truth was that it was already too late. Almost twenty months before, the protection he so valued had failed. Morgan didn’t know it but he already had a daughter. But a daughter he would never want, never acknowledge. And because of that there could never be any future for the two of them.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘GET off me!’

      The change was so sudden, so stunning that for a second or two Morgan could almost believe another woman had taken Ellie’s place.

      Gone

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