LITMIR.BIZ

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they have.’ Lukas’s voice was quiet, but held the underlying steel Rhiannon was coming to recognise…and dread. ‘But some things remain the same.’

      ‘Your nephew might not even be Annabel’s father,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Perhaps he is not,’ Lukas agreed implacably. ‘But until the matter is resolved you will stay here. With me. When his paternity is proved—’

      ‘If—’

      ‘If,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘We will have matters to discuss.’

      Rhiannon swallowed. She didn’t want to ask what matters those might be—didn’t have the courage. I will decide what place you have in her life…if any. She had a feeling, a terrible suspicion, that Lukas would cut her out of Annabel’s life as if wielding a pair of scissors.

      And she’d started it all by coming here. By looking for Lukas.

      Had she anticipated what might happen when she found him?

      Yes, she had. She’d pictured Lukas cradling his daughter, his face suffused with tenderness. She’d anticipated shock, followed by gratitude and joy.

      She’d anticipated, she acknowledged numbly, a ridiculous happily-ever-after that was never going to happen.

      It hadn’t happened before. Why should it happen now?

      She’d been a naive, foolish idiot to think for one moment that it could.

      Lukas placed his hand on her own. His voice was a condemnation. ‘This is what you wanted.’

      ‘No, it isn’t.’

      ‘You came here to give her away,’ Lukas continued flatly, and Rhiannon shrugged helplessly.

      ‘To someone who would love her. I wanted…’ She stared down at their hands, his large brown one on top of her paler, more delicate fingers. ‘I wanted her to have a family.’

      Lukas was silent, his fingers heavy on hers. She felt his warmth, his heat, and it fanned quickly, alarmingly, into a more dangerous flame.

      Desire.

      Suddenly it was there, thrumming to life, palpable, heady, filled with possibility.

      She wanted to jerk her hand away, but Lukas’s hand was still on hers, still heavy, staying her own movements. And somehow Rhiannon knew she wouldn’t move her hand even if it were free.

      She watched as he turned her hand over, traced his thumb lightly down her palm. Rhiannon shivered. She was helplessly in thrall to him, to the barest of his touches.

      She snuck a look at him from beneath her lowered lashes, saw he was staring at their hands too, watching his own thumb flick along her palm with an almost clinical interest, as if he too were captive to a greater need than either one of them had ever anticipated or experienced.

      Then his eyes met hers, and Rhiannon was rocked to her core by the blatant need, the open hunger in them.

      He reached out his other hand, slowly, deliberately, and tangled it in her hair. Rhiannon’s mouth opened soundlessly, yet she didn’t resist as he pulled her towards him, nearly out of her chair. He leaned forward, his lips a breath away from hers.

      ‘I want to do this.’ He spoke in a ragged whisper; it was a confession.

      Rhiannon’s head swum dizzily. So do I. Yet she couldn’t quite say it.

      Lukas must have sensed her unspoken permission, or perhaps he didn’t require it, for he touched his lips to hers once—a brush, a flicker, a promise.

      Then the promise deepened into a certainty as his tongue plundered her mouth, took possession of her soul. Rhiannon’s fingers bunched on his shoulders, clawed for purchase, for sanity.

      Somehow she had slipped out of her chair, was kneeling on the hard tiled floor between Lukas’s powerful thighs. She could feel his arousal against her heart.

      His mouth continued to cover hers, plunging, plundering. Taking everything. His hands fisted in her hair, drawing her closer, binding her to him.

      The kiss went on endlessly. She’d never felt so treasured, so desired, so needed.

      So loved.

      The thought was a cold slap of reality, a mocking laugh in the stillness of their entwined bodies.

      There was no love involved here. She barely knew this man. All he felt for her was contempt, suspicion. She wanted him—oh, yes—and he wanted her.

      But that was all.

      Sex.

      She pulled away, wincing as her hair tangled around Lukas’s fingers. He was completely still, his hand still snarled in her hair, staring at her as if she were a stranger—as if he were a stranger to himself.

      His breathing was ragged, uneven, and so was hers.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked appalled, angry. Yet Rhiannon had a feeling that anger was not directed at her. Carefully he unwound the strands of hair from his fingers, smoothed the curls back from her fevered brow. ‘That shouldn’t have happened.’

      ‘No,’ Rhiannon agreed shakily, although the sense of loss she felt would have sent her to her knees if she hadn’t already been there.

      Lukas helped her back into her chair. ‘Clearly I’ve been without a woman for too long,’ he said with a cool smile, and Rhiannon’s own mouth twisted in bitterness.

      ‘That’s what that was about? Sex?’ Of course it was. She was such a pathetic fool, thinking for one second it could ever be anything more.

      Lukas sat back, looking surprised. ‘Obviously I desire you. I desired you when I first saw you.’

      ‘In the bar.’

      He looked discomfited for the barest of moments before he gave a quick, sharp nod. ‘Yes. Before any of this happened with the child the desire was there. It was real.’

      Real and warm and alive. Yet it was just desire—cheap and easy.

      Even desire could be a burden.

      It wasn’t love, and Rhiannon knew that was what she needed. Wanted.

      She’d just never had it.

      ‘We should go to bed. Sleep,’ she amended hastily, and Lukas acknowledged her slip of the tongue with a wry nod. ‘It’s been a long day.’

      ‘Yes, it has.’

      Rhiannon reached for her plate and he stilled her movement with one hand on her arm, his fingers curling around her wrist. ‘Perhaps that was a moment of comfort we both needed,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen again.’

      He spoke in warning, as if he thought she might expect a replay. Did she seem so desperate?

      Rhiannon’s nerves were splintered, her emotions in tatters.

      None of this was supposed to happen.

      ‘Well, thank you,’ she finally said, her voice strained and low, ‘for that courtesy.’ And without another word, not trusting herself to speak or meet his frowning gaze, she slipped through the door.

      She heard him leave the suite from the safety of the locked bathroom. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, her fists in her hair, her lips still burning from his kisses.

      Perhaps it was a moment of comfort we both needed.

      Damned by compassion. Pity. No doubt his misguided sense of responsibility striking once again. He’d been trying to comfort her.

      She didn’t want comfort.

      She wanted love.

      She wanted it for herself, wanted it for Annabel.

      She felt a terrible, hollow certainty that she wouldn’t find it here.

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