LITMIR.BIZ

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her, inviting her touch with the raw sexuality that only grief had made her resist, she refused to think of anything but the moment.

      In the back of her mind Tally knew and accepted that later their encounter would demand a strict accounting from her and just then she was painfully aware that she couldn’t face it. How could she confront the conflict and mess of responses that Sander had roused in her from the moment she had walked out of his life and match it with her loss of control over events that afternoon? But, even as she avoided examining what she was doing, she was taking strong note of the fact that the guy she had let go to reclaim his freedom was getting straight back into bed with her the first chance he got. That gave her the most colossal kick of satisfaction and pleasure. It encouraged her to entertain the stunning idea that there might not have been other women in his life since their separation. And that heady suspicion somehow made everything that had occurred feel acceptable to her.

      ‘You’re irresistible, yineka mou, ‘Sander purred, cupping a pouting breast and catching the swollen pink peak between thumb and finger so that she quivered, heat rising from the very heart of her in response. ‘I can’t get enough of you.’

      He wanted her again, wanted her even more fiercely

      than the first time, the pulse at his groin more pressing than he could bear. He crushed her reddened mouth under his again and her senses drowned in the intoxicating flood of almost painful arousal thrumming through her reawakened body. Muttering her name against her lips, he pulled her to him and turned her over, groaning his acute pleasure against her cheek as he sank his bold shaft into her lush clinging warmth all over again. And if wildness had distinguished their first bout of intimacy, control and steady intensity distinguished the second. As he held her fast and plunged into her velvety depths again and again her excitement reached a height she had never dreamt of and she forced her face into a pillow and bit into the soft cloaking fabric to suppress the cries of a pleasure beyond bearing.

      Afterwards she was so weak she couldn’t move and it was a blessed relief to allow the limp heaviness of her exhausted body to simply slump in the shelter of his cradling arms. For the first time in more months than Tally wanted to count she felt both content and happy and she fell blissfully asleep reassured by that conviction. Everything in her world might be in turmoil but it was a turmoil that felt astonishingly right.

      Around dawn she wakened with a start and sat up, disorientated. The curtains weren’t drawn and morning light was stealing across the furniture in shades of peach and gold. But all that mattered to Tally in that instant was the reality that she was alone. The pillow beside hers was dented but empty; and the sheet was cold when her palm traced an investigative sweep across it. She leapt out of bed as though jet-propelled and paid the price for that impulsive movement, wincing as muscles stretched and complained and an ache between her thighs reminded her all too bluntly of how she had passed the night. It was the work of an instant to snatch up the bedspread and cover her nudity within its shimmering folds.

      Tally peered out of the window and saw without surprise that the helicopter was gone because, when she thought about it, she did have a dim distant memory of the noise of its take-off at some stage of the night. Sander had slept with her then gone, and she felt gutted, not to mention feeling like the worst female fool since the start of the world. Like a woman in a bad dream, shattered and without any proper objective, she wandered down to the ground floor, stiffening in dismay when she heard a noise coming from the kitchen and almost retreating back upstairs again. A cleaner? Housekeeper? After all, both the flower arrangements and the level of cleanliness made it obvious that the house was being efficiently looked after.

      A dark head appeared in the doorway and Sander, an impressive bronzed figure clad only in form-fitting silk boxers, gazed up at her with glittering dark eyes of enquiry.

      ‘I thought I heard something. I thought…’ But she bit back the remains of such a revealing admission, determined to save face. ‘I wondered where you were.’

      ‘I was making breakfast,’ Sander announced with staggering cool as if it were something he did on a regular basis rather than an entirely new departure for him.

      Unshaven, hair still springy and damp from a shower, Sander looked as drop-dead gorgeous as a glossy tiger on the prowl. But no four-legged animal could have sported his muscular six-pack and long powerful thighs. Her heart was racing, her tummy flipping as she moved instinctively closer. ‘Breakfast?’

      ‘Just toast and coffee,’ he declared in case she might be at risk of expecting something more ambitious, which, with his track record, was most unlikely.

      As she padded into the spacious kitchen diner she picked up on the smell of charred toast in the air. The windows were wide open, presumably to clear the lingering fug of smoke. ‘The toaster here is rubbish,’ Sander proclaimed in exasperation.

      He made coffee so black and strong it was like treacle and it would upset her stomach, she reflected ruefully; he couldn’t cook, either—he couldn’t cook to save his life. He thought he could cook but his tools or his ingredients always let him down, whether it was a faulty oven timer or temperature gauge or a tough cut of meat. Convinced that any idiot could cook, he had no patience and was prone to taking disastrous shortcuts. She could picture what had happened this morning: he would have stood over the ‘faulty’ toaster and cancelled the operation because he couldn’t be bothered waiting for the toast to pop up on its own time. Then, when the bread was partially done, he probably had put it in the toaster again and it had burned. But Tally was touched that he was making what she could only interpret as a romantic effort on her behalf, even if his attempt to give her breakfast in bed was more likely to burn the house down.

      ‘I’m not very hungry,’ she said, trying to be helpful because the toaster was sending up a warning plume of smoke again and she crossed the kitchen to switch it off before it could set off the fire alarm.

      Sander pulled her back into the heat of his big powerful body and growled, ‘I’m only hungry for you—we shared a fantastic night, moli mou.’

      Her memory leapfrogged in some discomfiture over the dynamic night of intimacy that they had shared. He had been insatiable, while she had been wildly, encouragingly responsive to his every move and he had made a lot of them. Indeed his seemingly limitless hunger for her body has struck her as distinctly gratifying when she considered the number of options he had to have as a single male soon to be in full repossession of his freedom. But was very satisfying sex enough to power a reconciliation? Was such a far-reaching idea as ditching their divorce petition even on his mind? With Sander it didn’t pay to make assumptions because he was not predictable, nor was he particularly conventional.

      A stray thought came out of nowhere and assailed Tally. Reacting to it, she tugged free of him and yanked open the refrigerator, staring in at the packed shelves of fresh produce with wide suspicious eyes. While she mulled over that thought she poured two glasses of fresh orange juice and handed him one. ‘Have you been renting this place out?’

      ‘Of course not,’ Sander asserted with hauteur. ‘I don’t want strangers here. This was our home.’

      There was only one other explanation for that very well-stocked fridge and it struck Tally like a wake-up call that blew away the cobwebs of a night in which she had enjoyed very little sleep. As she drank her orange juice her brain was suddenly functioning again. Her smooth brow furrowing, green eyes wide with suspicion, she flipped round to study his lean darkly handsome face. ‘Did you set me up for this?’

      Sander quirked a winged ebony brow. ‘What are you talking about?’

      And, that fast, Tally knew that Sander had flown to France with an agenda and that she had been seduced to plan within an inch of her life. ‘You planned to see me here, you even planned to spend the night here with me and you set the scene—that’s why there are flowers everywhere and the kitchen has been stocked with food.’

      ‘Would you have preferred to have gone hungry? Or to have slept in a damp bed?’ Sander enquired in bewilderment, clearly not seeing what all the fuss was about. ‘We could hardly stay in comfort in a house that has been empty for so long.

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