Elizabeth Lane - A Secret Seduction

Wide and indignant, her eyes flew to his face. A moment later her tension fell away and she was laughing in response to the gleam in his blue eyes. Then the gleam changed, became not amused, and she looked away quickly, her heart thudding, her mouth dry.

‘How would you like it if I drew attention to your flaws?’ He didn’t have any—at least not physical ones.

‘You brought your hips into this discussion,’ he reminded her. ‘Not that I’m complaining, and if you’re going to tell me you have any self-esteem issues don’t waste your breath.’

His heavy-lidded glance moved from her lips, sweeping downwards over the length of her sinuous, sleek, leggy frame. No woman could be as unselfconscious in bed as Angel had been if she was not happy in her own skin. She had taken pleasure from her own body as much as she had from his, and he had never known a woman to display such fascination with his body before or since.

Without warning a piercing stab of pure lust sliced through him, raising the level of his arousal painfully as he allowed the door in his head to open a crack for the memories to push through, not in a controlled way but in one hot, steamy rush. His brilliant eyes darkened and glazed with licking flames as he saw...felt...her hands gliding over his skin, the moisture of her tongue.

Her lovemaking had been as generous as her cushiony soft lips... It had never crossed his mind for a split second that she had been a virgin, not even when she had been so tight when he had entered. There had been that shocked little cry, but he had taken that as a compliment.

Maybe you didn’t want to know, Alex?

The sudden audible crack of his finger joints made Angel’s questioning gaze shift from his extended fingers to his face. The golden skin was pulled taut across his magnificent bones; his angular jaw was tensed; his eyes remained hidden by the luxuriant sweep of his preposterously long eyelashes.

She could see the tension in the rigidity of his powerful shoulders as he reached down and took her hand.

‘You shouldn’t be sitting here in the midday sun.’

She didn’t react to his impatient tone; she reacted to an unacknowledged desire to make contact and to the fizz of electricity through her body that made her head buzz as she allowed him to pull her to her feet.

When she pulled her fingers free they continued to tingle. She held her hand against her chest and struggled to take control of her breathing...and then found she was virtually panting! Acting like some sort of sexually deprived bimbo was sending out all the wrong messages.

Or, more worryingly, the right ones!

Her laughter was as uninhibited as her lovemaking had been in his thoughts.

‘I will personally guarantee your physical safety.’ He arched a brow and held out a hand towards her. ‘I have said something that amuses you?’

She looked at the hand and thought, You don’t make me feel safe. A lot of other things, but not safe.

‘I don’t require a bodyguard.’

Their glances connected and suddenly the fizz between them made it hard for her to breathe.

‘How about a charming companion and lunch?’

‘Really?’ She made a pantomime of looking around. ‘Where would I find one of those?’ she asked, before adding almost shyly, ‘Lunch would be good.’

When her desperate attempt at humour did not produce even a half smile Angel huffed a sigh. ‘I am hungry,’ she admitted, thinking, Where is the harm? And she was doing this for Jas. She wasn’t looking for a soulmate, but that was no reason to deprive her daughter of a dad. Though that did depend on the dad.... And how was she meant to judge if he was good enough for Jas if she ran away every time she saw him?

What sort of man was he?

Oh, she’d read the stuff on the internet and knew about the wealth, the enigmatic reputation that had resulted in some wild speculation, and she took all that with a pinch of salt, but the man did come across as a mass of contradictions.

They walked in silence along the path that led from the beach through sweet-scented pine trees. Once or twice she looked up at the tall man walking beside her and he seemed lost in thought and showed no inclination to engage her in conversation. This suited Angel, who made no attempt to break the stalemate, though, as she mockingly told herself, in order to get to know him she might have to speak at some point.

As they reached the place where the path entered the hotel’s gardens Alex took a left turn instead and opened a gate marked Private that had always previously been locked.

‘Where are we going?’ She had her answer as they rounded the bend and a small cove came into view. It was empty but for the motor launch moored off the rocks.

‘For lunch. Careful, the rocks are slippery.’

‘I thought we were going to the hotel.’

‘We’re not.’ He did not elaborate.

‘I can see that,’ she returned, ignoring his hand. She was making a point, a trivial one perhaps, but it felt important to emphasise the fact that she could cope alone. Or was she simply prepared to fall rather than risk experiencing the electrical surge that occurred whenever she touched him?

With a frown she pushed the intrusive suggestion away and, with one hand out to balance, the other holding the heavy swathe of her hair out of her eyes, she inched her way cautiously down the rocks, aware that landing on her bottom would prove both painful and humiliating.

Her refusal to accept a helping hand, literally, brought a small ironic twist to his lips. The action encapsulated the woman: stubborn, reckless and damned irritating. But he conceded as he watched her from the vantage point of the boat that she really was the most incredibly graceful and alluring creature he had ever seen.

There were very few people who could make slipping and slithering look elegant, but she was one of them. His jaw clenched as he restrained himself from flying to her rescue after a particularly spectacular lurch.... If she fell and broke her beautiful neck it would serve her right.

This was no path, thought Angel, more a free climb, and the appeal of clinging to a rock face with nothing to harness you for pleasure passed Angel by. She decided it was a case of practicality over pride, but a few feet from the end of the rocky path she did not refuse the hand he reached out. She’d made her point and it was quite a leap into the boat.

He had made it look easy, of course.

‘Thank you.’

His ironic grin broadened as he clasped her hand, then vanished as she landed. The momentum of her landing sent her crashing into his body and the flash of heat that slid down his front caused his smile to fade. His heavy eyelids lowered, hiding the hard, hungry look in them, as his hands on her elbows pushed her away and he directed a cool, ‘Steady!’ to the top of her head.

Concealing the fact that all his instincts were telling him to grab that gorgeous behind and mould her to him came at a price, in the form of the pain in his groin and the slick of sweat that lay like a fine sheen over the surface of his skin. Despite appearances and the Northern blood running in his veins, he was immune to the heat, but the same could not be said of a soft warm female, at least not when it came in the dangerous form of Angel Urquart.

‘We’re eating on Saronia?’ she speculated, experiencing mixed feelings about this journey into the unknown. The caution was sensible, the excitement was not!

‘Don’t you like surprises?’

‘Only some of them.’

‘Come on, Angel,’ he urged, mocking her with his electric-blue eyes. ‘Live dangerously.’

Angel looked away, remembering what had happened the last time she had lived dangerously. Now she was a mother who was going to provide her daughter with what she had craved as a child: a calm, nurturing environment to grow up in. Combustible relationships were not on the agenda and there was no escaping the fact that sparks flew every time she came within the same square mile as Alex.