Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ how many times Cormack kissed her, Triss thought despairingly, he could always extract this same trembling sense of wonder from her, as though it were the first time all over again.

      She felt the almost imperceptible change in his body as desire began to make itself felt, and some tiny trace of self-preservation began to slow her down.

      For all their sakes—but most importantly for Simon’s sake—Triss sensed that this time, at least, she must not give in to the demands of her body.

      With an effort she pulled away and shook her head.

      ‘No?’ he queried.

      ‘No.’ She dragged in a breath of air.

      ‘You didn’t say no this afternoon.’

      ‘That was different.’ This afternoon she had been too consumed by hunger to be able to stop. ‘I hadn’t told you about Simon then.’

      ‘No. You hadn’t.’ His mouth tightened. ‘God—what do you do to me, Triss?’ he demanded hotly. ‘When you finally did tell me about Simon, about deliberately keeping him from me, I vowed that I would never lay another finger on you—never touch you again, no matter how much I was tempted to.’

      ‘I know that,’ she told him quietly.

      ‘How?’

      Triss shrugged. ‘I knew that your sense of outrage at my duplicity would turn you off.’

      He gave a bitter laugh. ‘And in theory it should. Only somehow it doesn’t work like that, does it, Triss? I not only find that my principles fly out. of the window when I’m confronted by that luscious body of yours, but I’m prepared to compromise them even further by asking you to marry me!’

      Triss shuddered. For in that one short, cynical speech he had made his feelings for her crystal-clear. How on earth could she marry him when he could talk to her like that? It didn’t sound as though he had even the slightest regard for her as a person—although that was not really the point.

      The point was that he was attracted to her against his will, and clearly resented the fact. And plainly he would never love her in the way that she still, she realised, loved him. Completely and without reservation.

      So if she went ahead with what was essentially a marriage of convenience, then she would have to accept it for what it was. Because it would cause continued heartbreak if she found herself longing for an emotional commitment he was unable to give her.

      She needed to sleep on it. To go over and over it in her mind. She did not want to be swayed or influenced by Cormack’s delicious lovemaking into making a decision which could ultimately harm her, or Simon.

      ‘I think we’re both tired and emotionally fraught,’ she told him, her green-gold eyes glittering in her white face. ‘I know that I certainly am. We both need sleep and a chance to think things over. So goodnight, Cormack—I’ll see you in the morning.’

      Quite instinctively she reached up and kissed him on the cheek, and the gesture momentarily startled them both.

      It was those small intimacies which were the most evocative, she thought as she showered before sliding into her satin pyjamas. The hugs and the small kisses and the reassuring little squeezes of the hand—those were the things which brought back memories of how close they had once been. And those were the memories which broke her heart.

      Because the sex between them was superb and always would be superb. It was almost as if their bodies had been programmed to react to one another in the most mind-blowing way. But that unique chemical reaction was nothing to do with the sound foundations on which most people built their relationships—like love and respect.

      Cormack was right, was her last waking thought. How on earth had they ever got themselves into this terrible mess?

      

      

      To her surprise, Triss slept like a log, and when Simon woke her at six the following morning she had decided to do the best thing for her baby and approach their problems with a positive attitude.

      Because babies were perceptive, and if she was going to start moping around the place then it wasn’t exactly going to do Simon any good! Or herself, come to that.

      She went about her normal routine with a resolutely cheerful air.

      She changed Simon and then brought him into her bed with her for his early-morning feed, unbuttoning her scarlet satin pyjamas and latching him onto her breast. It was a moment of pure peace, and she loved this quiet time alone with her son, with just the sound of the birds trilling outside her window in the spring sunshine.

      He was glugging away quite contentedly when a slight movement caught her attention, and she glanced up to find Cormack watching them, a look of rapt preoccupation on his face.

      He was dressed in nothing but a pair of black silk boxer shorts which left very little to the imagination. From a distance she could observe him almost neutrally in this partially clothed state, in a way which she had been unable to yesterday, when they were in bed together.

      Physically, he was as close to perfection as you could get. Broad shoulders and a finely muscled torso with narrow hips and strong, long legs. His chin was darkly shadowed, as it always was first thing in the morning, and it gave him a devilishly sexy look.

      His eyes were narrowed, and there was such a look of wonderment on his face that Triss knew she did not have the heart to exclude him from this most intimate part of motherhood. She had excluded him from enough already.

      ‘Come in,’ she coaxed softly, marvelling at the transformation in him. Normally, just the merest glimpse of her breasts would have had his gaze raking over her with hungry anticipation. But now the expression in his eyes was soft, admiring and full of frank regard—though Triss would have bet her last dollar that if she were to put Simon back down in his crib then the look of hunger would be back in force!

      He came to sit on the edge of the bed, looking gloriously unselfconscious in nothing but the silk boxer shorts, and Triss found herself wishing that she had asked him to get dressed before inviting him in!

      ‘I didn’t realise you were still feeding him,’ he murmured questioningly.

      ‘Only last thing at night and first thing in the morning.’ She sighed, then said fervently, ‘I hate giving it up.’

      ‘Then why do it?’

      She gave him a long look as she unhooked the baby and transferred him to the opposite breast. ‘Because I’ll probably go back to work soon—in some capacity—’

      ‘Work?’ he interrupted in a horrified voice, as if she had just broached the idea of opening up a brothel! ‘Do you want to go back to work?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not really, no. I seem to have got modelling right out of my system.’

      ‘Then why even think of it?’

      ‘Because I need to support us,’ she told him evenly. ‘I need—’

      ‘I’ll give you all the money you need to stop you from having to go out to work,’ he told her, his mouth tightening СКАЧАТЬ