The Mistress Scandal. KIM LAWRENCE

He glared at her in brooding irritation. ‘What were you doing to me if it wasn’t using?’

      ‘Don’t you remember?’ Wouldn’t that be the final irony, he reflected grimly, when he could recall every touch, every erotic little catch of breath.

      Gabriel wasn’t entirely sure why he felt this angry—this betrayed. It had only been a one-night stand, but then that was only half the truth too. One night it might have been, but it was the one night by which his every potential sexual encounter would be measured in the future, and found wanting. He knew this for a fact.

      No woman had ever responded to him as she had, with such uninhibited pleasure. Every man probably had a fantasy lover, but few ever met them in the flesh—perhaps, he reflected grimly, they were the lucky ones!

      After three years he could still hear her husky sobs of pleasure as he’d touched her and she’d touched him. He could recall the precise erotic journey her skilful fingers and lips had made over his skin. She’d displayed an insatiable curiosity for his body and what pleased him … what made him wild. His eyes darkened and his body responded helplessly to the memory. Gabriel didn’t like being a helpless victim of his own lusts.

      Now he didn’t even have the illusion that it had been him she’d been moaning or begging for. She’d been closing her eyes and thinking of another man. Only her eyes hadn’t been closed; they’d been wide open and deep drowning cornflower-blue.

      The glazed, almost other-worldly quality in her expression seemed suddenly all too explicable. He’d been a macabre substitute! She’d been laying a ghost—quite literally!

      The next time she’d know exactly who it was she was making love to, he vowed grimly. She’d been his totally that night and she would be again. The next time he was going to make her admit it.

      ‘I do have a hazy recall.’

      Gabriel’s sharp inhalation made Alice regret her aggressively flippant response.

      ‘I was hurting. I wanted someone to hold me.’ That was only half the story, but she wasn’t about to go into any of the painful details. As for her motivation—even after three years she hadn’t quite fathomed that one out herself. There were some things that were better left well alone.

      ‘We did a lot more than hold.’

      A sudden light gust of wind blew her fine hair around her face and made the fine georgette blouse she wore billow softly. The material lifted it exposed the gentle indentation just above her navel. Her skin was smooth as silk and creamy pale.

      ‘One thing led to another …’ she reflected miserably. Glancing up, she saw his dark eyes were fixed on the small exposed area of skin around her midriff, and the restless, hungry expression she glimpsed made her swallow nervously. ‘I’m not proud …’ She pulled her jacket tight at the waist and told herself only a fool would find such dangerous scrutiny stimulating.

      Gabriel’s jaw tightened. Now that made him feel one hell of a lot better!

      ‘We didn’t work up to anything. The way I recall it we started at the top,’ he growled bluntly, ‘and stayed there.’

      Alice’s fractured sigh was audible.

      Good! She remembered all right, he thought, savagely pleased to see confirmation in the faint distressed quivering movements of her long sensitive fingers.

      The door had closed and she had pressed her fingers to his lips. ‘Don’t talk,’ she’d pleaded.

      She hadn’t wanted to think; she had just wanted to feel—feel something that she’d instinctively known would blank out the pain and fill the emptiness within her. She had boldly delivered herself up into the hands of a total stranger, but oddly that hadn’t frightened her.

      He hadn’t spoken—not then. They’d both been too impatient to even undress the first time. She’d ripped ineffectually at his clothes in the grip of a lustful frenzy like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

      The piercing pleasure of that first kiss, the extraordinary, indescribable mixture of lust and tenderness, had made her go as limp as a rag doll. Gabriel had supported her then, displaying a virile strength that had excited her deeply. The need within her as he’d pressed his hard, aroused body up against hers had been immediate and total.

      In total contrast to that swift, urgent coupling Gabriel had undressed her later with agonising slowness. He’d made up for his previous silence too, telling her as he peeled off each garment exactly what he was going to do to her and what she was going to do in return. Even as his insidiously sexy voice had dripped like honey all over her Alice hadn’t quite been able to believe that people said such things! By the time she’d been naked Alice had been in a state of agonised arousal, almost begging him—Who was she kidding? She had begged him!

      ‘That wasn’t me …’ she protested weakly. Am I trying to convince him or myself? she wondered.

      ‘No?’ He reached out and ran a finger down the length of her neatly trimmed hair. The pad of his fingertip rested briefly on the curve of her jaw before falling away. ‘Despite the puritanical haircut, you look remarkably similar.’

      ‘You know what I mean.’ The casual contact had butterflies running riot in her belly. This is sexual deprivation talking, Alice Lynn, she told herself severely. Pull yourself together!

      She’d been too involved with Will, and a lot of the time simply too tired from the demands of this solo job to admit she had any needs that weren’t being met. Her body was letting her know just how wrong she’d been with a vengeance right now. It had been bound to happen some time—only not now, please, not with him!

      ‘You were there in body but not in spirit,’ Gabriel suggested with a sneer. ‘Actually,’ he leered, ‘it’s the body I’m interested in.’

      ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ She was obviously certifiable to find such a crudely phrased intent a turn-on.

      Alice gasped when without warning his fingers curled in the shiny bangs of hair either side of the perfect oval of her face. He lowered his face down to her level, angling her face upwards and bringing his nose within an inch of her own.

      ‘You were mine body and soul that night. Deny it if you can!’

      ‘I’m warning you, I had garlic for lunch—lashings of it.’ Eyes screwed up tight, she issued this dire warning from between clenched teeth. It was the best form of defence she could come up with at short notice, and she wasn’t surprised to feel the sudden vibration of silent laughter in his chest.

      If he kissed her she didn’t know what she’d do, but she could hazard a fairly accurate guess. It was the guesswork, that and the fragrant warmth of his breath, that was in danger of turning her into a gibbering wreck.

      For Will’s sake she had to keep him at arm’s length, no matter how attractive she found him. Or is it for my sake? a cynical voice in the back of her mind inconveniently asked. Didn’t her son have the right to know who his real father was? Didn’t a man have the right to know he had a son? No! He hadn’t had procreation on his mind when he’d invited a total stranger to share his bed.

      ‘You say the most seductive things, angel.’

      ‘I’m not an angel.’

      ‘That’s a weight off my mind.’

      ‘Why are you doing this?’ He must have plenty of women, why the hell did he want her?

      ‘Because you were the best sex I’ve ever had,’ he told her frankly.

      When her shocked eyes flickered open she found Gabriel looked inexplicably angry, as though he resented the admission he’d just made.

      Alice was finding it hard to breathe properly. Had she really been that hot?

      ‘Do you always say exactly what you’re thinking?’ There was no sign of tenderness in his austerely beautiful face