Tall, Dark... Collection. Carole Mortimer

during her pregnancy, with her during Bobby’s birth, and had involved himself totally in Bobby’s babyhood and infancy, often reaching the baby’s cotside quicker than Laura if Bobby had wakened in the night. Robert had been Bobby’s father!

      Laura moved determinedly away from Liam, turning as his hand fell back to his side. ‘I believe we have much more important things to discuss than my son.’ She felt an inward jolt at the possessiveness in her tone. But Bobby was her son, and with Robert gone she felt he was hers alone!

      ‘I would like to meet him,’ Liam suggested.

      She turned to him sharply. ‘Why?’

      ‘Why not?’

      Calm down, Laura, she told herself steadily, breathing deeply. ‘It’s been a difficult time for Bobby since his father died,’ she reasoned. ‘Losing a parent at such a young age has made him all the more attached to the one he has left; I don’t like to confuse him with transient friends.’ Even to her own ears that sounded like a deliberate slap in the face, and she could see by the tightening of Liam’s mouth and the narrowing of his eyes that he had recognised it as such.

      His head went back challengingly. ‘Is that why you keep the man currently sharing your bed as a separate part of your life?’

      A retaliatory slap! Probably deserved after her own remark, Laura accepted. But it wasn’t one she was going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to!

      Her lips pursed. ‘Surely, Liam, that’s a contradiction in terms?’ she countered. ‘If this mythical man were sharing my bed, then I wouldn’t be able to keep him as a separate part of my life?’

      His eyes had narrowed questioningly. ‘Mythical?’ he prompted softly.

      She had fallen into his trap yet again! Trust Liam to pounce on the one word that was of any real interest to him!

      She changed tack. ‘You’re the one who keeps insisting there has to be a man somewhere.’

      ‘Only because I don’t believe it’s a woman,’ Liam responded. ‘And you are far too beautiful to have been completely on your own the last two years. Unless those were the “transient friends” you were referring to earlier?’ he added derisively.

      Oh, this man was so insulting! And under any other circumstances she would have told him exactly what he could do with his rude remarks. But here, in her home, with Bobby only feet away and likely to appear downstairs without warning, her one real wish was to have Liam leave as soon as possible.

      ‘I’m not even going to qualify that remark with an answer, Liam,’ she returned. ‘Now, if you’ve quite finished…? I have things to do today.’ Although none of them involved leaving the house; she had no intention of running the gauntlet where those hovering reporters were concerned!

      Liam’s eyes were glacial. ‘Like explaining to the current man that this newspaper report is an exaggeration?’ he challenged.

      Laura eyed him coolly. ‘I very rarely explain myself to anyone these days, Liam.’ And especially not him! ‘And that newspaper article isn’t an exaggeration; it’s an outright fabrication!’ she stated firmly.

      ‘It needn’t be,’ Liam told her gruffly, suddenly close to her once again.

      Too close!

      He shouldn’t be here in her home at all, let alone standing only inches away from her. She was actually able to feel the heat given off by his body.

      A body she had once known more intimately than she knew her own…!

      Where had that come from? She groaned inwardly. She didn’t want to remember the intimacies she had shared with Liam eight years ago!

      Sometimes in the night, with sleep sweeping away her defences, those memories came back in her dreams, and the ecstasy she had once known in his arms was undeniable then. And when she woke in the morning, much as she hated herself for it, her body would still burn and ache from that remembered pleasure.

      ‘Laura…!’ Liam whispered now, his arms moving about the slenderness of her waist as he drew her close to him, his eyes searching on the flushed beauty of her face before his head lowered and his mouth took possession of hers.

      Senses already heightened by those thoughts of the past, Laura was instantly swept away on a tide of pleasure, her body arching into the hardness of his, her lips opening as Liam deepened the kiss, his tongue moving searchingly.

      They fitted together like two halves of a whole!

      Laura’s height was no match for Liam’s six feet four inches, but the softness of her curves fitted into the muscular hollows of his body, her breasts against his chest, thighs pressed into the hardness of his.

      And her body remembered, as she remembered, the pleasure of that hardness. She felt a warm rush between her thighs even as Liam continued to sip and taste her lips.

      His hands moved restlessly across the slenderness of her back, fingers seeking the warm flesh beneath the green jumper, moving round to cup the softness of her breast against the silky material of her bra, the nipple instantly hard, throbbing hotly as a thumbtip gently caressed her.

      Liam moaned low in his throat as his own body hardened in response, hands shaking slightly now as they tightened about the narrowness of her waist, pulling her even closer against him.

      His lips left hers to trail over the creaminess of her cheek, before travelling down the column of her throat to the sensitive hollows below.

      Laura was now feeling dizzy with desire. Her hands clung to the width of his shoulders to stop herself from falling. She was aware only of Liam and the moist caress of his lips, his teeth gently nibbling an earlobe, sending arrows of warm ecstasy to every part of her body.

      ‘Mummy? Mummy, where are you?’

      The sound of Bobby’s voice calling out to Laura from the hallway had the same effect on her as having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over her would have done!

      She sprang guiltily away from Liam, the pleasure she had known in his arms only seconds earlier completely obliterated as she heard the soft pad of Bobby’s slipper-clad feet as he approached the sitting room.

      Any second now, Liam and Bobby were going to come face to face with each other. And in her slightly befuddled state Laura couldn’t think of a single thing she could do or say to prevent it happening!

      CHAPTER NINE

      ‘MUMMY!’ A relieved Bobby appeared in the doorway, obviously pleased to have found her at last, although his dark blue eyes instantly moved curiously to the man in the room with her.

      ‘Hello, darling.’ Laura smiled, moving to his side, totally ignoring Liam—and what had just occurred between the two of them!—as she bent down to give her son a hug. ‘Feeling better now?’ she prompted gently, looking at Bobby searchingly.

      Apart from a little bump on his head, and a slightly sore knee, he didn’t seem to have suffered too much harm from his accident. His long night’s sleep had obviously refreshed him too; this morning there was colour back in the previous paleness of his cheeks, and his eyes were bright and alert.

      Eyes that were fixed now on the man who stood in front of the window. Bobby’s expression was slightly shy as he looked at this stranger.

      Laura drew in a deep breath before turning, her arm protectively about Bobby’s narrow shoulders as she held him to her side, her expression slightly challenging as she looked across at Liam. A Liam whose expression was totally unreadable as he looked not at her, but down at Bobby.

      Laura tried to see the little boy through Liam’s eyes. Still dressed in his pyjamas, Bobby was tall for his age, with a thinness that resulted from an abundance of energy and not lack of food. His hair was dark and slightly curly, dark blue eyes fringed by lashes of the same dark colour.

      Colouring that could just as well be her own, Laura