Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

and that was not a lie, simply an evasion. And thank God it seemed enough for him to stop probing any further, for he gave her a hard, assessing smile as he contradicted her brutally. ‘You want me, Triss—there is a difference, you know.’

      She opened her mouth to protest, but it was too late, for he was lowering his dark head to capture her parted lips with his own and she could have wept with the beauty of that kiss. She was lost in it, drowning in it, the reality surpassing even her memories of his kisses—and she had thought that she had exaggerated those.

      But no. They said that your memory could play tricks, and hers must have been about as devious as it was possible to be, because nothing, nothing could have prepared her for the great, swamping surge of feeling which that kiss produced.

      ‘C-Cormack,’ she gasped, unable to stop herself as she put her hands up to his shoulders to pull him right down on top of her. She no longer cared how hungry or how desperate she might seem to him, because right now she was being controlled by a force far stronger than the idea that perhaps a woman should not behave this way. Well, this woman did!

      ‘Triss!’ he groaned as their bodies collided—hers so soft and pliant, his so hard and unyielding. ‘For God’s sake, Triss—slow down!’

      ‘I can’t!’ It was almost a sob. ‘I can’t!’ As she began to pull the smooth, sleek leather down over his buttocks she felt his hardness grow even more potent, and he ground his hips frenziedly against her, as if he could not stop himself.

      ‘Dear God!’ she heard him exclaim, and if her hunger was out of control, then his reaction, too, was frighteningly and beautifully unfamiliar. He levered himself up onto his elbows and stared down at her, his breathing already ragged, his face dark and almost savage, his eyes unrecognisable blackened pools of lust. ‘You want it this way?’ he demanded.

      ‘Yes.’ She trembled as he lowered his mouth to kiss the curve of her jaw, and then reality hit her like a sharp blow as she remembered the repercussions of their last encounter. ‘Cormack,’ she whispered.

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘I don’t want to get—pregnant...’ Like the night when Simon had been conceived.

      But then she had been foolish and hopeful and naive. Believing that Cormack intended to resume their relationship, and still so in love with him that she had not given contraception a second thought. With far-reaching consequences...

      He uttered something soft as he pulled a small packet out of the back pocket of his jeans and impatiently ripped it open.

      Triss found herself alternating between despair that she was allowing this to happen to her, when all it was going to do was remind her of what she was missing, and agitation in case it didn’t happen.

      ‘Want to put it on for me?’ he whispered provocatively, but Triss shook her head again.

      Apart from the fact that her hands were shaking too much to be of any use, it would be much too poignant to do something which would remind her so much of past intimacies. When every bit of him had been hers to explore as she pleased.

      Sadness and frustration combined to make her body writhe impatiently beneath his, and she heard his soft groan as he moved fractionally away from her to slide the condom on.

      But still Triss wouldn’t let up. She scraped her fingernails with soft, clawing movements over the hard, high curves of his buttocks, and he made a sound midway between a groan of despair and a low laugh of pleasure.

      ‘You know what’s going to happen if you keep on doing that, don’t you, sweetheart?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘This?’ And he moved his hand down, slipping his fingers inside her panties to find her so ready for him that it seemed to take a huge effort of will for him to speak another word.

      ‘This?’ he asked unsteadily as his fingers began to move against her.

      She bucked beneath his touch, her head falling back against the pillow. ‘Yes!’ she almost sobbed. ‘Yes!‘

      He ripped the panties apart without compunction, at the same time lowering his head to her breast, tearing at the thin, flimsy lace of her brassiere with his teeth. And, just when she thought she might die with the pleasure of it, Triss realised that with his other hand he was freeing himself, that he wasn’t even going to bother taking his trousers off...

      ‘C-Cormack?’

      But it did not sound like Cormack who answered her. ‘You wanted it this way, sweetheart,’ he said, in a voice grim and distorted with passion, and then he thrust right into her, filling her with his potency as he began to move with the rhythm which was as old as time itself.

      She had never known him so out of control before, but that excited her even more.

      It all happened so quickly that Triss barely had time to revel in his possession before the sweet waves began to wash over her, and as her body began to convulse she felt Cormack’s orgasm too—and how she wished that he wasn’t wearing a condom. Right at that moment, some primitive yearning made her long to feel the wetness of his seed as it spilled inside her.

      Afterwards she lay naked in his arms, and a deep sense of sadness and despair flowed through her as she acknowledged how perfectly compatible they seemed to be in bed.

      In a way, it might be easier if they weren’t. If she weren’t so fiercely attracted to him—and he to her—then he would not have started stroking her neck in the sitting room. And she would have remained immune to him even if he had.

      And they would not now be lying in each other’s arms, listening to the sounds of their breathing and their heartbeats gradually slowing down, like two athletes at the end of a race. He raised his head and Triss was taken aback, hardly recognising the shaken and dazed expression she saw on his face.

      ‘Wow,’ he said softly.

      Triss stifled a groan, just thankful that she had not built herself up to expect tender words from him. Because, while ‘Wow’ could reasonably be taken as testimony that Cormack had enjoyed himself, it wasn’t a word which was even remotely caring.

      And she still had to tell him about Simon.

      Fatigue washed through her as she went over the words she had rehearsed over and over in her mind for weeks now, and it was something of a relief when the emotional strain finally took its toll of her body and she allowed her eyelids to drift down.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      TRISS must have fallen asleep, for when she next opened her eyes it was to find that Cormack was no longer on the bed beside her. Instead he had put his grey sweater back on, belted up his leather trousers and was sitting in a chair drinking a mug of coffee, a forbiddingly sombre expression on his face.

      She quickly shut her eyes again, as if by feigning sleep she could postpone the moment of truth. At least he must have covered her up with this blanket, she thought thankfully, becoming slowly aware of the rips in her brassière and the torn panties which now lay in useless folds halfway down one thigh.

      Instinctively she felt her body cringing as vivid impressions of how she had behaved came back with piercing clarity.

      ‘Ashamed, Triss?’ came the mocking remark, tinged with a coldness which she had never heard in Cormack’s voice before.

      She sat up, pulling the blanket with her so that it concealed her breasts, and his mouth twisted scornfully as he acknowledged the self-protective gesture.

      ‘A little late in the day for shielding your assets, surely?’ he queried with disdain, and Triss felt her heart sinking with horror as she realised that never—not even when their relationship had reached rock-bottom—had Cormack spoken to her with quite so much contempt hardening his normally soft, lilting Irish accent.

      But she could not afford to squander