The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

think it cuts both ways,’ she admitted not quite steadily, just looking at him and wanting him so much it almost hurt while telling herself that was entirely and unforgivably superficial.

      Leo came down on one knee on the edge of the bed. ‘You...think?’

      ‘Know,’ she conceded breathlessly, stinging arousal assailing her nipples as she collided with his spectacular dark golden eyes. She thought she would die if he didn’t touch her, told herself that she deserved to die if she let him, but she couldn’t lie about the overwhelming surge of hunger that lit her up like a firework.

      ‘I want you so much it’s driving me insane,’ Leo husked, coming down to her in one driven movement to seal her to the mattress with his weight. ‘I don’t like the feeling that I’m not in control...’

      Grace didn’t like it either and was taken aback that they could be so similar in outlook. Her fingers lifted involuntarily and laced through the blue-black hair falling across his brow. Rain lashed the window across the room and a smouldering silence fell indoors. Her heart was racing and against her breast she could feel the quickened thump of his. Dense black lashes lifted on his stunning eyes and she forgot to breathe, registering that somewhere along the way, and without ever pausing to think it through, she had begun developing feelings for Leos Zikos that went way beyond what she had once envisaged.

      For a split second fear grabbed her, fear of being hurt, humiliated and rejected, but she pushed the reactions away and buried them deep. Just for a few hours, she promised herself, she would live only for the moment in a little safe pool of non-judgemental peace because soon enough she would be forced to deal with the consequences of her accidental pregnancy.

      Leo smoothed a stray strand of red hair behind her ear, noting how small her ear was and that at their last encounter he had miscounted the freckles on her nose. There were five, not four, tiny brown speckles that only accentuated the clarity of her luminous porcelain skin. He sank his hands beneath her, lifting her up to peel off her sweater. She was pregnant, he reminded himself in a daze, for that awareness was still so new to him that it felt unreal. He would have to be careful and that would be a challenge when his raw need for her was threatening to explode out of restraint.

      ‘Is it all right for us to do this?’ he murmured a tad awkwardly.

      ‘Good grief, Leo, I’m as healthy as a carthorse!’ Grace countered, reddening hotly as his appreciative gaze dropped down to the bountiful swell of her breasts in a lace-cupped bra.

      ‘But infinitely more beautiful and sensual,’ Leo purred, fighting an impractical urge to stay welded to her and finally sliding off the bed to strip off his suit. ‘So delicate...and yet voluptuous.’

      A reluctant grin slanted Grace’s mouth. ‘You really do have the gift of the gab, as my Irish mother used to say. Women must drop like ninepins around you in receipt of all that flattery.’

      In Leo’s experience women were infinitely more aggressive in their desire to catch his eye and share his bed. His sculpted mouth quirked at her innocence. He dropped his shirt on the floor, ropes of abdominal muscle flexing across his torso below her admiring gaze. Grace dragged her attention from him in embarrassment and shimmied out of her jeans, blushing at the schoolgirl knickers she sported beneath. She had never had the money to buy prettier underwear. That random thought took her brain off the disturbing truth that she was succumbing to Leo’s magnetism all over again. Was that wrong?

      She wanted him; she wanted him every bit as much as he seemed to want her. He was the father of the baby she carried and he was neither irresponsible nor uncaring and there was absolutely no reason why they should not be together again...was there? Did she have to be sensible Grace all the time? She recalled the end result of rebelling against her sensible self the night she had met Leo. But then that axe had already fallen, she reminded herself doggedly, quickly talking herself into staying exactly where she was.

      ‘You’ve got that thinking-too-hard look on your face again,’ Leo chided, pulling her into his arms. ‘It makes you look incredibly serious.’

      His body was so hot against the faintly chilled coolness of her own, so hot in temperature and so deliciously different. He was rough where she was smooth, hard where she was soft. Desire snaked through her like a sharp-cutting knife, clenching low down in her pelvis. Her fingertips grazed across his muscular torso as he leant over her. The kiss he stole was explosive. He sucked and nibbled at her lower lip, all teasing and sex, stirring her up with the occasional plunge of his tongue.

      Grace scored her fingers down a powerful hair-roughened thigh and circled his throbbing hardness before pushing him back against the pillows with her free hand. Startled, Leo began to raise his shoulders off the pillows while Grace zeroed in on her objective. Her soft sultry mouth closed over him like a glove and any resistance he had faded fast. Dangling strands of red hair danced across his skin with her every movement.

      ‘OK?’ she said, looking up at him, her face as red as a ripe apple.

      ‘Better than...way better,’ Leo admitted unevenly, mesmerised by the way she was touching him, craving it more with every passing second.

      As she took him deep, his hand tangled in her tumbled hair and excitement filled her as he arched his hips up to her for more. A low groan sounded in his throat, an almost animalistic purr, while her fingers toyed with him and her tongue glided over him. Her pace quickened, her mouth moving over him faster and faster.

      ‘Bloody spectacular...’ Leo grated between clenched teeth as she took him up and over in the longest, hottest release of his life.

      Grace lay back, feeling vindicated, feeling empowered, no longer the shy, ignorant virgin in need of guidance or instruction. He had really enjoyed that and she knew it. Leo turned her flushed face towards him, dark eyes still tawny gold with arousal. ‘You always surprise me.’

      Her bra came adrift, his hands kneading her aching flesh while his thumbs skimmed her distended nipples. She closed her eyes, losing herself in a world of sensation while he licked his way down over her body, tugging her knickers out of his path to discover the warm, wet welcome already awaiting him because nothing had ever quite excited Grace as much as her view of Leo shedding his smooth sophistication and crying out from the pleasure she was giving him.

      With a hungry growl he eased over her, his recovery rate exceeding her expectations when the heated probe of his engorged shaft pushed against her most tender flesh. A surge of excitement made her inner muscles clench tightly round him. Her heart was hammering. She wanted this, she wanted him so much she was trembling and breathless, on a high of such joyful anticipation she could hardly contain it.

      ‘You feel amazing,’ Leo rasped, struggling for control as he worked his way gently into the depths of her glorious body when he didn’t feel remotely gentle.

      Grace tilted up her hips and locked her slim legs round him in acceptance. ‘I’m not made of eggshell,’ she whispered teasingly.

      With a groan of relief, Leo surrendered to the raw need riding him, easing out of her tight channel to slam back in again with a glorious sense of satisfaction.

      Grace couldn’t catch her breath as he moved with animalistic power, powering into her with a hard driven sensuality that filled her with splintering excitement. Her whole body was reaching for and craving the ultimate crest and when it reached it she soared high as heaven. The intense pleasure radiated through her in an astonishing crescendo of sensation that left her trembling with little aftershocks of delight for several minutes afterwards.

      On another level, she was conscious of Leo leaving the bed, doubtless to dispose of the contraception he had employed. She waited for him to return and then heard the shower running, slowly and unhappily realising that there would be no cosy togetherness in the aftermath of intimacy. That surprised her, for Leo was very prone to affectionate touching, not stand-offish in any way. Was he afraid of giving her the wrong message? Apprehensive that a little cuddle might make her assume that he felt more for her than he actually did?

      Grace shifted uneasily in the bed, her brain now clear of the overwhelming