The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

shouldn’t have sent her into panic mode.

      ‘I’m not hysterical,’ she protested, dry mouthed.

      ‘You could’ve fooled me,’ Bastien traded, settling down in an armchair with her slim body still firmly clasped to his broad chest.

      ‘You startled me...you pounced,’ Lilah condemned.

      ‘And I’m not about to apologise for it,’ Bastien husked, running down the back zip on her top and tugging it off her arms in one smooth movement.

      ‘Oh...’ Lilah gasped again, shocked to find herself stripped down to her bra without ceremony.

      Bastien splayed a big hand across her narrow midriff to hold her in place while his mouth moved urgently across the pale skin at the nape of her neck. Her heart hammered inside her tight chest and a tiny uncontrollable shiver racked her when his teeth grazed and nipped along the slope between her neck and her shoulder. It was a fiercely erotic assault, subsequently soothed by the skim of his tongue.

      Her eyes flew wide, her pupils expanding as quiver after quiver of response gripped her. Suddenly even breathing became a challenge. Bastien closed his hands to her waist to lift her and turn her to face him, bringing her down again with her skirt hitched and her legs splayed either side of his hips.

      His tongue plunged against hers in a deep, marauding kiss that made her tremble. Her bra felt too tight and the ache stirring in her pelvis was powerful enough to hurt. He kept on kissing her, forcing her lips apart with urgency and drawing her down on him so that she could feel the hard thrust of his erection between her spread thighs.

      ‘Bastien... I—’

      Dark golden eyes accentuated by a canopy of black velvet lashes held hers and silenced her. He truly had the most stunning eyes. Her mouth ran dry. Her mind was as blank as an unpainted canvas because she was reeling from the intensity of what he was making her feel.

      She didn’t even realise he had flicked loose her bra until he ran his hands up over her pert breasts to make actual skin-to-skin contact. Her usual alarm about her lack of size in the breast department had no time to develop, because his hands were already curving to the small pale mounds. With knowing fingers and thumbs he roughly tugged and chafed the pale pink sensitivity of her straining nipples. His touch sent hot tingles of longing arrowing through her limp body, heat and moisture gathering at the pulsing heart of her.

      ‘You have such pretty breasts,’ Bastien said thickly, bending her back over his supporting arm to capture a swollen stiff bud between his lips and torment it with attention. ‘And so very sensitive, koukla mou...’

      Her breath see-sawed back and forth in her throat while he rocked her over his lean, powerful body, ensuring that on every downward motion her tender core connected with the hard swell of his arousal. The tightening sensation in her womb increased to an unbearable level. Long fingers skated over the taut fabric stretched between her legs, where she was excruciatingly sensitive. He eased a finger below the lace edge of her panties. Excitement roared through her as he stroked and rubbed the tender bud of her clitoris. Rational thought vanished, because her body was greedily craving every new sensation, living from one intoxicating moment to the next.

      As he rimmed the tiny wet entrance to her body with a teasing fingertip and at the same time let his carnal mouth latch hungrily on to an agonisingly tender nipple, Lilah’s every nerve ending went into screaming overdrive.

      ‘Come for me, Delilah,’ Bastien told her rawly.

      And then there was no holding back the explosion of excitement that had risen to a high Lilah could no longer suppress. Within seconds she was crying out, shuddering and convulsing with the wild surge of pleasure Bastien’s expert hands had released. Exhausted and drained in the aftermath, she let her head drop down against his shoulder, barely able to credit that her body could react so powerfully that it still felt as though she was coming apart at the seams. He smelt of expensive cologne, testosterone and clean musky male, and at that moment—astonishingly—it was the most comforting scent she had ever experienced.

      The strangest sense of protectiveness crept through Bastien while Delilah clung to him. He licked his fingers, her unique taste adding another layer to his fierce arousal. He wanted more—so much more that he knew he dared not let himself touch her again until he had cooled down. Unfortunately he had never been a patient man, and he knew his own faults.

      He stood up, cradling her slight body in his arms, and carried her through to her room, where he settled her down on the bed.

      ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

      Conscious of the cool air hitting her bare breasts, Lilah crossed her arms across her body with a defensive jerk and looked up at Bastien in astonishment as he switched on the bedside lamp. That was it? He wasn’t joining her in the bed to finish what he had started?

      Hot colour surged in her cheeks as she collided with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘But...’

      ‘Tonight was for you, not for me,’ Bastien told her wryly, striding back to the door and then coming to a halt to glance back at her with a blindingly charismatic smile that mesmerised her into staring. ‘You know the weirdest thing...?’

      His lean, darkly handsome features were pure fallen angel in the shadowy light. ‘No...’ she whispered, almost hypnotised by the flawless perfection of his sculpted features.

      ‘What we just did...’ he mused, with a self-mocking curve to his beautiful mouth. ‘That has to be the most innocent experience I’ve ever shared with a woman.’

      As the door thudded shut on his exit Lilah’s brows lifted almost as high as her hairline. Innocent? How could such shattering intimacy be in any way innocent? What on earth was he talking about?

      Her body was still aching and quaking as though it had come through a battle zone. She slid off the bed and staggered dizzily into the en-suite bathroom, challenged to place even one foot accurately in front of the other. There she studied her tousled reflection in disgust. Her hair was messy, her mascara smeared and she was half-naked.

      With a groan of shame she stripped off the skirt and panties and stepped into the shower. But even beneath the cleansing, cooling flow of water her body tingled and burned with new awareness in the places Bastien had touched.

      Lilah shuddered—and not in disgust—at the thought of him doing it again. That acknowledgement alone was sufficient to keep her tossing and turning half the night.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘COULD I HAVE a quiet word, sir?’

      Manos, Bastien’s head of security, approached him as he was still working, close to midnight. The older man seemed uncomfortable.

      ‘It relates to Miss Moore...’

      And within the space of minutes Bastien’s even-tempered mood had been destroyed by the information Manos put in front of him.

      Having initially assumed that Delilah was simply another employee, Manos had only belatedly realised that the news that she had been seen consorting with another man might be of interest to Bastien.

      Bastien was shocked. And then furious with himself for being shocked. After all, how many times had a woman let him down? Lied to him? Ripped him off? Faked emotions to impress him? Too many times to count, Bastien conceded, tight mouthed with cynicism, his lean, starkly handsome bone structure rigid. But as far as he was aware not a single one of his lovers had ever cheated on him.

      Forewarned is forearmed, Bastien told himself forbiddingly. And if Delilah had been with another man as recently as the night before, he no longer wanted her, did he? Damn Security for not following her home to establish exactly how the evening had concluded!

      Frustration building at this incomplete picture of events, Bastien clenched his fists, plunged upright and decided to go out. The frustration was fast becoming