The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

      ‘I need a shower,’ he ground out.

      ‘I’ll go back to—’

      ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Bastien contradicted, striding into the en-suite bathroom and straight into the spacious shower with her still in his arms.

      ‘Bastien...what on earth...?’ she exclaimed in angry disbelief as he elbowed a button and warm water cascaded down on her from all directions, instantly plastering the nightdress she wore to her body.

      Bastien knew he was acting like a mad man, but he was on automatic pilot and he didn’t care—because his hunger for Delilah at that moment was overwhelming. He hauled her dripping body up against him and closed his mouth hungrily to the luscious soft pink enticement of hers, long fingers stroking her wet hair back from her face.

      Lilah’s hands closed over his broad shoulders, clenching there to steady herself as the hot, demanding intensity of the kiss took her by storm. His tongue delved deep into the moist interior of her mouth, plundering a response from her.

      She recognised the force of his need, suspecting that Bastien was not in control the way he usually was. Rather than dismaying her, that suspicion excited her beyond bearing—because Bastien was generally so controlled that he unnerved her. In fact, the unashamed passion he was unleashing now was much more to Lilah’s taste, and it went to her head even more strongly than the wine that afternoon.

      Her hands skimmed down over his lean, strong torso. She could feel the hard urgency of his erection against her midriff, and before she could even let herself think about what she was about to do she had dropped to her knees. The warm water teemed down, somehow separating her from the world and from all the anxious self-judgement that kept her from experimenting. For the first time ever she felt free to do simply as she liked. As she liked and as she wanted. And she was proud of that inner spur of passion for the first time.

      Slender fingers roved up over Bastien’s hair-roughened muscular thighs, and she was smiling at his sudden ferocious tension as she bent her head—all woman, all feminine power.

      Bastien groaned, threw his head back against the tiles and arched his hips to facilitate her, making no attempt to hide his pleasure as she worked magic with her mouth and her tongue and her agile fingers.

      His potent reaction gave Lilah a high. For once she was in charge, and what she lacked in experience she more than made up for with creativity and enthusiasm.

      Allowing himself to be out of control in any way was a dark and seductive novelty for Bastien. And when he could no longer withstand the hot, all-encompassing pleasure of her mouth, he bent down and hauled her up to him, bracing her against the tiles as he hitched up her nightdress and clamped her slim thighs to his waist. He plunged into the glorious tight wet heat of her body with a raw groan of masculine pleasure.

      Still tender from her first experience the night before, Lilah felt every inch of Bastien’s smooth hard length as he surged inside her. Her arms wrapped round his neck for support, her head falling back as he withdrew and surged deep again. Excitement engulfed her in a heady rush, her heart slamming inside her chest, her breath hitching and breaking in her throat.

      So sensitive was she that as Bastien increased the tempo and hammered into her the pleasure swelled to an almost painful intensity. The rising heat within her finally soothed the hollow ache of tormenting hunger, and she gasped and moaned in delight. Her hips writhed against the cold tiles as she reached a climax too powerful to restrain and it swept her over the edge, sending intoxicating explosions of blissful sensation rippling through her quivering length as she sagged in Bastien’s powerful hold.

      By the time she had floated down from that dizzy peak of satisfaction Bastien was trailing off her sodden nightdress and wrapping her in a towel.

      ‘You didn’t say sorry...this wasn’t supposed to happen between us...’ Lilah mumbled in limp reminder as she reclaimed her wits.

      ‘I jumped to conclusions. I was wrong. It appears that one of my staff was responsible for the leak to the press,’ Bastien shared with taut reluctance as he grabbed up another towel to fold it round her dripping hair.

      ‘Told you so,’ Lilah remarked ungraciously.

      ‘I lost my temper with you. I don’t do that,’ Bastien growled half under his breath in explanation. ‘When anger is in control, mistakes are made.’

      ‘So you’re saying sorry?’ Lilah whispered, weak as a kitten as he laid her down on the soft firmness of his bed and pulled a sheet over her cooling skin.

      Bastien didn’t answer. He didn’t do apologies, but he was quite happy for her to assume that he had apologised. He was intent on her, still worked up in an unsettling way he didn’t understand. She made him feel alive, crazily alive, and for some reason he hadn’t had enough of her yet. One taste of her had only made him hunger for more.

      He framed her face with long dark fingers, rejoicing in the silky softness of her skin and the rosy purity of her features. He savoured her swollen pink mouth with his own, revelling in the taste of her and the thundering race of his heartbeat as the hunger raged through him again like a tempest.

      Bastien kissed with the same wild potency with which he made love, Lilah reflected dizzily, and the pulse of heat was awakening in her pelvis again as his tongue tangled with hers and flicked the ultra-sensitive roof of her mouth in a teasing assault that made her push up against him. Desire shimmied through her like an electrical storm, lighting up every place he touched, from the peaks of her straining nipples to the infinitely delicate damp flesh between her thighs.

      ‘I still want you, glikia mou,’ Bastien grated, and his stunning dark golden eyes were bright with lingering wonder at that anomaly as he ran his mouth down hungrily over the sweet mounds of her small breasts, licking and tasting and nipping to make her slim body writhe frantically.

      As he reached the heart of her arousal and dallied to torment her with every carnal caress he had ever learned she gasped his name over and over again, and he very much liked the sound of his own name on her lips.

      Lilah had not believed he could make her want him again so soon, when her body was still heavy with fulfilment, but somehow he’d pushed her to the raw, biting edge of feverish need again, and the first plunge of his powerful male heat inside her felt gloriously necessary.

      Her spine arched, wild torrents of joyous sensation cascading through her quivering body as he pushed back her thighs and rose over her, pounding into her tight depths with driving hunger. She thrashed under him, every nerve-ending electrified by the pagan rhythm of his hard thrusts and the inexorable climb towards another climax. When it came, she hit a peak and shattered like glass, shocked by the white-hot intensity of excitement exploding inside her.

      She fell back against the pillows, utterly drained of energy, while Bastien groaned long and low and shuddered with pleasure.

      Bastien drank in the scent of Delilah’s shampoo as he struggled to get his breath back. Her silky hair had the sweet fresh perfume of a summer meadow. Her arms were still wrapped around him and he lifted his tousled dark head to drop a brief but appreciative kiss on her brow.

      ‘You’re an unbeatable cure for a nightmare, glikia mou,’ he husked with wicked amusement, rolling free of her to head for the bathroom.

      The minute he arrived there he realised too late what was missing. He had not used a condom—not that last time or the time before it in the shower.

      It was a very dangerous oversight that chilled Bastien and made him want to punch something hard in angry self-loathing. The shower beat down on him while some of the worst memories of his life engulfed him and he shuddered, knowing what he must do, knowing that this time around he would not dare to walk away and simply hope for the best.

      Delilah needed to know that, whatever happened, her future and that of any child she had would be totally secure.

      A towel knotted round his lean brown hips, he strode back into the bedroom and proceeded to disconcert Lilah