Modern Romance March 2015 Collection 1. Кэрол Мортимер

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      Xander took a step forward to look down at her searchingly. ‘I won’t let him hurt you, or Daisy, again, Samantha.’

      That was laudable, it really was, except that Sam had realised these past few days that it was Xander himself who was now capable of hurting her, far more than Malcolm ever had, but in a completely different way.

      She had been fighting her attraction to him all week, avoiding being alone with him whenever possible, as well as keeping their conversations light and impersonal. It hadn’t always been possible to remain completely immune, of course; shower time with Xander had become both Sam’s daily torture and pleasure. Especially given his blatant desire.

      But Sam had put his arousal down to the weeks he had been denied a sex life, rather than a direct response to her. Xander was probably so sexually frustrated, after almost two months of drought, that he would have responded physically to any woman, rather than specifically to her.

      Nevertheless, that hadn’t prevented Sam’s own reaction to all that taut, tanned, and naked flesh: wide and muscled shoulders she ached to touch, a sleek and lean chest, his waist and hips narrow, his legs long and muscled.

      His hair had also grown longer this past week, falling in shaggy blond waves onto the back of the rounded neckline of his T-shirts, and falling silkily over his forehead.

      He looked even more like a sleek and muscled Viking about to plunder and pillage and—

      ‘Samantha?’ Xander queried huskily as he took in the slightly fevered glow to her eyes and the delicate flush that had appeared in her cheeks, the tenseness of silence between them now such that he could hear the clock ticking out in the hallway.

      Her gaze was focused on his mouth as she moistened the plumpness of her own recently chewed lips with a sweep of her tongue. ‘I should get back to the kitchen.’

      ‘I thought you had finished in there for the night?’

      She looked flustered. ‘I— Not quite. I—I’ll leave you to—to get on with whatever it was you were doing when I interrupted you.’

      He shrugged. ‘I was just sitting here thinking of going out.’

      She raised startled eyes. ‘You were?’

      ‘To the club.’ Xander nodded. ‘But I’d really rather stay here. With you.’

      Dark lashes fanned against Samantha’s cheeks as she lowered her lids. ‘You would?’

      ‘Look at me, Samantha.’

      She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I’d really rather not.’

      ‘Why not?’

      Her gaze flickered up to his and then quickly away again.

      Clearly she had seen and correctly read the desire he was no longer making any effort to hide.

      The same desire he had been fighting for the past week. A desire he wasn’t sure he was capable of fighting any longer. He wanted Samantha so much right now he could no longer think straight. And her scent was driving him insane; insidiously warm and desirable woman combined with an underlying floral smell, possibly lavender soap?

      ‘This really is a bad idea, Xander.’

      ‘The most enjoyable ones usually are.’ He stepped forward to take her in his arms, the softness of her curves instantly accommodating his much harder ones.

      She placed her hands on his shoulders in an effort to hold her body away from him. ‘We really shouldn’t do this, Xander.’ Her voice was pleading, asking for a level-headedness he simply couldn’t give her right now.

      ‘Do you really want me to stop?’ Xander murmured throatily.

      Of course Sam didn’t want him to stop, not when his lips and tongue were tasting the dips and hollows of her throat, his teeth gently biting her earlobe, his breath warm against her skin.

      ‘We could always look on it as research,’ he murmured throatily, his hands roaming the length of her spine as his lips now plundered the sensitive hollows at the base of her throat, the five o’clock shadow on his chin a pleasurable rasp against her sensitive flesh. ‘A way of settling once and for all which position is most comfortable for me to make love?’ he teasingly reminded her of that previous conversation.

      Sam knew that she really shouldn’t let this go any further than it already had. But it had been so long since a man had touched her in this way. Since any man had touched her with such gentle appreciation. As it had the week before, her long-denied body betrayed her, reacting instinctively to just the thought of that pleasure, her breasts swelling, nipples hardening to sensitive pebbles, and heat building between her thighs.

      Xander smelled so good too, a light and spicy cologne, and the lemon shampoo she knew he used to wash his hair. There was an underlying smell that was all Xander; a healthy male in his sexual prime.

      Sam wanted this.

      Wanted Xander.

      Surely any regrets could come later?

      And she had no doubt there would be regrets. The main one being that she could never mean anything more to Xander than a single night—or possibly two, if she was lucky!—of pleasure.

      But other women went to bed with men all the time just for the pleasure of it, so why not her?

      Yes, why the hell not her?

      Xander didn’t need to profess undying love for her to be a caring and considerate lover. A lover she already knew was capable of giving her pleasure. Any more than she needed to be in love with him in order to give him that same pleasure.

      Live a little, Sam, she mentally encouraged herself. Take what he is offering and think of the consequences later.

      She looked up at him sharply. ‘I’m not on any sort of contraception.’ She couldn’t think of those consequences later.

      His eyes darkened at the realisation her comment signalled her capitulation. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he assured her gruffly.

      Of course he would; no doubt Xander had a bedside drawer full of condoms. After all, who knew when he was going to get lucky?

      Could she really do this? Indulge in hot and meaningless sex with a man—with Xander—just for the pleasure of it?

      Oh, yes!

CHAPTER NINE

      SHE LOOKED UP at Xander shyly. ‘Your bedroom or mine?’

      Xander gave her an approving smile as he released her before taking her hand firmly in his much larger one. ‘My bedroom is where the condoms are,’ he reminded teasingly as they walked out of the study together and down the silence of the hallway.

      Sam felt her cheeks warm at the intimacy of their conversation. Which was pretty silly of her, when she intended getting naked with this man in just a few minutes’ time.

      Xander turned on a softly glowing bedside lamp as they entered the masculine bedroom, dominated by the opulence of the four-poster bed. That beautiful mahogany bed was covered with an abundance of gold and cream silk pillows and bedcover, and had matching drapes tied back at the four sides and the two windows.

      Decadence personified.

      As was the beautiful Viking god at her side.

      ‘Stop over-thinking, Samantha,’ Xander encouraged gruffly as he saw the uncertainty in Samantha’s expression as she looked at the bed, and easily guessed the reason for it; she had already revealed that he would be her first lover since her husband. ‘It’s going to be fine, trust me,’ he encouraged softly even as he ran the soft pad of his thumb over the enticing pout of her bottom lip.

      ‘I just—I don’t want to disappoint you.’

      ‘I