Modern Romance June 2019 Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

him. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, she conceded reluctantly, not when he only wanted her to stay married to him because she was pregnant. Even so, being accepted as a normal wife was a huge upgrade on being labelled a friend with benefits.

      ‘What are you thinking about?’ Raj chided, lying back on the bed with his gorgeous dark eyes fiercely welded to her reflective face.

      ‘Nothing remotely important,’ she told him, and she meant it when she said it even if she dimly understood even then that sooner or later she would once again fall into the trap of craving more than he had to give her.

      He toyed with her mouth, soft and gentle, and then nipped wickedly at her bottom lip with the edge of his teeth. Her hands lifted and her fingers speared into his black curls, liquid heat pooling in her pelvis as he deliberately snaked his lean hips into the junction of her thighs, the thrust of his arousal unmistakeable. He was always so hot for her. It was enough, it was more than enough to be desired, cared for, appreciated. Even if she felt as though she was keeping him by default? She crushed the thought, burying it deep. She already had more with him than she had ever thought she would have, so craving anything else would be greedy.

      ‘I want you so much,’ Raj confided rawly, sitting up over her to wrench off his shirt, yank roughly at his tie. ‘Knowing my baby is inside you is so sexy...’

      Zoe blinked. It was? He was lifting her to deftly undo her bra, groaning with satisfaction when her small pouting breasts came free to hungrily claim an engorged nipple with his mouth. A gasp was wrenched from her as he teased the other with his fingers. ‘You’re more sensitive there than ever,’ he husked. ‘I love your body.’

      She knew he did: he never left it alone. He couldn’t walk past her without touching her in some way and if they were alone, it almost always concluded in their bed, although they had succumbed to christening his office sofa a time or two and they had once had sex in a limousine on a long drive. He had an astonishingly strong sexual appetite. Anyone watching him could have been forgiven for thinking he hadn’t had the freedom to enjoy her for a couple of days at least but that was not the case.

      He tugged off her panties and yanked down the zip in his trousers, shedding his clothing with an impatience that never failed to add to her excitement. There he was, all sleek and golden and beautiful, and he was finally hers to keep like a precious possession she had been fighting for without even appreciating what she was doing or even what was happening inside her own head. She had wanted love but then what woman didn’t? If he could settle for less, she could settle, she reasoned as he snaked down her body with darting little kisses and caresses that set her on fire, ultimately settling between her spread thighs to pleasure her in the way he enjoyed the most.

      As a rippling spasm of pleasure gathered low in her body, she clutched at his hair, writhed, squirmed, begged until at last she climaxed in an explosive surge that certainly didn’t feel in any way as though she were settling for less. Raj shifted over her then, hungrily kissing her, and the excitement began to rocket again as he sank into her with delicious force, pushing her legs back to deepen his penetration. Definitely not less, she told herself as she rose breathlessly to meet his every thrust, every move instinctive and raw with the excitement she could barely contain. There was more and then even more of that insanely thrilling pleasure before he sent her flying into a wild breathless climax that shattered her senses and her control, leaving her slumped in a wreck of heavy, satiated limbs in the aftermath.

      She hadn’t heard a phone ring, had been too far gone, but she surfaced when she realised that Raj wasn’t holding her close as he usually did. She turned over, saw him talking urgently on his phone while he strode about, naked and bronzed and muscular, and she propped her chin on the heel of her hand, enjoying watching him. That enjoyment gradually faded when he went on to make several other quick calls in succession, alerting her to the knowledge that something must have happened, and because his expression changed from smiling to grim she couldn’t tell whether what had happened was a good or bad thing.

      ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you for the night,’ Raj told her with a frown. ‘The construction workers have stumbled on archaeological remains at the Josias site.’

      ‘The hospital project in the capital of Maraban?’

      ‘It’s potentially a very exciting discovery but it means that the site has to close until we can get an official inspection done tomorrow, and that throws the whole project and the work crews into limbo. I’m flying out there now to meet with the managers and look at contingency plans. It is possible that we won’t be able to build there at all,’ he concluded gravely. ‘And the hospital is very much needed in that area.’

      Recalling that Nabila was the CEO of the construction firm involved, Zoe sat up, her pale hair falling round her flushed face, because she knew he was undoubtedly about to meet the other woman again for the first time in eight years and she very much wanted to be in the vicinity. ‘I could come with you!’ she said in sudden interruption.

      ‘No, not this time. What would be the point? I’m likely to be in meetings most of the night and certainly all of tomorrow, sorting this out,’ he told her dismissively as he strode into the bathroom.

      ‘I would still like to have gone,’ Zoe confided in a small voice to an empty room.

      But did she really need to cling to him like glue? she reproved herself. There were few things more distasteful to a man than a clingy, needy and jealous woman and Raj would quickly get tired of her if she started acting paranoid and suspicious purely because he was mixing with his ex-girlfriend in a business environment. She had to grow up, she told herself urgently, not react to her stabbing insecurity with adolescent immaturity. After all, nothing was likely to change in the short term. She was pregnant and really married now.

      And how did Raj truly feel about that development? It shocked Zoe to accept that she had not the smallest idea of how he felt, and the instant she registered that worrying truth, another little brick of security tumbled down from her inner wall of defences. Sadly, there was no ignoring the truth that the closest Raj had actually come to expressing his personal feelings was the assurance that he regarded her being pregnant with his child as...sexy. Although he had labelled her conception a brilliant accident, which did suggest he was pleased.

      Zoe grimaced. Why couldn’t he simply have said so, openly? In reality, now that she was recalling that conversation, she realised that Raj had not expressed a single emotion, which for an emotionally intense man of his ilk was not reassuring, she reflected worriedly.

      Were duty and a sense of responsibility for his child all that had driven Raj’s request that she stay married to him?

      And if that was the case, what could she possibly do about it?