To Claim His Mistress. Sara Craven

and I know you were pretending. You were with me almost to the last moment—I could feel it—and then I lost you somehow. You seemed to—drift away.’

      There was a silence, then Cat released herself from his clasp, biting her lip. ‘I—I’m sorry.’

      ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’ His tone was dry. ‘Obviously I should have taken more time—been more considerate.’

      She didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t think that would have made much difference. It just—doesn’t happen for me very often.’

      ‘Yet you wanted me,’ he said gently. ‘You weren’t faking that.’

      ‘I can’t explain it,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘It’s as if I reach—and reach—but there’s nothing there.’

      ‘And is it like that every time?’

      To which the answer was, Pretty much, Cat thought. But she had no intention of saying it.

      ‘I don’t think that’s up for discussion,’ she said. ‘After all, we agreed—no past, no future, just the pleasure of the present.’ She paused. ‘Or are you some kind of psychotherapist, wanting to delve into my subconscious? Because I’m not buying.’

      ‘No,’ Liam said, a sudden harshness in his voice. ‘I’m the man who’s just failed to satisfy you. But at least I can do something about that.’

      He pulled her to him, stifling with his mouth any protest she might have planned. But at the first touch of his lips Cat was beyond resistance, her surrender absolute.

      His hands were travelling slowly down her pliant body, lingering, arousing. Making every sense, every nerve-ending quiver in this new awakening. And where his hands touched his mouth followed, feathering kisses on her vulnerable flesh.

      His tongue teased her breasts, turning the rosy peaks to tingling hardness, and she closed her eyes, sighing, conscious of nothing but the piercing delight of the sensations he was evoking.

      When he raised his head, she heard herself say thickly, ‘Don’t stop—you can’t stop…’

      ‘I’ve only just begun.’ There was a shadow of laughter in his answering whisper.

      His lips travelled on down, over the flat plane of her stomach, caressing the tiny whorls of her navel, the hollows of her hipbones. His hands were stroking her thighs, and her body slackened in anticipation of the contact she yearned for, but which, tantalisingly, he did not seem to be offering.

      ‘Please.’ Her voice did not seem to belong to her. ‘Oh—please.’

      Then she cried out as his mouth reached the joining of her thighs and found the molten, aching sweetness within. For one shocked, bewildered moment she tried to push him away, scared of this depth of intimacy, but he captured her wrists with one hand and held her helpless.

      His tongue was a flame, gentle but intense, as it began to explore her most secret being, seeking her small hidden bud and coaxing it to exquisite life. He made it flicker against her, then stroke her with delicate finesse, before circling on her with voluptuous control. And without mercy.

      Cat was breathless, small sounds coming from her throat as her head twisted on the pillow. There were tiny golden stars dancing behind her eyelids, and she could hear the blood roaring through her veins like the echo of a remorseless tide beating on the shore.

      Everything else—each sense, each nerve, each atom of emotion—was focused, concentrated on this passionate agony of sensation he was creating for her. Nothing else existed but this lesson in her own sensuality that she was being taught by a master. She wasn’t even aware of the moment when he released her wrists.

      Her inner heat was raging like a furnace. She realised in some outreach of her mind that she had reached the brink and was being held there endlessly, her body a silent scream for release.

      When it came, it was like a quiet pulse beating deeply and insistently within her, gathering power and strength, rising to some undreamed-of height. Until he took her across the edge, and her body imploded into rapture, shuddering violently as each tremor tore through her.

      And his name on her lips was a thanksgiving.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      AFTERWARDS, Cat lay, held close in his arms, absorbing the small ripples of delight that still assailed her, like the aftershock of an earthquake, with tears running down her face.

      ‘My darling,’ Liam said softly, kissing her wet eyes. ‘My clever angel. Don’t cry.’

      Her voice trembled. ‘I never knew it could be like that—never dreamed…’

      ‘I knew,’ he told her gently. ‘From the first moment that we looked at each other, I knew.’

      She sighed. ‘Maybe I’m not as sophisticated as I thought.’

      ‘So I discovered.’ There was a wry twist to his mouth as he stroked her cheek. ‘Along with the fact that Cat the Tigress does not take her claws to bed. You’re quite an enigma, my love.’

      ‘Is that better than being a male fantasy?’ she queried sleepily, her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder.

      A laugh shook him. ‘Just different.’ He added softly, ‘But I think you’ll still be fulfilling my fantasies long after I’ve solved the mystery.’

      She barely heard him. She was already drifting, heavy-lidded, into sleep. Sinking down through waves of contentment into a haven of dreamless rest.

      When she awoke it was daylight, and fitful sunshine was glancing into the room through the open curtains. And she was alone in the big bed, with the covers drawn neatly over her.

      What was more, she was once again wearing the nightgown she’d discarded a few hours previously, she realised, touching the soft fabric with disbelieving hands.

      As she sat up and looked round the room Cat experienced a curious sense of disorientation. Because there was simply no sign that the room had ever been occupied by anyone but herself. Even the pillow beside her was plumped up and pristine.

      Had the events of last night simply been a figment of her imagination? A kind of wish fulfilment? Could she have only dreamed Liam, and the rapture she’d found with him?

      No, she thought, her body quickening with excitement. That wasn’t possible. Her senses were still basking in the afterglow of his lovemaking.

      And her last memory was breathing the scent of his skin as she lay with her head on his shoulder and her face turned towards the curve of his neck.

      Broodingly, Cat drew her knees up to her chin, her mouth tightening.

      Falling asleep in his arms had not been part of the plan—if, of course, she’d ever had a plan. Somewhere along the way she’d been hijacked, all her good intentions blown to the four winds.

      But sharing her bed for an entire night had always seemed to her to be a dangerous step towards sharing her life. There was an ocean of trust implied in abandoning one’s consciousness in the presence of another person, and it was something she’d always avoided in the past, offering some light and credible excuse—she had an early start in the morning, or she was a poor and restless sleeper. Anything that would send them on their way and re-establish her privacy, her inviolability.

      On the other hand, how did she know he’d spent the night with her? After all, she had no idea when he’d decided to leave, not when she’d been so dead to the world that he’d been able to dress her in her nightgown without waking her, for heaven’s sake.

      She bit her lip hard. It seemed ridiculous to jib at that when there was not one inch of her body that he had not caressed and kissed with such passionate skill and artistry. When she’d not just accepted all the intimacies of their lovemaking but gloried in them. Yet somehow having her gown replaced when she was asleep and helpless seemed a familiarity too far.

      However,