Their Secret Baby by Kate Walker Page B

settee, her hair supported by the soft grey cushions, her face lifted up to receive the force of his mouth.
    For long, heated, mind-swirling seconds she was lost in sensation. In the taste of him on her tongue, the warmth of his body surrounding her, the scent of his skin against her own. And the heavy, yearning thud of her heart made her blood pound inside her skull in some ancient, primitive rhythm of need, the steady march of hungry senses along the heated path that could only lead to one inevitable end.
    ‘Then we’re thinking alike,’ he murmured, his voice raw and thick and echoing the need that was building up inside her. ‘We both want the same thing.’
    Wanted it enough to discard the warning shouts of his beleaguered brain, Rhys acknowledged inwardly. He had fought that battle long enough and quite frankly he was tired of it. The baby wasn’t here, wouldn’t be here tonight. Tomorrow he would see her, hold her…
    He had concentrated on that hunger for so long that he felt he had been almost erased in the process. Tonight he had other hungers, other needs. Ones that this woman could share with him. He could feel the wanting in her restless body as she stirred against him, making him harden and ache in cruel demand. And one by one his thinking processes shut down.
    The delicate, transparent top she wore over the elegant dress almost melted away under the pressure of his hands, discarded somewhere on the settee beside them. Her skin felt like warm silk under his touch, soft and fine and delicately perfumed. He bent his head to kiss all the way up one arm, and across the smooth curve of a shoulder, and felt her heart kick hard as his lips touched the pulse point at the base of her neck.
    ‘Matt…’ she sighed longingly. ‘Matt…’
    The single syllable of the assumed name, the wrong name, sounded foreign and disturbingly alien in his ears, shaking him out of the sensual haze he was in. He wanted to deny it, to reject it—to refuse even to allow her to use it.
    ‘No!’
    It was harsh and rough, a jarring sound of rejection, and it forced open those stunning golden eyes, so that they looked into his in sharp concern.
    ‘No?’ she questioned in obvious uncertainty.
    It was like receiving a dash of cold water in his face. Like the unwanted invasion of chill reality into the heated haven they had created for themselves.
    He could tell her, he thought. And if he told her then he knew what would happen. She would be gone before he had finished speaking. She would be away and off this sofa—out of the room before he had a chance to stop her.
    ‘What is it?’
    Rhys shook his head to collect his wandering thoughts. Was he seriously thinking of telling her who he was and why he was here? Telling her —this woman who hadn’t even let him know that his wife was dead, that his child had been born?
    Was he seriously concerned about keeping the truth from her when she had so ruthlessly kept an even greater one from him?
    ‘What is it?’ It was sharper now, more edgily anxious. ‘What’s wrong?’
    Suddenly it was as if something had dawned on her and she dragged her mouth from his, leaning back so that she could look up into his face, amber eyes travelling over every inch of his features in deep concern.
    ‘Are you—are you married?’
    The relief at the fact that her question was so easy to answer had him throwing his head back and actually laughing out loud.
    ‘Is that what you thought? Isn’t it a little too late to concern yourself with that now?’
    But laughter had been the wrong response, putting a new tension into her slender frame, an uneasy, anxious light into her eyes.
    ‘Answer the question! Yes or no. Are you married?’
    ‘No.’
    He met her burning gaze head-on as he answered, his voice deep and firm, totally unwavering.
    ‘No, I can assure you that I am not married. I was—but not any more. I have no wife. There is no other woman— no one —who can come between you and me.’
    At least