something to eat?’
He shook his head. ‘No, thanks. Coffee will be fine.’ A strand of dark hair had fallen forward on his brow and he irritatedly brushed it back. ‘I thought you’d like to know we’ve averted the threatened strike. I have a few negotiations to work out later this afternoon but we seem to have sorted it all out once and for all.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Keira’s brain was spinning tantalisingly around a number of far more erotic reasons for his presence. ‘Daniel told me.’
‘Daniel!’ he repeated in surprise. ‘Daniel?’ His tone had sharpened, edged with suppressed anger, and alarmed at his tone Keira swung back to face him. Their eyes locked. He’d pushed himself away from the support of the breakfast bar and Keira’s complete nervous system tensed, poised for flight.
‘Yes.’ Keira’s throat dried on the word. ‘Daniel called in just-’ she started to explain but Eden broke in on her and her hand went uneasily to the base of her throat.
‘Daniel was here?’
‘Yes, he-’
‘He was here in the middle of the night?’ he barked at her, and Keira drew herself together as his meaning became abundantly clear.
‘Yes. No!’
‘Either he was or he wasn’t,’ Eden said sarcastically and Keira’s anger rose at his mocking tone.
Recklessly she took the two steps towards him that put her up against the breakfast bar that separated them.
‘If you’d let me finish a sentence I’d explain-’ she began again, holding up her hand when he opened his mouth to interrupt her again. ‘Will you be quiet for just a moment. For heaven’s sake, there’s no need to rehash all that leave-my-nephew-alone rubbish. Believe me, Daniel’s honour was perfectly safe from me. He spent the night with Cat’s family and called in to tell me about the averted strike a few minutes before you arrived.’
Eden’s hooded gaze held hers.
‘In fact you just missed him.’ Keira angrily brushed her hair back from her face. ‘Now-’ she strode around the breakfast bar and turned to look pointedly at Eden and then at the door ‘-I’ve had a late night and I’m too tired for all this.’
He regarded her enigmatically and then gave a soft, bitter laugh. ‘Tired,’ he repeated throatily, and Keira’s gaze snapped back to him in sudden apprehension. ‘That makes two of us. I pretty well came straight here as soon as I could get away from the meeting,’ he added in that same low, inciting tone. ‘But, quite frankly, right now I couldn’t give a damn if the whole country went on strike.’
He took two measured steps towards her and she tensed, but willed herself to hold her ground.
‘And I’m not sure the outcome of the meeting was even the reason why I came. More of an excuse.’ His deep blue eyes burned into hers, fanned that ever-glowing ember of purely physical desire, and Keira gave a negating shake of her head.
‘I… We… You should go, Eden,’ she said through dry lips that trembled in fear, fear of the depth of longing that rose in her to beg him to stay.
He ran one hand along the line of his jaw and his mouth twisted self-derisively. ‘I should do a lot of things.’
His gaze never wavered as he moved forward again, and Keira retreated until her back came up against the wall. She swallowed, but her throat was paralysed and she had to tear her eyes from his in a valiant effort to shield the wanting she knew raged so blatantly in their smoky depths.
One strong hand came up to touch her cheek gently, moved to settle for long, sensuous seconds on the curve of her lips before continuing down to rest lightly on the base of her throat where her pulse raced wildly. And he rested his other elbow on the wall beside her head as his mouth hovered tortuously above her.
The cold timber wall seemed to chill her through the thickness of her nightshirt and robe as he lowered his body until it was a tantalising hair’s breadth from hers.
And her own body was betraying her, every nerve tingling, each muscle tensing, straining to close that minute but measureless chasm between them. That she wanted to yield, to mould herself to him, was a battle she was having to fight with all the willpower she possessed.
She knew she had to repel him and do it quickly because she was rapidly losing the skirmish with each passing second.
‘Let me go!’ she got out through her tensed jaw, but of course he gave no sign he’d heard her words, let alone obeyed her demand.
She made to push her hands against the hard wall of his chest but his strong hands clasped hers, held her arms above her head, leaving her body vulnerable to the still hovering hardness of his.
Keira desperately changed her tactics, turning on him the anger she felt at herself for her own weakness, lifting her chin to confront him. ‘This must give you great satisfaction, knowing you have to overcome a woman with blatant superior strength,’ she said scathingly, and he gave a softly incredulous laugh.
‘About as much satisfaction as knowing that the way I feel about you, what you do to me, takes away my strength to resist you.’
‘Resist me?’ Keira repeated disconcertedly.
‘Resist you. And that’s just it, Keira. I can’t.’
Her mouth was suddenly parched again and she tried desperately to dampen her dry lips with her tongue tip.
His eyes, blue-black coals now in the slightly muted light, focused on the furtive movement, and he groaned deep in his throat. It was a potently primitive sound that struck an untouched chord concealed in hidden recesses way within her and it fanned a reciprocal fire.
Their eyes met, held, as they sank deeply into each other’s souls. And he allowed his hard body to make the yearned-for contact with hers at last.
That charged tension that held them changed too, intensified, until Keira could almost feel the electricity in the air about them. The timbre of his hold on her shifted, their bodies seeming to melt into one as he slowly released her hands, his fingertips burning a trail of fire down her bare arms.
‘You want me as much as I want you, don’t you?’ His deep voice vibrated through every inch of her body. ‘Say it, Keira.’
She began to shake her head and then stopped, knowing without a doubt that the transparent expression in her eyes was betraying her. ‘Yes,’ she heard herself say honestly.
CHAPTER TEN
HE held her fast for long seconds, then he gave a shuddering sigh and released her, his hands sliding over her shoulders to settle on her waist.
‘Yes,’ he repeated thickly. ‘Oh, yes.’
With infinite slowness he lowered his head and softly kissed one corner of her mouth.
Then eons later his tongue-tip teased lingeringly across her top lip and he kissed the other corner of her mouth.
He took her full bottom lip gently between his teeth, released it, nibbled again.
Somewhere in the depths of her something began to grow, expand, until Keira thought she’d die with the desire for release. And when his lips covered hers at last a million shards of colour exploded in a starburst within her. Her arms wound themselves around his neck, her fingers sliding sensually over the silky material of his shirt, probing the play of muscles in his back.
With expert ease he untied the cord of her robe, pushed it open, his fingers splayed out now on her midriff, his thumbs resting on the beginning of the swell of her full breasts. Without Keira being conscious of their movements her own hands had slid upwards, over his broad shoulders, her fingers burying themselves in the rich thickness of his dark hair.
His lips touched her eyelids, her nose, every section of her face until her mouth burned irrepressibly for him to kiss her once more. Keira moaned, lips seeking his again. And when she found them she slid her tongue inside to
