Passionate Protectors?

by Anne Mather

‘I don’t care what Hugo said. There is no me and Max,’ declared Sara, uncaring if her words were ungrammatical. She couldn’t take her eyes off Matt. ‘Is that what you thought? That Max and I were getting back together?’

  ‘It seemed possible,’ said Matt, heaving a sigh. ‘After all, you married him. You must have cared for him once.’

  ‘You accused me of marrying him for his money,’ retorted Sara, blinking back her tears, and Matt shook his head.

  ‘I know you better than that now,’ he told her heavily. ‘Dear God, Sara, a man will say anything to protect himself.’

  Sara licked a tear from the corner of her mouth. ‘Did you need protection?’ she asked huskily, and Matt’s lips took on a rueful curve.

  ‘You better believe it,’ he said, cupping her jaw with one cold hand. His thumb brushed over her lower lip and he bent his head to rescue another tear from her cheek with his tongue. ‘I think you’d better tell me again why you came here. I don’t want to make any more mistakes.’

  Sara shivered again, but this time with anticipation, not from fear. ‘You know why I came,’ she breathed, and Matt blew softly in her ear.

  ‘Indulge me,’ he said, his free hand coming to slide the collar of her silk shirt aside so that he could touch her bare shoulder with his lips. ‘My confidence is at a pretty low ebb at the moment.’

  Sara turned her face against his rough cheek. ‘Didn’t you finish your book?’ she asked innocently, and he growled his indignation.

  ‘You’ll have to get it through your head that there are more important things in my life than my writing,’ he told her thickly.

  ‘Rosie. I know.’

  ‘Not just Rosie,’ he said, tilting her face up to his. His fingers caressed the skin below her ears. ‘Why did you take so long to come to a decision about us?’

  ‘So there is an “us”?’ Sara whispered, and once again he made a sound of impatience.

  ‘If you want there to be,’ he said at last. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Need you ask? And I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing by coming here. I’ve never done anything like this before.’ Sara’s hands came up to grip his wrists. And when he continued to just look at her she said unsteadily, ‘Can’t you kiss me? Please! I’m shaking.’

  ‘That’s the cold,’ said Matt, but something in her expression seemed to wither whatever control he’d been putting on himself. With a groan of submission he linked his hands behind her neck and pulled her towards him and her wishes were fulfilled when his mouth slanted over hers.

  Sara groped for him, her fingers encountering the tight fabric of his tee shirt before tearing it free of his pants and burrowing beneath. His skin was warm and masculine, the muscles taut beneath her hands. As her mouth opened wide beneath the hungry penetration of his tongue her breasts peaked against his chest, and between her legs she felt the liquid proof of her arousal.

  Oh, God, she loved him, she thought achingly, lying back and drawing him down on top of her. And although Matt protested that she was going to get sand in her hair, too, she didn’t care. This was her moment, this was where she wanted to be, and it was just so heavenly to feel his powerful body crushing hers into the sand.

  He kissed her many times, kisses that grew more and more passionate, more and more devastating. She felt drugged with emotion, drugged with the sensual urgency of his mouth. And so weak with longing she didn’t think she would ever have the strength to get up.

  Matt peeled her shirt away from her breasts and she trembled when he said, ‘No bra?’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed one,’ she whispered in answer, shifting uncontrollably when he took one of the sensitive peaks into his mouth.

  ‘You didn’t,’ he said, rolling the taut areola against his tongue before beginning to suck on it strongly. So strongly that she could feel its pull deep down in the pit of her stomach.

  When she felt his hand between her legs, her knees trembled. She shouldn’t have worn any pants either, she thought dizzily, as his fingers slid beneath the scrap of silk and lace and found the moist core of her. She arched up against his hand, already aching for a fulfilment only he could give her. But she wanted him, not a replacement, and somehow she managed to push his hand aside.

  ‘Matt—’

  But Matt had misunderstood. Bracing himself with his elbows, he lifted himself away from her. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m going too fast. I’m sorry.’

  He would have sunk back onto his knees then, but Sara wouldn’t let him. With a groan of frustration she grasped the waistband of his jeans, and before he could stop her she’d released the buckle.

  ‘You’re not leaving me again,’ she said tremulously. ‘I want you, Matt. All of you. Not just—not just an imitation.’

  ‘Dammit, Sara—’

  He tried to hold the two sides of his pants together, but Sara had already opened his zip, and she stared at him as she slipped her hand inside and caressed him.

  ‘Tell me you don’t want me,’ she exclaimed, the engorged length of him throbbing in her hand, and Matt was forced to admit defeat.

  ‘Of course I want you,’ he admitted, his voice hoarse with emotion. ‘Dear God, Sara, I’ve wanted you since the first time I touched you. You know that.’

  ‘I do now,’ she whispered, her fingers going to the button on her skirt. ‘Help me, darling. I want there to be no barriers when you make love to me.’

  Matt groaned. ‘Sara—’

  ‘You’re not going to refuse me, are you?’ she breathed unsteadily, and he closed his eyes against the unconscious provocation she represented.

  ‘We should go back to the house,’ he offered half-heartedly, but she was already easing his jeans over his tight buttocks.

  ‘And have Mrs Webb speculating on what we’re doing,’ murmured Sara softly. ‘I don’t think so. Do you?’

  ‘I can’t think any more,’ admitted Matt, kicking off his jeans without further protest. He tore his tee shirt over his head as she dispensed with her shirt and used it to make a soft bed for them to lie on. ‘Here…’ He nuzzled her bare shoulder as she attempted to slip out of her skirt and briefs. ‘Let me.’

  When Sara lay back on the sand Matt went with her, and she was tantalised by the roughness of the hair that surrounded his swollen shaft. She wanted to touch him again, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘I don’t want any substitutes either,’ he told her, making her blush. He parted her legs to kneel between her thighs. ‘I just want you. The woman I love.’

  He entered her in one sleek sure movement. Sara’s muscles expanded and then closed tightly around him, so that he moaned a little at the knowledge that this would not last long.

  They were hungry for one another, and in a few regrettably short strokes Sara felt her senses spinning away from her. Seconds later Matt joined her, his release pumping hotly inside her. Matt’s seed, she thought dreamily. She hoped that one day she would have Matt’s baby. A new life to make her life complete…

  Epilogue

  THEY didn’t get another chance to be alone together until after Rosie had gone to bed that evening.

  The little girl had been delighted to see Sara again. She’d spent most of the time since her father and Sara had collected her from school asking how long she was going to stay, whether she had decided to be Rosie’s nanny, after all.

  ‘Sara’s going to live with us,’ Matt had told her at last, after he and Sara had decided it was the easiest way of breaking the news of their relationship to the little girl. ‘She’s not going to be your nanny exactly. She’s just going to live here.’

  ‘Like a mummy?’ Rosie had asked excitedly, and although Matt had been tempted to say Exactly like a mummy, he was afraid of jumping the gun.

  But Sara hadn’t had any such inhibitions. ‘Would you mind if I married your father?’ she’d enquired softly, and Rosie had hardly hesitated.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She’d paused. ‘Could I call you Mummy?’ she’d added. ‘I’ve never had a mu
mmy, you see. I think I’d like that.’

  ‘You can call me anything you like,’ Sara had told her gratefully, giving her a hug. ‘We’re going to be a real family. Would you like that?’

  This time Rosie had had no reservations. ‘Yes, please,’ she’d said eagerly. ‘Will you be getting married soon? Can I be your bridesmaid?’

  Sara had looked at Matt then, and he hadn’t been able to hide his amusement. ‘Why not?’ he’d answered blandly, and he and his wife-to-be had exchanged a look of complete understanding over his daughter’s head.

  Mrs Webb hadn’t been at all surprised at the outcome, or so she’d said anyway. ‘I always knew you were sweet on her,’ she’d said to Matt, causing him to get a little red-faced at the backhanded compliment. ‘I’m very happy for you. I’m sure you’ll have a great life together.’

  But now Mrs Webb had gone home, Rosie was safely asleep in her own bed, and Sara was getting her first real look at Matt’s bedroom.

  It was a very masculine room, she thought, but it suited him. It suited her, too, she thought languidly some time later, after Matt had made love to her again. The hangings of rust and gold gave the room a warm ambience, and she was anticipating lots of evenings spent here, either listening to music or watching the television that occupied a carved cabinet at the foot of the bed.

  Or making love, she reminded herself, with a delicious sense of completeness. Matt had told her he loved her in so many different ways, and it was difficult now to imagine how empty her life would have been if they’d never met.

  But perhaps they would have met one day, she reflected. Hugo did know Rob Marco, after all. It was possible that with one of those quirks of fate they might have met, and fallen in love.

  But Max would never have let her go, she remembered, the thought causing her to nestle even closer to Matt’s drowsing form. And Matt would never have known what Max had done to her if he hadn’t rescued her from the sea. She owed him her life as well as her happiness, she thought fancifully. And that was as it should be.

  ‘Are you happy?’ Matt asked suddenly, and she realised his eyes had opened and he was studying her grave expression rather thoughtfully. ‘You’re not regretting anything, are you?’

  ‘As if I would,’ she breathed, her lips closing on one of his taut nipples. ‘I love you, Matt. I was just thinking how fate plays tricks on all of us. When Max fell down the stairs I thought my life was over. Little did I know it was just beginning.’

  Matt rolled over onto his side so that he could look at her. ‘I like that analogy,’ he said. ‘I feel the same. Little did I know when you walked round the corner of the barn that I’d found my destiny.’

  ‘Your destiny?’ Sara dimpled. ‘That’s very poetic.’

  ‘I can write poetry, too,’ said Matt drily. ‘It’s just not fit for public consumption, that’s all.’

  ‘I bet it is.’ Sara’s eyes sparkled. ‘You don’t do anything by halves. Look at the way you handled Max. I was full of admiration.’

  Matt gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘I mean it,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve never known Max to back down over anything. What did you say to him? Did you psychoanalyse him or something?’

  ‘Nothing so dramatic.’

  ‘Matt!’

  ‘Oh—well, I guess I reminded him that I had friends in the media, too. And—I also told him that I had pictures of you that would look pretty damning on the front pages of the tabloids.’

  Sara gasped. ‘But you don’t. Have pictures of me, I mean.’ She paused. ‘Do you?’

  Matt pulled a wry face. ‘What do you think? That I crept into your room at night and took photographs of your naked body?’

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘He didn’t know it wasn’t true,’ said Matt flatly. ‘And once you told me about his first wife I realised why my words must have struck home.’

  Sara shook her head. ‘Amazing.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Mind?’ Sara gazed at him incredulously. ‘My darling, I was in bondage and you set me free.’

  ‘Now who’s the poet?’ he asked, his lips caressing her shoulder, and she gurgled with laughter.

  ‘Not me,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m just a primary school teacher and part-time nanny!’

  ‘And the love of my life,’ added Matt, his hand suddenly busy elsewhere. ‘Hmm, what was that you said? That I set you free? Well, my darling, do you feel like showing me some gratitude?’

  And she did.

  The Bedroom Barter

  By

  Sara Craven

  SARA CRAVEN was born in South Devon and grew up in a house full of books. She worked as a local journalist, covering everything from flower shows to murders, and started writing for Mills & Boon in 1975. When not writing, she enjoys films, music, theatre, cooking, and eating in good restaurants. She now lives near her family in Warwickshire. Sara has appeared as a contestant on the former Channel Four game show Fifteen to One, and in 1997 was the UK television Mastermind champion. In 2005 she was a member of the Romantic Novelists’ team on University Challenge – the Professionals.

  Chapter One

  THE waterfront was crowded, the air full of the reek of alcohol, greasy food, and the sultry rhythms of local music. People had spilled out of the crowded bars and sleazy clubs, forming shifting and edgy groups in the stifling humidity of the South American night.

  Like a powder keg that only needed a spark was Ash Brennan’s wry assessment.

  He moved easily but with purpose, at a pace barely above a saunter, over the uneven flagstones, his cool blue glance flicking over the gaudy neon signs advertising booze and women, ignoring the glances that came his way, some measuring, some inviting. All the time maintaining his own space.

  Logistically it was only about a mile from the Santo Martino marina, where millionaires moored their yachts and where all the nightspots and casinos which catered for well-heeled tourists were sited. In reality it was light years away, and any tourist foolhardy enough to venture down here would need to take to his expensive heels or risk being mugged or worse.

  Ash reckoned that he blended sufficiently well. The sunbleached tips of his dark blond hair brushed the collar of the elderly blue shirt, which lay open at the throat to reveal a tanned muscular chest. Faded khaki pants clung to lean hips and long legs. His feet were thrust into ancient canvas shoes, and a cheap watch encircled his wrist.

  His height and the width of his shoulders, as well as his air of self-possession, suggested a man who could take care of himself and, if provoked, would do so.

  He looked like a deckhand in need of rest and recreation, but selective about where he found them.

  And tonight his choice had apparently fallen on Mama Rita’s. He went past the display boards studded with photographs of girls in various stages of undress and down two steps into the club, where he paused, looking round him.

  It was the usual sort of place, with a long bar and, closely surrounded by tables with solely male occupants, a small stage lit by powerful spots, with a central pole where the dancers performed.

  The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the stink of cheap spirit. And, apart from the sound of the piano being played by a small sad-faced man with a heavy moustache, there was little noise. For the main part, the clientele sat brooding over their drinks.

  Waiting for the girls to come on, Ash surmised.

  Just inside the door, an enormous woman sat behind a table. Her low-cut sequinned dress in lime-green billowed over her spectacular rolls of fat as if it had been poured there, and her curly hair was dyed a rich mahogany. Her lips were stretched in a crimson-painted smile which never reached eyes that resembled small dark currants sunk into folds of pastry.

  Mama Rita, I presume, Ash thought with an inward grimace.

  She beckoned to him. ‘You pay the cover charge, querido.’ It was an instruction rather than a question, and Ash complied, his brows lifting faintly at the amount de
manded.

  ‘I only want a drink, Mama. I’m not putting in an offer for your club.’

  The smile widened. ‘You get a drink, my man. My best champagne, and a pretty girl to drink it with you.’

  ‘Just a beer.’ Ash met her gaze. ‘And I’ll decide if I want company.’

  For a moment their glances clashed, then she shrugged, sending the sequins rippling and sparkling. ‘Anything you say, querido.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Manuel—find a good table for this beautiful man.’

  Manuel, tall, handsome and sullen, set off towards the front row of tables clustering round the stage, but Ash detained him curtly.

  ‘This will do,’ he said, taking a seat at the back of the room. Manuel shrugged and went off to the bar while Ash, leaning back in his chair, took more careful stock of his surroundings.

  He’d been told that Mama Rita had the pick of all the girls who came to Santo Martino, and it seemed to be true. A few of them were already sitting with customers, encouraging them to run up bar bills of cosmic proportions, but there were several lined up at the bar and Ash surveyed them casually as he took out a pack of thin cheroots and lit one, dropping the empty book of matches into the ashtray.

  They were a fairly cosmopolitan mix, he thought. All of them young and most of them pretty.

  He spotted a couple of North Americans and a few Europeans, as well as the local chicas who’d strayed into port from farms and plantations of looking for an alternative to early marriage and endless childbirth. Well, they’d found that all right, he thought cynically, stifling a brief pang of regret. Because he wasn’t there to feel compassion. He couldn’t afford it.

  ‘You see something you like, señor?’ Manuel was back with his beer, his smile knowing.

  ‘Not yet,’ Ash returned coolly, tapping the ash from his cheroot. ‘When I do, I’ll let you know.’

  Manuel shrugged. ‘As you wish, señor. You have only to speak.’ He nodded towards an archway with a beaded curtain behind the stage. ‘We have rooms—very private rooms—where the girls would dance for you alone,’ he added with blatant insinuation. ‘I can arrange. At a price, naturalemente.’