by Sara Wood
He stared at Jack’s small, intent face as he drowsily suckled. Blissful innocence. Heart-wrenching defencelessness… He could never part with this precious gift, this child—his child!
‘She could take you away from me!’ he said to Jack, his eyes blazing and his heart pounding violently in his chest at the very thought. ‘I won’t ever let that happen!’ he vowed fervently.
Whether she was needy or not, he had to persuade her to abandon any ideas of a cosy reunion. But he felt a heel for doing so. Even though he was doing exactly what Sam wanted. The older man had said emphatically—almost hysterically—that he didn’t want anything to do with her.
However, Morgan wasn’t comfortable with the decision he had now made—even though it meant that his own future with his son would be assured.
The problem was that it would be tough as hell seeing Jodie walk away unsatisfied, knowing how badly she yearned for her father.
He raked a hand through his hair. Curse her for complicating his life!
Jack stopped feeding. With great gentleness Morgan put the baby over his shoulder to burp him. Then he tenderly wiped away the dribble of milk around the petal mouth—and groaned when he incidentally caught a glimpse of his watch as he did so.
‘Damn!’ he muttered irritably. ‘Later than I thought!’
Jodie’s arrival had disrupted his plans. The chores would have to wait. Time to leave for the hospital.
On autopilot, he changed Jack’s nappy, then found a warm wool hat in the changing bag and carefully pulled it over the thatch of fine black hair before beginning the familiar struggle: getting two small and uncooperative arms into the cosy coat.
And now he had to tell Jodie his decision.
‘Hang on a minute,’ he said softly, tucking the cooing Jack safely into the rocker chair. ‘Back soon.’
He pocketed the alarm and set off for the kitchen, dreading the next few minutes. But he found her sprawled across the table fast asleep, her head on her arms.
He stood there for a moment looking at her, his gaze transfixed by the way her gleaming hair hung around her head like a glossy cap and how it shone with rich red colours in the fluorescent light.
Gently he shook her shoulder. It felt fragile beneath the spread of his fingers and his fingers briefly splayed out, recording the delicate bones beneath the warm flesh. Vulnerable, he thought. Despite her bravado. And a twinge of something inexplicable ground through his stomach before he scowled and paid attention to what he had to do.
‘Jodie. Jodie!’ he said urgently, determined to get this over and done with.
She muttered, but was too deeply asleep to be roused. Sliding his fingers down the sleeve of her jacket, he found that it was wet with tears. An unwanted rogue sympathy dangerously softened his heart.
Without knowing why, he lifted silken strands of hair and tucked them behind her ear so he could see her face. The huge, soulful eyes were thankfully hidden from view, but the sight of her cutely curling wet lashes touched his emotions.
With a groan, he caught her chin gently in one hand. ‘Jodie!’
Her head lolled heavily and he muttered with exasperation, conscious that time was ticking away. She was out like a light.
Well, she couldn’t stay there. And he couldn’t hang about waiting for her to wake up. Nothing for it, then.
He slid a hand beneath her and lifted. She snuggled with annoying trust in his arms, her head burrowing a little place for itself in his neck—just like Jack did. Her breath came soft and even on his throat. Combined with the feel of her plush curves and the sweet scent of her hair, it was a heady sensation.
An undeniable hunger began to lap at his body. He recognised it as the long-denied desire for the softness of a woman, the sensual pleasure of exploring a woman’s body, the release of tightly controlled passions and the tender aftermath.
He scowled. And what had all that cost him in the past?
Angrily he strode out and climbed the stairs. Surrendering anything to a woman had a price. If you made a mistake—and he’d made one too many—you went through hell.
It wasn’t particularly surprising that he was reacting to this sexy and appealing woman. He’d been celibate for a long time and every blink of those incredible eyes had sent tingles through him, invigorating each cell in his body. But he could handle that…
Morgan’s muscles contracted, proving the opposite. She’d wriggled, and the pressure of her breasts against his chest was fast eroding his resolve. Tight-lipped, he placed her on the four-poster bed in the guest room and eased her arms from around his neck.
For a moment her face lifted and their mouths were close. She sighed, and the urge to kiss those moist, parted lips almost overcame him.
Somehow he drew back and busied himself with briskly hauling the duvet out of the linen press. He hesitated. She’d been travelling for hours. She’d probably sleep through the evening and into the night.
His dark eyes flickered over the thigh boots. Hesitantly he slid his hand over the soft suede and took the zip tab between finger and thumb. In doing so his hand brushed against firm, warm flesh, but he conquered the tremor which slid with a languid warmth through his body and eased the boots off.
Nothing to it. Ignoring the long expanses of shapely leg, he considered the jacket. It had to come off too. Rolling her over on one side and then the other, he finally managed this.
Her arm came up and twined around his neck, pulling his head down to her breast with surprising strength. He found that his face was nestling luxuriantly in the folds of silk, the rise and fall of her perfumed breasts making his head swim. He stayed there for only a split second but it was almost too long.
With ruthless will he extricated himself and hastily covered her with the duvet, bringing it safely up to her chin, as if he knew he had to obliterate all sight, all memory of that delicious, tempting body.
Her cheeks were streaked with tears, her lashes still spiky. In a moment of madness he thought of washing her face with warm water, but he realised he must stay away from this woman and banish her from every part of him.
She was Sam’s daughter. Hadn’t he caused enough trouble with Sam’s mistress already?
He was playing with fire by finding Jodie sexually desirable. Merciless with himself, he drew the curtains around the bed and left her a note in case she woke up, saying he would be out for a couple of hours or so.
And then he showered—cold, invigorating, beneficial—shaved and dressed, collected Jack and headed for the hospital, preparing himself for the harrowing sight of his dearly loved Sam fighting for breath, for life itself.
CHAPTER FOUR
JODIE stirred, her deep, dreamless sleep interrupted by a low rumbling. Groggy and barely conscious, she forced her heavy eyes to open a fraction. Her half-conscious mind took in the swirling greyness above—where she would have expected the darkness of a ceiling—and raw instinct took over.
‘Fire!’ she yelled, terrified, yet too drugged from the depths of sleep to think straight. ‘Help! Fire!’
Her eyes stubbornly refused to focus. A numbing lethargy had taken over her limbs, demanding that she fall asleep again. A nightmare, she told herself hazily.
Smoke surrounded her. Bedding had wrapped itself around her legs, preventing her from escaping. In her dream, or waking, she screamed in panic and forced herself to fight for release, blindly lashing out at everything in her way.
‘Help! Help me!’ she whimpered as the danger became clear. And then to her utter relief she felt cool air on her face and body as the duvet slid away.
The smoke parted. There was blackness beyond. Paralysed with fear, she blinked in confusion, her eyes thick and heavy, and her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth. A shadowy figure moved into sight and she raked in a strangled breath, her eyes wide with horror.
‘Hush! It’s all right.’
A hand rested comfortingly on her bare shoulder and a light snapped on from somewhere behind her head. She found herself st
aring into Morgan’s liquid dark eyes. They were soft and molten and she felt instantly overwhelmed with relief.
‘Fire!’ she husked.
‘There is…no fire,’ he breathed.
‘There was…smoke!’ she mumbled foggily, trying to make her comatose brain work.
‘Uhuh. A…dream,’ he said hoarsely.
‘No—I heard a rumbling, burning, perhaps…’ Her voice faded. There was no smell of smoke, no sign of it. ‘I did see smoke!’ she insisted, afraid he’d think she was mad. ‘I opened my eyes and saw it…’
‘You couldn’t have,’ he interrupted sharply, bending down to pick up the duvet.
She felt its warmth suddenly descending on the bare skin of her pelvis, hips and legs, where previously there had been nothing. Shocked, she realised that she was still wearing her skirt—and that it had ridden up to her waist in her struggles.
She gasped. That meant that when Morgan had first switched on the light… Oh, sweet heaven! Her citrus silk briefs, her bare stomach and thighs and the lace-topped hold-ups would have been exposed to his penetrating gaze!
Furtively she wriggled the skirt down and tentatively moved her hands up her body. Her cheeks flamed when her fingers encountered the soft nakedness of one breast. It seemed her T-shirt had behaved just as recklessly!
Appalled, she cringed beneath the duvet, her apprehensive eyes flicking up to his. He looked as indifferent and as grim-faced as ever, his jaw clenched hard as hewn granite.
He hadn’t been interested, she thought, and frowned, shocked by her indignation. Yet she didn’t want men to make passes at her as if she were some sex object. She wanted to be loved for her whole self. So why should she be annoyed?
‘Relax,’ Morgan clipped. ‘You’re safe.’
With difficulty she hauled her mind back. ‘But if I didn’t see smoke, what did I see?’ she muttered crossly.
‘You’re in a four-poster bed,’ he explained. ‘Look up.’
Her sulky gaze followed his. She saw a dove-grey canopy above and its swirling pattern—like smoke. Curtains of the same material had been drawn around the sides. That was what she’d seen surrounding her in the darkness. She’d been scared of grey fabric!
‘Ohhh!’ she groaned. Keeping the duvet safely up to her neck, she collapsed back on the pillows, deeply embarrassed. ‘I feel so stupid. I’m terribly sorry,’ she mumbled in contrition. ‘I was deeply asleep. My brain must have picked up a couple of clues and gone into survival mode.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know where you were,’ he agreed in a faintly slurred voice.
It was then that she registered that he was wearing a white towelling robe, open at the throat and chest and loosely tied at the waist. It was short enough to reveal strong, sinewy legs and a glimpse of muscular thigh.
He’d been in bed. Or in the bath. Were those beads of sweat on his forehead or dampness? Jodie realised she was staring and said hurriedly, ‘What’s the time?’ She peered at her watch on the bedside table and groaned in dismay. ‘It’s five a.m.! How awful! I woke you!’ Her hot, apologetic face lifted earnestly to his.
‘I was already awake,’ he replied. ‘I was doing the washing.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘Washing?’ and then it dawned on her. ‘That explains it!’ she cried. ‘The spin cycle—it must have woken me!’
‘Then it’s for me to apologise to you,’ he said quietly. ‘If you’re all right now, then—’
‘Wait a minute!’ Jodie was frowning, trying to piece together what had happened. ‘I don’t recall going to bed. I’m…I’m still wearing my clothes…but not…all of them… Did I…? Who…?’
She gulped, frightened that so many hours could be a complete blank, her anxious, wide eyes meeting his in a silent question.
‘You cried yourself to sleep at the kitchen table.’
She remembered that. Her eyes narrowed at his flat, unemotional delivery. He really didn’t give a damn about her!
‘It’s hardly surprising!’ she said feistily. ‘And…then?’ she queried, feeling herself tense up in anticipation.
He scowled. ‘You couldn’t stay slumped awkwardly over the table all night…’
His tone was matter-of-fact and curt, but he was strung taut, every muscle in his body straining so much that he shook imperceptibly. Jodie gloomily realised that he must be thoroughly irritated with her. He’d even checked himself in mid-sentence, almost as if he couldn’t be bothered to waste his time continuing.
‘So?’ she prompted with a glower, needing to hear from his own lips what had happened.
‘Obvious. I carried you up here,’ he clipped.
Like a sack of potatoes, apparently, she thought grumpily. ‘Well, thank you,’ she muttered, remembering her manners.
He shrugged his wide shoulders as if it were all in a day’s work—and an unpleasant job, at that.
‘Had to be done.’
The insult to her feminine pride cut her to the quick. But then she found herself consumed with the image of herself, curled up in his arms, the subject of his inscrutable gaze.
At some stage he must have removed her boots. And her jacket. Her tongue flickered across dry lips and they parted as she drew in her breath. Even though he wasn’t interested in her as a woman, she found the situation uncomfortably intimate. And alarmingly arousing.
‘You—you were very kind to let me stay the night,’ she said throatily, frowning at the treacle-like thickness of her speech. She must be more tired than she’d known.
His eyes glittered, then his dark lashes lowered to conceal them. ‘I didn’t have any choice,’ he growled, so quietly that she barely heard at all.
And in the crushing silence that fell she became very aware of everything about him. Suddenly his mouth seemed more carnal, its lines curving with a beautiful sensuality. Her lips parted. He was clean-shaven now, and she found herself aching to touch the smooth lines of his angular jaw.
Her eyes half closed. Not from drowsiness, but from an unstoppable surge of sexual awakening which made her feel she was swimming through warm seas, every part of her body invaded by a lethargic heat.
She’d never felt like this before. Not this desperate, inescapable and reckless need to be touched, to touch…
She swallowed, bewildered and appalled by her uncontrollable lust. It was driving her into danger. This man would take no prisoners.
‘Goodnight, then,’ she managed, brutally denying her basic instincts.
‘’Night!’ he shot back through his teeth.
He pulled the curtains across and left before she could hold him there any longer. But as he thundered angrily down the stairs he knew with a heart-stopping shock that she had captured a part of him already.
He groaned. Every inch of his body was threatening mutiny. It clamoured to be free of the rigid control he was imposing on it.
The blood was still pumping in his veins, red and hot. The breath had been rasping in his throat so loudly he’d been sure she’d comment on his laboured intake. His eyes could only stare, his lips part in readiness. His hands had almost reached out and touched…
He sucked in a harsh breath, his mind seeing nothing but the sweet curve of her hips, the dark, triangular shadow beneath the tantalisingly fragile scrap of acid-yellow silk. And then that smooth softness of her thighs above the lacy stockings. The incredible swell of her milky-white breast with its dark plum centre, tantalisingly sleepy and un-awoken…
He’d longed to bring it to life. To surround it with his mouth, pulling gently till it peaked hard and sweet while he caressed her fabulous body, feeling its flawless silk against his flesh and bone, crushing her to him till they melted in heat and desire…
That was how he’d felt. His need had been so unexpected and fierce that it had stunned him. And he’d stood there helplessly, a martyr to his lust and shaking with pent-up desire, disgusted that he should feel like this about a total stranger. Sam’s daughter. It was a direct betrayal of Sam’s trust. Again.
Ruthlessly he’d suppressed his primal urges. And so he’d parried her remarks, calmed her fears, and had somehow walked away without making a total prat of himself.
‘Hell!’ he muttered.
Every male instinct in his screaming body had demanded that he should put his arms around her, comfort her, allow that to lead to a gentle kiss, and slowly, tenderly make love to her before he lost his reason.
‘God!’ he breathed, walking unsteadily into the kitchen. This was an extra complication he could never have foreseen!
Shaking with the effort of containing every rampaging pagan impulse in his protesting body, he made himself a pot of coffee and concentrated with ferocious intent on the expulsion of the luscious Jodie from his mind.
Jodie lay on the bed horribly wide awake and wishing that the aching emptiness in her body would go. Restless, she slipped out of bed, intending to find her nightdress in the case she’d noticed by the dressing table.
Instead, she paused in front of the mirror and took a good, hard look at herself: a tousled, wide-eyed wanton. She was astonished by the change in her appearance. Where had this pouting-lipped seductive hoyden come from?
‘The last thing you need,’ she told herself crossly, ‘is a selfish, hard-bitten guy who wouldn’t know what tenderness was if it socked him in the eye twice a day!’
Her stomach rumbled suddenly. She needed food. It must be hours and hours since she’d last eaten. Planning on sneaking down to the kitchen, she dived for her case, rummaging around inside it and bringing out a pair of soft jersey palazzo pants and a warm sweatshirt.
Chas had said she was highly sexed, she mused soberly, changing into the banana-yellow outfit. Although if she was honest it had always been the triumph of hope over experience. Chas had never satisfied her.
Twisting a red and lemon scarf in her hair, she paused, her eyes rounding in alarm. Maybe that was the trouble—she was one of those women who were insatiable, who needed sex like some people needed lunch, and then second helpings, please! The thought was mortifying.