‘I know enough.’
‘You have little to compare me with. I’m a pretty ruthless bastard, if you want the truth.’
Brianna laughed, a clear, tinkling sound of pure amusement. She sifted her fingers through his dark hair and curled up closer to him which kick-started a whole lot of very pleasurable sensations that had him hardening in record time.
He edged her back from him and looked at her, unsmiling. ‘You’ve been hurt once. You’ve spent years buried here, working beyond the call of duty to keep the wolves from the door. You’ve had no boyfriends, no distractions to occupy your time. Hell, you haven’t even been able to wring out an hour or two to do your painting. And then along I come. I’m not your knight in shining armour.’
‘I never said that you were!’ Brianna pulled back, hurt and confused at a sudden glimpse of ruthlessness she wouldn’t have imagined possible.
‘It’s been my experience that what women say is often at variance to what they think. I won’t be hanging around—and even if I lived next door to you, Brianna, I don’t do long-term relationships.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t do long-term relationships?’
‘Just what I say, so be warned. Don’t make the mistake of investing anything in me. What we have is sexual attraction, pure and simple.’ He softened and gentled his voice. ‘We have something that works at this precise moment in time.’
But it was more than that. What about the conversations they had had; the moments of sharing generated by close proximity? Some sixth sense stopped her from pointing that out. She was finding it difficult to recognise the cool, dark eyes of this stranger looking at her.
‘And stop treating me as though I’m a stupid kid,’ she bit out tightly, disentangling herself from him. ‘I was one of those once.’ Her voice was equally cool. ‘I don’t intend to repeat the same mistake twice. And, if you think that I would ever let myself get emotionally wrapped up with someone who doesn’t want to spend his life in one place, then you’re crazy. I value security. When I fall for someone, it will be someone who wants to settle down and isn’t scared of commitment. I’m thankful that you’ve been honest enough to tell me as it is, but you have nothing to fear. Your precious independence isn’t at risk.’
‘If that’s the case, why are you pulling away from me?’
‘I don’t like your tone of voice.’
‘Just so long as it’s not what I say but how I’m saying it,’ he murmured softly. He tugged her back towards him and Brianna placed her hand on his shoulder but it was a pathetically weak attempt to stave off the fierce urgings of her body.
As his hand swept erotically along her thigh, she shimmied back towards him, the coolness in his eyes forgotten, the jarring hardness of his voice consigned to oblivion.
They made love slowly, touching each other everywhere, absorbing each other’s pleasurable groans. She tasted him with as much hunger as he tasted her. She just couldn’t get enough of him—at her breasts, between her thighs, urging her to tell him what she wanted him to do and telling her in explicit detail what he wanted her to do to him.
Eventually, just as she was falling into a light, utterly contented doze, she heard the insistent buzz of her mobile phone next to the bed where she had left it charging. She was almost too sleepy to pick up but, when she did, she instantly sat up, drawing the covers around her.
Leo watched her, his keen antennae picking up her sudden tension, although from this end of the phone he could only hear monosyllabic replies to whatever was being said.
‘Remember I told you about my friend? Bridget McGuire?’ Brianna ended the call thoughtfully but remained holding the mobile, caressing it absently.
Leo was immediately on red-hot alert, although he kept his expression mildly interested and utterly expressionless. ‘The name rings a bell...’
‘They need to release her from hospital. There’s been an accident on the motorway and they need all the beds they can get. So she’s leaving tomorrow. The snow is predicted to stop. She’s coming here...’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘WHEN?’ HE SLID out of the bed, strolled towards the window and stared down to a snowy, grey landscape. The sun had barely risen but, yes, the snow appeared to be lessening.
This was the reason he was here, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. When he had first arrived, he had wondered how a meeting with his mother could possibly be engineered in a town where everyone seemed to know everyone else. Several lies down and his quarry would be delivered right to his doorstep. Didn’t fate work in mysterious ways?
Brianna, sitting up, wondered what was going through his head.
‘For the moment, they’re going to transfer her to another ward and then, provided the snow doesn’t get worse, they’re going to bring her here tomorrow. You’re making me nervous, standing by the window like that. What are you thinking? I have room here at the pub. It won’t make any difference to you. You won’t have to vacate your room—in fact, you probably won’t even notice that she’s here. I shall have her in the spare room next to my bedroom so that I can keep a constant eye on her, and of course I doubt she’ll be able to climb up and down stairs.’
Leo smiled and pushed himself away from the window ledge. When he tried to analyse what he felt about his birth mother, the most he could come up with was a scathing contempt which he realised he would have to attempt to conceal for what remained of his time here. Brianna might have painted a different picture, but years of preconceived notions were impossible to put to bed.
‘So...’ He slipped back under the covers and pulled her towards him. ‘If we’re going to have an unexpected visitor, then maybe you should start telling me the sort of person I can look forward to meeting and throw me a few more details...’
* * *
Brianna began plating their breakfast. Was it her imagination or was he abnormally interested in finding out about Bridget? He had returned to the bed earlier and she had thrown him a few sketchy details about her friend yet, off and on, he seemed to return to the subject. His questions were in no way pressing; in fact, he barely seemed to care about the answer.
A sudden thought occurred to her.
Was he really worried that their wonderful one-on-one time might be interrupted? He had made it perfectly clear that he was just passing through, and had given her a stern warning that she was not to make the mistake of investing in him, yet was he becoming possessive of her company without even realising it himself?
For reasons best known to himself, he was a commitment-phobe, but did he respond out of habit? Had he warned her off because distancing himself was an automatic response?
He might not want to admit it, but over the past few days they had got to know one another in a way she would never have thought possible. He worked while she busied herself with the accounts and the bookkeeping but, for a lot of the time, they had communicated. He had even looked at her ledgers, leading her to think that he might have been an accountant in a previous life. He had suggested ways to improve her finances. He had persuaded her to show him all the paintings she had ever done, which she kept in portfolios under the bed, and had urged her to design a website to showcase them. She had caught herself telling him so much more than she had ever told anyone in her life before, even her close friends. He made a very good listener.
His own life, he had confided, had been as uneventful as it came: middle class, middle of the road. Both of them were single children, both without parents. They laughed at the same things; they bickered over the remote control for the television in the little private lounge which was set aside for the guests, on those rare occasions she had some. With the pub closed, they had had lots of quality time during which to get to know one another.
So was he scared that the arrival of Bridget would signal the end of what they had?
With a sigh, she acknowledged that if the ambulance could make it up the lane to the pub to deliver their patient then her loyal customers could certainly make it as well.
The pub would once again reopen and their time together would certainly be curtailed.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said slowly, handing him a plate of bacon, eggs and toast and sitting down. ‘I might just keep the pub closed for a couple of weeks. Until the snow is well and truly over and the path outside the pub is completely safe.’
She told herself that this was something that made perfect sense. And why shouldn’t she have a little break? The last break she had had was over summer when she had grabbed a long weekend to go to Dublin with her friends. At other times, while they’d been off having lovely warm holidays in sunny Spain or Portugal, she had always been holed up at the pub, unable to take the time off because she couldn’t afford to lose the revenue.
So why shouldn’t she have time off now? A couple of weeks wouldn’t break the bank—at least, not completely. And she would make up for it later in the year. Leo had suggested a website to promote the pub and she would take him up on that. He had intimated that she could really take off with only minimal changes, a few things to bring the place up to date.
And, if she closed the pub for a couple of weeks, they would continue to have their quality time until he disappeared.
‘It would be better for Bridget as well,’ she hurried on, not wanting to analyse how much of this idea was down to her desire to keep him to herself for a little longer. ‘She’s going to need looking after, at least in the beginning, and it would give me the opportunity to really take care of her without having to worry about running the pub as well.’
‘Makes sense, I suppose...’
‘You won’t be affected at all.’
‘I know. You’ve already told me.’
‘And I don’t want you to think that your needs are going to be overlooked. I mean, what I’m trying to say is...’
Leo tilted his head to one side. She blushed very easily. Especially when you considered the hard life she had had and the financial worries she had faced. No one would ever be able to accuse her of not being a fighter.
‘Is that you’ll carry on making my breakfast for me? Fixing me sandwiches for lunch? Slaving over a recipe book for something to cook for dinner? Making sure my bed is...warm and that you’re in it?’
‘I’m not part of a package deal.’ Brianna bristled, suddenly offended at the picture he painted of her. ‘You haven’t paid for me along with the breakfast, lunch and dinner.’ She stood up and began clearing the dishes, only pausing when she felt his arms around her at the sink. When she looked straight ahead, she could see their dim reflection in the window pane, his head downbent, buried in her hair. He didn’t like it when she tied it back so she had left it loose the past couple of days and now he wound one of the long, auburn strands around his finger.
His other hand reached underneath the sweater and she watched their hazy reflection, the movement of his hand caressing her breast, playing with her nipple, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it. Liquid pooled between her legs, dampening her underwear and making her squirm and shift in his embrace.
She could feel his hard arousal nudging her from behind and, when she half-closed her eyes, her imagination took flight, dwelling on the image of her touching him there, licking and sucking with his fingers tangled in her hair. She wanted to do the same now. She pictured him kneeling like a penitent at her feet, her body pressing against the wall in her bedroom, her legs parted as he tasted her.
He seemed to have the ability to make her stop thinking the second he laid a finger on her and he did it as easily as someone switching a tap off.
She watched, eyes smoky with desire, as he pushed the jumper up; now she could see the pale skin of her stomach and his much darker hands on her breasts, massaging them, teasing them, playing with her swollen, sensitive nipples.
She shuddered and angled her neck so that he could kiss her.
‘I know you’re not part of the package,’ he murmured. ‘And, just to set the record straight, I enjoy you a hell of a lot more than I enjoy the meals you prepare.’
‘Are you implying that I’m a bad cook?’ He had undone the top button of her jeans and she wriggled as he did the same with the zip, easing the jeans down over her slim hips, exposing her pale pink briefs.
‘You’re a fantastic cook. One of the best.’ He stood back slightly so that she could swivel to face him.
‘You’re a terrible liar.’
Leo flushed guiltily at this unwittingly inaccurate swipe, said in jest.
‘Don’t bank on that,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘You forget that I’ve already warned you that I’m a ruthless bastard.’
‘If you really were a ruthless bastard, then you wouldn’t have to warn me. I’d see all the giveaway signs.’ She tiptoed and drew his head down so that she could kiss him. Her body was heating up, impatiently anticipating the moment when it could unite with his.
In the heat of passion, it was always him who thought about protection. So he was scrupulous when it came to taking no chances—that didn’t mean that he wasn’t becoming more attached to her, did it? The fact he didn’t want an unwanted pregnancy any more than she did, didn’t indicate that his nomadic lifestyle wasn’t undergoing a subtle ground-change...
‘Touch me,’ he commanded roughly and he rested his hands on her hips and half-closed his eyes as she burrowed underneath his jumper, her hands feathering across his chest, pausing to do wonderful things to his nipples. He was breathing quickly, every sinew and muscle stretched to a point of yearning that made a nonsense of his legendary self-control.
He yanked his jumper off and heard her sigh with pleasure, a little, soft sigh that was uniquely hers. His eyes were still half-closed and he inhaled slightly to accommodate her fumbling fingers as they travelled downwards to unbutton and unzip his jeans.
Outside a watery sun was making itself known, pushing through the blanket of leaden grey of the past few days. Like an unfamiliar visitor, it threaded its way tentatively into the kitchen, picking up the rich hues of her hair and the smooth, creamy whiteness of her skin.
He stilled as she lowered herself to begin pulling down his jeans, taking his boxers with them until they were at his ankles and he stepped out of them and kicked them to one side.
He couldn’t withhold his grunt of intense satisfaction as she began delicately to lick the tip of his erection. He was so aroused that it was painful and as he looked down at the crown of her head, and her pink, darting tongue as it continued to tease him, he became even more aroused.
‘You’re driving me crazy, woman...’ His voice was unsteady, as were his hands as he coiled his fingers into her hair.
Brianna didn’t say anything. His nakedness had her firing on all cylinders and his vulnerability, glimpses of which she only caught when they were making love, was the most powerful of aphrodisiacs. She took him in her mouth, loving the way every atom of pleasure seemed to be transmitted from him to her via invisible, powerful pathways. As she sucked and teased, her hands caressed, and she was aware of his big, strong body shaking ever so slightly. How could he make her feel so powerful and so helpless at the same time?
She was so damp, her body so urgent for his, that she itched to rip off her clothes. Her jumper was back in place and it felt heavy and uncomfortable against her sensitised skin. She gasped as he pulled her up, and she obediently lifted her arms so that he could remove the offending jumper. The cool air hit her heated breasts like a soothing balm.
‘I can’t make it to the bedroom...’ He breathed heavily as she wriggled out of the jeans and then he hoisted her onto the kitchen table, shoving aside the remnants of their breakfast—the jar of marmalade, the little ceramic butter dish, the striped jug with milk. Surprisingly, nothing crashed to the ground in the process.
When he stood back, he marvelled at the sight of her naked beauty: her arms outstretched, her eyes heavy with the same lust that was coursing through his bloodstream like an unstoppable virus.
Her vibrant hair streamed out around her, formed a tangle over one bre
ast, and the glimpse of a pink nipple peeping out was like something from an erotic X-rated magazine. Her parted legs were an invitation he couldn’t refuse, nor was his body allowing him the luxury of foreplay. As she raised her knees, he embedded himself into her in one hard, forceful thrust and then he lifted her up and drove again into her, building a furious rhythm and somehow ending up with her pressed against the kitchen wall, her legs wrapped around him.
Her hair trailed over her shoulder, down her back, a silky mass of rich auburn. He felt her in every part of him in a way that had never happened with any woman before. He didn’t get it, but he liked it. He was holding her underneath her sexy, rounded bottom and as he thrust long and deep into her he looked down at her little breasts bouncing in time to their bodies. The tips of her nipples were stiff and swollen, the big, flattened pink discs encircling them swollen and puffy. Every square inch of her body was an unbelievable turn-on and, even as he felt the satiny tightness of her sheath around him, he would have liked to close his mouth over one of those succulent nipples so that he could feast on its honeyed sweetness.
They came as one, their bodies fused, their breathing mirroring each other.
‘That was...indescribable.’ He eased her down and they stood facing one another, completely naked. Sanity began restoring itself, seeping through the haze of his hot, replete satisfaction. He swore under his breath and turned away. ‘The condom...it seems to have split...’
Brianna’s eyes widened with shock. She went over to her bundle of clothes and began getting dressed. He looked horrified. There was a heavy, laden silence as he likewise began getting dressed.
‘It’s okay. It takes more than one mistake for a person to get pregnant! If you read any magazine there are always stories of women trying for months, years, to conceive...’ Her menstrual cycle had always been erratic so it was easy to believe that.
Leo shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘This is a nightmare.’
Secrets of a Ruthless Tycoon Page 6