His Child. Sharon Kendrick
that he would be a passionate man, but she had expected him to exercise restraint as well. And steely control. Those were the qualities which seemed to fit more with the Philip Caprice she knew.
But it seemed that she had been completely wrong. She freed his foot from the second sock.
And then at last he was naked, too.
And aroused.
Very, very aroused.
Lisi swallowed. Surely he couldn’t possibly… Surely she couldn’t possibly… But then she bucked beneath his fingers as he slithered his middle finger along where she was so hot and slick and hungry. ‘Oh!’ she moaned in ecstasy.
He smiled, but it was a smile laced with a daunting kind of promise and Lisi felt the briefest shiver of apprehension as she saw the new and urgent tension which had entered his body.
‘I want you,’ he whispered.
‘And I want you, too.’
‘Now?’ he teased. ‘Or shall I play with you a little first?’
His provocative words made her melt even more. She had never been turned on so quickly, nor so thoroughly. There was no need for prolonged foreplay; she was ready. And very, very willing. She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him with open invitation in her eyes.
‘Let’s play together,’ she whispered back.
He groaned as he moved over her. It was like a dream—the most erotic dream he had ever encountered. He moved on top of her and could feel her shudder as he pressed right up against her burning heat. He delayed it for as long as he could—probably about a second—before powerfully thrusting into her and a deep, helpless cry was torn from his throat.
Lisi gasped aloud as she felt him fill her, but she wanted him deeper still, as deep as it was possible to go. She moved without thinking, lifting her legs right up so that her ankles were locked tightly around his neck, and he raised his head in a kind of dazed wonderment as he looked down at her.
‘God, Lisi,’ he groaned, and then thrust into her so deeply that she gasped again.
Through the stealthy lure of approaching orgasm, Philip heard warning bells ringing in his head, and he realised what he had never before failed to remember.
‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘Protection! Lisi, I never thought—’ With a monumental effort he began to pull out, but Lisi only clenched her muscles, and gripped him even tighter and he shuddered. ‘D-don’t,’ he commanded unsteadily.
‘It’s o-okay,’ she gasped, because she had thought that she would die if he stopped what he was doing. ‘It’s safe.’
‘You sure?’
She nodded. Of course she was sure. ‘Make me come,’ she begged, astonished by her lack of inhibition, but then something about Philip was making her feel this free. Freer than she had ever been in a man’s arms.
‘With pleasure,’ he ground out, and moved inside her. He held back his own needs while he thrust into her over and over again, his mouth suckling at her breast, while his finger flicked tantalisingly over the tight, hot little core of her. And he whispered things to her, words so erotic, they were almost shocking.
Lisi was nearly crying with the pleasure—almost overloaded with it—and then the crying became a shudder and she was calling out his name and telling him that he was the most perfect lover in the world as waves upon waves took her soaring.
He let himself go, sweat sheening his chest as it slicked against her breasts, and when it happened it was stronger and more intense than any other orgasm he had ever experienced, so that even in the midst of pleasure, he felt the first shimmerings of guilt.
She felt him shuddering inside her for so long that she thought he would never stop. She wished that he wouldn’t. Just go on filling her with his seed all night long. And only when he was completely spent did she let her legs drift down to lie on either side of him. With a satiated little smile, she lifted her head to kiss him but he turned away, as if her mouth contained poison, then rolled away from her completely, so that he was right on the other side of the bed.
Lisi’s heart pounded.
Perhaps he was just tired. He always seemed to look tired. She would let him sleep and then he would reach for her again in the night, and…
She heard the sound of movement and saw that he was getting off the bed and reaching for his clothes.
Her heart pounded again. He couldn’t be leaving! He couldn’t! She swallowed down what was surely an irrational fear. He was obviously going to the bathroom—but he didn’t need to put his clothes on to do that, surely? ‘Philip?’
He finished buttoning up his shirt before he turned around and when he did his face was as cold and as expressionless as flint. He raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’
‘You’re not going?’
He was sickened with disgust at his lack of control, and his mouth tightened. ‘Yes.’
She stared at him without understanding. ‘But why?’ she asked, in a mystified voice. ‘Why are you leaving now?’
It hurt to say it, probably more than it hurt her to hear it. ‘Because I’m married,’ he said, in a hard, cold voice.
He grabbed his jacket and his unopened overnight bag and walked out without a backward glance.
And Lisi didn’t see him again.
CHAPTER FOUR
PHILIP spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning, his thoughts full of Lisi and the effect of seeing her again.
He hadn’t thought beyond his trip to Langley. He had just found himself on the road here, driven on by a burning need to tie up the loose ends of a regrettable liaison—so that he could put it behind him, once and for all.
But he had not reckoned on how he would feel if he saw her again. Part of him had thought that she might have moved on. Or settled down. Married some upstanding local and be well on the way to producing a brood of children. To his astonishment, she was still single.
And just the sight of her had been like a touch-paper to his senses. He still wanted her—wanted her more than he felt comfortable with, and, to judge from her response to his kiss, she wasn’t exactly immune to him, either.
He owed her the truth, he realised. There would be no sense of closure for either of them until he had done that. She might have instigated what had happened, but he had gone into it more than willingly. She needed to know why he had feasted on her body and then just left her lying there without a second glance.
He glanced at his watch, but it was still early. He showered and dressed and drank some coffee before switching on his computer to check his e-mails. But he stared blankly at the untouched messages in his inbox and turned his head instead to study the forbidding grey of the winter sky.
Just as soon as the office opened he would go and see her. And tell her.
Marian Reece glanced up as the bell on the office door rang and in walked the tall, expensively dressed man who had been talking so intently with Lisi the day before.
She smiled. ‘Good morning! Mr Caprice, isn’t it?’
Philip nodded and forced an answering smile. ‘That’s right. Philip Caprice.’ He glanced around the office. ‘Is Lisi around?’
Marian shook her head. ‘Oh, no! She’s finished now. For the Christmas holidays. She—’ She seemed to change her mind about her next words. Instead, she said, ‘But I’m sure that I can help you.’
He looked at her blankly. ‘Help me?’
Marian studied him in bemusement. ‘Well, you did say that you were interested in buying a house in this area!’
He narrowed his eyes. Did he? Wasn’t the truth