Her Pregnancy Surprise: His Pregnancy Bargain / The Pregnancy Secret / Their Pregnancy Bombshell

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Awkwardness made her voice abrupt. Minus her heels she only just topped his shoulders. The illusion of being small and dainty was one she shouldn’t in this enlightened age of equality have found attractive…Shouldn’t…!

The impressive shoulders on which her hands were still hanging, quite unnecessarily, flexed and she felt the powerful muscles clench.

She uncurled her fingers. As if reluctant to lose the contact, her fingertips trailed slowly down the front of his open necked shirt. She felt his lean, hard body tense before she lost contact. It made her cringe to imagine that her action might have been interpreted as deliberately provocative, because she had no control whatever over her actions.

‘I suppose we ought to go back.’ The thread of reluctance she heard in her own voice made Megan’s eyes widen in alarm. Anyone listening would have been excused for assuming she wanted her pulse to carry on racing too fast…that she wanted to prolong the moment.

And you don’t…?

‘You could be right.’ she heard him concede. ‘Do you always do the right thing, ma chérie…?’

Just this once Megan let the endearment pass, when he said it in that deep smoky voice of his it sounded like a caress.

With a sigh she lifted her head, her eyes meshed with enigmatic silvered orbs that made her heart pound slow and strong…Luc; the name might be no more real than his supposed attraction for her, but strangely fitted him.

He really was the most incredible-looking man!

‘I try to.’ She gave a shaky little laugh as her eyes slid from his. ‘I won’t waste my breath asking you the same thing.’

Luc looked like a man for whom not doing the right thing was one of life’s guiding principles. Was the danger part of his attraction? Had she been playing it safe for so long that she couldn’t resist what was dark, dangerous and available?

‘I try to do what comes naturally.’ His explanation was not soothing. ‘We should definitely go back, only first…’ Luc’s dark head bent as he framed her face between his hands. She felt his breath fan her cheek as he fitted his mouth to hers. Megan’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheek as her hand came up to cover one of his.

She murmured his name; the sound was lost against his mouth. The pressure of his lips was gentle but insistent; his mouth was cool and firm against her own.

Luc drew back, his lashes lifted from the angle of his knife-edged cheekbones as he examined the passion-flushed features of the woman who stood in the circle of his arms. He gave an almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction.

‘Now you look like a woman who’s shared a few illicit kisses in the moonlight.’

She was floating; she was on fire, every inch of her skin was prickling with the heat of desire. His words had the same effect as an icy shower.

‘There is no moon and I will not be used by you or anyone else!’ she declared in a low, passionate voice.

‘I wasn’t using you; I was kissing you and,’ he added with a slow, contemplative smile, ‘I was enjoying it.’

‘How nice for you that you’re happy in your work. Next time maybe you might like to ask whether I want to be kissed,’ she told him, dragging a hand across her mouth. The symbolic gesture just reminded her of how sensitised and tender her lips felt.

Luc, no longer languid, looked suddenly incredibly furious. ‘Are you suggesting I kissed you against your will?’

‘Not exactly,’ she conceded, her glance dropping guiltily from his outraged face.

‘Good,’ he bit back, not sounding much mollified. ‘Because I don’t need a signed affidavit to know when a woman wants to be kissed. I know and you wanted it.’

The shocking sound of her hand connecting with his cheek resounded across the courtyard. Megan’s hand went to her mouth as her eyes travelled from the livid mark developing on his lean cheek to his eyes, they told her nothing more than his blank expression.

‘That was unforgivable,’ she said, totally contrite. The fact that physically she was much weaker than him was in her eyes no excuse for her loss of control. She felt deeply ashamed. ‘You’re right.’ Humiliation sat like a leaden weight in her stomach. ‘I did want you to kiss me.’

‘You did?’

She nodded; his expression was as unrevealing as his tone. ‘That’s why I was so angry…not with you,’ she hastened to assure him. ‘With me.’

It was ironic—she had been busy getting het up worrying that Luc was getting too immersed in his role, when in reality he wasn’t the one getting reality mixed up with fiction; she was the one letting her fantasies take control!

Luc watched as her slender shoulders sagged.

‘Obviously this thing is not going to work; it’s not your fault.’ Luc, after all, had done everything she had asked of him. ‘It’s me.’

‘You wanted me to kiss you…?’ A muscle in his hollow cheek clenched.

Megan looked at him, her frustration showing. Had he not heard anything she had said after that? She hoped he had; she didn’t much fancy grovelling all over again. In fact she refused to, she decided with a spurt of defiance.

‘Well, I wasn’t exactly averse to it,’ she admitted gruffly. ‘I appreciate you were doing what you thought I wanted.’

‘I was doing what I hoped you wanted,’ he contradicted, sliding his hands down her slender back until they came to rest on the firm curve of her bottom. His grin flashed out minus the edge of cool dispassion and mockery she had grown accustomed to. ‘Now I know…’

‘Know what?’ She gave a startled gasp as he drew her towards him until their hips collided. She inhaled sharply as hot desire zapped through her body; he was rock-hard against the softness of her belly. An energising wave zapped through her body, her knees sagged and Luc took up the slack ably, wrapping one strong arm around her ribcage.

‘Know you want this.’ He ground his hips gently against her abdomen. Megan’s head fell back bonelessly as the silent groan locked in her tight throat struggled to escape. Mutely, she nodded. Not pretending any more, felt strangely liberating.

His big hand cupped the back of her skull, drawing her face up to his. Looking into his platinum-grey eyes made her dizzy.

‘This is quite spectacularly crazy.’

She tried to swallow but couldn’t. She couldn’t stop shaking, tremors that ran like febrile shudders through her entire body. Insane it might be, but she could actually feel his voice. No man had ever excited her this way…up until now she had thought she wasn’t capable of feeling this way. What if it never happened again?

The thought spurred her into direct action. ‘I don’t do crazy, Luc.’ Her lashes lifted and she looked him straight in the eyes. ‘But I could learn.’

Luc’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a startled gasp.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MEGAN’S head dropped. God, she’d been too direct…she’d shocked Luc and small wonder! Her comment had been only slightly less subtle than screaming, Take me! Just because you fancy the socks off him doesn’t mean he feels the same way!

Teeth clenched, she resisted the hand that curved under her chin and his soft but firm instruction, ‘Look at me, Megan.’ Until finally with an exasperated sigh she allowed her face to be tilted up to his.

The mixture of embarrassment and defiance faded from her face as she looked at him. He was smiling a smile so fierce so sweet that she felt as if she’d melt. His fingertips ran along the curve of her jaw and she turned her head into his hand and kissed his palm.

‘I’ll teach you,’ he rasped.

This time there was nothing vaguely tentative or gentle about his lips or the probing tongue that slid between her parted lips. Electrified, Megan kissed him back with a driven desperation. Whimpering softly into his mouth, she wound her arms tightly around his neck.

Her mind had stopped functioning. She was simply responding to the primitive need that made her plaster her aching breasts against his chest, pressing her hips into his. She couldn’t get close enough to him. She had no idea of how long they stood there kissing with a frenzied, frantic desperation.

At some point they must have stopped kissing long enough to end up standing beneath the porch of one of the stable workshops.

‘My God, don’t stop!’ she pleaded, her self-control a dim and distant memory by the time his mouth lifted from her own. She lifted her dazed, passion-glazed eyes to his dark face. ‘You’re…I feel…’ She struggled to articulate the hunger that coursed like a forest fire through her body.

‘My God, but you’re incredible,’ he breathed, scanning her face with blazing eyes.