CHAPTER NINETEEN

      RYAN woke before Laura. Without thinking, he snuggled up to her still sleeping form, curving his body around hers from behind. His arousal was instantaneous and extremely corrupting, banishing any thought of giving her either the opportunity or the time to change her mind about continuing their sexual relationship. Already he was stroking her bare breasts, stirring her back to consciousness, wallowing in the way she started moaning with pleasure.

      And then he remembered—no more condoms.

      Swearing with frustration, he leapt out of the bed and marched off to the bathroom where he jumped into a cold shower, staying there till he was ready to behave himself. By the time he emerged, well wrapped in a towel, Laura was wide awake and sitting up in the bed, a sheet thankfully clutched over those beautiful breasts of hers.

      ‘Sorry about that,’ he muttered, striding over to the wardrobe where his clothes were hung. ‘Forgot we’d run out of protection.’

      Laura was sorry too—sorry that he’d stopped.

      ‘The bathroom’s all yours,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘Though I’ll have to go back and shave at some stage. I’d leave the stubble on today in other circumstances, but I have a suspicion that Cynthia would not approve. Or your gran, for that matter.’

      ‘You’re probably right about Aunt Cynthia, but Gran won’t mind. She likes macho-looking men.’

      Me too, Laura thought as she admired Ryan’s back view. She loved the wideness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips. Loved the rippling muscles which framed his spine and bulged in his arms. Loved the length and strength of his legs.

      He shrugged those gorgeously broad shoulders. ‘In that case I won’t bother.’

      She stayed to watch him dress, even though she really needed to go to the bathroom. But she held on long enough to see him step into some sexy Y-fronts then pull on the black jeans he’d worn yesterday. A white T-shirt followed, over which he drew on a long-sleeved black shirt. What was it about a man in black, she wondered, that was so darned sexy?

      He turned suddenly, his eyes thoughtful. ‘Before I forget, there’s something I have to ask you.’

      Laura’s heart contracted with immediate anxiety. ‘Oh? What?’

      ‘Are you quite sure you want to keep sleeping with me? If you would prefer to leave things as a one-night stand, I’ll understand.’

      Laura was truly taken aback, and a little dismayed. Was this his way of saying he wanted out?

      She could only shake her head. ‘I don’t understand you, Ryan. I thought you still wanted me this morning.’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘Then what’s the problem all of a sudden?’

      ‘No problem on my part. I just wanted to give you the chance to change your mind. Sometimes things appear differently the morning after the night before. One’s thoughts become clearer.’

      ‘My thoughts are quite clear, thank you very much,’ she said somewhat tartly. She hated it when men acted as though women were silly creatures who didn’t know their own mind.

      ‘You do realise that becoming my lover is not a permanent position,’ he went on firmly. ‘And that it will mean the end of our business relationship.’

      Laura was beginning to become quite impatient with him. There really was no need to keep reminding her what the score was. She already knew his track record.

      ‘That’s fine by me,’ she bit out. ‘I too have a life rule about having affairs with clients.’

      His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ah yes. I’d forgotten for a moment that you’d done that before. But of course you were in love with that particular client. Which is why it ended badly.’

      The penny finally dropped for Laura. ‘Oh, I see. You’re worried that I might fall in love with you?’

      ‘Something like that.’

      ‘You truly are a most arrogant man.’

      ‘Possibly,’ he admitted. ‘But not, thankfully, a libertine.’

      ‘That’s debatable at this point in time.’

      He smiled. ‘I rather like it when you get stroppy.’

      ‘That’s because it makes you feel safe!’ she snapped.

      He laughed. ‘Nothing about you right now makes me feel safe, Laura. Which is why I want you to get that beautiful body of yours into the bathroom where I can’t get at it.’

      Laura tried to stay annoyed with him—but how could she when he’d just called her beautiful, not to mention admitted to an almost uncontrollable desire for her?

      ‘You’ll have to turn away then,’ she told him with feigned haughtiness. ‘I wouldn’t want you to lose control at the sight of my beautiful naked body.’

      His groan secretly delighted her. ‘Must you remind me? Okay then,’ he added as he spun round to put his back to her. ‘Get going. And take some bloody clothes with you!’

      ‘I can’t. They’re over there where you are.’

      ‘In that case just get yourself into that bathroom the way you are. But I won’t be here when you come out. I’ll be downstairs somewhere, chatting up Cynthia!’

      Ryan breathed a sigh of relief once Laura was safely in the bathroom. She hadn’t been far wrong with her caustic remark about his losing control at the sight of her nakedness. He’d done his best to sound calm and reasonable when he’d given her the chance to change her mind—and when he’d reminded her that any relationship with him was never a permanent one. But underneath his cool exterior, he’d been struggling all the while to ignore the less-than-cool messages his body kept sending him.

      He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d said no, Ryan, I don’t want to have any more sex with you. He suspected his behaviour at that point in time might not have been very noble. Only the knowledge that he could take her to bed tonight and on many more future nights had put some sanity into his head and some control over his wayward flesh.

      Ryan shook his head as he sat down to put on his socks and shoes. It had been a long time since a woman had got under his skin the way Laura had. Actually, he could not remember it happening before at all. Ever!

      Any other man might have imagined he was falling in love but Ryan knew differently. Romantic love was not an emotion he was capable of, not since he’d seen up close and personally what that kind of love had done to his mother. Ryan had only been twelve when he’d vowed never to fall in love, or marry, or have children. And nothing had happened since to change his mind on that score.

      So, no, he knew he wasn’t in love with Laura. It was desire which was possessing him at the moment, a desire which was heightened by her lack of