British Bachelors: Rich and Powerful: What His Money Can't Hide / His Temporary Mistress / Trouble on Her Doorstep. Maggie Cox
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his glass of wine and taking a long slug of the rich burgundy before his rear even touched the seat cushions.
Had he done the right thing leaving her to her own devices in the kitchen? he wondered.
His ensuing smile was helplessly wry. Her cooking surely couldn’t be any worse than that of the incompetent housekeeper he’d recently let go. Layla worked in a café, for goodness’ sake. She was well used to preparing food and making it look presentable. God forgive him, but he very much liked the idea of having her cook for him. In fact—despite his vow that he wouldn’t speculate on the future—he very much liked the idea of having her around full-stop …
The shrimp stir-fry had worked out better than Layla had hoped, and she and Drake had finished every scrap. She had to admit that watching him tuck into a meal she’d prepared with such obvious relish had given her a real sense of satisfaction and pleasure—if only because her nervousness round him hadn’t caused her to make a complete hash of it.
Immediately after they finished, she automatically stood up to clear the table, her intention to stack the dishwasher.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Although his grey eyes glinted with amusement, Drake’s voice had a definitely irritated undertone.
‘I was going to rinse the bowls and stack them in the dishwasher.’
‘You don’t think cooking a meal was more than enough demonstration of domesticity for one evening? Granted I need a housekeeper, but unless I’ve had a serious lapse of memory I wasn’t aware that I’d given the position to you.’
‘It’s no big deal to clear up.’
‘That’s not why I invited you home with me.’
His rough-edged tone told her exactly why he’d invited her home, and Layla couldn’t deny the same thought had been playing on her mind from the moment she’d set eyes on him back at his office … and even before that, when she’d somehow found herself packing a toothbrush and spare underwear into her tote. But she was still wary about surrendering to her physical desire for him too quickly. It was hard to shake the memory of how she’d been so badly used by her ex-boss.
‘You invited me home with you because I presented you with a fait accompli, turning up at your office like that.’ She stalled, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘You probably felt obliged.’
‘Obliged? You must be crazy.’
Abruptly getting to his feet, Drake strode round the glass-topped table. He unceremoniously pulled her against him, making her gasp. Suddenly Layla found herself on the most intimate of terms with his hard lean body, and the lust that blazed down at her from his eyes made her heart thump hard.
‘I swear to God you’ve put a spell on me, woman—because I can’t think of anything else but having you in my bed.’
‘You told me—you said that you had several guest rooms … that we didn’t have to share a room tonight.’ Her tongue was so thick she could barely get the words out.
‘I must have fooled myself into believing that I had will power, then.’
At the precise moment he stopped talking Layla knew without a doubt that she was fighting a lost cause. Heat was already pouring through her body in a torrent of libidinous need that she could scarce contain, and the idea of spending the night alone in one of Drake’s guest rooms instead of in his arms in his bed was akin to attempting to cross a burning hot desert without access to any drinking water. She simply couldn’t do it.
‘And I—I don’t want to spend the night alone in one of your spare rooms, Drake.’
‘Then come with me,’ he husked.
Somehow, her hand held firmly in his, she found herself climbing another glass-lined staircase that led to an upper floor. Barely registering the lush oil paintings that hung here and there on the ivory-coloured walls, or the black velvet sky she glimpsed through the various windows they passed, now she was the one who felt as though she was under a spell. When they reached his bedroom she saw that it was an undoubtedly masculine retreat, with clean, uncluttered surfaces and an original restored oakwood floor without so much as a single rug covering even the smallest square of it. The only less than pristine note was the rumpled burgundy silk counterpane on the large king-size bed. It looked as though its owner had attempted to straighten it in a hurry, thought better of it, then irritably decided to just let it be.
Layla refused to entertain the idea that maybe it was rumpled because he’d spent the night in it with a lover. Such a possibility would ruin everything for her.
Briefly letting go of her hand, Drake touched his fingers to a dimmer switch on the wall next to the door and glowing lamps gently filled the room with softly intimate light. Then he closed the door behind them and, turning back, hungrily fastened his hands either side of her hips.
‘Let me love you,’ he breathed. ‘No more talking or making promises we’re afraid to keep in case they don’t work out. Just let it be you and me alone together in this room … in this bed.’
He touched his lips to hers and the seductive spell already cast became a sensual magical dream that Layla never wanted to wake up from.
The hot thrust of his tongue into her mouth ignited a trail of fire straight to her core, causing her knees to buckle helplessly and making her sag as though drunk against the hard muscular wall of his chest. His arms immediately encircled her waist to hold her upright. Then she was effortlessly lifted up and transported across the room to the rumpled bed.
The moment she was lowered down onto the silken counterpane Layla knew it was imperative to get something off her chest before they went any further. ‘I don’t know what you’ve imagined, but I’m not—I’m not very experienced at this. The last occasion when I was intimate with someone was with my boss, and that was the most horrible mistake. Since then …’ She screwed up her face. ‘Since then I haven’t even wanted to get close to a man like this.’
His grey eyes glinting with gentle amusement, Drake touched his palm to her cheek. ‘I’m not interested in your past, Layla. The only thing I’ve imagined is you and me here and now, in this bed, writing a new page to both our histories.’
‘I want that too, Drake … But, on the subject of histories, I need to ask has there—has there been anyone that’s shared your bed lately?’
The astute grey eyes that seemed to be gifted with the unsettling ability to read her thoughts glinted with ironic disbelief, and perhaps some annoyance too. Layla sensed her cheeks redden helplessly. ‘I haven’t been intimate with anyone since my ex-girlfriend, and it’s been six months since we broke up,’ he confided.
‘You didn’t live together?’
‘No. We did not.’
Easing out a relieved sigh, she ventured an apologetic smile. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but I had to know.’
‘I understand.’
The steady, deeply assessing gaze he returned let her know he did indeed understand.
‘Now that we know where we both stand, how about we go back to where we were?’
Feeling suddenly daring, and perhaps a little reckless too, Layla reached up to Drake to cup her hands round his iron jaw and pull his face down to hers. The lower half of his visage was already shaded with bristles, and they inevitably abraded her softer feminine skin as she seductively kissed him, inviting his equally seductive response. Their open-mouthed ravenous kissing quickly and inevitably built into another conflagration, and the passion and fervour that pulsed through Layla’s veins secretly frightened her—because whatever came of this hot, wild attraction of theirs she already knew this man had ruined her for anyone else …
Tearing his mouth away from hers and breathing hard, Drake put out a hand and gently pushed her so that she found herself on her back. His silvery gaze searing her