To Claim His Heir by Christmas

‘What?’

‘I was just thinking of the time we went to the cinema and were thrown out because you wouldn’t stop talking.’

A lie.

‘Talking? We didn’t get thrown out because we were talking. We got evicted because we were…’ Heat plumed in the rapidly shrinking confines of the car, driving a flush high across her cheekbones. ‘Never mind.’

He felt so smug he could hear his own grin. ‘Shall I finish that for you?’

‘No, thank you. It’s best if we don’t go there, okay?’

She was right. He should be getting a handle on her relationship with the Viscount, not testing her memory. Not watching that beautiful blush frisk down her neck and caress her collarbone. Not inhaling her subtle vanilla and jasmine scent until his body prickled with heat and unleashed a firestorm of memories that turned him hard as steel.

Like the sensation of those plump lips softening beneath his as she’d surrendered to him. The way she’d felt when he’d thrust inside her virginal tight body. The way her legs had curled around his waist as he took her over and over. Lithe, svelte legs…glossed with skin that had felt like finely powdered icing sugar beneath his palms and tasted just as sweet. The softest, most exquisite texture he’d ever touched. Legs that were taunting him now because they were fuller. Lusher. Just like her breasts…

Thane shifted in his seat, the creak of leather sharpening his arousal as his body roared to life. Feral lust pushed incessantly against his zipper. Worse still, she exacerbated his darkly erotic state by squirming and lifting her hair from her nape as if she were over-hot. Well, that made two of them.

Depressing the window button, he let the cool air slither through the gap in a wispy sheet of fog and relished the odd snowflake that settled on the back of his hand.

Luciana’s answer was to snatch a bar of chocolate from the mini-bar and have ravenous sex with every bite. He could virtually hear her silent moans.

‘Hungry?’ he asked, his voice as thick as his throat.

She licked the sweet treat from her lips with a sensual flick of her tongue. ‘Erm…yes. Dinner was awful.’

He took the opening for what it was. Perfect for getting him back on track. ‘The food or the company?’

Her gaze drifted to stare unseeingly out of the tinted window. The runway floodlights flickered over her at intervals, highlighting the honeycomb strands in her lavish hair and lending her skin an incandescent glow.

Ethereal was surely the only word to describe her in that moment. Seraphic. And his ardour dulled as he was struck with the feeling that he was too dark to touch her. That he would taint her somehow.

Right at this moment she was crushed up against the door, as far away from him as she could get, and Thane hardened his body, trying to expunge the terrible self-awareness, the stomach ache that whispered of rejection. Not once had she rebuffed their volatile passion. Not once. The reason for which he wanted to know. Now.

‘You never answered my question,’ he said, his tone darkly savage. ‘Was it the food or the company that was so bad you could not eat?’

Her absurdly long, decadent eyelashes were downswept. ‘Does it matter?’ she asked softly.

Patience dwindling, he went in for the kill. Even though he was unsure if he could go through with this if she said yes.

Astounding and unthinkable as it was, if she did he’d rather put her on an Arunthian plane without another word. The ‘why’ of it wouldn’t be difficult to find if he cared to revisit his boyhood, watch misery trickle down his mother’s face as she pined for another. But delve into the past he would not. That long-ago place was a dark punishment he would never descend to again.

‘Are you in love with Augustus, Luciana?’

She massaged her temple as if he were a headache she wished to rub away.

‘I wasn’t born to marry for love, Thane. I have no choice over the direction my life takes.’ Her voice was tinged with bitterness and he felt a flicker of suspicion spark in his gut.

Frowning, he narrowed his eyes on her face, his guts twisting into a noxious tangle. ‘Have you been in his bed?’

If he’d blinked he would have missed it. Her wince of distaste.

‘That is none of your business.’

‘Have you been in his bed, Luciana?’ he asked again—harder, darker. Almost cutthroat.

‘What difference does it make?’

‘For hell’s sake, just answer the question!’

Up came her arms with an exasperated toss. ‘No! Okay? I haven’t been anywhere near his rotten bed. Would you

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