His Miracle Baby

Lord, but she smelled good. A mixture of roses and sunshine and the private, sweet scent of her skin. It drew her to him as if her body were a powerful magnet and his just a powerless needle, tugged into her gentle but irresistible force field.

‘Leave me some self-respect.’

His plea was accompanied by such a ruefully pained expression that the boyish appeal of it twisted sharply in Ellie’s heart. Was it just her imagination or had he moved even closer?

‘I didn’t expect such a demolition job on my character.’

Black pepper, Ellie told herself, forcing her thoughts onto practical matters. Morgan loved black pepper on tomatoes.

Reaching for the pepper mill, she twisted the top fiercely, then stilled abruptly as the movement brought her into contact with Morgan’s right arm, the soft brush against the warmth of his skin sending a searing electric spark of response right down to her toes until they curled inside her shoes.

‘Is there anything else you miss?’

His hand snaked out and snatched up one of the ripe, moist slices of tomato speckled with spicy flecks of black pepper and he bit into it appreciatively, his teeth very white and strong.

‘Yes,’ Ellie managed in a voice that sounded rusty and raw as if it hadn’t been used for some time. ‘I miss the way you steal food when I’m preparing it and you can’t wait… Stop it!’

He’d reached for another segment of the fruit, but this time she was ready for him. This time she moved as quickly as he had, giving the back of his hand a gentle slap before closing her fingers around his wrist to still it.

And froze.

Her heart was beating high up in her throat. Her fingers were clenched over the hard bones, feeling the powerful muscles tighten suddenly, then relax again, but still holding a tension that communicated itself silently to her quivering sense. Unable to control herself, she drew in one swift, shuddering breath and let it go again on a ragged sigh.

Behind her, Morgan shifted slightly, coming so close that she could feel the warmth of his long body all the way down her back.

‘Ellie,’ he said softly, and his voice sounded as raw and husky as hers had just a moment before so that she had to close her eyes against the sharp tug of its appeal to her already heightened senses.

‘Morgan…’ She tried to protest, but either her voice failed her and he didn’t hear or he heard and deliberately ignored it, bringing his head down so that he could whisper in her ear, the heat of his breath feathering against her skin.

‘Do you know what I miss about you, angel?’

‘No…’

Even she didn’t know if she meant to encourage him to go on or quite the opposite. But whatever was in her mind, the word had no effect. Morgan didn’t even pause to listen but continued inexorably.

‘I miss the feel of your hair…’

His cheek rested against the blonde strands, soft as a caress.

‘The scent of your skin. I miss the sound of your breath, your voice, your heartbeat next to mine. I miss the softness of your flesh underneath my fingertips.’

With his free hand he traced a delicate, tantalising path along the side of her cheek and down the slender line of her throat, pausing briefly to rest on the point at the base of her neck where her pulse leapt and throbbed in heady, drumming response.

‘Morgan…’

The knife she was holding fell from Ellie’s loosened grasp to land with a clatter on the table-top and the hand that held his shifted slightly, moving from restraint to a softer embrace. The pad of her thumb moved over the heated satin of his skin, tracing out an enticing pattern that brought a murmur of response from his throat.

‘I miss the taste of you on my lips, in my mouth…’

His lips had replaced the touch of his hands, following the same path down her face, kissing her forehead, her temple, her closed eyelid, the fine line of her cheekbone. With the heat of response flooding through her, Ellie felt her whole body melt, becoming pliant as wax. With a soft murmur she let her head fall against his shoulder, releasing his hand, no longer able to keep hold of it.

Immediately his newly free arm came round her, fastening about her waist and pulling her tight against him. She welcomed the support of his strength, knowing that her own had deserted her, that she was incapable of holding herself upright.

‘The feel of your breasts in my hands…’

Suiting actions to the words, he slid his hands upward, cupping her breasts in the heat of his palms, his thumbs stroking over the hardening points of her nipples. Against her back, she could feel the potent evidence of his desire, hot and swollen and forceful, and the memories it roused in her made her senses swim.

His fingers were busy with the buttons on her blouse now, easing them swiftly and efficiently from their fastenings, letting the soft white cotton ease apart. One hand slipped inside the white lacy cup of the bra underneath, drawing a shuddering sigh of response as she felt its caress against the smooth slope of her breast.

‘Morgan!’

It was a choking cry of delight, of appeal, of surrender all in one, and she whirled round in the confining hold of his arms and crushed the aching tips of her breasts against his chest. Her arms went up around his neck, her fingers lacing in the darkness of his hair, and she drew his head down urgently to hers.

His kiss felt like coming home. Hard and demanding, it pressed her lips open to the hungry invasion of his tongue, his hands twisting in her hair, fingers clenching around her skull, bringing her even closer to him.

Heavy waves of desire rolled over her, hot and thick and hungry, swamping her mind and driving away almost all coherent thought. All coherent thought but one. Because now the word that she had dodged away from, the word she had feared, had been unable to face since she had known she would have to see him again, was the only thing that was clear inside her thoughts. Over and over it repeated, again and again, swirling round the inside of her skull like a litany of need.

Love. That was the word she had been avoiding; the word she couldn’t bring herself to consider. It meant too much, hurt too much, laid her open to too much danger.

But now she knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer. She still loved Morgan, always had loved him, would always love him. That was the cruellest irony of their situation. She had been forced into making him believe that she no longer loved him, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. She loved this man more than all the world, and only the love of one other human being, her child, could ever have forced her from his side.

But now Morgan was back. His arms were round her, his lips on hers. She could see the passion in his darkened eyes, the flare of colour on the carved cheekbones, and she knew there was no way she could deny herself this. Her hands shook with the pent-up need of long months apart, making her fumble with buttons on his shirt in her haste to touch him. Really touch him. To feel the heat and smoothness of his skin under her urgent fingertips.

‘Easy, angel…’ Morgan murmured, his voice thickened by a matching desire, but she shook her head frantically, too overwhelmed, too lost in sensation to heed.

At last she reached her goal, smoothing her palms over the warm flesh, the springing dark hairs with a deep sigh of satisfaction. She wanted to touch him everywhere, couldn’t get enough of him.

‘Morgan…Morgan…’

She muttered his name restlessly, feverishly, the two syllables the only sound her mouth could form in between the hungrily snatched kisses as she added the unique taste of his skin to the thousand other sensations that were bombarding her awareness.

‘Ellie!’

On a groan of surrender Morgan gave up all attempt to speak and swept her up into his arms. Shouldering open the door, he took her through the small living room, down the corridor, and into the ground floor bedroom. One of his cases still lay where he had dumped it on the unmade bed, but he violently kicked it aside, almost falling onto the mattress, taking Ellie with him.

With more haste than gentleness he rushed her shirt and the delicate bra underneath it from her yearning body, and now it was his turn to use her name as a form of incantation, an expression of longing that could not be held back.

‘Ellie…Ellie…’ he muttered over and over, hands twisting in her tumbled hair, smoothing over her skin, sliding under her breasts, lifting them to the heated attentions of his lips.

The first, almost gentle kisses on the creamy slopes soon changed in the space of a frantic heartbeat to hungrier, more passionate caresses. The sharp tug of his mouth on one achingly sensitive nipple made Ellie cry out in shock and delight, her body writhing in uncontrolled response to the stinging pleasure. Pushing aside his loosened shirt, her fingers clenched over the powerful bones of his shoulders, closing over hard muscle, feeling it bunch and move under her grip.

‘I want you…I want you…’

She could hardly believe it was her own voice she heard, it sounded so rough and raw. But she seemed to have lost control of her tongue and the muttered plea escaped of its own volition.

‘You’ll have me, angel…’ was Morgan’s breathless, laughter-shaken response. ‘Just as soon as I can get rid of these—these damn clothes!’

The red skirt was too tight, the fastening too time consuming for his hunger and, abandoning with a rough, exasperated curse the attempt to open it, he reached for the hem instead, pushing it violently up over the slender length of her legs, to bunch in crumpled disorder around her waist.

Because of the warmth of the summer, she wore no tights or stockings and the small scrap of satin and lace that was the only delicate barrier to his demanding hands was soon discarded, tossed aside without a care for where it landed.

‘You too…’ Ellie muttered, fingers made clumsy with need as she tugged at the buckle of his belt, yanking it loose.

He helped her with the single button underneath. She heard the faint rasp of the zip sliding down and caught her breath in sharp anticipation. It felt as if a hungry fire blazed deep inside her, sending rivulets of heat out through every nerve, pulsing between her legs, and she couldn’t wait for the thrusting force of his possession to ease the yearning ache.

But something had changed. Above her, Morgan had stilled, his face changing suddenly. His expression darkened and he looked deep into her passion-glazed eyes, frowning as he searched for some answer there.

‘Ellie—we can’t…’

Disappointment and the savage bite of frustrated need scythed through her like a heated sword. Totally at the mercy of her clamouring body, she turned a bruise-dark gaze on his hard, set face.

‘Yes, we can! We can!’ she protested as, unbelievingly, she saw him shake his head. ‘Morgan!’

‘Answer me one question, Ellie. Are you protected? Are you on the pill or…?’

If he had slapped her brutally in the face he couldn’t have brought her out of the heady delirium faster or more cruelly. Ellie could only stare at him in shocked distress until, slowly and unwillingly, her mind began to realise just what he had said and why.

Are you protected? Oh, she knew that question of old. Knew how he could express it in a way that sounded like concern for her and for her alone. But she knew the truth. And the truth was that Morgan Stafford had made it plain that he had never wanted children. Not with her, not with anyone.

‘No…’ she managed shakily, and the look on his face, the shock in those deep blue eyes said it all.

Already he was withdrawing from her, moving back, putting a distance that was more than physical between them. One that tore at her heart with the pain of both the present and a past when this had divided them so savagely.

Are you protected? He wanted to protect himself against the possibility of a child he didn’t want being created as a result of their lovemaking.

But the truth was that it was already too late. Almost twenty months before, the protection he so valued had failed. Morgan didn’t know it but he already had a daughter. But a daughter he would never want, never acknowledge. And because of that there could never be any future for the two of them.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘GET off me!’

The change was so sudden, so stunning that for a second or two Morgan could almost believe another woman had taken Ellie’s place.

Gone was the willingly wanton bedmate he had anticipated, and in her place was a furiously distant iceberg, one whose golden eyes sparked with furious rejection where before he had seen burning hunger and a passion to match his own. It was so totally unexpected that he actually laughed.

‘I said, get off me!’

This time the cold command was accompanied by a threatening movement of one leg, her knee coming up with such obviously ominous intent that any man would very rapidly think twice about remaining in the danger zone.

Not being prepared to take the risk, he moved swiftly, jackknifing off the bed. The bite of the denim shirt into his arms reminded him of the way Ellie had pushed it down from his shoulders, imprisoning him. With an angry movement he shrugged it back into position again just as Ellie twisted herself off the bed, frantically pushing at the bunched and crumpled skirt to cover herself.

‘Just what the hell is going on here?’ he demanded, matching her fury with his own, an aggrieved sense of injustice combining with a hard ache of frustration with explosive results. ‘When I show consideration for the possible consequences of my—our—actions, I don’t expect to be turned on as if I’ve tried to force myself on you.’

When he’d shown consideration! Ellie’s mind nearly blew a fuse at the thought. She knew damn well that he was not considering her in the slightest!

All he wanted was to avoid the encumbrance of a child. If she needed any further evidence that her decision not to tell him about Rosie had been the right one, it was staring her in the face. In fact her grandmother had been the only person she had told the truth about Rosie’s father, and that was the way she wanted it to stay.

‘Or were you just leading me on, playing some nasty little game?’

‘No! Oh, no!’

But she had to say something to explain her behaviour. To distract him from the dangerous path his thoughts were taking.

‘You’re forgetting something,’ she blustered nervously, backing away from the glare he turned on her.

‘And what, precisely, am I forgetting, my angel?’

‘Not what—who. You’re forgetting about Pete.’

‘Pete!’

He spat the name out as if it were an obscenity. To her horror all the fire seemed to have died out of his eyes, replaced by an icy cold that seemed to flay a layer of skin from her body, leaving her agonisingly exposed and desperately vulnerable.

Suddenly terribly aware of the fact that she was only half dressed, the crumpled skirt all that covered her, she turned wide desperate eyes to hunt for her missing clothing. Her bra seemed to have disappeared completely and her white blouse lay just inches from Morgan’s feet. No matter how urgently she longed to pick it up and pull it on, she didn’t dare risk moving to retrieve it. Not while he was in this mood. So instead she had to content herself with crossing her arms across her exposed breasts in order to provide an inadequate form of protection.

‘Pete Bedford,’ Morgan repeated with ominous quietness. ‘And just what has he to do with this?’

Something was wrong here. He’d been told that Pete Bedford was no longer in the picture. The realisation that the other man was still part of Ellie’s life was like a kick in the teeth, combining with the savage nag of a frustrated libido to leave him incapable of thinking straight.

‘Isn’t it obvious? I—couldn’t possibly sleep with you b-because of Pete…’ she managed clumsily.

Something in what she’d said had surprised him. His dark head went back sharply, blue eyes narrowing in swift appraisal.

‘But I thought that you two were no longer an item.’

There it was again. The suggestion—more than a suggestion—that Morgan was not here by chance but that he had somehow found out exactly where she was and had come here forewarned—and forearmed—by knowledge about her circumstances.

‘Of course he’s in the picture! He’s headmaster of a school in Truro.’

Morgan took a moment to absorb that fact.

‘I see,’ he said at last. ‘And I presume that you suddenly had a belated attack of conscience because it would mean being unfaithful to dear Pete.’

‘It wasn’t belated! And I’ll tell you this whether you believe it or not—I have never—never—been unfaithful to any man while we were still officially together.’

‘You came pretty close to it a moment ago. I’d say your second thoughts came just that bit too late to leave you totally innocent of all charges. Or are you trying to claim that I forced you?’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

Morgan nodded his grim satisfaction.

‘At least you have the honesty to admit to the truth. I’ve never forced a woman in my life.’

‘Of course not!’

It was impossible to hide her pain, though she tried to mask it behind a show of scorn that she hoped was convincing.

‘I suppose you believe you’re so totally irresistible that no woman can resist you!’

Images she didn’t want to face were filling her mind. Images of a string of newspaper reports that she had seen in the time they had been apart.

‘But then of course you have the evidence of all those starlets and models to support you. Who was it last month, Morgan? Kitty Spencer? And the month before that? Macy Renton?’

A dangerous scowl creased Morgan’s straight black brows and he pulled the sides of his gaping shirt together, fastening it swiftly with brusque, aggressive movements that spoke eloquently of the feelings he was holding back.

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers,’ he snarled.

‘Oh, so nothing of what was reported is true?’ Her eyebrows shot up in cynical query and scepticism dripped from her voice.

The scowl darkened, his strong jaw tightening aggressively.

‘Not nothing,’ he snarled.

He wasn’t proud of the way he’d behaved during the first month or so after Ellie had left him. Wasn’t proud of the lengths he’d gone to to fill the emptiness she’d left behind, the women with whom he’d tried to forget her. He’d tried to go back to the sort of life he’d lived before Ellie only to find that he had moved further away from it than he’d ever dreamed.

None of it had worked. All that had happened was that he’d managed a few hours of oblivion, but the morning had always come. He’d always had to face reality again, and reality had meant the dreadful irony of knowing that now he’d been free to do whatever he wanted with his future—but that freedom and that future had meant nothing without this one woman. A woman who had turned his life upside down, changed his perspective on everything, and then walked out, leaving behind an empty hole he’d found impossible to fill.

‘But at least any women I had a relationship with were free to be with me. They weren’t committed to anyone else, emotionally or otherwise.’

He was pushing his shirt into the waistband of his jeans as he spoke, the brisk efficiency of his movements as he fastened the zip, buckled his belt, expressing forcefully the distance that had now come between them.

‘Unlike you and your precious Pete. So what is it, my angel? Are you and your headmaster a couple or not? Or is your new man not the lover you thought he was?’

‘How dare you?’ Ellie threw the words into his cold face, amber eyes burning gold with fury. ‘Pete has been very kind to me.’

‘Oh, yes, and we both know how “kind” he’s been. But perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps you don’t want “kind” any more. Perhaps it doesn’t satisfy you, and you’re looking for something a little different—something more exciting?’

‘Well, if I was, then it wouldn’t be with you!’

‘No?’

Sceptical ice-blue eyes went to the bed, drifted over to the suitcase he had kicked aside so violently, and then came back to her flushed and indignant face.

‘No?’ he questioned again on a new and very different note, one eyebrow drifting upwards in cynical query.

‘Excitement wasn’t the word for that!’ Ellie injected every ounce of contempt she could manage into her tone. ‘It was more like a form of masochism—an exorcism of any lingering delusions I might have had about you.’

‘Believe me, angel,’ Morgan drawled with silky menace, ‘the feeling is entirely mutual. Like I said, I very nearly made the biggest mistake of my life.’

And he’d been hers, Ellie reflected bitterly. The worst mistake she had ever made in her life had been allowing herself to love him. Not that there had been any choice in the matter. She had been out of her depth almost from the very first moment she had met him. And nothing that had happened had done anything to change that.

‘So at least we both know exactly where we stand,’ she stated, somehow managing to make herself sound every bit as cold and uninvolved as he had done. All she wanted now was to get away from here as quickly and quietly as she possibly could. ‘Would you mind passing me my blouse? I’d like to get dressed.’

Morgan stooped, picked up the discarded shirt and tossed it disdainfully in her direction. Ellie just caught it and, pointedly ignoring his hard-eyed stare, turned her back to pull it on. The brush of the soft cotton over her sensitised skin, the still-aching peaks of her breasts, was a new form of torture, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it, fastening the buttons with determined movements.

Clothed, at least she felt better, even if the shirt was dreadfully crumpled and must look like nothing more than a rag. Her hands awkward and unsteady, she tried to smooth down the tousled strands of her hair, knowing that her attempts were having very little effect at all as she swung round to face Morgan again.

He hadn’t moved. He was still standing just feet away, tall and dark and devastating to her peace of mind, long hands resting loosely on the leather belt around his narrow waist, blue eyes hooded and watchful.

Ellie forced the polite, meaningless smile she used for really difficult customers, all lips and teeth, flashed on and off again, with nothing in the eyes at all.

‘Well, I don’t think there is anything more we need to discuss, so I’ll leave you to settle in.’

He waited until she reached the bedroom door, until she was thinking thankfully of escape, of finally getting away and hiding somewhere, licking her wounds in peace.

‘And you’ll be back—when?’ he enquired sardonically.

Never—if she had a choice.

‘Back?’

‘The “extra services”,’ Morgan reminded her harshly. ‘Cleaning—meals…’

‘Under the circumstances, I really think that you’d prefer it if Dee did your housekeeping after all.’

‘No way.’ It was a flat, emotionless statement but one that made it plain he had no intention of yielding or offering any concession on the point at all. ‘I don’t want this Dee, or your grandmother, or anyone else at all. I want you.’

‘But why? Why me?’

Why? Morgan asked himself the same question even as he phrased the words, ‘I want you’, not quite sure he had actually heard himself speak them.

Why when she had made it plain that she hated him, that she wanted nothing more to do with him, was he still so determined to play the only cards he had left in order to keep her near him? Why the hell did he want an unwilling, hostile, spitting alley cat coming to the house every day to perform tasks that she clearly resented with every cell in her body?

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