Perfect Marriage Material. Penny Jordan

male gene of vanity because she was so plainly dismissive and contemptuous of him. He didn’t know. What he did know was that he had a hard time fighting with himself not to respond to her aggressive and spiked remarks both as a defendant and a protagonist.

      And the problem wasn’t confined to the fact that she was simply a friend of Olivia’s. There were other complications. She was going to be working for the same organisation and...

      Meg made the little snuffling sound that meant that she had finally fallen asleep. As he bent down to gently kiss her cheek and tuck her in, Saul wondered wryly what on earth he had done to offend fate so much that she insisted on sending him so many problems.

      First his marriage to Hillary and then the problem he was currently facing with Louise and now this. Tiredly he made his way back to his own bedroom, throwing his robe onto a chair before pushing back the covers and getting into bed.

      It was ironic the effect a bad marriage—a bad relationship —could have on you. He now actually enjoyed sleeping alone. It was a relief to wake up in the morning without Hillary there next to him, both of them ready to begin the next round in their ongoing battle.

      Wearily he closed his eyes.

      Saul groaned pleasurably in his sleep, inhaling a deep, sensual breath of the delicious scent of the woman in his arms; she smelled not of some expensive designer perfume but of her own special, deeply feminine and intensely erotic scent. He had been aware of it and her all through dinner and had ached then to do as he was doing right now, breathing in the scent of her; he tasted it on his lips as he kissed the soft curve of her throat, nibbled his way along her jaw towards her mouth.

      Her hair was a heavy, silky dark cloud of satin softness where it lay against his skin as subtly perfumed as the rest of her, her arms as rounded and smooth as the intoxicatingly female contours of her breasts. He deliberately delayed allowing himself the longed-for pleasure of kissing her mouth.

      Drawing his lips along the velvet softness of her inner arm, he felt her whole body quiver as he gently caressed the inside of her elbow with the tip of his tongue until she wrenched her arm away from him to wrap both of them tightly around him and begged him to make love to her ‘property.’

      ‘Properly...what do you mean properly...what is properly?’ he teased her huskily whilst she pressed herself closer and even closer to him, the hard points of her breasts pushing against his skin, driving him insane with their sensual demand for attention.

      ‘Stop talking and kiss me,’ she whispered, her palm insistently turning his face towards her own, her lips already parting....

      ‘Mmm...’ Saul stroked his hand down the side of her body, trying not to allow himself to linger anywhere, not even on the satin warmth of the inside of her thigh when she trembled as he caressed her. ‘Oh, I’m going to kiss you all right, Tullah,’ he told her thickly. She gave another soft, protesting moan and writhed eagerly against him. ‘I’m going to kiss you until that deliciously soft, irresistible mouth of yours is—’

      ‘Daddy...daddy. Wake up. I feel sick...’

      Reluctantly Saul opened his eyes and blinked dazedly up at his son.

      ‘I feel sick,’ Robert repeated urgently. ‘I—’

      ‘Yes, all right...come on....’ Saul was already on his feet, swinging Robert up into his arms and hurrying towards the bathroom with him.

      Robert had had a very severe bout of infant gastroenteritis as a baby, so severe, in fact, that at one point their doctor had warned them that he might not survive. He had, but with the legacy of a digestive system that was acutely sensitive. They made it just in time.

      Saul knew from experience that Robert’s bouts of sickness were wrenching but thankfully short-lived. However, it certainly looked as though he wasn’t going to get much more sleep tonight, which probably wasn’t a bad thing, given the nature of the extremely erotic and extraordinarily inappropriate dream Robert had woken him from.

      The subconscious was an odd thing. a very odd thing, he decided before firmly banishing the enticing, lingering image his mind had conjured up of Tullah lying voluptuously naked in his bed, still warm from their shared lovemaking.

      That he should have dreamt about her at all was bad enough, but that he had been enjoying the dream so much, had been so aroused by it. so determined to hang on to it that he had fought against waking up and responding to Robert, was even worse.

      He couldn’t remember the last time he had had a dream like that. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he couldn’t remember any time he had been so intensely and so physically aroused. Not even with—

      ‘Daddy...’

      ‘It’s OK, Robert.’

      Sternly rebuking himself for his thoughts, he turned to minister to his son.