dark but hardly spectacular, cropped short for convenience. She liked her eyes best. They were large, light grey, with reasonably long lashes to emphasise them. Her nose, slightly tilted at the end, was invariably labelled cute. Her mouth was a touch wide and her lower lip was too full for Teri’s liking.
She was certainly not strikingly beautiful but she was passably attractive and there was nothing wrong with her figure. In actual fact, there was a lot right with her figure. Ever since her teens it had drawn attention from the opposite sex, but she’d been with Wayne most of her life, so such attention was irrelevant. She wasn’t interested. She was even less interested after her marriage had failed. A body was simply functional. That was all. Until Leo.
He smiled at her, a slow, lazy, satisfied smile. “Feeling good?”
“Mmmh...” She felt like the proverbial cat who’d fed gluttonously on cream.
“So am I. Better than I’ve felt for a long, long time. You’re a marvel to me, Teri.”
She smiled, thinking all the marvels came from him. “The same for me, Leo.”
“The thing is...” he started, then gave vent to a long sigh, withdrawing his touch which was a chillingly obvious sign of separation from her.
Teri instantly had the sense this was decision time. Morning had come. Where to next? Nerves that had been beautifully lulled, started twitching with apprehension. However physically intimate they’d been, Leo was virtually a stranger. He’d come prepared for sex. Did he make a practice of one-night stands?
His mouth tilted in apologetic irony. “I don’t want to mislead you...”
She tensed, preparing herself for the worst-case scenario. Leo Kingston had given her something very special so she had nothing to complain about, even if it was to be only a one-off experience. Yet she couldn’t help hoping this was the start of something more with him.
“...I love what we’ve been sharing...” he went on, his voice projecting strongly positive appreciation.
But...her mind supplied as her heart cramped. This was surely the carrot ahead of the stick. All along she had assessed him as too good for her, a high-flyer with class stamped all over him, which was why it was so amazing he’d wanted her, a working-class girl in a service industry. Silly to have any expectations of a deep and meaningful relationship.
“...but I’m not into marriage, Teri. I’ve been there, done that, and it wasn’t good.”
Marriage! She hadn’t given a thought to any such future possibility. Now...with him...had completely dominated her mind.
“You’re divorced?” she asked. Although he had declared himself a guy on his own the last time he was here, Teri wanted to know if his wife was still around.
“Very much so,” he answered sardonically.
“So am I,” she confessed. “No fun, is it?”
“None whatsoever.”
“So what are you saying, Leo? You’d like an affair with me as long as I understand wedding bells are out?” she prompted, hoping she had the affair part right.
That idea didn’t upset her at all. If he was considering it. And she appreciated his honesty in warning her off any marriage aspirations. It was best to know where one stood. With Wayne, the sorting through where both of them wanted to go had been long and painful and the sense of failure a deep and scarring torment.
“Are you okay with that, Teri?” Leo asked, searching her eyes very seriously.
She wondered what scars he carried from his marriage. Needing some insight into where he was coming from, she asked, “Why don’t you spell out what you do want, Leo?”
His face lit with an irrepressible grin. “What we’ve just had. Over and over again. As long as it’s good for us.”
Her heart kicked with a wild surge of happy relief. She wanted that, too, as many times as he’d give it to her. Having lived twenty-nine years without experiencing half of what Leo had touched off in her, she’d be mad to pass up the opportunity to feel all this again. Nevertheless, he hadn’t told her much. Only that their pleasure was mutual, which she already knew.
“So we’re talking strictly sex, are we?” she lightly probed, careful not to scare him off.
He frowned, clearly cogitating the equation he wanted. “That sounds rather bald,” he said slowly. “I like you, Teri. Very much. And I don’t want to offend you.”
“Honesty won’t offend me, Leo,” she assured him. “I’d appreciate not being fooled in any way whatsoever.”
God knew she’d fooled herself with rosy expectations going into her marriage with Wayne. She’d sworn never to enter another relationship without pinning everything down. Having her eyes wide open and seeing straight left one a lot less susceptible to miserable disappointment.
It had also narrowed the field of possible men she’d accept in her life so drastically, Leo was the first who’d passed the barriers she’d put up. Though he hadn’t precisely passed them. He’d burst through them. Which made her all the more fascinated by him. She studied his face—the self-knowing intelligence and determination so evident on it—as he answered her.
“I simply don’t want the kind of relationship that hangs a whole lot of emotional blackmail on either of us, Teri. I don’t have the time or the stomach for it.” A flash of bitterness there, almost instantly softened by an appealing, whimsical smile. “I guess I want things free and easy between us. Which is probably completely selfish...” He shrugged, not caring that it was. It was how he wanted it.
“You mean no accountability. Just take it as it comes,” she interpreted.
He nodded. “I travel quite a bit in my business. I can be away for weeks at a time, so don’t expect some kind of regular arrangement. It won’t happen...” His eyes hardened. “...and I won’t be pressured into it.”
It was clear their affair would proceed on his terms or he’d call it quits. Teri wasn’t sure how she felt about that...the total disregard for whatever needs she might have. Though he certainly fulfilled one need. He was top of the pack on that score. Absolutely top.
Her gaze glided down his magnificent physique and the lust for more of him gripped the pit of her stomach. No love involved here. Once she would have thought herself...sluttish...for feeling as she did now, but love had only brought her disillusionment Why not take what she could get from this man? At least it was something good. Better than good. Fantastic!
She’d been working hard, establishing her restaurant business, virtually to the exclusion of everything else except visiting her family now and then. She’d earned a bit of spice in her life. Hot spice! She couldn’t help grinning at the thought and her eyes danced back up to his.
“Okay,” she agreed. “No commitments. Just when it suits both of us.”
Relief and sparkling delight shone from him. “Great! You’re a woman in a million, Teri. Finding you is like winning the lottery.”
She laughed. “Maybe I got a bottle of champagne in you, Leo.”
“Then celebration is in order,” he said with a purposeful gleam.
He kissed her and the champagne fizzed so beautifully, Teri had no regrets over the bargain it sealed with Leo Kingston.
Pure pleasure.
No harm in that.
As long as she didn’t attach anything else to it.
CHAPTER TWO
Ten months on...
PREGNANT!
No doubt left.
She was having Leo’s child.
In