in that cramped and overcrowded sitting room, with Cormack gently stroking the back of her neck, aware that every second which passed was weakening what little resolve she had left.
‘Come,’ he urged softly, and turned her round to face him. ‘Come here to me, Triss, sweetheart.’
And Triss felt her breath catch painfully at the back of her throat as she stared at him.
She had seen Cormack in many guises—in jeans and scruffy when he was working flatout on a script, in exquisitely cut chinos and shirts of softest lawn when he was taking her out to lunch, or reluctantly tuxedoed for an obligatory awards night. And yet she could never remember him looking more gorgeous or more desirable than he did right now.
But it was more than the striking vision he made, with his dark, tousled hair and the faintly sinister appeal of the black leather he wore. It was the realisation that Simon was going to grow up to be the spitting image of his father.
So tell him, she thought. Tell him! That’s why you brought him here today, isn’t it?
She stared into his blue eyes, appalled when she read the answering glint there.
“Don’t look so horrified,’ he murmured. ”There’s nothing wrong with wanting me to kiss you...’
‘I don’t—’ she started, but it was too late, because he had pulled her into his arms with an urgency she was not used to. Cormack had always taken great pleasure in his ability to control the pace of their lovemaking. He had always seen the delay of his own sexual gratification as something which gave him immense satisfaction. But this kiss was something else—she had never seen Cormack look so rapt and so absorbed and so hungry.
He brought his lips down hard and powerfully against hers, crushing her in his arms so that she could feel his heart beating against her breast—the rapid thundering seeming to symbolise life itself—and Triss found that she was shaking quite violently.
Cormack lifted his head and frowned. ‘Why, you’re trembling, Triss,’ he observed, his own voice sounding slightly unsteady.
‘I know. Silly, isn’t it?’ She rested her head against his shoulder and it felt as though all the troubled times which had passed between them had never occurred. And she was aware that once she told him about Simon she would not have the opportunity to do this again.
‘Why?’ he questioned softly. ‘Why are you trembling?’
Tricky, this one. If she told the truth would she not be revealing her vulnerability where he was concerned? And if she was vulnerable he would be able to hurt her even more than he already had done.
‘Triss?’ he prompted gently.
‘Because it’s been so long,’ she admitted reluctantly, closing her eyes quickly.
‘Since?’
‘Since I’ve...been intimate with anyone.’
‘How long?’ he questioned sharply.
‘Since—that night.’ The night when their son had been conceived.
There was a long, telling silence, and when he spoke his voice sounded unaccustomedly heavy. ‘Me too.’
It should have made her burst with joy, but it had the opposite effect—for it made what she had to do even harder.
He bent his mouth to hers once more, and even as she found her lips opening beneath the persistent coaxing of his she wondered when she might gather together enough courage to tell him about Simon.
TRISS came up for air, though it wasn’t easy when all she wanted was for Cormack to carry on kissing her like that. In that mad, passionate way—as though he had just discovered kissing for the very first time. ‘Cormack!’ she gasped.
‘Not now!’ he growled, and lowered his head again.
And oh, the sweet power of that kiss threatened to submerge her in its tantalisingly sensual waters. Triss struggled back to reality with difficulty. ‘Cormack, please—’
‘You don’t have to beg me, Triss, sweetheart,’ he murmured, with a trace of that hateful irony. ‘The pleasure is all mine, I can assure you.’
‘But...’ Oh, it was hopeless! Hopeless! Triss found her head tipping back, giving Cormack greater access to her neck, which he was now covering with tiny, tiny butterfly kisses so exquisitely delicate that they made her shudder with frustrated longing.
‘Triss,’ he groaned, and shaped the palms of his hands voluptuously down the sides of her body, as if he were a sculptor creating and forming her out of pliant clay. ‘Beautiful, beautiful Triss. God, but you feel good. So good that I want to eat you up.’
Triss fought feelings of intense desire and intense frustration, frantically sucking in air through her mouth as Cormack cupped one of her breasts through the linen dress she wore. She had forgotten just what a master he was at this. If men could take a course on how to drive a woman out of her head with wanting then Cormack Casey would graduate with honours!
Her hips began to move distractedly, as if of their own accord. Tiny, rhythmical little circles, just designed to bring her into contact with the unmistakable evidence of Cormack’s growing passion.
This had not been what she had planned. She was supposed to feel angry with Cormack, for heaven’s sake. He had let her down in every which way.
She had brought him here today solely with the intention of informing him that he was the father of her child. She had planned to tell him not coldly, or judgmentally, just matter-of-factly. As a teacher would explain something to a class.
But nothing more than that—certainly not this. She ran her tongue over her parched lips in despair as she felt her nipple peak beneath the kneading movements of his fingertips.
She tried one last time. ‘Cormack, this is wrong...’
He stopped then, lifting his dark head to stare at her accusingly, and she found herself dazzled by the brilliance of his blue gaze. ‘No!’ He halted her with a negation that was almost savage. ‘Whatever else may have happened between us this was never wrong...never could be wrong... You know that, Triss. In your heart you cannot deny it.’
She gave up. It was too much to ask—to deny herself what she wanted more than anything else in the world. And why not now? Why not this one, last, glorious time?
Because Triss knew with a certainty which sickened her that Cormack would not make love to her ever again—not once she told him about Simon.
For he was the father of her child. And she knew Cormack well enough to know in her heart that not only would he be livid with her for having concealed that fact, but that he would find it impossible to forgive her for having kept his baby a secret from him for so long.
But hadn’t that been her intention? To hurt him as he had hurt her? What some people might have called revenge, but what she had convinced herself was only right and fair.
‘Triss, let me make love to you,’ he coaxed. ‘What we have between us is too good to throw away. Sure, isn’t it a crime not to when we feel this way about each other?’ And all the while he spoke he was sliding those sensuous fingers over her breasts with such unerring accuracy.
Perhaps another woman with more backbone than Triss might have halted those delicious caresses... might have stopped him from inciting each exquisitely aroused nipple into honeyed life. Would a woman who had not fallen so completely under Cormack’s spell have pushed him away?
Well, Triss was certainly not pushing him away. Instead she was kissing him back. Frantically. Almost as frantically as she scrabbled to unzip his leather jacket, to reveal the muscle-packed chest which the grey cashmere sweater could not disguise.
Her hands burrowed right up