at the naked perfection of his body now. A body, as she had discovered the previous evening, that had that olive tan all over, a light covering of dark hair on the muscular width of his chest, and down over powerful hips and thighs.
As she saw the renewed state of his arousal, she felt a liquid melting between her own thighs as heat coursed through her already languorous body.
‘I hope you don’t mind—I was thirsty,’ she answered him huskily, holding up the glass of water she had been drinking from.
Nick was thirsty too—but not for water. Taking the glass out of her hand, he placed it on a table, his eyes darkening as his head lowered to kiss one enticing nipple. He looked up into Hebe’s face as he stroked his tongue moistly over that sensitive tip, feeling the increasing hardness of his own body as she groaned low in her throat, eyes gleaming like molten gold as her body arched against him, dark lashes sweeping low over her flushed cheeks.
She was beautiful, this goddess of youth, and he wanted to lose himself in her once again. Not to blot out the painful memories of yesterday this time, but because he wanted her with a fierceness that told him he wouldn’t be gentle with her. That he couldn’t be. He needed to drive his body into hers, but knew she would meet that desire with a heat of her own. As she had before.
He straightened to swing her up into his arms, capturing her mouth with his, tongue plundering, as her arms moved up about his neck, her fingers becoming entangled in the darkness of his hair.
Hebe was trembling as he laid her down amidst the twisted sheets, his mouth deepening its possession of hers as one of his hands caressed the burning tip of her breast, the nipple already hard and aroused, sending sensations of heat and liquid fire through the rest of her body.
She restlessly caressed the broad width of his back, before trailing a path to the firmness of his thighs, touching him there, loving the feel of his hardness against her hand. The groan low in his throat assured her that he approved too.
Nick fell back against the pillows as Hebe began to kiss his chest, down to the hollow of his flat stomach, and even lower over the hardness of his thighs. His breath caught in his throat as he felt the sensuous flick of her tongue against his heated flesh, and at the same time he knew that he wouldn’t be able to take too much of this, that he wanted to be between the engulfing warmth of her thighs, inside her, stroking them both to that shuddering climax that he remembered so clearly—twice—from the night before.
He moved above her, looking down into her aroused face as he slowly entered her, her hips moving up to meet his, taking him deep inside her as she began to move slowly against him.
Hebe gasped minutes—hours?—later, as she felt the pleasure pulsing hotly through her, her body shuddering and quivering as that pleasure erupted out of control, taking her with it.
Taking Nick with it too, pulsating deep and deliciously inside her as he surrendered to the sensations of his body.
Hebe lay with her head resting against his chest in the aftermath, his arm about her waist, holding her loosely at his side.
She had never experienced anything like this. Their bodies seemed completely in tune, their lovemaking almost balletic in its intensity of emotion.
She smiled to herself as she realised how happy she felt, how totally relaxed and fulfilled. She really could so easily fall completely, mindlessly, in love with this man. If she wasn’t already!
Which, considering her uninhibited response to him, she had a feeling she just might be.
Whatever, she felt closer to him than she ever had to anyone before, and wondered what the future held for them. Would they spend the day together? It was Sunday, so neither of them had to be at work today. Maybe they would make breakfast together? Before making love. Then perhaps they would go for a walk in the nearby park. Before making love. And then they could…
Hebe, exhausted and happy, drifted off to sleep.
Nick lay sleepless beside her, his body filled with satiation but his mind suddenly crystal clear.
Hebe Johnson was beautiful and desirable, and responded to him in a completely uninhibited way that he found irresistable. But it was her lack of control that warned him he had to resist her. Not for him the silken shackles of any woman, the cosy togetherness that tightened those ties until no thought or action could be called his own. Never again. That way lay all the pain and despair he had tried so hard to blot out the night before.
And she was still his employee. Untouchable, in fact. Though he had already done a hell of a lot more than touch her!
Creating a situation he had always avoided in the past.
Since his divorce two years ago he had known lots of women, had wined and dined them, bedded them, and moved on without any regrets. None of those relationships had lasted long enough to forge any sort of bond, least of all an emotional one. But an employee, as he had always known and therefore avoided, was going to be a little more difficult to walk away from.
But he was going to do it anyway. Walk away and not look back.
Quite what he’d do about the fact that Hebe worked for him he wasn’t sure yet. The easiest way would be to dispense with her services at the gallery. But it didn’t seem quite fair that she should lose her job because she had gone to bed with him. In fact, most women would assume their job was more secure after going to bed with the boss!
He turned slightly to look at her as she slept in his arms. Was that the reason Hebe had come so willingly with him the night before? The reason she had come back here and made love with him?
If it was, she was in for a nasty surprise!
No one, and nothing, held Nick Cavendish any more—least of all a silver-haired siren with golden eyes.
Hebe felt almost shy as she came into the ultra-modern kitchen several hours later.
Having woken up alone in Nick Cavendish’s huge four-poster bed, with the disarray of the bedclothes a stark reminder of the heated lovemaking that had taken place there both last night and earlier this morning—as if she needed any reminder—she had collected up her scattered clothes and gone through to the luxury of the adjoining bathroom to shower and dress before going in search of Nick.
He was here, in the spacious kitchen, his back towards her as he made coffee, having pulled on faded denims and a black tee shirt over his nakedness.
Hebe looked at him, watching the muscles rippling in the broadness of his back as he moved, his shoulder-length dark hair brushed back to curl loosely against the nape of his neck.
Aged thirty-eight—twelve years older than her own twenty-six—he was without doubt the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. All over, she remembered with a pleasurable flush. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body, and his hands—those hands that had caressed her so thoroughly—were long and tapered. And he made love with an artistry that spoke of an experience she came nowhere near matching.
Of course he had been married. For five years, according to Kate, another assistant at the gallery. Hebe had learnt this after Nick’s second whirlwind visit three months ago, when he had snapped and snarled at them all before disappearing again on his way to terrorise the staff at his Paris gallery.
Kate had explained that he could be like that sometimes—that there had been a son from the marriage, a little boy who had died when he was only four. His death had precipitated the break-up and divorce of his parents two years ago, and still sometimes sent Nick Cavendish spiralling into a inferno of dark emotions that seemed to find no outlet.
Not surprising, really. Hebe could imagine nothing more traumatic than the death of your young child. But these intriguing snatches of information about her employer had only increased her interest in this enigmatically charismatic man.
She had watched him covertly during his lightning visits to the gallery. She had seen him dark and brooding as on that second visit, and smiling occasionally, but once laughing outright, which had softened and smoothed the lines of experience from his face,