A REASON FOR MARRIAGE

“Fine.” The tip of her tongue was caught between her teeth as she frowned in concentration.

Simon felt his shaft stir at the thought of all the more sensuous uses the moistness of that tongue could be put to. “Or alternatively I could lie naked on the bed and wait for you to join me?” he said huskily.

“Fine.” Her eyes had a faraway look as she continued to sketch in her pad.

“Or maybe swing naked from the chandelier?” he added with amusement.

“What did you say?” She looked up sharply, her cheeks blushing a fiery red.

“Never mind.” He was still chuckling softly to himself as he walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

Sara felt the warmth of the color in her cheeks as the rest of Simon’s conversation now penetrated the concentration that always enveloped her at the start of a new project.

Except she wasn’t going to start a new project.

Was she…?

That certainly hadn’t been what she had intended when she’d arrived promptly for this evening’s appointment-but one look at the blandness of what should have been a magnificent penthouse apartment and she had instantly been assailed with visions of how wonderful it could and should look. Still, that didn’t mean she had to be the one who instigated those improvements…

“Mmm-you were right the other night. Your percolator does make a delicious cup of coffee.” Sara gave a satisfied sigh half an hour later, having taken her first sip of the strong brew.

The two of them were now sitting on stools across from each other at the breakfast bar in the sterile black and white kitchen.

“Now you know where to come the next time you want a decent cup of coffee in the middle of the night.” Seductive green eyes looked across at her in challenge.

Sara straightened, her expression rueful. “Seems a little extreme when there’s a coffee shop directly across the street from my own apartment building.”

“I doubt it has the same fringe benefits,” he drawled.

“Oh, I don’t know-the young guy who serves behind the counter at weekends is pretty hot.”

It was Sara’s turn to laugh as Simon growled low in his throat, but that laughter faded as she became aware that it was the first time for a very long time that she had felt so relaxed in a man’s company she was actually allowing herself to flirt with him. And Simon was the very last man she should be feeling relaxed or flirtatious with!

She straightened on the barstool. “He’s about nineteen years old, and probably not into older women who could do with losing a few pounds,” she said dryly.

“Are you serious?” Simon gave her a disbelieving look.

She gave a perplexed frown. “Sorry?”

He gave a shake of his head. “Sara, that nineteen-year-old in the coffee shop probably has his tongue hanging out the whole time he’s serving you your coffee!”

She scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

He gave a pained wince. “Sara, exactly what do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I don’t understand…”

Her puzzlement was so totally without guile or artifice that Simon was left in no doubts as to it being genuine. His expression softened. “Maybe if I were to tell you what I see when I look at you…?”

Sara eyed him warily. “This conversation isn’t going to get insulting, is it?”ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“Hardly!” Simon grimaced as he recognised that’s exactly what he currently was: hard and hot and throbbing, as he always seemed to be when he was in Sara’s company. And when not in her company too, if the last two days were any indication. “Can it be that you really don’t know-don’t see-how stunningly, incredibly gorgeous you are?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Could we get back to discussing a color scheme for your sitting room-?”

“Let’s see.” Simon chose to ignore her change of subject as he looked across at her consideringly. “Your hair is the color of midnight-black with a blue sheen-and your eyes-oh, God. I could talk about your eyes all night! They have such a beautiful color. Hot-”

“Simon-”

“I could happily drown in them,” he continued remorselessly. “And your skin is as pale and unflawed as alabaster. And your mouth!” His voice darkened smokily. “Would you like me to tell you the things I have imagined those softly sensuous and pouting lips doing to me these past two days?”

The blood in Sara’s veins was now pounding as ‘hot and molten’ as the way Simon had seconds ago described her pale brown eyes, and she shifted uncomfortably as she felt an echoing heat between her thighs, dampening her panties. Her denims chafed against the arousal nestled there. An arousal that, until meeting Simon Hamilton, she hadn’t believed herself capable of feeling. An arousal she didn’t want to feel. Not for Simon. Not for any man!

Bruce had been only too eloquent in his criticisms of her on the day they’d parted for the last time. He had scathingly told her how it was her fault he had turned to other women, that she had let herself go, that he’d never really wanted her but had simply used her to get back at her brother, that she had always lacked the social graces necessary in his wife, that her hair needed professional styling rather than being left to grow naturally, and that her fuller figure wasn’t only unfashionable but a total turn-off sexually.

Oh, Sara hadn’t been so without self-esteem by that time that she hadn’t known some of his remarks had been made out of pique, deliberately designed to hurt her because she had finally had enough of him and his affairs, but that didn’t mean his criticisms hadn’t hurt, or remained as a vulnerability buried deep inside her.

Which was perhaps the reason why she had decided she didn’t need another man permanently in her life.

There was no perhaps about it: her unhappy relationship with Bruce and the hurtful things he had said to her that last day were precisely the reasons Sara had made the drastic decision not to marry and to have the baby she craved on her own, through IVF.

And yet she couldn’t seem to find the words to stop Simon as he continued gruffly, “I’ve imagined you licking and kissing my chest and nipples, your lips and tongue hot and moist as they move down my stomach to my-“