Layla frowned, surprised by the news. I’ve been cruising the California coastline for the past week. Lucas walked her down the stairs, but not before one of the men seated at the table across the way cleared their path. When she turned her head, she saw the other two falling into step behind them. One of them was talking into one of those security earpieces she had only previously seen worn in films, and the men backed into the dancers to impose a barrier around her and Lucas and ensure their smooth passage across the crowded dance floor."Are those men bouncers?" she asked."My security team.""Why do you need a security team?" Layla inquired nervously.Protection. I’ve had a security presence in my life since childhood, 'Lucas confided evenly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. My mother and her sister were Greek heiresses. Sadly, my aunt was kidnapped and held for ransom as a teenager.’"Good grief," Layla whispered in the comparative quiet of the club foyer. Was she
"I’m more tart than sweet," Layla warned him."Sugar cloys," Lucas husked, and he wondered if that was the very basic truth that explained his reaction to her. She was independent and outspoken, and he had never met anyone quite like her before.He stroked a finger across the pulse flickering madly at her collarbone and her breath tripped in her throat. "You keep touching me..."His eyes glowed with potent gold. I can’t keep my hands off of you. Is it a problem?’Layla’s lashes screened her eyes. She wasn’t used to being touched, and he did it with such ease and spontaneity. Her mother had been physically demonstrative when she had been sober, and their brief time at the commune in Wales had been almost happy. But, after her mother’s death, her uncle’s family had been much more reserved, and Layla had received little physical affection from them. She said in a low voice, thinking she had better watch herself with him because somehow he was getting under her skin in a way she had not f
Layla blinked, bemused, having assumed he would be as eager to be touched as she was. And, ‘not for the first time’? Was that simply his prodigious self-assurance doing the talking for him? Layla, her body all aquiver about even the thought of a single experience and the unlikelihood of her wanting a second, watched him strip off his clothing with something less than the laid-back cool she had come to expect from him.Everything came off at once, ensuring that she had little time to be curious about what her first aroused male looked like. He was larger than she had assumed he would be, but that was only a point of academic interest, she assured herself nervously, surveying the prodding length and breadth of his bold shaft. She knew she would stretch, and she envisaged neither pain nor anything else that might reveal her inexperience. After all, she had gone horse riding from an early age and believed any physical barrier would be long gone. With the same focused intellectual interest
"It was private," Layla told him succinctly, her lush mouth folding into a compressed line. Now that it’s done, can we just go back to where we were?Do we go back to where we were? In a different mood, Lucas would have laughed at that wording. But he was in the grip of angry astonishment, his every assumption about her wiped out. He didn’t like surprises, but as Layla shifted up to him in a reminder that he was still inside her, he discovered that his body was much less particular. He stared down at her with stunning dark golden eyes. He was her first, and there was something mysteriously satisfying about that discovery. She was so tight and warm and wet. A struggle to control his every move, he sank deeper and a breathy little sigh that certainly wasn’t a complaint escaped her.Layla shut her eyes again, ripples of pleasure reclaiming her, that momentary stab of discomfort forgotten. She could feel his girth stretching her and his hips grounding into hers with every slow, heavy thru
Lucas swore vehemently beneath his breath and went off to use another shower. Why was she angry with him? Accidents happened, although it was the first time he had found himself in such a situation. Even as a teenager, Lucas had never had unprotected sex because he knew all too well the cost of such carelessness. His half-brother’s birth to his father’s mistress had been a painful lifelong commitment for Logan Jack, his wife and son.Layla emerged from the bathroom wrapped in the white toweling robe she had found hanging there. It was huge on her, but she had rolled up her sleeves and wasn’t sorry to be covered to her ankles. The intimacy she had naively sought suddenly struck her as having come at too high a price, and she was more self-conscious in the aftermath than she had been beforehand."I thought you’d be hungry," Lucas remarked, with a casual movement of his hand, pointing out the catering trolley that had appeared. I don’t know what you like, so I ordered a selection.’"You
‘No, please don’t tell me it’s been great!’ Layla urged Lucas with a rueful laugh as, ever gracious, he saw her into the speedboat that would whisk her back to the real world rather than the fantasy in which she had ordered her own personal perfect breakfast directly from Lucas’ personal chef."Why not?" Lucas demanded, strangely unsettled by her apparent good humour at leaving him.Because you know it’s been a disaster with you from start to finish, but you’re too polite to say it. ‘I was absolutely not what you expected’, Layla pointed out bluntly, taking a seat in the launch.Lucas, rarely put out of countenance, felt the heat sear his cheekbones and thought that she really was extraordinarily unusual for her sex when she said exactly what she thought and felt without chagrin, revealing not an iota of the vanity he had believed that every woman possessed. ‘I will be in touch’‘Not necessary,’ Layla cut in briskly, as if he were a five-year-old imploring a busy teacher.His strong j
The locked door rattled. ‘Layla? Are you in there?’ It was her aunt’s voice, sharp and demanding.Lifting the bag, Layla unlocked the door and prepared to step past the older woman.Instead, Madison White laid her hand on Layla’s arm to prevent her from walking away. "Are you pregnant?" she demanded thinly.Layla was startled by the question when she had not shared her concern with anyone. She stiffened, her brows lifting in a startled arc. "Why are you asking me that?"‘Oh, that could be my fault.’ Emily sighed with mock sympathy, pausing at the top of the stairs. I was behind you in the checkout at the supermarket, and I couldn’t help noticing the test...’Layla lost colour. "Yes, I’m pregnant," she admitted stonily.Her aunt, always a volatile woman, immediately lost her temper. By the time she had finished shouting, threatening, and verbally abusing her niece for her morals, Layla knew where she stood and that she could no longer remain in her aunt and uncle’s home. Layla knew tha
Layla was humming under her breath while she cooked supper, grateful that the smell of the chicken and vegetables didn’t stir up nausea the way the scent of anything fried seemed to do. At least her studies hadn’t started yet. She was at the start of a reading week, set aside for home study. The doorbell went off, and she wondered if Steve had forgotten his key. Her friend’s parents had died when he was eighteen, leaving him with the means to buy his own apartment. She was comfortable living in Steve’s guest room but, concerned that she was taking advantage of his good nature, she had taken over the cooking and the cleaning to demonstrate her appreciation of his hospitality.Barefoot, she padded out to the hall, a slim, casually clad figure in skinny jeans and a striped navy and white sweater, her vibrant long hair restrained in a braid that hung halfway down her back.She pronounced it numbly, shattered to find the leading character in her daydreams in the flesh on the doorstep.‘Wh