‘Am I hurting you?’

She shook her head and urged him closer, refusing to acknowledge the flash of pain that tried to intrude on the rising heat of her excitement.

But he must have felt her body’s faint resistance to the alien male intrusion because he swore softly and smoothed her dampened hair away from her face with a hand that was far from steady.

‘Relax, sweetheart,’ he urged hoarsely, and she did as he instructed, hypnotised by the look in his blue eyes. ‘Better?’

She nodded, everything she felt reflected in her eyes as she gazed up at him, and he closed his eyes and moved deeply within her.

‘You’re mine now, Jenny,’ he groaned hoarsely, each movement of his hips taking him deeper, building the tension. ‘All mine.’

Her eyes closed.

All his.

She wanted so much for it to be true and for this one, wild, suspended moment in time she surrendered to the fantasy and clung to him, feeling the tiny shivers build within her as he drove them both to a peak of pulsing ecstasy that seemed to last for ever.

Sated and limp, she clung to the sleek muscle of his shoulders, relishing each moment of their intimacy, knowing that it couldn’t last.

How could it?

He wouldn’t want the children to find them like this, locked together, when they padded into his bedroom in the morning, and neither would she.

And despite the fiercely possessive words he’d spoken at the height of passion, she knew that, for him, the night had just been a lush oasis of pleasure in an otherwise barren day of stress and anxiety.

He rolled onto his back, taking her with him, holding her tight against his hair roughened chest.

‘You are amazing.’ He slipped his fingers under her chin and forced her to look at him, his expression stunned. ‘Jenny…’

‘Shh…’ She placed a finger over his lips, wanting to stop him before he said something that would pierce the bubble of happiness that still bloomed inside her. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’

Alex gave a totally male smile. ‘Trust you to be different,’ he said gruffly, snuggling her back into the crook of his arm. ‘A woman who doesn’t want to talk after sex.’

Jenny felt a tiny stab of disappointment.

Sex.

Of course, that’s all it would have been to Alex. What else had she expected? That after enjoying one night of passion with her he’d suddenly discover that all his years of avoiding women had been for the express purpose of keeping himself free for her?

She slid an arm around him, desperate to hold onto him for as long as possible. For tonight, at least, he was hers. And if that was all she could ever have of Alex then she was going to relish every minute.

* * *

Jenny awoke feeling warm and comfortable and realised that she was still snuggled against Alex, her limbs tangled with his. She moved her head and glanced at the clock. Five o’clock. Still early for grown-ups but not small children and she had three of them to look after.