brought him to his major problem where Laura was concerned.
What if she fell in love with him?
There was no use pretending that it couldn’t happen, just because Laura didn’t overly like him. Women fell in love with men they didn’t like all the time.
Ryan didn’t want to hurt her. Hell, he’d spent most of his life trying not to hurt women. Not that he’d always succeeded. But he had never deliberately set out to hurt any of them.
Would he hurt Laura if he continued sleeping with her?
That was the question he had to answer before morning came. Which meant before he surrendered to his own tiredness and dropped off to sleep.
Ryan frowned. Maybe he would hurt her more if he stopped. Clearly, she’d loved the sex tonight. Loved it all. If he called it quits tomorrow morning she might think she’d done something wrong, or that he’d already grown bored with her. She would take it as a personal rejection. Women were quick to blame themselves when a man dumped them. To do so after just one night together would be cruel.
On top of that, there was no guarantee that Laura would become emotionally involved with him. She was thirty years old and a lawyer, for pity’s sake. Hardly a naïve little thing. She already knew the score where he was concerned, knew that he was not husband material. All he was good for was some fun and games, something which she was in dire need of, in his opinion.
If she continued to sleep with him, then the risk was hers, wasn’t it? Her future happiness was not his responsibility. She was an adult who could decide for herself what she wanted to do. He wasn’t about to force her to continue their affair. It was up to her. But he would ask her again in the morning if that was what she wanted. Give her a chance to change her mind.
Feeling marginally better, Ryan stretched out and closed his eyes. But they immediately snapped open again. Of course, if Laura did decide to continue their affair—and he was pretty sure that she would—he would have to get himself a new lawyer. He would make that very clear indeed.
Never mixing business with pleasure was one rule Ryan didn’t intend to break!
RYAN woke before Laura. Without thinking, he snuggled up to her still sleeping form, curving his body around hers from behind. His arousal was instantaneous and extremely corrupting, banishing any thought of giving her either the opportunity or the time to change her mind about continuing their sexual relationship. Already he was stroking her bare breasts, stirring her back to consciousness, wallowing in the way she started moaning with pleasure.
And then he remembered—no more condoms.
Swearing with frustration, he leapt out of the bed and marched off to the bathroom where he jumped into a cold shower, staying there till he was ready to behave himself. By the time he emerged, well wrapped in a towel, Laura was wide awake and sitting up in the bed, a sheet thankfully clutched over those beautiful breasts of hers.
‘Sorry about that,’ he muttered, striding over to the wardrobe where his clothes were hung. ‘Forgot we’d run out of protection.’
Laura was sorry too—sorry that he’d stopped.
‘The bathroom’s all yours,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘Though I’ll have to go back and shave at some stage. I’d leave the stubble on today in other circumstances, but I have a suspicion that Cynthia would not approve. Or your gran, for that matter.’
‘You’re probably right about Aunt Cynthia, but Gran won’t mind. She likes macho-looking men.’
Me too, Laura thought as she admired Ryan’s back view. She loved the wideness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips. Loved the rippling muscles which framed his spine and bulged in his arms. Loved the length and strength of his legs.
He shrugged those gorgeously broad shoulders. ‘In that case I won’t bother.’
She stayed to watch him dress, even though she really needed to go to the bathroom. But she held on long enough to see him step into some sexy Y-fronts then pull on the black jeans he’d worn yesterday. A white T-shirt followed, over which he drew on a long-sleeved black shirt. What was it about a man in black, she wondered, that was so darned sexy?
He turned suddenly, his eyes thoughtful. ‘Before I forget, there’s something I have to ask you.’
Laura’s heart contracted with immediate anxiety. ‘Oh? What?’
‘Are you quite sure you want to keep sleeping with me? If you would prefer to leave things as a one-night stand, I’ll understand.’
Laura was truly taken aback, and a little dismayed. Was this his way of saying he wanted out?
She could only shake her head. ‘I don’t understand you, Ryan. I thought you still wanted me this morning.’
‘I do.’
‘Then what’s the problem all of a sudden?’
‘No problem on my part. I just wanted to give you the chance to change your mind. Sometimes things appear differently the morning after the night before. One’s thoughts become clearer.’
‘My thoughts are quite clear, thank you very much,’ she said somewhat tartly. She hated it when men acted as though women were silly creatures who didn’t know their own mind.
‘You do realise that becoming my lover is not a permanent position,’ he went on firmly. ‘And that it will mean the end of our business relationship.’
Laura was beginning to become quite impatient with him. There really was no need to keep reminding her what the score was. She already knew his track record.
‘That’s fine by me,’ she bit out. ‘I too have a life rule about having affairs with clients.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ah yes. I’d forgotten for a moment that you’d done that before. But of course you were in love with that particular client. Which is why it ended badly.’
The penny finally dropped for Laura. ‘Oh, I see. You’re worried that I might fall in love with you?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You truly are a most arrogant man.’
‘Possibly,’ he admitted. ‘But not, thankfully, a libertine.’
‘That’s debatable at this point in time.’
He smiled. ‘I rather like it when you get stroppy.’
‘That’s because it makes you feel safe!’ she snapped.
He laughed. ‘Nothing about you right now makes me feel safe, Laura. Which is why I want you to get that beautiful body of yours into the bathroom where I can’t get at it.’
Laura tried to stay annoyed with him—but how could she when he’d just called her beautiful, not
