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      "What about when I do this?" He squeezed my hip, pushed himself deeper still. "Do you like that?"

      All I could manage was a breathless, "Yes."

      Rolling me onto my back, he parted my legs even further by pushing one with his hand and nudging the other with his knee. Still staring, with his hands now in my hair, he rocked back from the hips then slid his cock back into me, once, twice, and again.

      I breathed into him, his parted lips on mine. We didn't even kiss, just inhaled, exhaled together, in time with his movements, a back-and-forth of breath.

      Gray's shoulder muscles rippled under my touch and with the exertion needed for such restraint. The tension made it clear he would die for me to give the word.

      There was something helpless in his exhalations, almost whimpering cries, showing he was close to losing himself and yet he kept up the same rhythm, pulling out almost to the tip and so damn slowly, sliding back in all the way, burying himself inside me.

      "Gray." I moved up to meet him, circling my hips in time with his. "Gray."

      "Is something wrong?"

      "No." I couldn't stop my hips circling faster; this reaching, straining for something was all their own. "I just wanted to see you."

      "Oh Piper, baby, I'm sorry, I can't help it. I want to come so badly I can't wait."

      I dug my nails into the small of his back and he yelped, thrust himself in deep, sharply.

      "I can't wait..."

      "Gray. Gray. Don't wait." Although he kept losing himself, nuzzling the side of my neck, I nudged him with my shoulder to make him look at me. "Fuck me. Now."

      The startled, wide-eyed look of disbelief on his face as his cock jerked inside me was the most erotic thing I'd seen while in bed with him. "What did you just say?"

      "I said I want you to fuck me. Hard."

      He thrust more violently, harder and deeper and I heard myself cry out as he told me again and again, "Piper, I'm gonna come inside you, baby, I can't wait, I just love fucking you much—"

      I exploded under him, threw my head back and cried out, not knowing what sound would come out of my mouth next, not caring, only knowing that I never, never wanted him to stop.

      "Piper, look at me, I—" Gray's voice cut off as he buried his head in the side of my neck, overcome from a fit of breathlessness from which he only recovered long enough to shout as he shuddered inside me, "Jesus, I love you. I love you, Piper Holt."

      Glad to get out of the cold and into the warmth of Kelleher's, I still wasn't sure it had been a good idea to leave the house that evening. Sure, I could still do myself some damage while painting my toenails and watching a DVD but at least I'd be warm and relatively sober and unlikely to jump into bed with someone who called my name and made declarations of love at the point of orgasm.

      Added to which, the wailing of a karaoke singer who couldn't hold a tune with both hands had me wondering if my friend Marie had chosen this place specifically to punish me for not socializing with her in weeks, then hitting her with the 'Gray bomb' as she'd called it.

      We'd gotten together a few days previously to catch up over a bottle of wine and a takeaway pizza and I'd stunned her by blurting out the news.

      "Gray Bradford? That Gray?" she'd asked, wide-eyed with astonishment.

      "How many do you know?"

      She'd asked if we were going to see each other again, a question I had no way of answering.

      But his words stuck in my mind. His declaration. The words which had frozen me in my tracks, filled me with panic. By telling me he was in love he'd scared me whereas before I might have been prepared to have a casual fling. Now that was off the menu because I'd always be wary of him looking for more in every gesture or kiss or touch.

      Unless that was an excuse on my part, a smokescreen to hide the fact I didn't feel the same way about Gray as he claimed to about me. But if he couldn't help the way he felt,

neither could I.

      The conversation between Marie and I had tapered towards the end of the evening. We'd confirmed Saturday before she left in a taxi and that was that. I retired to bed, strangely deflated, having expected the reassurance only a girly chat could bring but it hadn't happened. Maybe the wine had killed the mood.

      The only solution to that was to try again at the weekend, with vodka this time.

      My priority, over and above texting Marie to check her E.T.A, was getting to the bar and ordering a drink. Entering licensed premises and drinking on my own didn't bother me as long as I knew my solitude would be temporary and my companion was on his or her way.

      "Excuse me, excuse me," I muttered, making my way through an area of the bar littered with waist-high tables and bar stools. Even in heels, I felt like Gulliver in Brobdingnag.

      A group of guys stood around one table, too cool to sit, as they drank from their beer bottles and pint glasses and as I squeezed past a roar of laughter rose up from their group, drowning out the karaoke wailer, and one exclaimed in a far more musical Irish accent, "Feck off! I wouldn't go near—oh shit, sorry love, am I in your way?"

      "No, it's all right. I was just trying to get to the bar."

      "Hell, never let me stand between my two favorite things."

      I raised my eyebrows.

      "Women and alcohol of course." He looked me up and down, discreetly, but definitely looked.

      In the split second before I moved on I took in his dark eyes over which arched thick eyebrows, the barelythere moustache along his top lip, the smudge of goatee below the bottom one, his lightly-stubbled chin and jaw. A simple cross on a leather band hung in the V of his chest left exposed by the neckline of his white shirt, the cuffs of which he'd rolled up his forearms almost to his elbows. I had to tear my attention away, remind myself I was here to order a drink and wait for Marie. Not to eye up the local talent, although obviously not that local given his accent.

      Still, it would have been an impossible task to not look over my shoulder as I walked away, fighting my way through

the thickening crowd.

He caught me and winked.

      "Smirnoff Ice, please," I said when the barmaid acknowledged me with a smile.

      "How did you do that?" a guy to my right asked.

      "Order a drink?" I asked, checking his reflection behind the bar. Like Medusa he was probably best studied in a mirror. Okay, his hair wasn't made of snakes and his skin wasn't green, but the greased-back curtain of oily blackness and his narrow, ratty features combined with the smell of stale beer and the unsteadiness of the seasoned drinker were repellent enough.

      "No, get Grace's attention so quickly. She's—" He stopped when the lady in question placed the bottle in front of me, held out her hand for the money, said not a word and glared at my newly-acquired 'friend'.

      If looks could kill or turn to stone, Medusa would have nothing on her.

      "Grace is legendary 'round these parts," he went on.

      "That so," I muttered, placing a fiver in her hand.

      She replied with an equally monotone, "Thanks, love," clasped her fingers round the money and continued glaring at the man.

      "Yeah, she used to be a prostitute before she bought this place."

      "And you were the client who put her off that line of work, I take it?" I asked, immediately wondering if I'd offended her.

      But to my surprise she burst out laughing, a sharp bark which drew the attention of several of the surrounding patrons.

      "Nice one, love. Here. Take your money back. This one's on the house."

      "Are you sure?" But I pocketed the money before she changed her mind.

      "Bloody hell, you never give me a freebie," the man grumbled and I wondered if he was still talking about alcohol.

      "That's because you don't deserve it. Now," Grace said, pointing, positively stabbing the air in front of his face, "I don't want to see you hassling this girl, right? You just

bloody leave her alone."

"I wasn't!"

"Was he, love?"

"Me? Uh, well, he just said a few words, that's all."

      "See?" She turned back to him. "That's enough for you. Just leave it. Fancies himself as a bit of a ladies' man, he does. Some chance."

      "Thanks for the warning." I took my mobile phone out of my handbag for something to do while I waited.

      "I'm really not as bad as she says, you know." The man leered at me with eyes as big as dinner plates. I wondered if alcohol was all he'd touched that evening.

      "Hmm." Turning back to my phone, my heart skipped when I saw a text message from Marie.

      Sorry, can't make it 2nite, got migraine. Will b in touch soon. xxx.

      "Oh fuck." I slammed my phone shut, tucked it into my bag and took a huge gulp of my drink. Fantastic. I'd tarted myself up and come all this way for nothing. And she couldn't tell me sooner, when she'd started to feel ill?

      "Been blown out, have you? Never mind, we could be friends—"

      "No," I interrupted. "Thanks. I already have friends."

      "I thought you came here alone? I didn't see—"

      "I have friends, trust me. Over there. Very, very far away. On the other side of the room."

      "You didn't—"

      "She means me." Pressure on the small of my back, a hand perhaps, and I looked in the bar mirrors again. "There you are, darlin'. I told you you should have let me come to the bar, but you wouldn't listen. Come on."

      One hand on my bag, the other on my bottle, I paused, inclined my head and he winked.

      Something in that conspiratorial action told me you're safe so I allowed him to guide me away from the bar and the nameless drunk.

      "I hope you didn't mind me doing that," he said, leaning down so I'd better hear him as we walked.

      "Um, no. It got me away from that guy, so... thanks." I started to wonder how I could politely take my leave; gratitude didn't completely kill off the desire to withdraw although a few more seconds of drinking him in couldn't hurt.

      "My pleasure." He grinned and his eyes crinkled up at the corners.

      Don't look at him, Piper. You've just split from Andrew and you messed things up with Gray. Don't do this.

      "Actually, I was just coming to look for you. Rescuing a damsel in distress from a barfly seems a pretty good way of finding you, I reckon."

      "Oh?" I frowned, took a sip of Smirnoff to give myself something to do. "What have I done?"

      "Nothing." He laughed, and I swear he laughed with an accent. "I assumed you came in alone to wait for a friend, so I figured I'd..."

      Lifting my eyebrows, I lowered the bottle and started to lick my lips. Realizing what I was doing, I paused, felt my cheeks heat up and looked down again while I finished wetting my lips. "Figured you'd...?" I prompted.

      "Figured I'd come and ask for your number before anyone else came and nabbed you."

      Surprise made me cough.

      "Unless you're here to meet a bloke already in which case, I'll be off—"

      "No, no, I'm not here to meet anyone as a matter of fact."

      "A woman who loves alcohol so much she's willing to party solo. I think I've died and gone to heaven."

      Unable to smother a laugh, I explained, "No, no, I was supposed to be meeting someone tonight but I just got a text message. They're not coming."

      "What sorta bloke would bin you?" He shrugged. "Ah well, his loss."

      "Her. Her loss. I was supposed to be going out with a female friend tonight and..." Why I felt the need to clarify this I didn't know. "She got sick, apparently. So I'm just gonna finish this and go."

      "Why don't you come and finish your drink with us? No, on second thought, introducing you to my mates, really bad way of getting your number."

      "Are you always like this?"

      "What, Irish, devilishly handsome and in a pub?" He

shrugged. "Mostly, yeah. Oh, Leo, by the way."

"What?"

      "My name. It's Leo." He held out his hand. "So you know what to put in your mobile." It came out mow-boil and made me want to lick my lips again.

      "You're very forceful." I switched the bottle to my left hand and took his. Warm. And... I wanted him to touch me more.

      "But you're not offended."

      "How do you know?"

      "You haven't kicked me in the nuts. That's always a good sign."

      I couldn't help it; his shameless flirting, overt chat-up lines and cocky confidence made me laugh. Or maybe that was the nerves.

      He ran his thumb over the back of my hand before letting it go and my fingers flinched. Touch me again.