That Tender Feeling (7 page)

‘Like to talk about it?'

‘Nothing much to talk about. I had a fiancé and a friend with whom I shared a flat. I walked in too quietly on them and—'

‘Caught him with his pants down?' he queried.

‘Not quite,' she said, her mouth turning wry at that figurative expression. ‘Let's say I might have if I'd timed my entrance about five minutes later.'

She was glad then that she'd told him the truth.

Things were better out in the open; it had been good to tell someone, and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world for that someone to be Cliff. Odd that, because she hadn't been able to confide in Miles—whom she knew so well and trusted implicitly—the sordid details leading up to the split between her and Jarvis. At the same time, because she didn't wholly trust Cliff, she was even more delighted still that she hadn't elaborated on her truth, hadn't revealed that far from grieving over the infidelity and loss of her fiancé, she was congratulating herself on a lucky escape, because she had since realized that she had never loved him in the way one should love one's future husband. If Cliff thought she loved Jarvis and was deeply cut up about finding him in a passionate clinch with another woman, surely that would act as some kind of safeguard? A false one to be sure, but sufficient, she hoped, to protect her from the fire she would be jumping into if she agreed to share the cottage with a man she found too physically exciting, who seemed to have secured exclusive rights on her thoughts and who entranced her senses in a way no other man had ever done before.

‘So there's nothing to go home to and no home to go to?'

‘No.'

‘You'll stay here, then,' he said, making the decision for her.

She couldn't remember actually voicing the confirming yes, but she could feel the flames licking round her toes.

CHAPTER FOUR

He leaned forward suddenly, and the flames rose to her ankles. Her reaction—a tingling anticipation—was not lost on him, and his recognition showed in the look he then gave her—a look of sensual arrogance that knew her resistance and challenged it. He was altogether too aware of the effect he had on women, and that grated on her and steeled her determination to be the exception to the rule. In honesty, she amended her determination: to
appear
to be the exception to the rule, because she knew that deep down she was no different from the rest and that it would be all too easy to succumb to the dark enchantment of him that was holding her in thrall. She must not weaken in her resolve. She didn't like men who thought they were God's gift to women, and she wouldn't be an easy conquest. She wouldn't be a conquest at all!

‘What did you think I was going to do?' he mocked softly, his eyes playing tantalizingly over her face and throat, which suddenly became constricted.

She must not swallow, because that would show how agitated she was.

‘I was merely going to request that you make a fresh pot of
my
coffee on
your
stove,' he said. ‘It seems to be a very sophisticated model. I hope you're worthy of it. Which is another way of instructing you that you take over that department.'

‘Haven't you heard of Women's Lib? Equal shares and all that,' she demanded, piqued because he had deliberately led her to believe that he was going to do something when he had so suddenly leaned forward a moment ago.

‘Heard of it. Don't much care for it. I've always regarded the kitchen as woman's territory,' he retorted indolently. ‘Not that I can't turn my hand to that kind of thing in an emergency. And if I'm to base your culinary prowess on the breakfast you've just dished up, I might well consider this to be that kind of emergency and take over.'

If that wasn't the height of injustice. So breakfast hadn't been a runaway success, She had crisped the bacon too much and broken one out of three egg yolks, but not because she wasn't a worthy cook. For heaven's sake, cooking was her business! She was regarded as a magician in the kitchen. Her cool and efficient competence and her refusal to bow to stress were invaluable assets and the guarantee that she would never be out of a job. She had turned out perfect meals of elaborate proportions in impossible conditions. At chefs' conventions, in view of the eagle eye of a rolling television camera, and at women's institutes, which perhaps confronted her with her most critical audience, she had never once had a flop. To be defeated by a meal simple enough for a schoolgirl to tackle was too unfair to be believable. And it was all his fault. As she'd gone about the task, he'd sat at the kitchen table, his eyes never leaving her. Even with her back turned, she had been aware of his lecherous appraisal.

‘You were to blame for the breakfast. You shouldn't have watched me.'

‘I wouldn't have thought that of you, Rusty.'

‘What?'

‘Latching on to a scapegoat to excuse bad workmanship.'

‘That was a one-off. I'll have you know that—' No, damn him. She wouldn't tell him. She'd show him. Would she make him eat his words before she was through!

‘What?'

‘Nothing,' she said sweetly, rising and walking nonchalantly over to the sink. ‘I'll make that coffee you asked for. I could do with another cup myself.' Giving the implication that that was the reason she had acceded to his request. The real reason was that she'd felt the need to put some distance between them.

‘Incidentally, I only brought sufficient provisions to start me off,' he called after her. ‘We'll need to stock up.'

Now that she had put half the room between them, she could turn to face him again. ‘You can leave that to me.'

‘I intend to,' he said, his dry tone laced with derision. ‘Shopping, like cooking, is woman's work.'

‘In your estimation of things, woman seems to do a lot of work. What's man's work, that's what I'd like to know?'

For an answer, he took out his wallet, and from it he extracted a wad of notes that he put on the table next to her place setting. ‘Man's work,' he said. ‘Paying up.'

‘I have money.'

‘So?'

She couldn't see him letting her pay. He wasn't the type to let a woman pick up the tab. On the other hand, it wasn't in her nature to let a man pay for her. It was bad enough to be under his roof. Even though, she thought, with a welcome return of her sense of the absurd, that roof did bear her chimney stack, she was certainly not going to let him keep her. Be a kept woman? Unthinkable!

Retracing her steps, she meticulously counted out the notes and handed half of them back to him. ‘I pay for my own corn. I'll put pound for pound and keep an account of all I spend.'

‘You might have grown up, but you haven't grown out of your cussedness. Even as a tot you always stood your ground, squaring your chin at me. Just as you are doing now. You had a lot of fun at my expense.'

‘I did! That's a laugh. You petrified me.'

‘Rubbish. You delighted in provoking me, knowing that I could only retaliate up to a point. Little did I know that my day would come.'

‘Huh! Your day hasn't come,' she scoffed in negation.

‘No? You're not a defenseless little girl anymore. You're a fully grown woman.' His eyes glanced over her womanly virtues: the rich curve of her bosom, obvious despite the relatively loose fit of her sweater, the narrowness of her waist, the trim, very gentle curve from hip to thigh, shown off to exquisite advantage in her tight jeans. His eyes came up slowly, relishing the return journey with undiminished enthusiasm, and looked deeply and penetratingly into hers. ‘I trust that I have made my point. Now, if you get up to any provocative little tricks, you can look for a fast reprisal.'

Her breath jerked in and held an outrage. The nature of the reprisal was explicit in the smoldering, sensual promise in his eyes. Hot on the heels of that discovery came another. Why had she thought ‘promise'? The obvious choice of word would have been threat.

‘If you start any little tricks,' she said, gritting her teeth at him, ‘you can anticipate a fast reprisal from me. I am not staying to be—'

‘To be what?'

‘Persecuted.'

‘By what manner of feminine logic can you find anything remotely appertaining to persecution in my manner? And that's a misnomer if ever there was one. When applied to a woman, it would serve better under the heading of female folly of thinking. If there's any persecution being done, you are the one who's doing it.'

‘Now by what—what
male
folly of thinking do you arrive at that conclusion?'

One kicked-back chair and two brisk strides brought him smack up in front of her. ‘There was something about you that tormented me when you were a child. It hasn't lessened any now that you've grown up. In fact, it's worse, because it's a different kind of torment. I don't usually like women in jeans, but on you they look good. I still have a fancy to see you in a dress, though. You're gentle and feminine—and a complete puzzle to me,' he added, frowning darkly.

‘A puzzle?'

‘M'm. I can't make you out. I don't know whether you do it unconsciously or if it's deliberate. Either way, it's catastrophic.'

‘What is?'

‘The effect you have on me.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘No? That doesn't put me off. That eggs me on. If you can't take the consequences, I'd advise you to put some distance between us.'

She didn't move. For some strange reason, she seemed to be glued to the spot. Without another word, his arms came round her. The savage swoop brought her close enough to cause her stomach muscles to contract violently at the imprint of his body. It never entered her mind to draw away from the determined descent of his mouth; not that she had much leeway for escape in the tight clamp of his arms. Her eyelashes drifted down as his lips made contact with hers, dominating them, demanding not just acquiescence but total surrender. His hands roved over her back, sending sensation after sensation coursing through her, a sweet but earthy sensuality that she had never known before.

She felt as though she were sinking under the persuasive mastery of his kiss, while at the same time being launched into a galaxy of whirling stars. More than that, she was poised on a star. It was as if she had been shown a world that she thought might exist somewhere, but she couldn't be sure. A strange, exciting place that beckoned her forward, enticing her to venture deeper into it, to sate herself fully with its delights.

Her body was melded to his by its own compulsion. Now that he didn't have to hold her fiercely to keep her close to him, his hands gently acquainted themselves with the length of her spine, teasing it with feather strokes that came up softly to subject the vulnerable spot at the back of her neck to a subtly persuasive finger caress. It achieved its purpose, triggering something off inside of her. In one small corner of her mind where common sense still prevailed, a tiny voice was imploring her not to allow herself to be manipulated in such a way. It warned that she was leaving herself wide open to hurt, but the caress was so delicious that she chose not to listen. In defiance of the voice, her arms went up round his neck, and her hands reciprocated his touch by winding into his hair and across his shoulders. The rippling strength of him tingled her fingertips. They reveled in the flexing muscles of his back as the soft curve of her mouth concurred with the insistence of his and invited a kiss that carried its vibrant sweetness down to her toes.

It ended as quickly as it had started. The arms that had brought her close still held her, but away from him. She felt so weak that if he'd let go altogether, she would have melted at his feet. Her eyes lifted slowly in the manner of someone coming out of a drugged stupor. Her mind was no quicker on the draw, so that although she was grappling with the notion that something wasn't to her liking, she couldn't make out what.

Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. It had been a wonderful trip of discovery, a dazzling experience, a surprise, a delight. But for him?

The expression on his face wiped the ecstasy from hers. Why wasn't he looking as dazed as she felt? She had expected him to look different, softer, more human. Whatever had happened to her, the experience had done nothing to knock his mantle of arrogance and mocking cynicism. In fact, he looked more complacent than ever.

She could have kicked herself for going under the spell of his dangerously handsome looks and lovemaking expertise. She had fallen for the routine finesse of a practiced charmer. He hadn't grabbed her on tender impulse or even to sate an uncontrollable urge. If passion had motivated him, she might have found it in herself to forgive him. But no! He'd done it to show her that no one could hold out against him when he wished otherwise. He could congratulate himself on scoring a double victory, because as well as proving his point, he'd had a bit of fun into the bargain. She hadn't just let him; she'd bent over backward to make it extra tasty for him. She would be a long time in forgetting this humiliation—stroking his shoulders, twining her fingers into his hair, yielding her mouth to him in passionate longing, straining closer and ever closer to him. It was a wonder he'd managed to keep from laughing. How could she have been so stupid? She had sensed there was danger, but not the extent of it, and in her ignorance she had thought she could handle it.

‘Why did you have to go and do a silly thing like that for?' she demanded, her anger vented as much at herself as against him.

‘Didn't you enjoy it?'

‘A snake bite would have been preferable.'

‘What's smarting you?'

‘As if you didn't know.'

‘I think you're being slightly absurd. It wasn't as if I didn't warn you beforehand. You got exactly what you asked for.'

‘Is that so? Well, let me tell you something. Whatever else you think you've accomplished, you've just made it impossible for me to stay here with you.'