And, damn his amber eyes, he was also too fast on his feet mentally, waterlogged or not. One dark eyebrow flickered upwards and back again as he looked her over, so quickly that Colleen couldn’t be absolutely certain she’d actually seen it, and the only other hint of reaction was a slight quirk of that mobile mouth just as he began to speak.
‘Ah, you got the message and you’re all ready. And on time too,’ he said with well-feigned delight. ‘But I shall have to speak to Ignatius about this, Ms Ferrar. I did distinctly ask him to advise you there was no need to get all gussied up,’ he said, devils laughing in his eyes. ‘Still, it would be a shame to waste such a ... fashion statement. Good thing I’ve booked at somewhere it will be properly appreciated.’
First round to you, Colleen thought, but was careful to keep her reply appropriate despite a sudden lurching, fluttery feeling in her tummy. This had all the makings of a great plan gone wrong before it even started!
Here was Burns, nearly as gorgeous in a conventional business suit as he’d been in evening clothes the last time she’d seen him, and there she was looking like death warmed over — and the rotter didn’t even turn a hair!
Worse, having given her outlandish costume a mere cursory glance, he now focused those damned, omniscient eyes on her own, almost challenging her to further indiscretion.
‘Probably Freda got it wrong somehow,’ she finally managed to say. ‘She’s only a girl, after all, and likely got all flustered merely speaking to someone of Ignatius’s stature.’
Which gained her what she hoped was a genuine grin. It looked genuine anyway, although with this infuriating man it was impossible to be certain.
‘Undoubtedly. He’s a rum ‘n, that Ignatius. He wants flogging, but help is damned hard to come by these days, as I’m sure you know,’ was the reply, given with a nod that conceded at least a draw for Round Two.
He helped her on with her raincoat, treating it like some luxurious fur, then took her elbow and escorted her to the kerb, where a mud-streaked, hard-used four- wheel-drive dual-cab utility waited like a tired, patient horse.
‘Ignatius, the blighter, probably forgot to warn you about the vehicle problem,’ he growled. ‘But with the flooding and all ... well ... it would be nice to be able to get home from here, even if it means taking the long way round.’
Ignatius also hadn’t warned her about the passenger! As Devon handed her into the high-set machine a great red rug heaved itself up from the rear floor and, with a ghastly moan, tried to lave slobbery kisses all over her neck.
‘Rooster! Go and lie down, you great oaf,’ Burns shouted over Colleen’s shoulder. The dog obeyed, after a fashion, as its master walked round to seat himself behind the wheel.
‘Fool of a dog, you might have ruined the lady’s posh outfit,’ he said, and for Colleen the only consolation was that he seemed to be fighting to maintain his composure.
‘I do apologise, but unfortunately the damned dog’s smitten. There’s no other word for it and nothing, I fear, to be done about it. He’s reached that age, you know. But perhaps it’s only puppy love and he’ll get over it in time, poor chap.’
And Round Three to you on points, Colleen thought, struggling now to hold back a giggle. But what she said was, ‘He may, but will I? Oh, Rooster, you’re a darling, really you are!’ And she turned to throw an arm round the big dog’s neck so that she could try and hide the sound of her laughter against his rippling coat and beneath his moans of canine ecstasy.
Round Four, she lost, blatantly — at least in her own estimation — when they strolled into Dee and Me, arguably one of the state’s finest restaurants and highly reputed even at the national level, and nobody so much as batted an eye at her hideous costume! Not the staff, not the other diners, all of them respectably, some elegantly dressed, already seated for luncheon. Not so much as a single raised eyebrow!
Not fair, she thought; a place of this quality has more important priorities than mere fashion, and besides, I’d give ten bob each way he’s so well-known here he could have brought Rooster and nobody would say a word.
Which, of course, was at least partially true; from the first moment it became clear that Devon Burns was well-known and well liked in the restaurant, and clearly an old and valued customer. If he wanted to arrive with somebody dressed as if she’d just stepped out of a dump truck, well...
He had known it would be this way, too. Not that he would so much as hint at that by word or gesture. But he’d known! His eyes admitted it, those all-seeing amber eyes with the devils dancing in them; devils that laughed, too, as Colleen was seated across from him.
Why couldn’t they have given us a less conspicuous table? she thought, suddenly regretting very much the impulsiveness of her rash attempt to get even with him for getting her all dressed up and then taking her to the ice-cream parlour.
He was supposed to be embarrassed by her outfit, supposed to see the humour in it, though — even if there wasn’t any. And she was beginning to think that there wasn’t, at least from her own point of view. Burns, however, was clearly enjoying himself, and Colleen suspected that she’d end up paying for this lunch in one way or another, almost certainly to her regret.
This particular restaurant had been high on her list of ‘must do when I get time’ priorities, but now she found herself wondering if she could ever muster the courage to visit the place again. Not that I suppose they’d recognise me anyway, properly dressed, she thought, and was genuinely thankful that she wasn’t in Sydney, where somebody she knew would have been certain to turn up as witness to this ridiculous flight of fancy.
‘How do you feel about a drop of Pipers Brook chardonnay?’ Burns asked, and had to repeat the question because Colleen was so far into her own head that she didn’t hear the question first time round. She nodded absently, still half-lost in her own thoughts.
‘Or would you prefer some cordial?’ he said then. ‘I suppose you realise you look about sixteen in that outfit; I’d hate to be accused of corrupting the morals of a minor.’
Colleen could only glare at him; there was no appropriate answer, any more than there was to his next remark.
‘And I do wish you’d try to relax a bit. This isn’t like your places over in the big smoke, you realise. Here people come for the food — which is damn well worth it — not just to be seen.’
‘Just as well,’ she muttered, speaking more to herself than to him, and mentally conceded defeat. Devon Burns had been a step ahead all the way along, so she might as well relax and enjoy what the menu suggested could be a truly memorable meal.
Which it was! Everything she had was innovative in concept, perfectly prepared and stimulating to the palate; so much so that Colleen was comfortably able to use the meal to dominate the conversation, avoiding anything more intimate. It wasn’t until the coffee stage, by which time she’d almost forgotten her embarrassing appearance, that she looked up to meet Devon’s speculative glance, to hear him slowly drawl, ‘You look happier now. Your mood comfy enough to handle modelling for me for an hour or two?’
‘I was until you asked,’ she replied, her voice surprisingly calm considering the swarm of butterflies that had erupted from the pit of her stomach in response to his question.
One eyebrow shot up, then he chuckled softly, the sound much more gentle than the speculative gleam in those damned amber eyes.
‘You’re not harbouring some ridiculous fantasy that I’m going to somehow compromise you?’ he asked, his look turning from speculative to downright provocative. ‘Or throw you into a pile of sawdust and ravish you?’
And his eyes wandered down her cheek to touch at her neck, to graze blatantly on the hillocks of her breasts in a gesture so deliberate, so calculated, yet so damned effective that she could actually feel the caresses.
‘A bit tricky, that, since I was planning to do this first bit of sketching at your place, and I doubt you’ve got such a thing as a great heap of sawdust on call.’
‘I’m quite ce
rtain that you’re a dedicated professional,’ Colleen replied evasively, wishing that she believed it, knowing that she didn’t want to — not completely. He was quite capable of ravishing her with his eyes alone.
‘That,’ he replied, ‘was never in question. Which doesn’t explain why you’re being so evasive.’
‘Maybe I’m just a coward,’ she replied.
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
‘Probably because I feel ridiculous,’ she muttered, once again all too conscious of the way she looked, knowing that it wasn’t his fault but quite prepared to blame him for it anyway.
‘Best you finish off this bottle of splendid wine, then,’ he said, not rising to the bait either by agreeing with her or by lying and contradicting her. ‘It might help you to be a little more relaxed about it all.’
I won’t need relaxing,’ she snapped, unreasonably cranky and not really sure just why. ‘I’ll keep my side of your damned bargain; you needn’t worry about that.’
‘I never doubted it for a moment. But I would like to have some feeling that you weren’t looking at this as if it was a trip to the dentist.’
Then he chuckled before adding, ‘Although in terms of sheer boredom I suspect modelling might be even worse. I can’t say for sure personally, of course, never having tried it myself.’
‘If that’s supposed to reassure me, it isn’t working,’ Colleen said, reaching out to pour the last of the wine into her glass. She gulped it down with indecent haste, then started to her feet. ‘Right ... let’s get on with it before I chicken out entirely,’ she said.
The courage lasted until they were home, only to disappear the instant they were inside the flat and Devon had seated himself in the workroom, sketch pad in hand and half a dozen pencils carefully laid out on the coffee-table beside him.
‘I ... well ... what exactly do you want me to do?’ Colleen found herself saying, barely able to speak for the trembling that seemed to emanate from the very pit of her stomach. She’d been telling herself all the way home that these feelings were quite ridiculous, that of course Devon Burns was a professional, that she was being nothing short of plain silly. But she herself wasn’t buying it.
Devon’s grin was both wicked and mischievous, neither of which helped. He laid down the sketch pad and walked over to look down into Colleen’s eyes, the grin expanding as he did so.
‘In a minute,’ he said gently, ‘I’m going to be sitting there, where I was, carefully not looking, since it seems to worry you so much. What I’d like you to do is this...’
And he walked over to seat himself on the sofa, his back to the chair in which he had been slouched, his right arm draped over the back of the sofa, the other clasped round an upright knee.
‘Just sit here like this ... that’s all there is to it. Of course, it would help considerably if you took your jumper off first, since my siren isn’t to be wearing one and the whole point of the exercise is to sketch the naked back that will be hers.’
Then he was on his feet and standing close in front of her again, only somehow she hadn’t even noticed him move. And he was too close, his hands reaching out to take her shoulders and draw her towards him.
‘Settle down, Colleen,’ he said softly. ‘You really are overreacting, you know, and if you don’t stop it you’ll be all tense and repressed and it’ll show up in the musculature of the sculpture and make a bloody great mess of the whole thing, and then I’ll be cranky and you’ll be cranky and this will all be a massive great waste of time for both of us, so let’s just get on with it because I haven’t got all day and I don’t expect you have either. OK?’
Dipping his head, he dropped a brief kiss on her forehead — a kiss so light that he might almost have aimed to miss. A moment later he had turned away and was seated, stoically inspecting his array of pencils and muttering quietly to himself in words that she couldn’t hear.
He was also, she was certain, smiling to himself, enjoying her discomfort as much as she was not enjoying it. Colleen took a single deep breath, then flung off the sweatshirt and scampered across the workroom to position herself as directed, damning herself for a coward and Devon Burns for the chuckle that she was certain accompanied her move.
But then there was only silence, though it was a strange silence that seemed to reverberate loud as thunder in the room. Colleen could hear it over the booming of her own pulse in her ears as she held the pose that Devon had asked of her, and waited...
And waited ... and waited. The silence grew louder, but now, over it, through it, she could hear, or thought she could, the sound of Burns’ breathing. No sound of pencil on paper, no sound of movement from the man behind her — just the faint whisper of inhalation and exhalation, broken occasionally by what seemed to be a sigh. It went on and on, finally becoming too much for her ragged nerves.
‘What are you doing?’ She whispered, but her voice sounded louder than a whisper; it seemed to thunder in the room.
‘I’m waiting for you to relax,’ said a calm, quiet voice. ‘There’s no sense sketching you when you’re all strung out like this; I wouldn’t get the effect I want.’
He paused; she had no reply. The booming silence resumed, her tension fairly crackling through it, not diminishing as he wanted, but growing as if in response to having been mentioned.
Colleen stared down the length of the sofa, her eyes roaming across the fabric, along the end-table, up the flowing shape of the lamp it held, noting a smudge that accused her of slackness in her most recent bout of housecleaning, then, even worse, spotting a wisp of cobweb in the corner of the room.
A sigh. Then another, this one heavier. ‘I don’t suppose you smoke,’ he said.
‘Certainly not,’ she replied. And then, with a sigh of her own, went on, ‘I must admit that for the first time ever I almost wish I did, if it would help me get through this.’
‘It might help you relax.’
‘I don’t need to relax,’ she insisted, knowing that she lied, able herself now to feel the tension in her shoulders, the strain on the arm she leaned upon. ‘What I need is for you to get busy with your sketching and get it over with.’
‘Close your eyes,’ he said then, and Colleen obeyed, only to snap them open again in alarm as she felt him sit down behind her, felt his hands close on her shoulders, his thumbs meeting on the top bone of her spine, heard him say, ‘Now close them again and trust me. I’m not here to hurt you; I’d never want to hurt you. I just want to ease some of this tenseness out of you.’
The words overrode her gasp of surprise. The fingers — those strong, sensitive, artist’s fingers — were already kneading the tense muscles along the base of her neck, with a touch that was at once impersonal and all too personal for her to ignore.
‘Trust me.’ The phrase echoed over and over as Colleen gave herself up to the magic of his massage, allowing her body to slump sideways against the back of the sofa and forwards against her knee.
His massage was neither gentle nor harsh, but it was unquestionably knowing, his touch sure, his awareness of the muscles and their requirements professional, positive. As was his voice, now so close to her ear, murmuring, rumbling, the words sometimes distinct, sometimes so soft that she could barely hear them.
Not that it mattered; what he was saying was only noise, nonsense, a soothing, repetitious rumble of sound such as one might use to calm a fractious animal. Or woman, she thought, just before she mumbled, ‘I’m not a dog or a horse, you know.’
‘I know,’ he said, then lapsed again into the soothing of her tense muscles, his hands moving freely now along the contours of her back from waistline to shoulders, outlining the edges of her shoulder blades, playing piano down the nubbles of her spine, but now in silence… Until suddenly that silence changed the entire atmosphere of the thing.
No longer was it simply a massage. Now his fingers were tracing the lines of her body, memorising them, reading the texture of her skin, the flow of the now relaxed muscles beneath the sk
in, the contours, the hollow of softness at the base of her spine, the flex of her ribs.
When she’d taken off the sweatshirt, the movement had loosened the band holding her hair in the crude pony-tail; now she felt his hands completing the job, felt the caress as he freed her hair and spread it down across her neck and shoulders, sensed rather than felt him lifting a hank of it to his nostrils under the guise of arranging her mane to suit his purpose.
Sensed it? Perhaps imagined it, she thought, until his voice, softer now than before, murmured a single word. ‘Beautiful.’
‘What is?’
She was able to ask the question calmly, without the earlier tensions he had so effectively erased. She had never been actually afraid of him, only embarrassed by the situation, by the deliberately contrived circumstances. But no longer; with his touch had come assurance, relaxation. Just as he had intended.
‘You ... your hair ... your skin...’
Now she did feel his mouth against her hair, and his words were a caress against the shell of her ear; a caress followed by another as his lips brushed against the skin relaxed by those sensitive fingers. His lips touched her ear, his lingers now moving down along her neck, touching at her shoulders and nape with a different touch, one that recognised his words, recognised their real meaning.
Colleen sighed, leaning back instinctively against his hands so that she could feel his chest against her back, could get closer to him, even more comfortable. Because now his touch had changed again; now it had the softness of his breath, the recognition of her as more than just a model — as a woman.
The tip of his tongue flicked at her earlobe before tracing fire down the nape of her neck. The tip of a finger slid its bumpy path down her spine before halting to circle images of delight around that sensitive soft spot at its base.
Colleen sighed; the sound echoed from lips that now nibbled at the lobe of her other ear, the breath of it stirring her hair, the sensation stirring her insides until she thought she might melt. His strong hands had closed about her waist; she was already stirring herself to help him as he moved to shift her round to face him. His fingers flexed, stroked, caressed, lifted...
Beguiled and Bedazzled Page 8