by Susan Napier
‘Well, well, well, there are quite a few news links to this little gem! I see you were engaged last year, but you jilted the poor guy at the altar a few weeks after he had a multimillion-dollar lottery win. What went wrong—did he ask you to sign a pre-nup?’ he said sardonically.
Veronica flushed with remembered pain and outrage. ‘No, actually, he had wonderful plans for us both to share it. He kept his big win a secret until just before the wedding when he told me he’d bought a dairy farm for us to live on after we were married—contrary to everything we’d planned together,’ she said flatly, reliving the horrendous row the night before the wedding, which had exposed the myth that they were a partnership of equals and confirmed that her multiplying doubts about the man she was to marry were more than the usual bridal jitters.
‘Well, now he’s telling everyone he wants another chance at a new life with you,’ he taunted, scrolling down the page.
‘No, he doesn’t, he just won’t admit his own mistakes,’ she said, shouldering past him to quit the application before he could read out any more. ‘All isn’t as rosy as he thought on his farm and he blames me. He’s never forgiven me for not turning up at the church, even though I’d told him the night before that the wedding was off. He thinks that he can humiliate me into taking him back—or, failing that, just humiliate me. Fortunately, the TV company is on a strict time schedule, and they can’t film his story if I won’t cooperate.’
He caught her elbow when she drew back, bitter triumph at her discomfiture lurking in the dark brown eyes. ‘Not very nice, is it, Veronica, to have people publicly pawing over the intimate details of your private life, and hounding you for comments—?’
‘No, it’s horrible—but then I don’t have the luxury of all the firewalls that you can afford to throw up around you—’
‘Damn it, you don’t think I feel just as exposed?’ he demanded ferociously. ‘Constantly having to defend myself to people like you, who try, judge, and condemn me out of hand—’
‘How can I know what your feelings are if you don’t talk about them? And I never condemned you—’
He gave a raw laugh. ‘I saw the way you cringed from me when I came into Sophie’s room.’
Was that what he’d thought?
‘That was because I felt guilty, that’s all!’ she cried. ‘You make me feel as if being curious about you is some kind of crime—’
‘Curiosity? Is that what it is?’ He caught her other arm as she tried to shake him loose. ‘Exactly what kind of curiosity are we talking about? Why don’t you tell me what it is about me that you find most fascinating?’ he invited savagely.
Lightning flashed and Veronica instinctively squeezed her eyes shut and tensed, waiting for the thunder, but this time it was a couple of seconds before it raged off in the near distance.
She gingerly opened her eyes and found his combative expression tempered by faintly cruel amusement. ‘You really are twitchy about storms, aren’t you?’ he scorned.
‘I saw a cow killed by a lightning strike in a paddock when I was a child.’ Her hands unconsciously gripped his restraining forearms, reassuring herself they were both safe. ‘I’ve been a bit storm-shy ever since.’
His amusement faded. ‘That was probably fork lightning. This is sheet lightning—discharging up in the air, within the cloud itself—only dangerous if you’re a bird or a plane. It’s true,’ he added as she looked at him, her grey eyes deeply dubious. ‘I’m a certified genius—I know all sorts of useful facts.’ His mouth took on an ironic twist. ‘Would I lie to you?’
There was another flash and instant crack and she jumped, instinctively moving closer to his sheltering chest. ‘Oh, I was sure it was moving away!’
‘I used to come and holiday here with Zoe sometimes during my university breaks. When there’s been a big buildup of static in the clouds, these dry summer storms can crash and bash back and forth across the plateau for ages,’ he said, subtly easing them further away from the window by the desk. ‘Once, when I was staying here as a kid with Zoe and Fred I timed a continuous storm at two hours—although technically, I suppose, it was actually a series of storm cells.’
Veronica’s eyes rounded in dismay and he uttered an arid laugh. ‘Afraid you might be trapped with me until it passes?’
A tiny frisson passed through her body and his gaze sharpened into a keen alertness that drove her rashly into speech.
‘I’m not a coward…unlike someone else I could name,’ she said with a haughty disdain that instantly made him hard. ‘You accuse me of making unfounded assumptions but you’re the one putting words in my mouth and then refusing to listen—’
‘I’d rather put something else in your mouth,’ he muttered, shocking her out of her flimsy sandals.
A flush joined up all the freckles on her face, and she went hot all over. ‘Is sex all you ever think about?’
‘What made you think I was talking about sex?’ he shot back innocently. ‘Maybe I was going to offer you a drink.’
He watched as she went an even more intriguing shade of red, remembering the rosy flush that had mantled her whole body when she had orgasmed astride him in Paris. She hadn’t been so haughty with him then! She had been all heat and trembling passion, delectably eager to try things that were obviously new to her. Her fiancé must have been a real dunce in bed, he thought smugly, his eyelids drooping as he contemplated an entirely new curriculum for his passionate protégé.
‘You’re trying to distract me from my point—’
‘Am I succeeding?’ he said dreamily, from the depths of his orgasmic trance.
She was unnerved by his intense, heavy-lidded expression of slumberous speculation, and her thoughts tangled into confusion.
‘Yes—I mean, no!’
Where had all his former anger gone? It appeared to have dissolved into something infinitely more disturbing. The air in the room was suddenly thick to breathe, hot and humid in her labouring lungs.
‘Pity.’ He lifted a hand to gently tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her burning ear, blowing a gentle breath over the dew of perspiration that had sprung out on her smooth, lightly freckled brow. ‘You look as if you can do with something long and tall to cool you off,’ he murmured huskily.
Her eyes involuntarily flicked down over his length and he laughed, this time with genuine, deep-throated humour. ‘Oh, yes, I can see you really are an ideas girl, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’
‘Liar,’ he chided her lazily. ‘The trouble with me is that I’m not in the least bit cool where you’re concerned…I’m very, very hot…’
‘That’s not the way you’ve been acting for the last couple of days,’ she said doggedly.
‘I can prove it.’ He suddenly let her go and pulled the faded tee shirt over his head, throwing it carelessly onto the floor. ‘Feel me,’ he said, grasping her wrists and placing her hands flat on his naked chest, uttering a teasing hiss as her palms made contact. ‘See how I sizzle for you.’
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she croaked, aware of his flat nipples peaking in the hollow of her hands. She hadn’t realised that happened to men, too…
‘What I should have done days ago,’ he admitted, gathering her loosely up in his arms, aroused by the fact that in spite of her sulky protests she didn’t struggle. ‘Then we wouldn’t have had this little misunderstanding…’
Little!
‘And whose fault is that?’ she accused as they stood nose to nose, the slight heel on her sandal banishing the difference in their heights.
There was a white flicker at the edge of her vision, but she forgot to count the gap to the thunder as he sank his teeth gently into the lush pout of her lower lip.
‘Mine, all mine,’ he said soothingly, flicking at the bite with his tongue and sucking on it gently as he stroked his hands up and down her silk-covered back, moulding her to his lean form, enjoying the feel of her lace-encased breasts begging f
or attention through the thin fabric of her blouse.
‘Too much thinking and not enough action. But I promise I’ll make it up to you,’ he said, turning his pledge into a lavish kiss that explored every cleft and crevice of her mouth. Before she could catch her breath, his hand moved up between their bodies to slip free the buttons of her blouse. In almost the same movement he released the front catch of her bra, hidden beneath a pretty bow. To the applause of thunder and lightning he stripped both garments back off her shoulders, growling with carnal hunger as they melded skin to skin. She slid her arms around his neck to increase the delicious friction of her breasts against his chest as they swayed in an increasingly heated exchange of kisses, fumbling with their remaining clothes.
Luc pushed a finger into the upturned cuff of her shorts at the side-seam, and ran it teasingly around to the seam at her inner thigh.
‘Did I tell you how sexy I think you look in these?’ he murmured as his finger traced up to toy with her zip. ‘I love the way they hug your delicious peach of a bottom, but I think you look even sexier out of them….’
She trembled when she felt the rasp of his hair-roughened legs against her smooth thighs, the straining hardness of his body as he ripped aside the tumbled bedclothes and pushed her down beneath him on the bed, pausing only long enough to grab a small packet from the leather kit bedside table and don protection with the same patient finesse that he had shown in Paris.
But there was little finesse in the way he fell on her.
‘God, I’m sorry—’ His eyes were glittering hectically, his face deeply flushed as he pushed her thighs apart so that he could surge between them, testing her humid heat with his blunt shaft, fighting to control the overwhelming urge to seek his own satisfaction at the expense of her pleasure. His biceps bulged as he braced himself above her, trying to protect her from his rampant eagerness. ‘Don’t!’ he rasped warningly as her hand sought to cup and caress his heavy masculinity, her thumb teasing at the sensitive tip through the thin sheath, but it was too late and with a hoarse cry he thrust through the delicate cradle of her fingers and buried himself to the hilt in her welcoming tightness.
He looked down at her with eyes full of agonised surprise, her supple fingers trapped between them only adding to his perilous excitement. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast,’ he gritted.
Aglow with a wonderful sexual confidence that only Luc had ever made her feel, she laughed deep in her belly, feeling herself vibrate around him, and lifted her head to nip at his sweaty chest, loving him for caring enough to want to wait for her to join him in ecstasy. But she didn’t want him in control, she wanted him wild and reckless, the elemental Luc, holding nothing back…
‘And here I was wondering why you were being such a slowcoach,’ she teased in her distinctive deep voice, squirming and tilting her hips so that she could take him deeper, twining her long legs around his waist to seal herself intimately against him and throwing her arms over her head so that her breasts lifted provocatively towards his mouth.
He uttered a low, guttural sound, and, while thunder and lightning played outside, Veronica exultantly embraced a whirlwind tempest of her own, pierced with violent delight as Luc stormed his way into her body, her heart, her soul…hoarsely shouting out her name in wrenching pleasure as he shuddered to his extravagant completion.
She was even more charmed by Luc’s evident chagrin when he withdrew and rolled pantingly onto his side, looked slightly dazed by the experience.
‘Are you blushing?’ she teased as he stripped off the used protection. ‘Don’t worry, I promise I won’t tell anyone about your lack of stamina,’ she added, basking in playful amusement at his expense, knowing that his bred-to-the-bone masculinity was equal to the challenge.
His eyes smouldered above his dark-smudged cheekbones as he looked at her lolling voluptuously against his mounded pillows, her bare breasts quivering as she tried to repress her giggles.
‘Think that was funny, do you?’ he drawled, a dangerous smile stealing across his mouth.
He jackknifed out of the bed and padded without embarrassment into the bathroom, flaunting the gorgeous, tight backside that had been a feature of her recent fantasies, and then over to the small refrigerator hidden in a wooden cabinet, coming back with a rattling jug of ice cubes, which he set down on the bedside table.
’I’ve been looking forward to this,’ he purred, scooping the first ice cube out of the jug and prowling back onto the bed, blatantly displaying to Veronica’s fascinated gaze that he was already semi-aroused, even though it had only been a few minutes since his shattering release. ‘Let’s see who has the last laugh now…’
Her laughter soon turned to squeals as the frozen cube stuck to her skin with an exciting burn, but it almost immediately began to melt and Luc began to trace intricate patterns all over her body, paying special attention to the most sensitive nooks and crannies, chasing the ice slivers with his tongue as they dissolved on her silky-hot skin.
In spite of the diminishing jug of ice cubes her body was soon suffused with heated tension and Luc leaned over and flicked a switch on the fan to stop it rotating, directing the smooth flow of air across her slick body, adding a piquant wind-chill factor to the effects of his wickedly applied ice. He teased arctic circles around and over her nipples, moulding them into frigid stiffness, following the ice-burning chill with the scalding heat of his mouth as he suckled to a thaw the frosty peaks. Then he shocked her by drawing the dripping ice cube down over her quivering belly and through the soft thicket on her womanly mound until it slipped into the crease between her legs. She gasped at the glacial caress, but he quelled her brief struggle with seductive promises, drawing the cube again and again along the secret folds, teasing her until she begged again for the exquisite heat of his mouth.
He coaxed the last ice cube into her mouth, kissing her as she clattered it around against her teeth and let the icy droplets trickle down her throat. When the sensitive inside of her mouth was almost numb with cold he whispered a wicked invitation in her ear and she quivered as she grazed her icy lips down the centre of his body, at the mercy of his cleverly caressing hands as she made him groan by pushing her frigid tongue into his shallow navel, and then shudder and moan when she reached her goal and froze him with her deep, loving kiss. His hands plunged into her thick, tangled locks as his back arched and his hips surged, his thighs cording as the tension ripped through his muscles.
‘Oh, no, not this time,’ he growled, drawing her up beside him, and pinning her spread-eagled to the bed. ‘You say I don’t tell you how I feel. Let me show you…’
The final, sexy flourish was when he rose above her on his knees and—just as he had in Paris—reached up to release his hair from its confinement, shaking his head, so that his glossy black mane skimmed across the top of his muscular shoulders, sliding forward to flare in a veil around their faces as he kissed her and rocked her with him to sweet oblivion.
Afterwards, as she drowsed exhausted in his arms, he was the one who wanted to talk.
‘So, tell me about this creepy ex-fiancé of yours…’
She was too relaxed to hold anything back as she told him about her abortive wedding. Neil had thought his windfall would solve all their problems, but it had only exacerbated them. It had been a huge shock to Veronica that he would make such a momentous decision about their future lives together without even consulting her…especially when the farm he had chosen was in a particularly isolated area where there was no phone line, let alone access to the Internet. He had known that she had no interest in farming and had only stayed on in the country out of obligation to her parents. He had always lived in a large town and boasted that rural banking was merely his stepping-stone to a city bank job. He had claimed to understand her desire to live an urban lifestyle—to travel and run a business, and to bring up her children where there was a choice of schools. And yet Neil had assumed that when he presented her with a fait accompli she would meekly bow to hi
s superior judgement.
‘Jerk!’ Luc sneered. ‘But you must have loved him once,’ he said, arranging a swathe of her hair across the pillow.
‘I thought you decided I was marrying him for his money!’ she said, and sighed when he didn’t respond to the provocative evasion. ‘Partly, I think, it was because I was so eager to get out in the wider world and experience life. Neil and I seemed to share the same aspirations—or so I thought. I loved who I thought he was—only he turned out to be someone completely different, someone I didn’t even like—’
‘Not to mention a total loony,’ said Luc, sounding annoyingly smug.
‘I have terrible taste in men,’ she agreed, but he merely smiled.
‘Until now,’ he pointed out.
Since it was too hot to remain entwined for long, he propped his head on his hand as he lay on his side, his dark hair winnowing slightly in the breeze from the fan.
He lazily told her something of his childhood with his father, a dare-devil character who was a great natural teacher and fiercely determined to be a good father to his only son, always encouraging him to watch, listen and learn, to question and inquire. When he touched on the difficulties of being intellectually advanced for his age, and his move to Oxford, Veronica suddenly wasn’t so drowsy any more. She hardly dared breathe for fear of spooking him, but then he casually mentioned the unmentionable:
‘I met Elise when I was sixteen—she was doing a post-grad when I was in my first year. She was my tutor for a while and I fell boyishly in love amongst the “dreaming spires”.’