by Anne Mather
He sensed rather than heard Grace coming after him.
‘Did I say I didn’t trust you?’ she demanded, and now he could hear that she was out of breath.
What she wasn’t aware of was that with every gulp of air she took, the lapels on her shirt gaped invitingly. But she was too busy trying to convince him that she had a handle on the situation to notice it.
‘Okay, no,’ he said now, dragging his eyes away from that tempting cleft between her breasts. ‘So long as we understand one another.’
Yeah, right.
Grace’s cheeks were pink, as much with the way she was feeling as with exertion. ‘I—I needed to talk to you, that’s all.’
‘You keep saying that.’ Jack regarded her with an expectant expression. ‘So why don’t you go ahead and talk? I’m listening.’
Grace pursed her lips. ‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Jack pulled a wry face. ‘I haven’t noticed you having a problem before.’
Grace trudged on for a while in silence.
Then she halted and said, ‘Do you blame me because the cottages are going to be far more expensive to restore?’
It was such a non sequitur that Jack blinked.
‘Uh—no,’ he said, halting in his tracks to look at her. Then, his brows drawing together, ‘Are you saying that Hughes knew there were structural problems when he took them on?’
‘No.’ Grace was anxious now. ‘Mrs Naughton might have. But she’s an old woman. She probably hasn’t been inside any of the buildings for years.’
‘Okay.’ Jack stared at her.
Grace pressed her lips together. Why didn’t she just admit that the real reason she’d come to see him was to exonerate herself from any resentment he might be feeling towards Sean?
Because that would be far too disloyal, even for her.
Grace was silent for so long that Jack expelled a weary breath. It was obvious she had something else on her mind, but for some reason she was finding it difficult to voice.
He suspected Sean was involved. He couldn’t think of any other reason why she might be so hesitant. Which made him somewhat less than gracious when he said, ‘What’s the matter, Grace? Wasn’t the hundred thousand I loaned Sean enough?’
Grace’s mouth dried. ‘You—you loaned Sean one hundred thousand pounds?’
Jack didn’t answer. He was already regretting making such an admission to her.
Instead, he turned and stared out at the ocean. It was amazingly blue, and so calm the horizon shimmered in a haze of heat.
Much different from the first time he’d come here.
He sighed. He really didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not with someone who evidently had such a vested interest in its outcome.
Couldn’t Sean fight his own battles, if that was what this was all about? Instead of sending a woman to do a man’s work?
Did he think—did he suspect—that she might have more success than he would?
And if so, what did that say for Sean’s relationship with Grace? Jack hadn’t forgotten that strange conversation about her that Sean had initiated at his house.
‘Look,’ he said at last, turning to face her again. ‘It’s no big deal, right? I went into it with my eyes open. But you can tell your boyfriend, that’s it! I’m not investing any more in his company, not until he proves to me he knows what the hell he’s doing.’
Grace’s head moved jerkily from side to side. She looked stunned, he thought. Stunned and disbelieving. Hell, did she think he was lying to her?
Her next words reassured him. On that score, at least.
‘I—I don’t know what to say,’ she mumbled.
And he had to steel himself against the distress that was filling her green eyes with tears.
‘I didn’t know how...how much he’d asked you to lend him,’ she whispered, fumbling in her bag for a tissue and blowing her nose. ‘Honestly, I had no idea.’
Jack wanted to believe her. But she was Sean’s girlfriend. Obviously she owed him more loyalty than she owed Jack.
Besides, surely to God she’d realised what he and Sean had been talking about when she’d been left to kick her heels in his living room at Lindisfarne House?
‘Okay,’ he said finally.
But she must have heard the scepticism in his voice because her eyes were suddenly filled with pain.
‘You don’t believe me,’ she exclaimed, and he was almost sure no one could look so innocent and be lying through their teeth.
‘Dammit, Grace,’ he said, reaching for her arms, torn by her vulnerability.
But she backed away from him. She winced when her foot encountered another of the sharp stones she’d had to contend with on her way down the steps, but she didn’t falter.
‘Don’t—’ she said unsteadily. ‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’
Jack groaned. ‘I don’t,’ he said harshly, coming after her. So that when she felt the rough wall of the cliff at her back, she had no way of escape.
‘Grace,’ he said again, supporting himself with a hand at either side of her head, trapping her. He looked down into her eyes, his dark and sensual between thick black lashes. ‘Why the hell couldn’t you have left well enough alone?’
‘Not come here, you mean?’ she asked huskily, and his acknowledgement was impatient.
‘That’s the least of it,’ he said, and, lowering his head, he took her mouth.
She tasted just as lush and wet and sensuous as he remembered. Her lips were parted and he didn’t hesitate before pushing his tongue inside.
She opened wider to admit him, and he bent his arms at the elbows so that he could brush her body with his. The hard nubs of her breasts were taut against his chest and the temptation was to crush her against the rock face behind her and let her feel what she was doing to him.
But he knew if he did that, he couldn’t answer for the consequences, and he still had some self-respect.
Yet, despite the love he’d had for Lisa, he knew no other woman had ever had such an effect on him. He felt both a need to protect her and an urgent desire to make love with her, his aching arousal threatening to drag him to his knees.
‘This is crazy,’ he said thickly, releasing her mouth to press his face into the hollow of her neck. She was trembling, and that only added to the sense of responsibility he was feeling.
‘I—I know,’ she breathed, and when he lifted his head, her eyes were wide with a mixture of uncertainty and anticipation.
‘Then we should go,’ said Jack, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t move, he thought incredulously, and when she lifted a hand to cup his face, he shuddered uncontrollably.
His jawline was rough with at least a couple of days’ growth of beard, but Grace loved the feel of his stubble against her fingers. Loved, too, the way he turned his head and bestowed a lingering kiss on her palm.
Then, with a groan, he gripped her chin and turned her face up to his. This time, his mouth was hot and hungry, and she had no defence against such deliberate sexuality.
She responded willingly, eagerly, uncaring where they were or who might see them. She lifted her arms and wound them round his neck, sliding her fingers into his hair and fisting the damp curls at the nape of his neck.
She arched away from the rock face, pressing herself against him, and felt the unmistakeable thrust of his erection. And wished his body could imitate the tantalising invasion of his tongue.
Jack felt the wilful response of her body with a feeling of desperation. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he told himself, even as his fingers traced the hollow beneath her ear, probed inside the neckline of her shirt.
She was wearing a bra, but it was only a delicate shred of lace that gave easily beneath the determined pressure of his hand. And the
n her breasts were spilling out of her shirt, the buttons parting with little effort on his part.
‘God,’ he muttered, bending lower to take one swollen nipple into his mouth. ‘You are so...beautiful!’
Grace caught her breath as his tongue curled around the sensitive peak and sucked on it. She felt both weak and powerful, her legs trembling with the effort of remaining upright beneath his sensual assault.
Jack tried to hang on to some semblance of sanity, but it was a losing battle. Her feel, her touch, her taste, made any kind of resistance futile, and when he found her mouth again, he knew there could be no turning back.
His hands gripped her hips, urging her back against the cliff as he rocked his throbbing arousal against her yielding body. And felt her part her legs to bring him even closer.
Now his hands found the hem of that prim little skirt, forcing it upwards. His hands slid against cool feminine thighs, against skin as smooth and inviting as silk.
‘I want you,’ he bit out unsteadily, and she looked up at him with unguarded eyes.
‘I want you, too,’ she breathed, the words barely audible, and with a muffled oath he pushed her lacy briefs down her legs.
‘Here?’ he demanded, and she nodded.
‘Yes, here,’ she said unsteadily, and Jack closed his eyes for a moment, praying for deliverance.
But it never came.
Instead, he felt her fingers unfastening his belt buckle, unzipping his jeans and then taking him in her hot little hands.
Jack’s groan was anguished, but he was already lifting her against him. He encouraged her to wind her legs about his hips, pulling himself out of her hands to push into hot, wet nirvana.
Grace sucked in a breath as his thick shaft penetrated her, invaded her, stretching her and filling her in a way she’d never experienced before.
Feeling his length inside her, pulsing deep against her womb, aroused sensations that both scared and delighted her. Her mind went dizzy with visions of spinning out across an endless ocean, of riding on angels’ wings, heading irresistibly towards the sun.
Jack drove into her again, withdrawing just enough to leave her weak and begging for more. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she wanted to tear the shirt from him. But she had to be content with pushing her fingers inside his collar, feeling smooth brown skin beneath her hands.
Again and again, he drove into her until her body felt as if it were on fire. As if the need he had created could only be assuaged if they both went up in flames.
And then it happened.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, her body exploded around him. She floated out on waves of ecstasy, the force of her orgasm driving Jack completely over the edge.
He would have withdrawn from her then and spilled himself on the sand. But Grace wouldn’t let him.
With a strength she’d hardly known she possessed, she wound herself even tighter about him. She wanted to prolong this moment, wanted to share his release as he had shared hers.
And then, it was far too late for Jack to do anything but slump heavily against her. He shuddered his seed into her waiting body and prayed to Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, that God might forgive this mortal fool...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WHERE ON EARTH have you been?’
It was after midnight when Jack got home. And, having spent the past six hours trying to numb his senses with alcohol, he was in no mood for Lisa’s accusations.
‘Get lost,’ he growled, but he could hear the slur in his voice and he knew Lisa would hear it, too.
‘Ew, you’re drunk!’ she exclaimed disgustedly. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you, Jack. You never used to care so little about your health.’
Jack wasn’t inclined to debate the issue. Slamming the heavy door behind him, he fumbled to secure the deadbolt. It took a few attempts, but at last the key turned in the lock and he sank back against the door, preparing himself to climb the stairs.
Then, without bothering to put on any lights, he started across the hall.
To his relief, Lisa seemed to have given up on him and he wasn’t sorry. He was bone-tired. Exhausted, actually. He couldn’t wait to strip off his clothes and crawl into bed.
Not that he truly expected to sleep. His mind was still buzzing with the events of the afternoon at Culworth, his senses still humming with what he told himself was the best sex he’d ever had.
But that was exactly why he’d spent so long in the pub. Not her father’s pub, of course, but another, smaller, hostelry in the next village. He’d hoped he might erase those events from his mind, temporarily at least.
It hadn’t happened.
The memory of Grace’s mouth, Grace’s body, Grace’s sensual sweetness, filled his thoughts to the exclusion of anything else.
But it was wrong; so wrong. Even now, after so many hours of soul-searching, he couldn’t begin to comprehend what he’d been thinking of.
Okay, she hadn’t exactly resisted him, but that was no excuse for the way he’d behaved. For pity’s sake, he’d hit her with Sean’s demand and then taken advantage of her stunned reaction to it.
She’d needed comfort, not seduction. Tender understanding, not the raw passion of someone who apparently cared little for her sensitivities and even less for Sean’s.
Sean!
He felt sick at the thought of what he’d done to Sean. All right, there was no doubt that he and Sean had drifted apart in recent years, and their goals were not the same any longer.
But he was still Grace’s boyfriend; still the man he assumed she would marry.
And yet, today at least, Grace hadn’t behaved as if she’d felt guilty for what had happened. On the contrary, she’d responded to his lovemaking with an eagerness and a sensuality that aroused him still. He doubted he’d ever be able to look down on that stretch of sand again without recalling what had happened there in intimate detail.
It was the shriek of gulls that had brought him to his senses. Drunk with passion, reeling from emotions he’d never expected or wanted to feel, it had been an actual effort to drag himself away from her. He hadn’t wanted to do it, and, judging from the way she’d clung to him, she hadn’t wanted it, either.
He remembered she’d given a little moan of protest as he’d attempted to restore her clothes to some sort of order. And he hadn’t been able to resist kissing her again, tasting once more the lush sweetness he’d found with his tongue.
God, what had she been thinking? What had he been thinking? He must have been mad.
Mad with lust, certainly, and blinded by his own selfish desires.
Whatever, they’d eventually walked back along the beach to where she’d left her shoes. He hadn’t expected she would have anything to say to him, but in the aftermath of passion, she’d found her voice.
‘I—I want you to know, I didn’t intend for this to happen,’ she’d told him quietly. ‘And I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you at all.’
She’d sighed then. ‘I’d just wanted you to know that it wasn’t my idea to approach you for...for money. For the past month, I’ve been trying to summon up the courage to apologise for Sean’s...behaviour.’
Sean!
Yeah, right.
At that moment, Jack had felt like the lowest form of pond life. If he’d taken her earlier admission at face value—if he’d believed her, in other words—this wouldn’t have happened.
It had occurred to him—belatedly—that maybe that was why she’d allowed him to—
But no. Grace was not venal; he’d known it would never have occurred to her to use her body as a means to an end.
He couldn’t remember what he’d said to her then. He did remember climbing the steps, giving her his hand when she’d let out a cry of pain because a pebbl
e had dug into her foot.
And ultimately asking those fatal questions:
Did she love Sean?
And if not, why did she stay with him?
She hadn’t answered him. With eyes that were suspiciously bright, she’d simply balled up her tights and pushed them into her bag before slipping her feet into her shoes.
It was that action, as much as anything, that had made him realise that really nothing had changed. It was as if by putting on her shoes she had drawn a line under the reckless events of the day.
And he’d still had no idea how she was really feeling, deep inside.
He remembered escorting her to her car. After she’d driven away, he supposed he’d been in a state of shock. Disgusted with himself, definitely. But what was worse had been the realisation that the feelings she’d aroused were not going away.
The urge had been to go and get drunk, to bury his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of Scotch. But instead he’d decided he needed physical exertion, and he’d spent the next couple of hours using a sledgehammer to break up the flags in the kitchen of one of the cottages they were working on.
He guessed the men were curious about his uncharacteristic behaviour. He only hoped Bob Grady wouldn’t go blabbing about it in the Bay Horse. He didn’t care for himself but Grace’s name was bound to be mentioned.
By late afternoon, he’d been unable to control himself any longer. He’d had to try to speak to Grace again. He’d needed closure. He’d told himself he was doing it to salve his conscience, but the truth was he’d been desperate to hear her voice.
Had he hoped for absolution? If so, he’d been disappointed. When he’d rung the agency, Elizabeth Fleming had told him that Grace had phoned to say she wasn’t well and was taking the rest of the day off.
Elizabeth had obviously been curious to know why he wanted to speak to Grace. But although he’d known Grace must have a mobile phone, there was no way Mrs Fleming would have given that number to him.
Not that he’d asked her to.
And as for ringing the Bay Horse...