by Kim Lawrence
‘You could revert to silence,’ she suggested, eyeing her tall, elegant companion with grim dislike.
‘Feeling hung-over, are we?’
‘I don’t suppose you drank anything?’ she snapped sarcastically.
‘Nothing alcoholic,’ he agreed. ‘After long-haul flying that would have been a mistake. You’re one of my first...’ he raised his eyes and she saw he looked peculiarly amused ‘...assignments since I arrived.’
‘I thought you’d be one of those macho types convinced their iron constitution can withstand anything. Or are you a fitness freak?’
‘You’re smarting, but don’t take your frustrations out on me. I’m not renowned for being the suffer-in-silence type.’
She gave a loud sniff. ‘I can imagine what you’re renowned for,’ she snapped nastily.
He caught hold of her arm as she stalked past him. ‘And what would that be?’ he enquired silkily.
She looked pointedly at his fingers on the fabric of her sleeve. ‘Gigolo,’ she accused, choosing her words rashly.
His rather grim expression froze for a moment before it thawed and deep laughter rumbled from the region of his chest. Laughter that was quite distressingly attractive—deep, vibrant and uninhibited.
‘When you get all sanctimonious and holier-than-thou your mouth turns down at the corners,’ he observed as his mirth died away. ‘Like this,’ he added in a spirit of helpfulness, and he touched his thumbs to the corners of her mouth. ‘Mind you, I’m flattered you think I have the credentials. ’
She’d been going to apologise for the rash accusation, which she had regretted the instant it had left her lips, but his totally unexpected response had taken her aback. The touch against her mouth made her draw a startled breath. Then as her glance flicked upwards she caught a stark expression in his half-closed eyes which evaporated so swiftly that she decided it had been a figment of her rampant imagination. I must keep a tighter rein on these erotic fantasies, she concluded.
‘I’ve had an awful day and I can do without any more helpful hints from you,’ she snapped from between clenched teeth. ‘Do you suppose anyone would notice if I slipped away?’
‘I’m sure everyone will notice when we slip away,’ he replied, looking around the room with its thinning crowd of revellers. ‘But that will only reinforce your role as fulfilled woman of the nineties, won’t it?’
She hated the sarcasm in his deep voice even more than the heat which scorched across her skin. ‘People’s prejudices are not my fault.’
‘When you go out of your way to perpetuate them they are,’ he returned imperturbably. ‘Shall we go and make our thank-yous to our hosts?’ he suggested, watching her choke on her indignation with a faint smile calculated to inflame her wrath.
The room had nothing to distinguish it from any other in the establishment. It was luxurious and impersonal. Georgina sponged her hands and face, slid off her shoes and lay on the bed, her eyes half-closed. Through the slits she watched Callum stretch himself out on the sofa which was far too short to accommodate his length. Logically she should have offered him the bed, but she kept her lips firmly closed. A bit of discomfort might do him some good, she thought with unwonted viciousness.
‘I just need a nap,’ she said instead, stifling a yawn. The day had been more mentally stressful than she had anticipated. Coping with the emotional impact had been even more traumatic than she had imagined. The wine might have helped deaden the pain, but it did have its side-effects, she admitted ruefully as her eyes, feeling leaden-weighted, closed completely.
It occurred to her that she was being incredibly trusting, locking herself in a room with a man who was almost a total stranger and whom she instinctively didn’t trust. Strangely it didn’t occur to her that he would take advantage of the situation. Quite peacefully she drifted into sleep and didn’t feel the cover being gently pulled over her.
CHAPTER FOUR
GEORGINA AWOKE to total darkness. Her mind slowly cleared as her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness. With an exclamation she sat bolt upright, as if a light bulb in her brain had suddenly been switched on. God, what time was it? Why hadn’t Callum woken her?
Georgina scrabbled for the light switch on the wall beside her. She made contact with the small reading light and the room was softly illuminated. She picked up her discarded watch and, squinting, read two-thirty. She grimaced and let out another groan. The entire room was a blur: her contact lenses lay in their container in the bathroom where she’d removed them.
She swung her sleep-stiffened limbs over the side of the bed and ran her fingers through her tousled hair. The sound of deep, steady breathing on the other side of the room indicated that her companion was still asleep. She’d soon alter that! Barefooted, she padded across the room.
‘Callum.’ She said the name softly. Instinctively she’d been inclined to blame him for the unintended stopover; now she could see that that was uncharitable. He was clearly exhausted; he hadn’t moved an inch since she’d noisily awoken.
One arm was flung over his head and the angular planes of his face looked less sharply defined in sleep, making him appear younger, but that could be the effect of her short-sightedness. The jacket he’d draped over himself had slid in a crumpled heap to the floor.
She took a step nearer and tripped over his shoes. She just managed to stop herself falling on top of him. On her knees she caught her breath as the outline of his body, the closeness made her freeze.
Wake the man and stop staring at him like a witless idiot, she told herself firmly. Sympathy for his exhaustion was an emotion severely misplaced under the circumstances. And sympathy didn’t cover the range of emotions she was experiencing, but she stubbornly refused to recognise that.
‘Callum!’ Mouth near his ear, she called his name firmly. She pulled back, expecting to see him jolt upright, but, other than a faint flicker of his eyelids, he didn’t move. ‘Callum, it’s late.’ This time the decibels were not gentle. With disbelief she watched him turn on his side; this man doesn’t sleep, he dies! she thought with frustration.
‘Callum, wake up—now!’ Still kneeling beside the sofa, she shook his shoulder. If he didn’t come to soon she would leave him stranded, she decided, and serve him right She didn’t pause to examine the origin of her intense antagonism. The grunts she had in response were quite encouraging. ‘Wake up; it’s two-thirty,’ she persisted. She gave a sigh of relief when he rolled over towards her. His eyes were open slightly, unfocused, but at least he was awake.
Georgina’s relief slid away when she saw the glazed expression in his half-closed eyes. It was scorchingly hot and slumbrously sexy, immobilising her as firmly as an iron hand. She wasn’t even sure he was seeing her. Was he still partly in a world of dreams where boundaries were only limited by the imagination? Blood began to pump fiercely in her ears, throbbing in time to her accelerated heart rate.
Before his eyes moved downwards she thought she glimpsed that strange recognition in them that had been there when they had met. She certainly felt the unfamiliar tug at her senses.
She realised belatedly that during her sleep the two top buttons of her jacket had come adrift. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw that the gaping lapels had fallen open to reveal the silky, lace-trimmed peach camisole she wore. It ended just above the indentation of her navel, a fact that was revealed when he lifted one capable hand to flick open the bottom two buttons of the jacket. The deep, growling sigh of appreciation made her raise her dazed eyes to his face; the fine hair on the nape of her neck had stood on end at the basic sound of primal pleasure.
‘Callum, it’s late. We...we’ve overslept.’ With a gasp her head fell back and her words dissolved into a dry-throated sigh as one hand in the small of her back pulled her closer and his mouth moved to the hardened tip of one swollen breast. The silky fabric moved to one side as he fastened onto the searingly sensitive area; his tongue and teeth nuzzled and tugged at the sensitive flesh. The roughness on h
is chin grazed her silky, smooth skin.
Invisible pathways sent the flaming sensation to the deepest portion of her belly, contracting the muscles in a series of mind-blowing quivers. The heat exploding inside her sent a hot flush over her entire body. One section of her mind was aware that this man was taking unbelievable liberties and another that she didn’t want him to stop.
This was wildly irresponsible and she’d begin to regret this weakness bitterly soon, she told herself, but at that moment the craving to expand on these sensations was too great to deny.
‘Stop it!’ The strangled plea emerged from her internal struggle. Hands on his shoulders, she pushed against him, bracing her elbows to make her rejection felt.
The feeling of loss when he lifted his head was so intense that she was unprepared to disguise her response. It spilled out of her, reflected in the deep frustration that shone in her eyes.
His eyes holding hers, she watched him regain his shredded control. The glazed expression receded slightly but his eyes still burnt with a barely damped down passion. The way the muscles in his neck contracted and strained gave some indication that the withdrawal had not been accomplished easily.
‘Why?’ he asked, after a long, heavy silence.
His question flustered her even further and the slight rasp in his deep voice made her shiver. Her hands were still firmly against his shoulders as she knelt beside him. Even though he could have brushed aside her protests she instinctively knew he wouldn’t.
I ought to move them, she thought, looking at her splayed fingers outlined against the fabric of his shirt. She could feel the sinewed hardness of the muscle underneath the light covering, and the sensation of power in repose was terrifyingly addictive. Her fingers moved and the motion became perilously close to a caress as she was unable to break the contact.
‘Why ...?’ she echoed faintly, her stunned brain having lost track of the conversation. She ought to have been able to come up with several answers to that one.
‘Why do you want me to stop?’
The dark shadow of growth along his jaw emphasised the hollows of his prominent cheekbones and gave him a faintly piratical look. He swung his long legs over the side of the substitute bed.
There were several hundred very good reasons but somehow her tongue would formulate none. The sensual craving was singing through her veins, defeating every fibre of common sense she possessed. ‘We can’t spend the night here,’ she said, frustrated that this very obvious fact seemed to be escaping him.
‘At this precise moment I can’t think of anything better to do.’
‘You mean sex,’ she said, almost achieving the pragmatic note she sought. ‘You were asleep,’ she said, with a faint laugh that was meant to close the subject. ‘I won’t hold you responsible for anything you did then.’ With an enormous effort her hands moved but, as if to prolong the contact, they slid down his arms slowly.
Her sensitive fingertips memorised the bulge of biceps and the sinewed curve of his hair-sprinkled forearms. A look of intense concentration spread over her face as she caught her tongue between her teeth. At the termination of the journey, as her fingers slid over the backs of his hands, he suddenly raised his arms to either side and with a sharp flick turned his wrists. Palm to palm, their hands touched and his fingers firmly interlaced with hers.
‘I emerged from sleep to find soft, inviting curves tantalisingly within my grasp. I acted on a physical response that most healthy males would exhibit but I wasn’t asleep. I’m not asleep...’ His voice trailed away as his eyes dropped to the contours of her breasts, which were lifted and thrust forward by the elevation of her arms. The slight pressure of his curling fingers stopped her pulling free to cover herself.
‘Not acting on physical responses is what raises us...most of us...above the beasts in the field.’
‘Don’t mistake basic instinct for something vulgar or sordid, Georgina.’ He harshly foiled her attempt to break the sensual bonds. ‘Sometimes you should just trust yourself to instinct. Your instinct has been screaming out from the instant you saw me.’
‘It’s late; we should leave...’ she faltered, trying hard to fight the debilitating weakness that coiled in her belly waiting to escape.
The breathy sound of her voice made her wince. This man made her breathless; she ought to be angry at his confident claim but it was achingly true and part of her longed to acknowledge the fact. This was far more than a simple if powerful physical response; there had been some part of her that had recognised, been drawn to something in him from the moment she had laid eyes on him. Her instinctive aggression had been partly a defence mechanism.
She’d never experienced this deep, primeval craving for Alex’s lovemaking. Yet this relative stranger, who was nothing to her, could make her ache. A soft sound of distress and confusion escaped the confines of her throat.
‘The moment I saw your hair fall down your back like a river of warm fire I wanted to see it against your bare flesh.’
The husky admission made her lick her dry lips, her wide eyes fixed on his face. He lowered her arms and placed her hands against his chest; she could feel the rhythm of his breathing, sense the blood running just below the surface. The vitality in him was almost contagious; he was more alive than anyone she’d ever met Carefully, his eyes still on her face, he slid her jacket off her shoulders.
Georgina closed her eyes, trembling as the fine hairs on her arms stood on end. He was unveiling her with a sensitivity that was almost painful in its precision.
At first, when Alex had left her bitter, her illusions shattered, she had toyed with the idea of seducing someone—a childish act of revenge she would have flaunted in front of Alex’s nose. She had soon seen the flaws in this desperate need to hit out and had been ashamed of the impulse. Today had been a more dignified way of showing him that her heart was not broken, that there was life after Alex!
But this wasn’t part of any plan! What had she told Callum? That she had rejected emotions? If that was true how was she able to feel so intensely at the moment? She had never experienced feelings approaching this emotional depth in her life.
The thoughts flickered through her head in a fraction of a second. Callum was stroking her hair, feeling the crackle of static as his hand ran over the burnished mane which fell to her waist.
‘Do you really want me to stop, Georgina? Do you?’ he persisted, placing a finger under her chin and tilting her head upwards. His sexuality had an insolence that should have repelled her but she felt something in her rising to the challenge.
‘No, I don’t.’ Her voice was oddly composed. Relief, deep and profound, flooded through her.
A nerve in his left cheek leapt and the tension in him didn’t relax; he betrayed no smug satisfaction. The muscles in his lean frame seemed to tighten. ‘Be sure about this.’ It was half a warning and she shivered.
‘I am.’ Strangely, she was. She’d never felt more certain about anything seeming right in her life.
‘Are you using me to get back at your ex?’ Once more his perception was uncomfortably penetrating and her colour rose because she had once been capable of plotting such pettiness.
‘Would it matter?’ she asked, angry because now that she had made her decision she didn’t want her motives questioned. How could she reply when her motives were a mystery to her too? Something primal and instinctual had taken over. But one thing she did know was that revenge was not part of it.
‘Later, maybe, but now now,’ he said obscurely, his lips twisting in a strange, savage smile. He stood upright, pulling her with him. Her legs felt weak and insubstantial as she leant heavily on him. The enormity of what she was doing blanked out all other thoughts for a second and with eyes dark with conflict she raised her face and looked him in the eye.
Callum made a hoarse sound in his throat and picked her up as if she weighed nothing. She was breaking every rule she’d ever thought governed her life but it felt so good to wind her arms around his neck and tuck
her head under the angle of his jaw.
His eyes stayed on her as he laid her on the bed and undressed her slowly, the movements of his beautiful hands oddly mesmerising. She felt the air against her flesh and saw herself reflected in his eyes. The experience was overwhelming. Tears, hot and scalding, stung the back of her eyelids. Her throat ached with emotion; the slowness was a strange form of torture. Her senses had reached screaming pitch. Was this his way of giving her time to change her mind?
Then as she looked into his eyes she saw he had already gone past the point where choice entered into it. He looked driven—that was the only way she could think of describing the glow in those incredible blue depths. And when he finally touched her, not with the gentle whispers of sensation that he’d employed as he’d undressed her, but laying his hands on her skin possessively, with intimate knowledge of how and where to caress her, she lost the power to think. In his hands she became a creature of molten fire.
The eye of the storm had passed and a fierce desperation seemed to possess him. He lowered his head, his mouth covering hers. He drank as if he’d drain her of life. When he raised his head she could feel the deep shudders that racked his lean body. She welcomed the feverish rain of kisses, soft bites and the intimate exploration that exposed every nerve-ending in her body to him.
Her hunger to touch him was just as uncontrolled. His skin beneath her fingers was warm satin; the salty tang of it made her moan as her tongue darted out to taste more. His superior strength didn’t give rise to any fear; it only excited and drove her deeper into the sensual maelstrom that possessed her.
Colour highlighted the high contours of his cheekbones as her hands followed her eyes over the animal grace of his body. The mixture of awe and sultry passion in her eyes intensified the savage exhilaration that smouldered in his own.
‘Are you pleased to see how much I want you?’ he growled. The sensually lazy smile on his lips slipped as her mouth explored one flat, pebble-hard masculine nipple. He gave a strangled moan and his hands sank deep into the luxuriant thickness of her hair to cradle her skull.