by Miranda Lee
‘Oh, do call me Adelaide. Justine and I don’t stand on ceremony, do we, darling?’ she said, linking affectionate arms with her daughter.
‘In that case, call me Marcus.’
‘What a wonderfully masculine name! Well, I’ll love you and leave you in Justine’s capable hands, Marcus. She can take you around and show you everything. I just wanted to say hello and thank you for helping us out like you have. It’s men like you who renew one’s faith in humanity. And bankers,’ she added with another of those sweet smiles.
‘Don’t forget to speak to Tom when he arrives, Mum,’ Justine murmured, and her mother’s face fell.
Marcus was wondering who Tom was when the older woman looked wistfully up at him.
‘Tom’s our gardener,’ she said. ‘At least, he was our gardener. Justine says we can’t afford him now,’ she added in a soft and heart-wrenchingly sad little-girl voice. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to bear to tell him he’s not wanted any more...’
Marcus almost opened his mouth and offered to pay for the damned gardener himself, so great was this woman’s ability to stir his long-dormant male protectiveness. Not like her daughter. She stirred other male feelings.
‘Mum, I don’t think we need discuss this in front of Marcus,’ the girl herself muttered in a tightlipped fashion.
Her mother reacted with a guilty fluster. ‘No. No, of course not. Sorry. You’re so right, darling. Forgive me. I forgot. We have to solve our own problems.’
‘Yes, Mum. We do. Now, I must get on with showing Marcus Grandma’s things. I have to go to work tonight, remember?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. I’ll see you later, perhaps, Marcus? We might have afternoon tea together.’
‘I’d like that,’ he said.
Justine’s mother went off down the hallway, looking chastened. Marcus felt angry with Justine, till he looked at her and saw her own distress. He suddenly appreciated the magnitude of her problems, plus the immense responsibility she’d taken on her slender shoulders.
His urge to pull her into his arms was no less strong, but now his desire was mixed with some sympathy. He wanted to soothe as well as seduce, which was not exactly an easy mix and did not sit well with him.
‘Sorry,’ she sighed, on seeing his frown.
‘You’ve no reason to be sorry,’ he said brusquely. ‘I understand what you meant now. She’s not strong, is she?’
‘No.’
‘She wouldn’t be able to cope if she had to sell, would she?’
‘Not very well. Come on, I’ll take you upstairs and show you what’s there first.’
She took off at a pace, Marcus hurrying to keep up. He didn’t say anything till they reached the landing. ‘About the garden, Justine...’
‘No!’ she said sharply, spinning round to face him. ‘I don’t want your charity, Marcus. You’ve already done more than enough. Mum might not be able to cope but I can. I’m young and I’m strong. I can mow a lawn if I have to. And weed a garden bed. Or don’t you think I’m capable of that, either?’
‘I think perhaps you’re taking on far too much,’ he prevaricated.
‘Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. But that’s for me to decide, isn’t it? Or do you think I need some man to hold my hand?’ she snapped at him.
He thought what she needed was a man’s hand across her backside!
‘I think what you need, Justine,’ he said instead, ‘is a friend.’
‘A friend!’ she snorted. ‘I’m afraid friends have been a little thin on the ground around here since Daddy died. I used to have loads of friends. And boyfriends. But there’s not one I could even ask to mow the lawn now. Not that I would!’
Marcus frowned. This was not what he’d been expecting. He’d thought any pass he made would have been readily accepted, and even encouraged, not misunderstood. Hadn’t she flirted shamelessly with him since his arrival?
What game was she playing now? Hard to get?
He was forced to bypass the subtle for the straightforward. ‘What about me?’ he suggested.
‘You!’
Her stunned surprise irritated the death out of him. ‘Yes, of course. Who else did you think I was talking about?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
JUSTINE was floored. ‘But... But...’
‘But what?’ he said smoothly. ‘Is there any reason why we can’t be friends, Justine? You just admitted there wasn’t any jealous boyfriend in the wings who would object. As for my part, I am safely divorced, with no other lady-friend in my life at the moment.’
His dark gaze roved over her and Justine’s stomach flipped right over. She wasn’t a fool. He didn’t mean a friend like Trudy was her friend. He meant boyfriend. Though ‘boyfriend’ seemed a highly inadequate word for a man like him. ‘Lover’ was more like it.
Marcus Osborne wanted to be her lover.
Good God!
Trudy had been right all along. Marcus did fancy her. He’d probably given her the loan and offered to buy the paintings and antiques not because he was fair, or compassionate, but because he lusted after her.
Which made him not much better than Wade Hampton, really. He was simply more devious.
Justine should have been outraged. The girl who’d gone to the bank last Friday would have been. The girl who’d swanned into Felix’s party on Saturday night would have torn strips off him. The girl who’d visited him this very morning at his office would have reacted with disgust.
But something had happened to that girl since then. Lord knows when, or how. Her mother had been right when she’d said Marcus rattled her more than any member of the opposite sex ever had. He did.
She’d certainly acted out of character from the moment she’d opened the door just now. She’d babbled on, flirting with him in a way, and actually undressing him to a degree. Had she done that because subconsciously she’d wanted to touch him, wanted to see if the breadth of his shoulders was real or just clever tailoring?
They had felt real enough.
She stared at him now and wondered what he’d look like without any clothes on at all. The thought flustered her even more. She could feel the blood in her veins heating, flushing her throat and her face.
Dear heaven, had Trudy been right about this as well? Could it be that underneath her fury and irritation she’d been sexually attracted to Marcus all along?
Disbelief warred with reality, which was that the thought of Marcus lusting after her, wanting her so badly that he would do anything to have her—lower his standards, break his precious rules, risk his selfrighteous soul, even—quite blew her away.
Her bewilderment was total.
‘Justine?’ he prompted. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Why would you want to be my friend?’ she blurted out. ‘You don’t even like me.’
Their eyes met and she could not tear her own away. His suddenly smouldering gaze held her effortlessly, mercilessly, sending her pulse-rate wild.
‘Justine,’ he said thickly, and reached out to run the fingertips of his right hand down her cheek.
She could not move, her eyes widening as his head bent, closing the distance between his mouth and hers. He was going to kiss her, and she was going to let him.
Justine squeezed her eyes tightly shut, as though by closing them she could almost pretend this was not happening to her. She couldn’t possibly be going to stand there and let Marcus do this. It was unthinkable!
A small moan escaped her mouth as his lips brushed hers. When he lifted his mouth away, another moan followed, a strangely pained protest. The thought that he might leave it at such an appallingly brief kiss brought a rush of dismay so intense that she reached up on her toes and pressed her lips back against his.
He groaned. Immediately his hand, which had been hovering lightly against her face, slid down around her throat to firmly cup the nape of her neck, holding her mouth captive under his. His other hand snaked around her waist, settling in the small of her back and pulling her hard against his body.
She was pinned to him, their bodies touching everywhere, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh.
It felt incredible. He felt incredible. His body, his heat, his mouth moving restlessly over hers. She’d never experienced anything like it, had never known a kiss could evoke such a wave of excitement and longing. She wanted more, more of the kiss, more of him. Her mouth flowered open with a tortured little moan this time. And he needed no further invitation.
His tongue darted forward, then dipped deep.
Where other male tongues had previously brought revulsion, his brought a raging, reckless rapture. She could not get enough of its driving hunger. When he went to withdraw, her hands clutched at his shoulders and she claimed his lips back with hers, sending her own tongue into his mouth with a desperation which would later stun her.
Marcus finally wrenched his mouth away and wrapped her to him, hard. ‘Remind me not to kiss you anywhere in public,’ he rasped into her hair, his chest heaving against hers. ‘Hell, Justine...’
Justine didn’t agree. This wasn’t hell. It was heaven.
‘Kiss me again, Marcus,’ she whispered, and lifted her face up to his.
He cupped her face and started kissing it all over. She closed her eyes once more and sucked in breath after breath of much needed air, little ‘ohs’ escaping her mouth when he pressed his lips to each eyelid.
‘God, I want you,’ he said thickly, and returned to her parched, panting mouth at long last. ‘Tell me you want me too,’ he insisted, while his lips hovered over hers and she was simply dying with anticipation and excitement. ‘This isn’t just gratitude, is it? Tell me this is real, Justine. Tell me!’
‘Yes,’ was all she could manage, her head spinning, her heart pounding. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, and melted into his mouth once more.
Elation crashed through Marcus when he heard her admission and felt her surrender. No one, he thought triumphantly, could pretend that well. She wanted him, wanted him as much as he wanted her.
His kiss was hungry and demanding, her response everything he could have wanted it to be.
Dear God, but she was a highly sexed creature. The sounds she made. The way she moulded her body to his. He could only imagine what she would be like when he was inside her. Just thinking about it sent his own arousal into overdrive.
His arms tightened to lift her slightly off her feet and sweep her from the landing into a nearby room, his mouth never leaving hers. It was a bedroom, he noted out of the corner of his eye, a large bedroom with a huge four-poster bed. He pulled her down with him onto the cream-quilted bed, and tried not to think of her mother downstairs.
Soon, kissing her mouth wasn’t nearly enough. He had to touch and taste the rest of her. His passion was out of control. He was out of control.
So, it seemed, was she.
She didn’t stop him when he peeled that provocative little top down to her waist and exposed those perfect breasts to his eyes, and then his lips. She moaned and arched beneath him with an almost liquid abandon as he licked the soft pink nipples into pointed peaks of obvious pleasure. She gasped when he sucked one deep into his mouth and gave it a lover’s nip, groaning when he released it.
‘You like that?’ he rasped, propping himself up on one elbow and staring down at her.
‘Yes,’ she admitted, her eyes wide upon him.
Yes, indeed, he thought ruefully as he made a concerted effort to get himself under control. As much as he would have adored to strip her totally, right here and now, common decency demanded he stop. Her mother could come upstairs at any moment.
But it was almost impossible to turn his back on the passing pleasure she offered. I’ll stop soon, he promised himself, then watched her face while he trailed the back of his right hand across her exquisitely swollen breasts, revelling in her sharply inward gasps, exultant at the flaring of her nostrils whenever he contacted her still wet nipples. He took one between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it to an even more erect and sensitised state.
Her lips fell raggedly apart, her big blue eyes gradually growing heavy with desire. She looked lost on a sea of sensuality, utterly incapable of stopping either him or herself. He had no doubt she would do anything he asked, regardless.
Did she always respond with such total abandon? he wondered, the thought rattling him for a moment before he swept it ruthlessly aside. What did it matter if she did? This was what he wanted from her, wasn’t it? Sex on tap till his mad desire for her had burnt itself out. Who cared what she did with other men? The last thing he wanted was to become emotionally involved with the girl.
‘Justine!’ her mother suddenly called up the stairs. ‘Are you up there?’
Marcus swore under his breath, deserting her to swing his feet onto the floor and stand upright. Justine, he noted wryly, took several seconds to snap out of it. When she did, she sat bolt-upright, blushing furiously as she yanked her top back up over her still betrayingly aroused breasts.
Marcus almost smiled at that blush. It seemed even the most liberated girl found embarrassment in the face of possible discovery by a parent. Did that sweet mother of hers think Justine was still an innocent little virgin?
Marcus imagined Grayson Montgomery hadn’t been under any such illusion about his daughter when he’d been alive. Such a man of the world would have recognised her inherent and undoubtedly well-explored sensuality. Any man would.
Marcus watched her frantic straightening of the quilt, noting ruefully that she was unwilling to meet his eyes. He actually found her guilty fluster quite enchanting, perhaps because it was so at odds with the wanton creature who a moment before had been lying there, naked to the waist, oblivious to everything but his hands upon her.
‘Justine?’ her mother called again, her voice decidedly closer.
CHAPTER NINE
JUSTINE groaned, gave the quilt one last agonised glance and dashed for the landing, determinedly avoiding Marcus’s darkly amused eyes.
‘Right here, Mum. What do you want?’
Her mother was halfway up the stairs, puffing. Justine felt more than a little breathless herself. She thanked God her mother had called out instead of coming up first.
‘Tom’s here. We’ll be out in the back garden if you want us. How are things going with Marcus? Did he like what you had to show him?’
‘I certainly did,’ Marcus answered, coming up to stand next to her on the landing, his hands reaching out to curve over the railing.
Justine went hot all over as she stared at those hands which a minute before had been doing such incredible things to her. She could still feel her nipples burning beneath her top.
‘Excellent,’ Adelaide chirped, and waddled back off downstairs.
Justine stood frozen by Marcus’s side, confusion rampant within her. Common sense warned her this wasn’t true love come at long last. Not in a million years!
Her feelings for Marcus were extremely powerful all the same. And very disconcerting. What she’d felt on that bed had been mind-blowing. She’d never experienced anything as exciting, despite not feeling comfortable with being so out of control.
Marcus didn’t seem to be suffering from any such confusion. Or discomfort. Once her mother had disappeared, he turned her straight away and took her into his arms once more, kissing her till her head was reeling.
‘Are you always like this with women?’ she asked breathlessly when he finally let her mouth go.
‘Like what?’
‘So...wicked.’
He laughed. ‘Now, that’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? I didn’t notice you stopping me in there. Or now.’ He trailed kisses across her cheek to her ear, blowing softly within.
‘You do things to me,’ she admitted, shuddering wildly. ‘Things I’ve never felt before...’
‘In what way?’
‘In every way.’
‘Mmm. Tell me more,’ he murmured, and bent to nuzzle her neck.
‘Maybe it’s you who should be telling me more,�
� she said huskily.
He straightened and stared down at her with narrowed eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Did you give me that loan because you wanted to get me into bed?’
‘Will I get my face slapped if I say yes?’
‘No.’
‘Then, yes. I did. In part.’
Again, disgust was very much absent from her reaction, even with his admitting the worst. She thrilled to the evidence of his passion for her, a passion which must have gone against his grain. She hadn’t forgotten that he didn’t think too highly of her.
‘I fought the temptation from the moment I saw you last Friday,’ he confessed wryly as he ran a tantalising fingertip around her mouth. ‘I might have succeeded if you hadn’t been at that damned party, wearing that damned dress. Do you know how you look in that red dress? Do you have any idea what it did to me?’
‘No...’ How could she? Today was the first day she’d been introduced to the pleasures of the flesh. But she’d glimpsed its power now, and could well understand the compulsion to put aside thoughts of right and wrong in exchange for such pleasures.
‘Come with me now,’ he urged darkly, his finger trailing down her throat towards her still aching breasts, ‘and I’ll show you.’
‘Now?’ she repeated breathlessly.
‘Yes. We can go to my place. It’s not all that far. No one will be there. We’ll be alone.’
As much as she wanted to, the image of herself surrendering her whole body to Marcus, of his taking her virginity, of his finding out she was a virgin, brought a wave of sheer panic.
‘I...I can’t do that.’ She whirled out of his arms and away from his disturbing touch.
‘Why not?’ he demanded sharply. ‘You said you wanted to earlier. What’s changed all of a sudden?’ His face hardened, his black eyes glittering coldly. ‘Don’t start playing the tease with me, Justine. I’m not in the mood and it doesn’t suit you.’