by Susan Napier;Kathryn Ross;Kelly Hunter;Sandra Marton;Katherine Garbera;Margaret Mayo
She sucked in a sharp breath. The thin tennis bracelet was lying on a bed of blue velvet, the tiny diamond chips a blaze of white ice under the overhead light. God knows how much such a thing had cost!
Regan snapped the box shut and hastily replaced it exactly as she had found it. If that was what Adam planned to give his lady of the evening, she didn’t want him to know that she had been snooping. But…oh, God, how flattering to be considered worthy of such loveliness. She went soft inside at the thought of those strong, scarred hands fastening the delicate strand of diamonds around her wrist.
Except for her wedding and engagement rings Michael had never given her any jewellery. His birthday gifts to her had usually been small household appliances and her most romantic anniversary present had been a cookbook.
But there was nothing romantic about the receipt of this first gift of jewellery, either, Regan reminded herself fiercely. She mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking there was anything personal involved. Just because the bracelet was beautiful that didn’t make it in any way meaningful, to either herself or Adam. It wasn’t the gift of a lover; it was hard, cold evidence of their transaction, that was all. The bracelet hadn’t been bought with her specifically in mind—nor, probably, had Adam even selected it himself.
She picked up her evening purse and unzipped it, determined to bring herself firmly back to earth. Pushing aside the condom packet, which showed a distressing tendency to stick to her damp fingers, she drew out the little square box she was searching for and opened it. The elegant gold cufflinks inset with darkly grained New Zealand jade stared accusingly back at her. They had been extremely costly, but Regan had been frugal with the housekeeping money for a long time in order to secretly save up for something special for Michael’s twenty-eighth birthday. But he had been killed a week before she could give them to him, and in the emotional turmoil that followed the cufflinks had lain forgotten in the pocket of a rarely worn jacket until she had rediscovered them a few days ago.
She had intended to sell them, but tonight it had seemed like poetic justice to use the pathetic evidence of her wasted love to buy her way out of any pangs of conscience about her sexual fling.
‘What are you doing?’
Regan stuffed the box back into her bag and whirled around, suddenly registering the lack of sound from the bathroom behind her.
Her mouth went dry. Adam wasn’t quite naked but the towel wrapped around his lean hips rode drastically low, and the end tucked into the folds over his right hip-bone seemed tantalisingly insecure. Here and there on his skin was a faint beading of moisture, as if he had been in too much of a hurry to dry himself properly, and the hair on his chest glistened as if the strands had been individually polished. As he walked towards her the towel parted on his right thigh with every stride, showing her a lithe strip of hair-dusted muscle.
‘I—I was just getting these,’ she improvised, holding up the packet of condoms as she pushed her bag onto the dresser.
He wrapped his hand around hers and plucked the packet from her fingers, tossing it on top of her purse, not taking his eyes off her flustered face. ‘You won’t need them.’
Her eyes widened as the breath swooped from her lungs, the clean, soapy scent of him clogging her nostrils. The light gleamed on his cheek, making his freshly shaven jaw look as smooth as polished silk.
‘But you—But I—’ She couldn’t believe he would risk either a sexually transmitted disease or a pregnancy from their encounter—so what kind of sexual activity did he have in mind?
His mouth kinked in amusement at her nervous stutter. ‘I mean, I prefer to use my own,’ he explained.
‘Oh.’ Her relief was writ large in her eyes before a frown wrinkled her fringe. ‘You don’t trust me? What do you think—that I’ve been at them with a pin?’
‘It has been known to happen,’ he said mildly, and she realised that it wasn’t her he mistrusted, but women in general…perhaps even people in general.
That made the insult a little easier to take—but not much. He had no way of knowing that she was the last woman to want to trap him into any extended responsibility for their one-night stand.
‘You must have a very pessimistic outlook on life,’ she told him.
‘Well, right at this moment I’m extremely optimistic about the immediate future,’ he said, fingering the strap of her dress as he looked down into her eyes. ‘For instance…I have complete confidence in your ability to arouse me…’ He pushed the strap off her shoulder and bent to nuzzle the tender crease where her arm met the upper swell of her breast.
There was a soft rustle and she felt his towel brush against her calf as it fell to the floor. He was now stark naked, and only inches away from her electrified body. Apart from Michael, Regan had never seen a naked adult male in the flesh…let alone aroused. She let her eyes fall to the level of his chest as he toyed with her other strap.
She didn’t dare look down any further, in case she completely lost her nerve.
She lifted her hands and laid them tentatively against his chest and he gave a shuddering sigh, his breath hot against her smooth shoulder.
‘Oh, yes…that’s right…touch me—show me how good you are with your hands…’ He kissed the side of her throat and put his hands over hers, stroking them up and down his chest. She could feel his heart thudding and her palms grew hot with the friction from the thick growth of hair. When he let her hands go to cup her head and angle her mouth up to his she let her fingers settle on either side of his flat waist, gripping hard as he shifted his stance, making her vividly conscious of a blunt force nudging against the front of her skirt.
He kissed her as he had before, with a deep thoroughness that made her knees turn to water. Drowning in sensation, she closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into his waist and he laughed into her mouth.
‘Little cat…’
His hands slipped down the slender line of her back and suddenly she could feel them warmly cupping her bare bottom under the rucked up skirt, stroking the downy plumpness, tracing the sensitive crease in a way that made her automatically clench her buttocks. He growled with approval, his hands tightening as he squeezed and kneaded, lifting her hips hard against him so that she couldn’t avoid the thick roll of flesh thrusting into her belly, and bending his head to string a sting of moist kisses into her plunging neckline. Her eyes flew open and she could feel the heat pulse between her legs at the sight of his dark head moving against her breasts and the feel of his teeth through the snug fabric.
He backed her trembling legs towards the bed, and as he angled them across the room she glimpsed their reflection in the mirror and gasped—the side-on view of a big, naked man in a passionate embrace with a partly clad female was like a scene from an erotic movie, her bared bottom starkly pale against the folds of her black dress, his hands positioned with an explicit sexual intent that gave her a sharp thrill of anticipation.
He had paused in his uneven progress, following her mesmerised gaze.
‘Do you like what you see, little Eve?’ One hand drifted down her buttocks and they both watched it burrow between her thighs. ‘Mmm, I see that you do,’ he said, testing with a lingering finger as the woman in the mirror quivered and arched her back.
He spun her around so that she could no longer see the mirrored wall. ‘But for now I want you to concentrate on me, not on him…’
For a sickening instant she thought that he was referring to Michael, then she realised that he was teasing her again. She had never been taught that sex could be fun.
‘You can’t be jealous of yourself!’ she sparkled.
‘Can’t I?’ he said, in the tone of a man who could be whatever the hell he wanted. ‘You can’t have us both, honey—it’s him or me.’
‘But he’s such a hunk!’ she pouted, pretending to peep around his elbow at his reflection.
His eyes narrowed warningly above his silky smile. ‘You think so…?’
‘Well…he’s in much better
shape than you are,’ she said, walking her fingers daintily up his chest. She had reached a nipple and stopped to explore. ‘He has much bigger muscles.’
‘Bigger than this?’ he growled, grabbing her dancing fingers and pulling them down to his groin. She gave a little squeak as he folded her hand around himself, stunned by the feel of the rigid shaft stroking against her palm as he undulated his hips. He felt as hard as steel, yet satiny soft and smooth as he slipped through her fingers, so hot that she could feel sympathetic perspiration breaking out all over her body. Her fingers felt too swollen for her skin, stiff and clumsy as she tried to be gentle, knowing from her self-defence classes that men were extremely sensitive to pressure in that part of their anatomy. To the sharp scent of soap was now added the potent, musky aroma of male desire.
‘Too much for you to handle, Eve?’ he taunted, hardening further under her featherlight fumbling. He picked up her other hand and enfolded snugly it around the base of his shaft. ‘Here, why not use both hands…? And no need to treat me like spun glass—I won’t break.’
She gulped, looking helplessly down at his captive manhood framed by her cupped hands, and the thick cloud of hair in his groin. All that throbbing power in her fragile grasp, she wondered…all that magnificent masculinity hers to command…
She contracted her fingers, unconsciously licking her lips, and a groan ripped from his chest. He gripped her by the shoulders, pulling her close so that her hands were crushed between them and the tips of her breasts scraped against his chest.
‘Well, do you think I measure up?’ he asked harshly as his body threatened to career out of his control.
‘To what—the Empire State Building?’ she said, striving to match his banter.
She felt his jolting laugh clear to the precious heaviness nestling hotly in her hands.
‘I’m flattered you even mention us in the same breath, Honey, but speaking about comparing measurements…’
He reached around her back and she felt her zip give all the way down her spine and instinctively reached up to clutch at the loosening fabric over her breasts.
His groan of explicit regret as she released him made her blush, and she babbled defensively, ‘I hope you’re not expecting the pyramids here—I’m not very big…’
‘So you told me earlier,’ he murmured, tugging away her folded arms so that the dress slithered to her hips. ‘Small and perfectly proportioned for your size,’ he approved, as her rosy round breasts came into view, the pert nipples trembling with each shallow rise and fall of her ribcage. ‘A very tempting little mouthful…’
And so it proved as he bent her back over his arm and cupped her breast, lifting it to his mouth so that he could lick at the dark pink crown, circling and flicking at it with his tongue until it ripened into a plum-red berry that he could nibble and suck with lusty pleasure before transferring his attention to its neglected twin. Wave after wave of delight crested through Regan’s body as her dress slipped to the floor and was impatiently kicked away.
She wasn’t even aware of moving, but the backs of her knees hit the side of the bed and she felt him dip and wrench away the covers with one hand an instant before she sprawled backwards onto the cool sheets, taking him with her. She squirmed underneath his heavy weight and he laughed exultantly, rolling with her into the middle of the wide bed, his thighs pushing heavily between hers as he pinned her to the slippery silk. He ran his hands down her stockinged legs and crouched back on his knees to flip off her dainty shoes before manacling her ankles and wrapping them around his lean flanks as he came back down on top of her, crushing his arousal against the moist thicket in the V of her body, shuddering with tension as he braced himself on bended elbows above her panting body.
‘You’re so beautifully responsive that you drive me wild,’ he said hoarsely, cupping her head in his scarred hands. ‘Look at me—I can’t control myself. So much for my fine boasts about foreplay…’
Her violet eyes drank in the glorious sight of him—the dominant male, helpless in the grip of the passion that she had generated…
‘Oh, Adam…’ She knew then that the real gift she was taking away tonight was far more valuable than diamonds. This wonderful, sexy stranger had given her the confidence to be a woman again.
She arched her hips in an age-old invitation and raised her arms to pull him down to her hungry mouth. ‘It’s you I want, not your clinical expertise,’ she told him in a sultry husk that carried the warm ring of truth. ‘I’d rather have honest lust than a textbook demonstration of the Kama Sutra…’
His heavy-lidded eyes gleamed with richly sensual amusement as he succumbed to her steamy challenge, reaching down between them to where their bodies almost joined. ‘Then, Eve, shall we open the gates of paradise…? And maybe what we find there will enable me to rise to the occasion and give you both…’
Chapter Five
‘WELL, Lass, it won’t be long now.’
Regan glanced in amusement at her employer, who was fidgeting in his eagerness to get to their destination.
‘Next on the right!’ The bullhorn bark belied his benign, roly-poly appearance, and she swiftly returned her attention to her driving.
Two months ago she wouldn’t have had the confidence to chauffeur the big, expensive Jaguar, but since That Night she had discovered an adventurous spirit within herself which had encouraged her to believe that she could conquer all her problems if she just had the courage to try.
That Night.
It stood in capitalised italics in her memory. Her deliciously guilty secret. Her infamous one-night stand.
She had forbidden herself to think about it during the day, although there was no keeping Adam out of her nighttime fantasies—which was exactly where he belonged, she told herself sternly. She had never heard another peep out of Cleo about that evening, and her chief feeling was one of ardent relief that she had got away with her reckless stunt. But one tiny, primitive part of her couldn’t help harbouring a brooding disappointment that Adam obviously hadn’t asked Derek for a return visit from the non-existent ‘Eve’. It would almost be worth having her cover blown to have him affirm that he had enjoyed their night of unbridled passion so much that he wanted to repeat the experience.
But, given the way that she had left, sneaking out before dawn while he was still asleep, and her parting gesture, she knew she should count herself lucky that there had been no embarrassing repercussions.
‘Here! Turn here! Now! Now!’ A stubby freckled finger stabbed in front of her nose.
‘Yes, I can see the sign,’ she said mildly.
Sir Frank gave a wry chuckle as they flashed past the huge billboard advertising the Palm Cove condominium and marina development and turned off the main highway onto the wide, winding road which cut across the narrow, hilly peninsula of land jutting out into the waters of the Hauraki Gulf.
‘Sorry, it’s just that I’m looking forward to seeing Hazel’s face when I tell her that all her worries are over.’ He beamed smugly as he envisaged his sister-in-law’s gratitude.
Since his doctor had diagnosed his heart condition Sir Frank had been trying to cut back on his stress levels, with mixed success. He had given up driving, fatty foods and smoking his beloved cigars, but he had found it harder to relinquish his habit of command. Selling the large development company which he had expanded from the single soft furnishings store he had inherited from his father was proving a wrench, even though it was staying more or less in the family—bought by a corporation headed by the man who was on the verge of marrying Hazel’s orphaned granddaughter.
At sixty-six, Sir Frank complained that he was too young to stagnate, but even when he had handed responsibility for Harriman Developments over to Carolyn’s new husband and retired to the family property adjoining the Palm Cove marina, Regan suspected he wouldn’t be idle. He would just nose around until he found something else to engage his restless energies.
‘Not quite over,’ Regan said. ‘I don’t know how much
help I’m going to be—I’ve never organised a big wedding before.’ She and Michael had been married in a register office.
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Hazel knows what has to be done; she just needs a sympathetic someone to do all the running around until she’s fit on her feet again. And you’re a relative—she knows you, so she can’t complain I’m foisting a total stranger on her…’
‘Only a very distant relative. I still think you should have warned her I was coming,’ said Regan uneasily. ‘She might have rather have help from someone closer in the family—’
Sir Frank shuddered. ‘The last thing she wants is any of that bossy lot moving in for the duration—they’d try to take over and ruin it for Hazel. No children of her own left to fuss over, y’see, and Carolyn’s her only grandchild, so this’ll be the last wedding she gets to play an important part in…I just want to make sure she doesn’t overdo it.’
Regan could feel his frown fill the car. ‘At her age a sprained ankle and broken wrist are nothing to be sneezed at,’ he added darkly. ‘She’s lucky she didn’t break her neck rolling down that hill. Old ladies’ bones can snap like dry twigs, you know—I asked my doctor about it.’
Browbeat it out of him, more like.
Knowing that Hazel Harriman was only two years older than Sir Frank—who would howl if anyone called him an old man—Regan bit her tongue. She suspected that the crusty bachelor carried a torch for his elder brother’s widow, and by dragooning Regan into helping with the runup to Carolyn’s wedding—now a bare month away—he hoped to bask in her good graces.
‘I told her she should use a golf cart instead of trudging up and down all those gullies,’ he grumped. ‘Trouble is, she’s too damned thrifty to rent one, no matter that John left her as rich as Croesus! Well, I shall just have to buy her one myself, that’s all. I could get it done up in snazzy colours…maybe with her name painted on it. D’you think she’d like that?’