‘So?’
‘So I—I—’ Weren’t you at your most vulnerable when you were asleep! She didn’t like the idea of this man seeing her even slightly vulnerable.
Jason gave a taunting smile, his grey eyes openly mocking her. ‘You were perfectly decent, I can assure you. In fact, you looked rather endearing. You were sucking your thumb.’
‘Oh!’ Bright red colour flooded her cheeks. She always resorted to this habit in sleep when she was worried or upset.
Grey eyes hardened as they swept over the untidiness of her clothes and the ruffled beauty of her short golden hair. ‘I was more worried about the pillow you were clutching so frantically to you,’ he said slowly, watching her steadily. ‘Who were you imagining it was, Eden?’ he asked huskily. ‘Who was the man in your arms?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t you,’ she snapped.
He moved to pull her to her feet, holding her immovable against him. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘No!’ She wrenched her gaze away from the mesmerising effect of eyes gone suddenly black.
‘Tim, perhaps?’ he asked, dangerously soft. ‘Or was it the new boy-friend?’
‘Whoever it was it has nothing to do with you!’ She wished she felt as brave as her words! ‘My dreams—’
‘Fantasies,’ he corrected suggestively. ‘From the smile on your face it was a fantasy.’
‘Oh!’ Again she blushed, as he had no doubt intended she should. ‘My fantasies, then,’ she said crossly, ‘are my own affair.’
‘Not if I was in them,’ he murmured throatily. ‘I’ve always believed in making fantasy reality.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ she scorned, wishing he wouldn’t hold her quite so tightly—wishing he wouldn’t hold her at all! ‘But you weren’t in my mind. Tim was,’ she added defiantly.
‘Liar,’ he said throatily. ‘Aren’t you going to tempt me with your forbidden fruit, Eden?’
She held on to her senses with effort, feeling seduced by the intimacy of his voice. She made her next words as chilly as possibly in the hope of stopping this attack on her already crumbling defences by his practised seduction. ‘I realise that Isobel isn’t in the mood to accommodate your undoubtable sex drive,’ she sounded scathing, ‘but I hardly think that reason enough to take me to your bed instead.’
To her chagrin her words didn’t seem to anger him, in fact they seemed to amuse him. ‘When my sex drive needs “accommodating”,’ he mocked, ‘I go to women who can cause me much less trouble than you. Yes, women like Claire,’ he put in before she said it. ‘But I don’t want you to accommodate me, I want to make love to you, and I want you to make love to me.’
Eden gulped. ‘Make love to you?’
‘Yes,’ his lips travelled lightly over her throat. ‘Too many women think that simply by being there they’ve done their bit.’ He laughed. ‘But you won’t be like that, you’ll know how to please me as I please you.’
‘No!’ She pushed away from him, but with little effect. ‘Please stop it. You—you’ve punished me enough.’
His eyes glittered as he looked fiercely down at her. ‘Ah, yes,’ his brow cleared. ‘For your slap this afternoon,’ he touched his injured cheek. ‘I have to admit to forgetting all about it. I’d also forgotten that you said if I kissed you again you would be sick.’ His smile mocked. ‘The emotion I’ve aroused is far from nausea.’
‘You’ve angered me—’
‘It isn’t anger either,’ he laughed at her outraged face. ‘Why is it women are afraid to show passion, to share it? I’d be aroused just by seeing your eyes glazed with passion for me—as they are now. And I am aroused, Eden.’
‘I—I know,’ she whispered. She had been aware of his rising desire for some time now. ‘But I—I can’t! I—My grandfather hasn’t even been buried yet!’ she cried in desperation.
Instantly she was set free and Jason stood several feet away from her. He turned back to look at her when he had himself under control. ‘Was that really the reason you stopped me?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Or was it something else?’
‘I—It just doesn’t seem right in the circumstances.’ Surely she was allowed to lie at such a time!
If Jason thought it was simply a case of inexperience he would try to seduce her into his bed anyway—and no doubt he would have succeeded. It might have been worth it just to see his face when he realised he had taken a virgin.
Was she mad? Of course it wouldn’t have been worth it! She might be old-fashioned, but the man she married would be her first and only lover, on that she was determined. Not that Jason Earle would ever believe that without proof, and as he wasn’t and never could be, the man she intended marrying, he would never be given the opportunity to find out. He could think what he liked about her, no matter what she told him he didn’t believe her.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said now. ‘I’ll remind you of tonight at a later date.’
‘Yes. I—er—I thought you would be dining with Isobel tonight,’ she changed the subject, washing her plate and glass before putting them away.
‘I checked on you before I drove Isobel home, as you were asleep I didn’t think I should leave you alone in the house any longer than necessary. I thought you might wake up and wonder where everyone was, so I came straight back.’
‘That was nice of you. It was also thoughtful of you to put the blanket over me, it had turned quite cold while I was asleep.’
Jason smiled, only a trace of his usual sarcasm in evidence. ‘I can be thoughtful on occasion.’
Eden grinned. ‘All the other women in your life seem to think so.’ Now that any immediate danger had passed she didn’t mind indulging in a little lighthearted teasing with him.
Those grey eyes were seductively soft. ‘Are you one of the women in my life?’
‘I remember you once told me I wasn’t a woman.,
‘Or experienced,’ he derided. ‘How wrong could I be!’
‘Jason….’ she began.
‘Mm?’
‘Oh—nothing.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘Did you decide where I’m to stay?’
‘I didn’t, you did. You told me you wouldn’t go with Isobel.’
‘So I stay here?’
Jason nodded. ‘You stay here. Do you think I’m old enough to be your father?’ he asked suddenly.
Eden grinned, surprised that he had remembered her making that remark. ‘That rankled, hmm?’
‘A little,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘Make me a coffee, Eden.’
‘Please,’ she prompted.
‘Make me a coffee, Eden, please,’ he said mockingly.
‘That wasn’t quite what I had in mind, you still managed to make it sound like an order.’
He laughed. ‘It was meant to.’
‘You’re impossible!’ she sighed.
‘Not impossible, Eden. I think I could be managed by the right woman.’
‘You just haven’t met her yet,’ she scorned.
‘I may have done,’ he told her abruptly.
‘Then it can’t be Isobel.’ He could never behave with other women the way he did if he was in love with Isobel Morton.
‘I already told you it wasn’t. The coffee, Eden,’ he reminded her.
‘You’re very single-minded,’ she said crossly, doing as he suggested and preparing coffee for them both. She had been finding that conversation very interesting, damn him. ‘I suppose you are old enough to be my father,’ she told him bitchily. ‘I presume you weren’t a virgin at sixteen?’
‘Do they call men virgins?’ he mused.
‘I think so, I’m not sure.’
‘They probably do.’ He sipped his coffee, seated on a bar stool. ‘I wasn’t a virgin,’ he grimaced as he said it. ‘It just doesn’t sound right in context to a man. I prefer to say I entered manhood. And I did that on my sixteenth birthday.’
‘Some birthday present!’
‘Mm,’ he smiled. ‘She was my art teacher. A tiny little thing with ebony hair and huge blue eyes.
I can still remember it all.’
Eden wasn’t embarrassed by the conversation, just intrigued to think of Jason as a naïve sixteen-year-old. ‘Do you think it’s the same for a man, the first time is always the best and most important?’
‘Hell, no!’ he laughed. ‘It was a disaster. When I said I could remember it I didn’t mean it was a good memory. I blush just to think of it. I fumbled my way through it like the novice I was. She couldn’t have got anything out of it at all.’
‘She got your virginity,’ Eden put in quietly.
‘No great prize, I can tell you. But she was very beautiful, I remember that.’
‘She would have to be.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mm. I’m sure you were just as arrogant and demanding of perfection even then.’
He laughed. ‘Arrogant? And demanding of perfection? Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘You did. The first time we met you looked down your arrogant nose at me, and you’ve been doing it ever since.’
Jason shook his head, still smiling, completely relaxed. ‘Your imagination, Eden. Or a guilt complex, I’m not sure which. I know you were damned rude to me at that first meeting. So,’ his voice hardened, ‘was the first time good for you?’
Eden evaded his eyes as the two of them sat opposite each other at the table. ‘Well, I—’
‘I don’t see how it can possibly be the best,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The most memorable, maybe, but surely not the best. I think the giving and receiving of absolute pleasure can only be attained with familiarity.’
‘I thought familiarity bred contempt?’ she teased, glad not to have to answer his previous question.
‘It can do, especially in bed, but it’s also necessary for perfect lovemaking.’
‘Jason, have you—’ She ran the tip of her finger round the rim of her coffee mug, watching the movement and not him. ‘Have you ever taken a virgin?’
‘Never,’ he answered instantly.
Her eyes widened. ‘Never?’
He shook his head. ‘Sleeping with a woman is one thing, taking that away from her is another.’
She forced a light laugh. ‘Goodness, how serious we’ve become!’
‘The lateness of the hour and the intimacy of the situation, no doubt,’ Jason drawled, once again the arrogant tormentor of their first meeting. ‘I suggest we go to bed—for the moment in our respective bedrooms,’ he added mockingly as colour flooded her cheeks.
‘For the moment…?’
‘You did make me a half-promise, Eden, one I intend keeping you to.’
‘But—but Isobel—’
‘Has the idea that she would like to become my wife. It’s just a feeling of insecurity—she leant on David a lot despite his illness. When she gets over that she’ll get over the idea of being my wife, I hope, because I have no intention of marrying her.’
‘But the newspapers—’
‘Exaggerate. Just forget about Isobel,’ he instructed coldly. ‘Leave her to me.’
‘Gladly,’ Eden grimaced.
‘Eden…! he groaned. ‘God, I’ve wanted you almost from the first moment I saw you.’
‘You—you have?’
‘Mm,’ he nodded. ‘If you weren’t David’s granddaughter I would have done something about it by now.’
‘And the fact that I am his granddaughter?’
He shrugged. ‘It makes it a little difficult. But it will all work out in the end. Let’s get to bed now, this can be talked out at a later date.’
Eden intended being long gone before anything could come of tonight’s conversation. But he could go on thinking what he liked for the moment; time enough later on to let him know there could never be anything between them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EDEN gulped her coffee down so fast that she burnt the inside of her mouth. She grimaced with pain, looking up to find Jason watching her over the top of his newspaper as he ate his breakfast at a leisurely pace. She gave him a harrassed smile before gulping down yet more coffee.
‘Are you in a hurry, by any chance?’ he asked tauntingly.
‘Yes,’ she answered unnecessarily.
Jason frowned at her haste. ‘Calm down, for God’s sake! You’re giving me indigestion.’
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Anyway, I’m going now. Excuse me.’ She stood up.
He put out a hand to catch her wrist in a vice-like grip. ‘Where are you going? The funeral—’
‘Isn’t until this afternnon.’ She tried to prise his fingers loose, but he wouldn’t be moved. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back before then.’
His eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘Where are you going?’ he repeated in a voice that demanded she answer.
‘I just told you, I’m going out. Ouch!’ she cried as his fingers tightened. ‘That hurt!’ She gave him a pouting look.
‘It was meant to,’ he said unconcernedly. ‘Now, we’ve ascertained that you’re going out, all I want to know now is where it is you’re going in such a hurry.’
‘I—er—I’m meeting someone.’
‘Your young lover?’
‘I don’t have a lover, young or otherwise,’ she snapped.
‘I gather the last part of that statement applies to me,’ he remarked dryly. ‘I’m the otherwise,’ he explained at her puzzlement. ‘Old.’
‘You aren’t old,’ she protested vehemently. ‘You—’
He grinned. ‘I’m not?’
She realised, too late, that she had walked into the trap he had set for her. ‘Well… not very,’ she amended.
‘Cheeky!’
‘Let me go, Jason,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll be late.’
‘He can wait for you. I’m going to claim a kiss first, and make it a good one, otherwise you’ll be even later getting out.’
She tried to still her sudden ragged breathing. ‘Jason, please! He’s expecting me and he—he won’t wait.’
‘I would,’ he said throatily, his gaze resting intimately on her parted lips. ‘I’m waiting now.’
‘Jason, no!’ She looked frantically about her for help, wishing Mrs Gifford would come in and clear the breakfast things. But she knew she wouldn’t, the housekeeper always waited until they had left the room before entering herself.
‘Jason, yes,’ he corrected softly. ‘I’ve been very patient, Eden. I haven’t once tried to pressurise you, even though you know you’re driving me mad parading about the house in those tight denims of yours, every delicious curve clearly outlined.’
‘Jason…’ She could feel herself weakening, his hand on her wrist having the seducing effect his touch usually had on her.
‘I’m only asking for one kiss. I’m sure your young friend will ask for more, even if you aren’t prepared to give it at the moment.’
‘Tim wouldn’t—’
‘Tim?’ he echoed sharply. ‘You mean Tim Channing?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted reluctantly.
His lover-like attitude had faded, a suspicious anger taking its place. ‘What does he have to do with you going out?’ he demanded.
‘I’m just on my way to meet him.’ She couldn’t look at Jason, sensing his fury by the leashed tension in his body. ‘At the airport,’ she added lamely.
‘He’s coming here?’
She shook her head. ‘Not here, he’s staying at a hotel.’
‘But he is coming to England?’
‘Yes. He—er—he was in Germany on business, so—’
‘How long have you known he was coming here?’ he asked coldly.
‘He telephoned yesterday and told me what time he would be arriving. You were at Isobel’s and I—I suppose I forgot to mention it last night.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ Jason said harshly. ‘I asked how long you’ve known about him coming to England.’
‘I—’
‘The truth, Eden!’
‘Well, he—he did mention it on Tuesday,’ although later events had temporarily put it out of her mind
.
‘Tuesday!’ Jason echoed. ‘My God, that was the night—Just how many men can you cope with at one time? When Tim arrives you’ll have three of us dangling on a bit of string, and that’s just in England. I’m sure there must be others in the States.’
‘Oh, hundreds,’ she agreed flippantly, his accusations angering her as they usually did, their truce of the last two days completely disappearing. ‘I’ve always found safety in numbers. Although Tim wants to marry me,’ she told him defiantly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘He obviously doesn’t realise what you are.’
‘He knows exactly what I am,’ Eden said truthfully. Tim knew her to be a friendly, but certainly not promiscuous, young girl.
‘Then he must be insane to think of taking you on. He’ll never control you.’
‘Have you never heard of making someone want something so badly that they’re prepared to do anything to get it?’ she asked with false bravado, stung by his obvious contempt. ‘Well, that’s what I’m doing to Tim.’
‘Holding out on him, hmm? And it’s working,’ he shook his head disgustedly.
‘Yes,’ she gave him a triumphant smile. ‘It’s working very well.’
‘So that was the reason you refused his proposal the first time. It was all part of the plan, wasn’t it?’ he scorned.
‘Yes,’ she agreed dully, all the fight suddenly gone out of her. ‘It was all part of the plan. I should be Mrs Tim Channing before the end of the year.’
***
‘Like hell you will!’ Jason bit out forcefully.
‘And just how do you intend stopping me? By telling Tim that I’m a tramp, that even you nearly had me? He wouldn’t believe you, Jason,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve behaved in an exemplary fashion with Tim. He would just think it was sour grapes because you didn’t get anywhere with me. You have a reputation, you see, one that doesn’t bear close inspection.’
Jason wrenched her chin up, his fingers pressing painfully into her delicate skin. ‘Yours bears even less inspection,’ he ground out.
‘I doubt you would find anyone, over here or in the States, to confirm your opinion of me. I’ve been very discreet,’ she told him tauntingly. ‘Yes, very discreet.’
You little bitch!’ His face was an ugly mask.
Ice In His Veins Page 11