by Penny Jordan
As she pushed open the kitchen door the first thing she saw was Ben’s empty bed, the second Piers himself, who was standing beside the open oven door stirring something inside it.
‘What have you done with Ben?’ she demanded anxiously, her glance swivelling back to the empty bed.
‘I’ve put him outside until after I’ve had my supper,’ Piers informed her grimly.
‘What...? Why...? That’s...’ Georgia stopped as her stomach rumbled protestingly again, and so loudly that she knew Piers must have heard it.
‘Didn’t you eat lunch?’ Piers asked her, his eyebrows raised.
‘I...I didn’t have time... I...I was training Ben...’
‘Ah...’ The look Piers was giving her spoke volumes, and Georgia could feel her face starting to burn.
‘Yes, quite successfully actually,’ she fibbed defiantly, tossing her head.
‘Mmm...I saw you,’ Piers told her, to her consternation.
‘Y-you saw me?’ Georgia stammered. ‘But you couldn’t have done; you were out...’
Calmly Piers shook his head. ‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I was upstairs working... Tell me...just where in the training manual does it encourage allowing the dog to get you to sit...or were you simply demonstrating to him what you required him to do?’ he asked sarcastically.
Angrily Georgia gritted her teeth. There was nothing she could say—not right now. Let him taunt her—it would only make her all the more determined to prove him wrong.
‘You mentioned something about drawing up a rota for using the kitchen,’ she told him stiffly. ‘Perhaps when you’ve finished your meal...’
She’d seen the look he gave her as she’d stressed the word ‘you’, but, instead of retaliating, to her astonishment he simply said, ‘I think on this occasion it might facilitate matters if we ate together. There’s enough for two.’
She was going to refuse. Georgia knew that she had even opened her mouth to do so. But, for some unexplainable reason, the words that actually came out turned out to be a husky acceptance of Piers’s unexpected offer.
‘It’s chicken in white wine sauce with new potatoes and salad,’ he informed her. ‘But if you don’t—’
‘It sounds delicious,’ Georgia assured him quickly.
Ten minutes later she was able to confirm that the chicken tasted as delicious as it had sounded.
She had a good healthy appetite, something very rare in her sex in Piers’s experience, and he watched her enjoy her meal with a relish that was totally innocently sensual. Everything about her glowed with good health, from the shine of her curls to the peachy gleam of her skin. Naked, her body would be firm and warm-fleshed, her breasts high and full, her waist so narrow he could span it with his hands, her hips flaring into the feminine curves of her thighs. Would the silky curls protecting her sex be as richly coloured as those on her head? Piers realised with a sharp jolt just where his thoughts were taking him and got up from the table, asking Georgia tersely, ‘Coffee?’
A little uncertainly Georgia nodded in acceptance, wondering what it was she had done that had caused him to frown so fiercely—and why she should care.
‘The chicken was delicious. Thank you,’ she told him formally as she too got up and carried her plate over to the sink, to rinse it before placing it in the dishwasher. Once she had finished this chore she added, as she heard Ben scratching furiously at the back door, ‘I’d better let him in.’
Piers made no comment, merely pouring boiling water on to the coffee and then waiting until Georgia had opened the door to admit Ben before asking her, ‘Milk?’
‘Mmm...please...’ Georgia began, her back to the dog as she turned to respond to Piers’s question, her answer turning to a startled gasp as Ben rushed full tilt into her, knocking her completely off balance.
Immediately Piers swung round, reaching out to grab hold of her, and instinctively Georgia steadied herself by grasping his arms, her head bumping against the solid wall of his chest with the force of Ben’s enthusiastic response to being allowed inside.
It was only the way Piers had braced himself to catch her as she fell that was responsible for the fact that she was virtually lying full-length against him, her body pressed so close to the hard strength of his that it would have been impossible to pass a piece of paper between them. That was all, Georgia warned herself sternly. Just as it was only to support her that his arms were now wrapped tightly round her, almost as though he was cradling her tenderly within them. There was no doubt even a practical reason for that fierce, accelerated thud she could feel as his heartbeat picked up.
But her body seemed waywardly determined to interpret all these things in a very different way altogether. Cerebrally it might be implausible to believe that Piers was holding her like a lover, but her body was reacting to him as though he was. Embarrassingly so, Georgia realised as she felt her nipples become rigid, and the hot wave of shame washing down her body from her pink-cheeked face crashed into the even more intense surge of sensual awareness that was sweeping upwards over her skin.
‘Oh, thank you,’ was all she could find to say as she lifted her head from its resting place against Piers’s deliciously solid chest and forced herself to look up into his face. After all, she had to say something to him for saving her from a nasty fall.
Her glance wavered treacherously on its upward journey, for some dangerous reason deciding to linger over his mouth, which for once was curled into a smile and not tightening into his customary frown. And what a smile! Feathers of delicious but oh, so dangerous sensations drifted through Georgia’s stomach—tiny, barely perceptible tendrils of delicate pleasure that were somehow still strong enough to trap and enmesh her, making her feel light-headed and dizzy as well as a whole host of other things she didn’t dare allow herself to name.
‘Georgia...’
Piers’s voice seemed to reach her from a long way away, a husky resonance that vibrated thrillingly through her whole body.
‘Yes—’ Her lips parted in her acknowledgement, starting to form the word but never finishing it because, impossibly, Piers’s mouth was brushing softly against hers. It was the merest tantalising movement, the tiniest suggestion that it could turn into something far more intense and intimate, but her body seemed to be decoding its message with an instinct, an insistence, and immediately it sent her heart rate into triple speed, her breath catching in her lungs as her own lips seemed to cling provocatively to Piers’s.
Now she knew why it was that Victorian women had swooned so often when their lovers had kissed them, Georgia decided dizzily as she looked bemusedly up at Piers through half-closed eyes.
‘Mmm...’
Was that soft purr of appreciation really coming from her own throat? Were those really her own arms that had wound themselves so tightly around Piers? Was that really her body that was reacting to him...to him...with all the ardency, all the excitement, all the expectancy she had so longed to feel with Mark but which, in reality, she had never come anywhere near experiencing?
And, most importantly of all, was she really going to waste time on foolish mental conundrums when there were far more rewarding and pleasurable things to do? When the increasingly determined exploration of Piers’s mouth was teaching hers a whole new world of sensual discovery? Slowly his lips caressed hers, and even more slowly his tongue explored their shape and softness. One of the hands which had saved her from her fall was now supporting the back of her neck, stroking through her soft curls, cupping the delicate line of her jaw. His mouth, then momentarily lifted from hers as his thumb pressed gently against the fullness of her bottom lip, exposing its velvety, sensitive inner flesh.
Shakily Georgia closed her eyes completely as she felt her body’s response to what he was doing. How could such a simple gesture, such a simple touch, be capable of making her feel like this, want like this?
Piers’s mouth had replaced his thumb, his tongue probing the softness it had just exposed and then going beyond it with a
devastating intimacy that shocked through her body like an electric current.
‘Oh-h-h!’
With a small startled protest Georgia realised that Piers was releasing her.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she told him unsteadily as she realised what she had done.
‘No,’ Piers drawled, giving her a narrow-eyed look that encompassed not just her well-kissed, swollen mouth but her equally swollen breasts as they pressed against the soft fabric of her tee shirt. ‘Perhaps I wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t...invited me... It takes two, you know, and...’
Her invite him! Georgia made an angry, protesting sound of denial deep in her throat.
‘I did not—’ she began, and then stopped as Ben started to bark impatiently. ‘I have to walk Ben,’ she told him stiffly.
‘Well, I shall probably be out when you return,’ Piers told her dismissively. ‘I’ve got a couple of properties I want to see this evening. Which reminds me, I shall be away all day tomorrow.’
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it,’ Georgia muttered grimly in what she had thought was a voice too low for him to hear.
But, to her chagrin, he had heard her, and in retaliation he told her silkily, ‘Really? That wasn’t the message I was getting a few minutes ago... In fact—’
‘You were the one who kissed me,’ Georgia told him hotly, immediately on the defensive.
Piers was silent for so long that at first she thought she had got away with it and that he wasn’t going to say anything, but when he did she realised how much she had underestimated him.
He told her softly, ‘A woman doesn’t have to instigate a kiss to let a man know she wants one, and the way you looked at me...’
Without waiting to hear any more Georgia hurried to the back door, calling quickly to Ben as she did so.
Shamingly she knew that he did have a point. She had, albeit unintentionally, looked at his mouth for just that little bit too long, but she had never for one minute had any preconceived notion of doing so to provoke him into kissing her. Never for one single minute. No, the thought had never even crossed her mind. Why should it? They were antagonists...on opposite sides—she for Ben, Piers against him.
* * *
Through the kitchen window Piers watched Georgia coaxing Ben into his choke lead and then rewarding the dog with an affectionate pat and some kind of treat when he complied.
She would never succeed in training him in three months, never mind three weeks, Piers decided. She was far too soft. Ben was a dog used to having his own way, used to ruling the roost and dominating the household and his owner. What Ben needed was another, more determined male presence in his life.
Almost absently Piers noted the way Georgia’s jeans hugged the slim length of her legs and the rounded curve of her bottom. She had felt every bit as good in his arms as he had imagined, but not quite as good as she would have done had they been naked together in bed. Her skin had smelt of fresh air and peaches, and as he’d kissed her he had had a fierce surge of male desire to taste more of her, to strip that neat, high-necked tee shirt from her body and expose the delicious fullness of her breasts to his gaze...his hands...his mouth...
There was a decidedly potent male ache in his lower body, a decidedly testosterone-driven urge to take what had happened between them further—a whole lot further—threatening his normal cool control. When he had gone upstairs earlier, as he’d crossed the landing heading for the stairs which led up a further flight to his own quarters, there had been a very tantalisingly feminine scent in the air, a provocative, delicate woman smell that had sent his hormones into overdrive.
And she wasn’t even his type. That red hair, that curvy body, that obvious inexperience in those bewitching dark pansy eyes—they weren’t for him. No way...no way at all; and even if they had been there was one insurmountable barrier between them in the shape of that idiotic dog. The very barrier which had propelled her into his life...and into his arms...in the first place.
Emptying the cup containing Georgia’s now cold cup of coffee, he grimaced over the unappetising taste of his own, pouring that away as well.
After one had tasted nectar, coffee had no appeal at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SO...?’ Helen asked Georgia three days later. ‘Are you making any progress with Ben?’
‘Some,’ Georgia told her cautiously. ‘He definitely understands the commands—he’s a very intelligent dog—but getting him to respond to them is still something of a hit-and-miss affair. He walked beautifully on his lead last night, and sat on command.’
‘Sounds good,’ Helen approved, ‘and I’ve got some more good news for you as well.’
Listening to her, Georgia acknowledged ruefully that Ben had somewhat spoiled his good performance the previous day by slipping free of his collar and chasing after a squirrel which had promptly run up a tree and bombarded him with prickly unripened chestnuts.
‘The local paper has got wind of your dog visits to the old people’s home and they want to run an article about it. Philip’s keen for you to let them interview you and take some photographs of the owners with their dogs, kind of thing. It would be good publicity for us as well as a good public relations exercise. I’ll leave it to you to nominate and contact the owners, and the reporter from the Community News will be in touch with you direct.’
Things were beginning to look up a bit, Georgia decided a little later as she walked back to her temporary new home, even more so since she hadn’t seen Piers since that embarrassing incident in the kitchen. He had telephoned her from the city to say that he wasn’t going to be able to return for a further couple of days, and Georgia had sturdily assured herself that the feeling she had had of a sharp sense of disappointment was nothing of the sort, that the problem owed its existence to the fact that she had gone without lunch—again!
She had quickly made use of the opportunity he had given her by concentrating Ben’s training sessions in and around the house—much easier to do without Piers’s critical presence and even more critical eye on what she was doing. Ben was an intelligent dog—certainly intelligent enough to sneak himself upstairs the first night she had been in the house alone and to hide himself under his mistress’s bed whilst Georgia searched the house and then the garden for him!
The only reason she had finally realised what he had done had been that the sound of something falling to the floor upstairs with a muffled soft thud had caused her to go and investigate its cause, only to find Ben contentedly spread out on Emily Latham’s bed, the noise she had heard caused by him accidentally dislodging a bedside lamp as he had jumped up. Fortunately the lamp hadn’t been damaged, but Ben hadn’t been too pleased about being removed from his self-chosen comfortable bed and returned to his legitimate quarters in his basket in the kitchen.
When she finished work today she intended to take Ben for a good long walk along the river before returning to the house for an intensive training session with him.
They were having a busy week at the practice, with a rush of new patients, kittens and puppies in the main, needing their protective injections.
To Georgia’s distress, though, one elderly dog they had been treating for cancer was found to have developed another tumour, and his owner had to be gently informed that for the animal’s own sake it would be kinder to have him put to sleep.
The owner, a widower, who had only taken the dog in at the insistence of his late wife, had, as he confided to Georgia, become far more attached to the dog than he had ever expected.
‘We didn’t have any children,’ he told Georgia sadly, ‘and Rex here is really my last living contact with my late wife. We were teenage sweethearts and married for fifty-four years. It’s been two years now since I lost her, but I still miss her...’
Georgia’s tender heart ached for him, but she had seen the dog Rex’s X-rays and knew that there was no way the dog could survive.
It was always hard telling an owner that they were going to lose a much lov
ed pet, all the more so because they always tried to take it so bravely, insisting that their pet’s needs must come before their own desire to prolong its life.
Sometimes, though, they did see the other side of pet ownership—people who abused or neglected their animals. People like Ben’s original owner, who acquired a puppy or a kitten and then blithely announced that it wasn’t what they wanted after all and it would have to go.
Ben had been lucky in finding a second home, a second owner like Mrs Latham, but had she been similarly fortunate in acquiring Ben? Georgia doubted that her godson would have said so.
Piers. There she was thinking about him again. In fact, she was spending far too much time thinking about him altogether, and not just thinking about him in terms of the threat he represented to Ben’s future. Georgia had to admit that she wouldn’t have liked to have been keeping a list of just how many times her thoughts had drifted to those disconcerting moments she had spent in Piers’s arms.
She was thinking about it—and Piers—two hours later as she made her way back to Mrs Latham’s. Piers was due to return this evening. Would he be there when she got back from work or would he return later?
One thing she did know was that when he did come back he would be watching both her and Ben to see how much progress Ben had made.
When he arrived home would Piers go straight upstairs to his own room, or would he linger in the kitchen, perhaps even telling her something about his work? Although she was loath to admit it, Georgia had actually missed him in his absence. On more occasions than were reasonable she had caught herself looking upwards to the top-storey windows when she was out in the garden working with Ben, as though she was hoping she might catch a glimpse of Piers standing there.
It was just because the house was so large and she was on her own that she felt a little anxious about being there, she reassured herself as she drove home. That was all!