by Susan Napier
'It gets better,' he said, but didn't make the mistake of grinning at the expression of horror that flitted across her face. No, he didn't have to worry about Fran acquiring an insatiable thirst for adventure, she would continue to express her own quiet courage in other ways. But he would make damned sure that it wasn't overstretched. She had taught him a lesson that he couldn't unlearn and didn't want to. He frowned, realising that they still hadn't settled the question of marriage. After last time it wouldn't do to take too much for granted. That was another lesson he had learned well.
'Can I give you a lift back to town?'
'I think we're supposed to have a debriefing,' Fran said vaguely, looking around and realising that they were standing in the middle of a public road and that they were getting a few funny looks from the spectators now trailing back to their cars. She shrugged hurriedly out of the loose encirclement of his arms.
'I think I can take care of your debriefing,' Ross murmured with a wicked look downwards that made her tingle. 'Did you come in the club van with the others?' She nodded. 'Good, then there's no car to worry about.'
He put his hands flat against her shoulders and pushed. Startled, she fell backwards, on to the seat of the limousine she had sheltered in earlier.
'Ross, what do you think you're doing?' she hissed
at him as he bent and scooped her legs into the car,
thrusting her along the deep leather seat with a sinuous
nudge of his hips as he joined her. 'You can't just commandeer—'
'Home, James,' Ross flicked the switch on the small intercom on the padded panel in front of them and the chauffeur, without looking back through the tinted panel of glass, made an acknowledging gesture with his hand as he leaned forward to start the car.
'Ross? Ross, this isn't yours, is it?' He was wearing a suit again she realised, on a Saturday—looking smooth and suave and stinking rich. She longed to see him in scruffy denims again... or in nothing at all.
He ignored her disbelieving squawk, punching up some numbers on a sleek, cordless phone. 'Nessa? I'm on my way home. Only urgent calls, please... Dr Nugent can take the rest.' He hung up. 'Nessa is my housekeeper. She picks up after me and generally nags me about life in general. Rather like you, in fact,' he added slyly, 'except she's thirty years older and doesn't drive me out of my skull with lust and desire and terrifying elusiveness.'
'I can't believe that you could be crass enough to drive around town in something like this,' Fran said severely, conscious of the man in the front seat, trying to hide the lurch of excitement she felt at seeing Ross leaning back against the cream upholstery, regarding her with that heavy-lidded sensual amusement. 'After all your sneers about the material trappings of success.'
'He can't hear you, Fran, or see you. All the glass is
mirrored.' Ross judged her nervous glance accurately.
He grinned lazily at her flush. 'And you're right, I'm
not that crass. I rented this to take a very important,
wealthy Middle-Eastern patient out to the airport this
morning. Just one of the small touches of courtesy and
luxury that she takes for granted. I was on my way back
home when Beth called, in a panic because she hadn't
been able to get hold of me and thought she was cutting
it too fine—'
'She wasn't suppose to tell you at all.'
'Wasn't she?' he asked drily, and smiled as Fran's eyes flickered. Had she been setting some kind of test for him as well, without realising it? If so, he had passed with flying colours. 'Anyway, that's why I over-reacted so violently back there. I was shattered by nerves before we even got in sight of the drop zone. Beth said she'd told you about my jumps and you'd closed up and gone "all quiet and fanatical" about doing it yourself. I didn't know what to think. Add to that two speeding tickets and a near-miss with a roadside goat, and that "Mae West" was just a match to the powder keg. It was either beat you or kiss you senseless, and I couldn't do either I was shaking so much.'
Fran cleared her throat. 'The jumpmaster told us that lots of wives and girlfriends of the male jumpers often help as judges in sky-diving competitions. Perhaps I could do that... if I'm not up there myself, of course,' she added bravely to herself, making his mouth twitch.
'Of course,' he murmured. 'We'll wait and see, shall we?' He paused. 'As wife or girlfriend?'
She looked at him and he smiled reassuringly, but he forgot to guard his eyes, which had taken on that steely look again. 'Is that a choice?' asked Fran innocently.
'Yes.' And just as quickly, 'No.' He frowned, and looked unseeingly out at the passing fields. 'Yes. I don't know.' He shrugged impatiently and looked at her with brooding resentment. 'What do you want it to be?'
'What happened to the strong, decisive man I fell in love with?' she mourned gleefully. 'Who is this wishy-washy substitute?'
'Wishy-washy?' Suddenly she was flat on her back
against the cool leather seat, laughingly pushing at his
wide shoulders. 'You want decisive, Princess? I'll give
you decisive—'
And he was kissing her, devouring her with lips and teeth and tongue, and while she was dealing with the erotic shock of his mouth on hers his hands were busily unzipping her flight suit and burrowing eagerly under the tracksuit she wore underneath. The purring hum of the powerful car beneath her, and the tigerish growl of the big man on top of her combined in an exquisite inner vibration that burned from her belly to her brain. He swore roughly at the tangle her clothing created and rolled sideways the better to deal with it, so that they both lay slanted on the seat, their legs entwining, feet jammed against the panelled wood of the door.
'Ross, wait ' Fran shuddered as he found the hard
peak of her breast and stroked it lovingly through her silky, seamless bra, making it swell and harden even further.
'I've done nothing else but, since I met you, and if
you get pregnant you'll have to damned well marry
me—'
'I only wanted to say yes.'
'Yes what?' he muttered vaguely, tasting her skin with a connoisseur's appreciation and a starving man's fervour.
'Yes, I'll marry you, even if I don't get pregnant.'
'Of course you will,' he purred, moving his hand down her body, pushing under the soft waistband of her tracksuit pants and touching her with mind-bending gentleness and intimacy. 'Your compassionate heart couldn't bear to condemn me to a lifetime of painful frustration. God—' his hips flexed involuntarily as her thigh dragged against his swollen hardness with a convulsive jerk of pleasure, '—you're so hot and sweet and ready for me...how in the hell are we going to work this?' He groaned as he rubbed himself against her, building the pressure for release as he tried to wrestle her out of the restricting jumpsuit.
'Ross, you do remember where we are, don't you?'
'How could I forget?' He cursed as he realised he had no chance of getting the suit off while she still had her boots on.
'Don't you think we should wait for a more appropriate time and place?' Fran asked, quivering with love and laughter at his passionate antics.
'What could be more appropriate, Princess?' he growled. 'We've come full circle. Here we are again, trying to make love in the back seat of a car... except this time we know precisely what we're doing, and why, and nothing and no one is going to separate us again...'
Full circle. A circle of love without beginning or end, and large enough to encompass every dream that Francesca could ever wish for. She began to help him, eagerly...
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