Carole Mortimer - A No Risk Affair

by Carole Mortimer

  l

  'Because you still don't need a man in your life, is that it?' his eyes were narrowed once again.

  'You know I responded to you——'

  'That isn't what I'm saying, Robyn, and you know it.' He sat down beside her once again, smoothing back her tousled hair. 'Physically I'm sure I could make you accept me——-'

  'You——-'

  'Please, Robyn, let me finish,' he interrupted her outrage, 'I'm not a boy, I know I could make you want me. But I want more than that——'

  'After only two days?' she scoffed any deeper feelings than desire.

  'After two minutes,' he corrected softly.

  She swallowed hard at the quiet determination in his voice. 'You were right the first time, Sin, I don't need a man in my life,' she said hardly.

  'How about if one forces his way in?'

  She shook her head. 'I don't think he—you, could do that.'

  'All right, lovely lady,' he smoothed the frown from her brow, smiling gently. 'I won't push you any more for now, I think I've given you enough to think about for one night,' he added with a satisfied grin.

  He knew damned well that he had! For the second night in succession she found it difficult to sleep, to put one maddeningly irritating man out of her mind. She still didn't know quite what Sin wanted from her, certainly a physical relationship, although he seemed to demand more than that, wanted her emotions to be involved as well as her body. And after years of suppressing both she couldn't give him either!

  'This is not the way to the load pool,' she turned to Sin with a puzzled frown as he directed the car away from the town instead of towards it. '

  'No,' he confirmed he was well aware of the fact, relaxed and confident behind the wheel of the Porsche.

  He had knocked on the adjoining cottage wall fifteen minutes ago, arriving on the doorstep a couple of minutes later, the sun glinting on the gold of his overlong hair, his fitted shirt that colour that was neither blue nor green, giving his eyes the same glow, the low-fitting denims faded and worn. Robyn hadn't needed to be told he had come to take them swimming, and with the twins hopping and jumping about in the background it had been impossible not to go along with the plan.

  Although she hadn't wanted to. After last night she felt more justified in keeping her distance from Sin Thornton. He wanted a relationship with her she wasn't prepared to give, made demands on her emotions that would just leave her hurting once he had left Golton and forgotten that she and the twins existed.

  But Kim and Andy's excitement when they realised the proposed swimming trip was definitely on had been too much for her to deny them this treat, and even now their pleasure couldn't be suppressed as they sat in the back of the car, the picnic basket Robyn had packed in preparation for their original plan to drive down to the river on the seat beside them, Sin assuring them they would find somewhere to sit and eat the food.

  Robyn frowned even more as Sin manoeuvred the car into the constant stream of traffic on the motorway. 'I thought we were going swimming?'

  'We are,' he nodded.

  'Where?'

  'To the coast.'

  Her gasp of surprise was drowned out as Kim and Andy whooped their delight. The nearest dung resembling a coastal resort was fifty miles away, and it was last summer since Robyn had been able to take them there. The length of the journey there and back meant this was turning into a complete day-trip, and if she had known that she would have vetoed this idea before the twins knew about it. The knowing look on Sin's face seemed to say he had known exactly how she felt.

  'This is coercion, Mr Thornton,' she muttered, glaring her anger at him.

  'True,' he agreed unrepentantly.

  It was difficult to tell him exactly what she thought of him with the twins so close, but from the way he grinned at her she knew her expression said it all.

  Nevertheless, she had still held on to some of her anger by the time they had reached the coastal resort, parked the car, bought buckets and spades for the children, changed into their swimsuits—Andy insisting on going off with Sin to the men's changing room for the latter—before going down on to the beach, Kim and Andy even now down at the water's edge digging for seashells.

  'They're loving it,' Sin leant back on his elbows as he watched the children, his bared torso deeply tanned, his navy blue swim trunks only just decent as they revealed the manly shape of him. Robyn had coloured shyly when he first emerged with Andy at, his. side, and

  even now she had difficulty looking at his blatant masculinity.

  Her own costume wasn't much better, she knew, a one-piece suit from her early married life, not exactly fitted to her fuller breasts. And her blushes had increased as Sin took full inventory of her slender curves, his body reacting in a totally male way, much to her dismay. The twins had been innocently unaware of the sharp sexual tension that suddenly spiced the air between Sin and their mother, chatting happily as they ran on ahead. But Robyn couldn't help but be aware of it, and her skin had tingled as Sin slowly ran his hand down her arm to capture her fingers with his, his grip tight as she would have pulled away. Once again the children saw nothing unusual in their mother holding hands with the tall golden man they Were fast coming to adore, and so she had given up any effort of trying to escape, knowing it was futile anyway.

  'Weren't they supposed to?' she snapped, at last able to retaliate as she wanted to now that Kim and Andy were out of ear-^shot.

  He turned to look at her with steady blue eyes. 'I thought we all were.'

  Robyn sighed her impatience. 'You aren't playing fair, and you know it.'

  'Sorry?' he prompted softly.

  'Using the twins to trick me into this day together———'

  'Is that what you think I did?' he rasped, his face suddenly hard.

  She flushed at his unusual display of anger. 'Well of course it is. You knew Kim and Andy would think you a friend for life for taking them out like this, and after last night you must also know I wouldn't want to come.'

  'Last night?' he repeated slowly. 'What happened last night?'

  She searched his face in disbelief, meeting only bland enquiry. 'I told you I didn't want you in my life—'

  He shook his head. 'You told me you didn't think that you did. And I've never been known to give up when there's an element of doubt.'

  "There isn't!'

  'I happen to think otherwise.'

  'I don't care what you think, I don't want———'

  'Were you always this much of a coward?' he cut in conversationally.

  'Coward!' she spluttered her indignation.

  Sin nodded. 'With your emotions. Oh I'll admit that you have to be a pretty gutsy lady to have brought up Kim and Andy on your own, but by your own admission they're the only people you feel able to care about.'

  'I wish I'd never told you that,' she glared at him fiercely for reminding her of it.

  'Maybe you do, but it's too late to retract it now. Can't you see,' he turned on his side, pinning her to the spot on the blanket at his side, the spot they had chosen lay sheltered from the sea-breeze and far enough away from their nearest fellow sun-worshippers to give some degree of privacy, 'that there's no risk involved in loving children, that you can give to them unreservedly and not fear rejection. Loving an adult takes more courage.'

  'Love!' she repeated scornfully. 'We aren't talking about love, we're just talking about sex.'

  'It's all in the same package between a man and a woman.'

  'Rubbish!'

  'Maybe to your suppressed little mind it isn't, but-—'

  'I am not suppressed!' Maybe it was because he had used the same description she herself had used the previous evening that she felt so' furiously angry. Whatever the reason she was angrier than she could ever remember being before. 'You're the one who has problems,' she scoffed.

  'Me?' his brows rose.

  'Yes,' she nodded agitatedly. 'Why else would you need to antagonise a reaction from a woman?'

  He
looked at her coldly for several long minutes before rising agilely to his feet. 'I think the children could do with a little company,' he said before striding off without so much as a backward glance.

  Robyn's gaze followed him frustratedly, knowing that things were in no way resolved between them. And she wanted them resolved, didn't like the hunted feeling he gave her. Hadn't she made her position clear last night? Obviously not. How dare he call her a coward! Was it cowardly not to want an affair with a man who would ultimately walk out on her? But he said he didn't just want an affair with her. What else could he want, he wouldn't be here long enough for them to form any deeper relationship.

  And why was she sitting here doing all this soul-searching? She had nothing to reproach herself about, no reason to feel guilty just because she had rejected the man's ' advances. Sin Thornton had no right to come along and turn her life upside-down in this way!

  Once she joined them all at the sea-edge she made an effort to put her earlier conversation with Sin out of her mind, was determined to enjoy herself for the children's sake. Sin was a little stiff with her to start with, but his easygoing nature precluded him bearing a grudge for any length of time, and by the time they drove home in the early evening, the twins already asleep in the back of the car, the earlier scene on the beach might not have occurred.

  'They're lovely children,' Sin told her softly.

  She eyed him warily, this the first time they had spoken privately since that last tense conversation. 'Yes,' she agreed guardedly.

  'You must be proud of them.'

  'I am,' she nodded, wondering where all this was leading to.

  'And Brad,' he added hardly, 'is he proud of them too?'

  She stiffened at this personal question. 'Of course. Why do you ask?' she questioned tautly.

  Sin shrugged. 'Andy happened to mention that he had never been on a beach with his father—'

  'Happened to mention?' she scoffed angrily. 'It isn't the sort of thing he would "happen" to mention!'

  'Meaning I must have prompted him into it?'

  'Yes!'

  'You're right,' Sin sighed. 'I did.'

  'Why?' she frowned.

  'I'm not sure,' he admitted huskily.

  To Robyn's relief she saw they were almost home. When she had first met Sin yesterday morning she had thought him outrageously flirtatious in a teasing way, and yet each time they talked things became so serious. With Kim and Andy he was a different man entirely, and she wished in a way that she could be included in that light-hearted banter.

  'I'll help you carry them inside,' he told her softly after parking in her driveway, the twins not even stirring as he carried first one and then the other into the house and up the stairs to their room.

  Robyn eyed him warily across the lounge once she had returned down the stairs, having somehow known he wouldn't take the opportunity to leave while she put the children to bed. 'Thank you for a lovely day,' she said dismissively.

  'Kim and Andy enjoyed it,' he finished dryly.

  'I did too,' she defended.

  Sin shook his head. 'It wasn't the success it should have been.'

  Her gaze was unflinching. "That depends how "successful" you wanted it to be.'

  His mouth twisted. 'What a suspicious little mind you do have, Grandma!'

  'Years of practice,' she drawled. 'I must have met a dozen men who thought they would be doing me a favour by easing my frustration the last four years,'

  'Not me,' he shook his head.

  Her brows rose. 'No?'

  'I'd be doing me one!' he admitted ruefully, the levity back in his voice. 'I haven't wanted a woman this badly—and known it was so hopeless—since I had a crush on my mother's best friend when I was seventeen,'

  Robyn couldn't help smiling at this frank admission. 'Did she know?'

  'My mother or her best friend?'

  'Either!'

  'Mother did,' he nodded. 'Joan didn't notice a thing. I don't think she could have seen The Graduate! I did everything I could think of to make her think of me as a sexually aware young man — all she saw was the young man, with emphasis on the young. It was a terrible blow to my ego,' he grimaced. 'I didn't date for at least a month!'

  'Wow!'

  'You may laugh, but in those days I thought I was a social outcast if I didn't have a constant stream of girlfriends.'

  'Bedfriends?'

  'Yes.'

  'And now?'

  'Now,' he moved slowly across the room with the grace of a feline, his tread soft and firm, his body fluid. 'Now I know that it's quality rather than quantity.' He took her gently into his arms, moulding the lower half of her body to his as his hands linked at the base of her spine. 'And you, young lady, are quality.'

  His fingertips were gentle on her lips as he silenced her. 'You don't have anything to fear from me, Robyn. I want you, I've admitted I do, but from now on I intend being the "nice man who lives next door".'

  'Oh yes,' she scorned with obvious relief, wishing he would release her.

  'Think I can't do it?' golden brows rose in challenge.

  'It isn't really important.’

  'It is to me. I've frightened you today, and I'm usually known as a very nice fellow,' he told her immodestly.

  'I'm sure you're very popular,' she mocked to

  O

  cover the leaping of her pulse, the weakness in her legs from being this close to him.

  'Oh but I am,' Sin nodded in all seriousness, although it was belied by the glitter of humour in his eyes. 'But with you I come on the big heavy, prying into things that don't concern me, antagonising reactions from you,' he added tongue-in-cheek. 'I'm not usually this obvious.'

  'So you're going to become a reformed man where I'm concerned?' she taunted.

  'Yes.'

  It was what she wanted, after all. And she had a feeling this man could be a very good friend.

  'Starting tomorrow,' he murmured throatily.

  Robyn only just had time to register what he had said before his head lowered and he began to kiss her. She had been unprepared for the intimacy, her body arching up into his of its own volition as she returned the kiss with fervour, knowing that Sin would keep his word as from tomorrow, also knowing that at this moment she didn't care whether he did or didn't.

  Desire leapt through Sin's body as she moved sensually against him, and he dragged his mouth away from hers with effort. 'Do you want me to break all my good resolves?' he gasped, a sheen of perspiration to his brow, pale beneath his tan.

  She moved away from him as she realised how wantonly she had been behaving. 'I'm sorry—'

  'No—don't be sorry.'- One long sensitive hand cupped the side of her face. 'But don't repeat it, not if you want me to remain the "nice man who lives next door". I may have more control than I did at seventeen, but my hunger is more intense.'

  She couldn't stop the heated wings of colour in her cheeks, moistening her lips nervously, tasting him there, her colour deepening even more as his gaze followed her enjoyment of the movement.

  'It's late————'

  'And you must be tired,' he nodded, stepping back from her. 'I'm expecting you all to lunch tomorrow, by the way,' he told her as he let himself out.

  From the amount of time he was choosing to spend with them she could only presume he meant it when he said Caroline was too young for him. How the other woman was going to love her for that!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  True to his word Sin did become the 'nice man next door' during the next few days; he also haunted her cottage as if it were his own, even turning up for breakfast one morning after claiming his fridge was empty. Not that she didn't find his company stimulating intellectually, finding they had a lot of things in common, liking the same music and books, having lengthy discussions in the evenings about both.

  Only Sin's work remained taboo between them, Sin himself keeping all talk on the subject to a minimum. Which was a pity, because after finding a copy of one of his latest paperbac
ks in the Colonel's library she had taken it home to read and found that she couldn't put it down until she got to the last page! After all that she had said about his work, and her initial aversion to reading the Colonel's diaries, she was reluctant to admit how wrong she had been. The Colonel obviously had a story to tell from the diaries she had researched so far, and she knew from his writing that Sin was the man to tell it if anyone could.

  Caroline was being her usual unreasonable self, still furious with Robyn because of the tours she had to take around every afternoon; as if it had been Robyn's suggestion that she do so! But as far as the younger woman was concerned Sin could do no wrong, her manner always sickeningly sweet whenever he was around. And Sin was around a lot, revelling in the younger woman's attention, humour glittering in his twinkling blue eyes whenever he happened to catch Robyn's gaze. She always looked away whenever he did that, uncomfortable with the feeling that they were sharing a moment of intimacy.

  In fact, she was uncomfortable with the whole situation, felt that the twins were coming to rely too much on Sin's company, waiting up in the evenings so that they could spend time with him before going to bed. It would have been petty of her to deny them this treat, and when staying up to see Sin progressed to him helping her put them to bed she couldn't protest at that either, not when it gave the children so much pleasure.

  But their growing affection for this likeable man worried her; what would happen when his time here ended and he was gone from all their lives for good? She knew he had to be intelligent enough, sensitive enough, to realise there would be problems when that did happen.

  'I'm loyal to my friends, Robyn,' he told her when she mentioned it to him.

  It was Thursday evening, and after cooking them all a meal while Sin helped the twins get ready for bed, they were now on their own in the lounge, Kim and Andy settled down for the night; Sin looked relaxed, as he always did, a short-sleeved cream shirt tucked into the low waistband of his denims, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he almost lay in the armchair. Robyn couldn't get over the way he always looked so totally relaxed, sure by the work he produced that he couldn't always be this lazy.

  'Even five-year-old ones?' she teased, although there was an underlying edge of seriousness.