A Vow of Obligation

by Lynne Graham

  He lifted her up and brought her down on the bed, still exchanging kiss for feverish kiss and suddenly she was on fire with longing, knowing exactly what she wanted and shocked by it. She wanted his weight on top of her to sate the ache at the core of her. She wanted to open her legs to cradle him but, ridiculously, her skirt was too tight.

  In a sudden movement driven by that last idiotic thought, Tawny tore her lips from his. ‘No, I don’t want this!’ she gasped, planting her hands on his wide shoulders to impose space between them.

  Navarre immediately lifted back, face rigid with self-discipline. He vaulted back off the bed to stare down at her with scorching green eyes. ‘Yes, you do want me as much as I want you. Together we’re like a fire raging out of control and I don’t know why you’re imposing limits, unless it’s because—’

  ‘No, don’t say it!’ Tawny cut in, sitting up in a hurry and raking her tumbled hair off her brow with an impatient hand. ‘Don’t you dare say it!’

  Navarre frowned in bewilderment. ‘Say what?’

  ‘Offer me more money to sleep with you … don’t you dare!’ she launched at him warningly.

  Navarre elevated a sardonic black brow and stood straight and tall to gaze broodingly down at her. ‘Mais c’est insensé … that’s crazy. I have not the slightest intention of offering you money for sex. I don’t pay for it, never have, never will. Perhaps you’re angling for me to make you that kind of an offer before you deliver between the sheets. But I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong guy to work that ploy on.’

  As that derisive little speech sank in Tawny went white with rage and sprang off the bed, the wild flare of her hot temper giving her a strong urge to slap him. But Navarre snapped hands like bands of steel round her wrists to hold her arms still by her side and prevent any other contact. ‘No,’ he said succinctly. ‘I won’t tolerate that from any woman.’

  High spots of colour bloomed in Tawny’s cheeks as she jerked back from him, his icy intervention having doused her anger like a bucket of cold water. It didn’t prevent her from still wanting to kill him though. ‘I wasn’t trying to put the idea in your head … OK? It’s just I know what guys like you are like—’

  ‘Like you know so many guys like me,’ Navarre fielded witheringly.

  ‘You’re used to getting exactly what you want when you want and not taking no for an answer.’

  ‘Not my problem,’ Navarre countered glacially.

  Tawny got changed in the bathroom. Her mouth was still swollen from his kisses, her body still all of a shiver and on edge from the sexual charge he put out. She mouthed a rude word at herself in the mirror, furious that she had lost control in his arms. She had genuinely feared that he might offer her money to include sex in their masquerade and she had tried to avert the risk of him uttering those fatal humiliating words, which would have reduced her to the level of a call girl. Unfortunately for her Navarre had actually suspected that she was sneakily making it clear to him that the offer of more money might make her amenable to sex.

  Rage at that recollection threatening to engulf her in a rising red mist, Tawny anchored her towel tighter round her slim body and wrenched open the bathroom door in a sudden movement. ‘I’m a virgin!’ she launched across the room at him in stark condemnation. ‘How many virgins do you know who sell themselves for money?’

  I am not having this crazy argument, Navarre’s clever brain told him soothingly as he cast down the remote control he had used to switch on the business news. She’s a lunatic. I’ve hired a thief and a lunatic …

  ‘I don’t know any virgins,’ Navarre told her truthfully. ‘But that’s probably because most of them keep quiet about their inexperience.’

  ‘I don’t see why I should keep quiet!’ Tawny snapped, tilting her chin in challenge. ‘You seem to be convinced that I would do anything for money … but I’m not like that.’

  ‘We’re not having this conversation,’ Navarre informed her resolutely, stonily centring his attention back on the television screen.

  But a flickering image of her entrancing slender profile in a towel with damp ringlets rioting round her small face still stayed inside his head. He didn’t pay for sex. That was true. But there had definitely been a moment on that bed when, if he was equally honest, he would have given her just about anything to stay there warm and willing to fulfil his every fantasy. The ache of frustrated desire was with him still. Taking the moral high ground had never felt less satisfying. Even so his naturally suspicious mind kept on ticking. Why was she telling him that she was a virgin? Hadn’t he read about some woman selling her virginity on the Internet to the highest bidder? Could Tawny believe that virgins had more sex appeal and value to the average male? Surely she didn’t think that he would actually believe that a woman of twenty-three years of age was a total innocent? Did he look that naive and trusting?

  Clad in a modestly styled green cocktail dress and impossibly high heels, Tawny descended the stairs by Navarre’s side. They pretty much weren’t speaking, which felt weird when he insisted on holding her hand. She was looking eagerly around her when Sam came to greet them, ushering them to the fire and the drinks waiting in the Great Hall. Having answered her questions about the old property, he offered them a tour.

  The tower house was not as large as it had looked from the air and many of the rooms were rather pokey or awkwardly shaped. But Tawny adored the atmosphere created by the ancient stone walls and fireplaces and she looked at Catrina in surprise when she complained about the difficulty of heating the rooms and the remote location while her husband talked with single-minded enthusiasm about the outdoor pursuits available on the estate. The Victorian extension to the rear of the castle had been recently restored and contained a fabulous ballroom used for parties, modern utilities and staff quarters.

  ‘You haven’t been with Navarre long, have you?’ Catrina remarked while the men were talking business over by the tall windows. The sun was going down for the day over the views of rolling heathland banded by distant mountains that had a purple hue in the fast-fading light.

  Tawny smiled. ‘I suppose it shows.’

  Catrina sat down beside her. ‘It does rather. He’s obsessed with his work.’

  ‘Successful men tend to be,’ Tawny answered lightly, recalling that her half-sisters often complained about how preoccupied their husbands were with their business interests.

  ‘Navarre will always be more excited about his latest deal than about you,’ Catrina opined cattily.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Quite deliberately, Tawny flexed the fingers of the hand that bore the opulent diamond ring and glanced across the room at Navarre, admiring that bold bronzed masculine profile silhouetted against the window. As she turned back to Catrina she caught the other woman treating Navarre to a voracious look of longing. Navarre, she registered belatedly, had lit a fire in the other woman that even her marriage had yet to put out.

  ‘Navarre won’t change,’ the beautiful brunette forecast thinly. ‘He gets bored very easily. No woman ever lasts more than a few weeks in his bed.’

  Tawny dealt her companion a calm appraisal. ‘I don’t begrudge Navarre his years of freedom. Most men eventually settle down with one woman just as he has,’ she murmured sweetly. ‘What we have together is special.’

  ‘In what way?’ Catrina enquired baldly and then she laughed and raised her voice, ‘Navarre … what do you find most special about Tawny?’

  Sam Coulter frowned, not best pleased to have his discussion interrupted by his wife’s facetious question.

  ‘Tawny’s joie de vivre is without compare, and her face?’ Navarre moved his shapely hands with an elegant eloquence that was unmistakeably French. ‘Ca suffit … enough said. How can one quantify such an elusive quality?’

  Unexpectedly, Sam gave his wife a fond smile that softened his craggy features. ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself. The secret of attraction is that it’s impossible to put into words.’

  Tawny was har
dened to her hostess’s little gibes by the end of the evening and grateful that other people would be joining them the following day. Catrina might have been married to Sam Coulter for two years but the brunette was very dissatisfied with her life.

  Clad in a silk nightdress rather than her usual pjs, for she was making an effort to stay in her role, Tawny climbed into the wide four-poster bed. ‘I used to dream of having a bed like this when I was a child,’ she said to combat her discomfiture at Navarre’s emergence from the bathroom, his tall, well-built physique bare but for a pair of trendy cotton pyjama bottoms.

  He looked absolutely spectacular with his black hair spiky with dampness and a faint shadow of stubble highlighting his carved cheekbones and wide, mobile mouth. He also had an amazing set of pecs and obviously worked out regularly. Her attention skimmed over the cluster of dark curls on his torso and the arrowing line of hair bisecting the flat corrugated muscle of his stomach to disappear below his waistband, and her tummy flipped.

  ‘Full marks for all the questions you asked Sam about the history of Strathmore,’ Navarre remarked with stunning cynicism. ‘He was charmed by your interest.’

  Tawny stiffened. ‘I wasn’t putting on an act. History was my favourite subject next to art and I’ve always been fascinated by old buildings. Are you always this distrustful of women?’

  Brilliant eyes veiled, Navarre shrugged and got into the other side of the bed. ‘Let’s say that experience has made me wary.’

  ‘Catrina’s still keen on you, isn’t she? Is that why you wanted a fake fiancée to bring with you?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘One of the reasons,’ Navarre conceded evenly. ‘And your presence does at least preclude her from making indiscreet remarks.’

  Tawny was suffering from an indisputable need to keep on talking to lessen her discomfiture. ‘I have to make a phone call some time tomorrow—’

  ‘No,’ Navarre responded immediately.

  ‘I’ll go behind your back to make the call if you try to prevent me. It’s to my grandmother. I always ring her on Saturdays and she’ll worry if she doesn’t hear from me,’ Tawny told him with spirit. ‘You can listen to our conversation if you like.’

  Navarre punched a pillow and rested his dark head down. ‘I’ll consider it.’

  Tawny flipped round and leant over him. ‘See that you do,’ she warned combatively.

  Navarre reached out and entwined his long brown fingers into the curling spirals of red hair that were brushing his chest. For a timeless moment his eyes held her as fast as manacles. ‘Don’t tease—’

  Her bosom swelled as her temper surged over the rebuke. ‘I wasn’t teasing!’

  ‘You mean that you didn’t tell me you were a virgin to whet my appetite for you?’ Navarre derided.

  ‘No, I darned well didn’t!’ Tawny snapped furiously. ‘I only told you in the first place because I thought it would make you understand why I was offended by your assumption that my body has a price tag attached to it!’

  Navarre was engaged in studying the pulse flickering at the base of the slim column of her throat and the sweet swelling mounds of her breasts visible through the gaping neckline of the nightdress as she bent over him. Hard as a rock, he was still trying to work out what the price tag might encompass so that he could meet the terms and get much better acquainted with that truly exquisite little body of hers.

  ‘I also thought that my inexperience would be more likely to put you off,’ Tawny admitted, her voice trailing away breathily as she connected with his eyes. ‘Let go of my hair, Navarre …’

  ‘Non, ma petite. I’m enjoying the view too much.’

  Only then did Tawny register where his attention was resting and, hot with embarrassment, she lifted the hand she had braced on the pillow by his head to press the neckline of her nightdress flat against her chest.

  Navarre laughed with rich appreciation. ‘Spoilsport!’

  Off-balanced by the rapidity of her own movement, Tawny struggled to pull back from him but he tipped her down instead and encircled her mouth with his own, claiming her full lips with a harsh masculine groan of satisfaction. That sensual mouth on hers was an unimaginable pleasure and it awakened a hunger she could not control. Without her quite knowing how it had happened, she found herself lying back against the pillows with a long masculine thigh pinning her in place. Her hands smoothed over his wide brown shoulders, revelling in the muscles flexing taut below his skin. His fingers flexed over the swell of her breast and her spine arched as his thumb rubbed over the straining nipple. Her response was so powerful that it scared her and she jerked away from him.

  ‘This is not happening!’ she gasped in consternation. ‘We can’t—’

  ‘What do I have to do to make it happen?’ Navarre asked huskily.

  Tawny tensed and then rolled back, ice blue eyes shooting uncertainly to his face. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Navarre shifted against her hip, making no attempt to conceal the extent of his arousal. ‘Whatever it needs to mean to bring about the desired result, ma petite. I want you.’

  Tawny flushed and imposed space between them. ‘Let’s forget about this and go to sleep. I’m working for you. And this situation is exactly why working for you should not include the two of us sharing a bed half naked.’

  Navarre toyed with the idea of offering her all the diamonds. Just at that moment no price seemed too high. But that would be treating her like a hooker ready to trade sex for profit. She had got her feelings on that message home, he conceded in growling frustration. He scanned her taut little face and then noticed that she was trembling: there was an almost imperceptible shake in her slight body as she lay there. He compressed his stubborn mouth, rolled back to his own side of the bed and switched out the light. She played hot and then cold but he was beginning to consider the idea that it might not be a deliberate policy to fan his desire to even greater heights. What if she really was a virgin? As if …

  In the darkness tears inched a slow stinging trail down Tawny’s cheeks. She felt out of control and out of her depth and she hated it. She had never understood why people made such a fuss about sex until Navarre had kissed her and if he had tried he probably could have taken her to bed right there and then. Unhappily for him he had missed the boat when she was at her most vulnerable and now she knew that Navarre Cazier somehow had that magical something that reduced her usual defences to rubble. Her breasts ached, the area between her legs seemed to ache as well and even blinking back tears she was within an ace of turning back to him and just surrendering to the powerful forces tormenting her body. Stupid hormones, that was what the problem was!

  Tawny was still a virgin purely because the right man had failed to come along. She had never had a serious relationship, had never known the wild highs and lows of emotional attachment aside of an unrequited crush in her schooldays. She had had several boyfriends at college. There had been loads of kisses and laughs and fun outings but nobody who had made her heart stop with a smile or a kiss. She tensed as Navarre thrust back the sheet with a stifled curse and headed into the bathroom. She listened to the shower running and felt guilty, knowing she had responded, knowing she had encouraged him, but finally deciding that he was not suffering any more from the anticlimax of their lovemaking than she was herself. Restraint physically hurt.

  Early the following morning she wakened and opened her eyes in the dim room to centre them on Navarre. He was poised at the foot of the bed looking gorgeous and incredibly masculine in shooting clothes that fitted his tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped physique so well they were probably tailor made. ‘What time is it?’ she whispered sleepily.

  ‘Go back to sleep—unless you’ve changed your mind and decided to come shooting?’ As Tawny grimaced at the prospect he laughed softly. ‘Peut-être pas … perhaps not. What was that about you not wanting to kill little fluffy birds, ma petite?’

  ‘Not my thing,’ she agreed, recalling Sam Coulter’s dismay at grouse being giv
en such an emotive description.

  ‘Are you joining us for the shooting lunch?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’ll be at Catrina’s disposal. She mentioned something about a local spa,’ Tawny told him ruefully.

  ‘You’ll enjoy that.’

  ‘I hate all that grooming stuff. It’s so boring. If I was here on my own I’d be out horse riding or hiking, doing something active—’

  ‘You can ride?’ Navarre made no attempt to hide his surprise.

  Watching him intently, Tawny nodded. She decided it was that fabulous bone structure that moved him beyond handsome to stunning. ‘My grandparents used to live next door to a riding school and I spent several summers working as a groom.’

  Navarre sank down on her side of the bed, stretching out long powerful legs. ‘You can phone your grandmother this evening before the party.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her soft pink mouth folded into a blinding smile and he gazed down at her animated face in brooding silence.

  Navarre ran a forefinger across the back of the pale hand lying on top of the sheet. ‘I’ve been thinking. I may be willing to extend our association.’

  Her brow furrowed. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘When our business arrangement is complete I may still want to see you.’

  His expression told her nothing and she suppressed the leap of hope inside her that told her more than she wanted to know about her own feelings. ‘There’s no future in us seeing each other,’ she replied flatly.

  ‘When I find it a challenge to stay away from a woman, there is definitely a future, ma petite.’

  ‘But that future doesn’t extend further than the nearest bed.’

  ‘Don’t all affairs begin the same way?’ Navarre traded.

  And he was so right that once again she was tempted to slap him. She didn’t want to want him the way she did because such treacherous feelings offended her pride and her intelligence. Yet here she was already imagining how she might lie back in readiness as he pushed aside the sheet and shed his clothes to join her in the bed. Her mind was out of her control. Desire was like a scream buried deep inside her, longing and frantically searching for an escape. Her brain might want to wonder where the relationship could possibly go after fulfillment, but her body cared only that the fulfilment took place.