by Penny Jordan
Tess shook her head in silent rejection of his empathy. If he was nice to her now she’d make a total fool of herself.
‘Anyhow, this conversation is academic—it’s too late now for a make-over,’ she babbled nervously. ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of…leave my hair alone!’ she cried, batting away his intrusive hand.
His objective achieved, Rafe thrust the scrunchy thing he’d slid from her thick hair into his pocket, and gave her an unrepentant grin. ‘Good,’ he said, regarding his handiwork. ‘But this…’ with his other hand he began to tease out the ruthlessly restrained locks into a mass of gleaming soft waves ‘…is better…much better.’
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Tess fumed, belatedly pulling away. She couldn’t understand why she’d just stood there and let him. It wasn’t as if she’d enjoyed the soft touch of his fingertips against her scalp. The drugged lethargy that had stolen over her couldn’t possibly be classified along with pleasure.
‘I am.’ There was unnecessary force in his voice. There was also a weird expression on his face—it was the sort of expression that made Tess’s heart thud and her throat close up.
‘It’s all mussed up.’ She lifted a fretful hand to her head.
‘I must look messy.’
‘Want to muss mine?’ he offered, raising a hand to his glossy raven head.
Hot desire smothered her like a heavy blanket. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think—she could imagine, though. Her fingertips actually tingled as she imagined sinking them deep into that luscious dark mass to trace the outline of his skull.
Emerald eyes wide and shocked, she shook her head dumbly.
Rafe shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Don’t forget I offered, though.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I think you should definitely aim for sexy, not neat.’ His eyes were on the glossy waving chestnut strands that fell just below her shoulders. ‘Competition will distract Chloe.’
That was uncalled for and a little bit cruel. ‘Very funny!’ she snapped. The day she could offer Chloe competition was never likely to dawn and they both knew it.
‘If Chloe went out without her make-up and designer clothes nobody would give her a second glance.’
It occurred to Tess as he took hold of her chin and tilted her face first one way and then the other, subjecting her clear-cut profile to a comprehensive appraisal, that she really ought to complain about this sort of high-handed treatment.
‘You’ve got the most incredible skin.’ He made it sound like an accusation. ‘All over,’ he added hoarsely.
Tess stiffened and tugged her chin free. ‘How would you know?’ Galloping alarm deepened the green of her eyes by several shades.
Rafe shrugged. ‘I did put you to bed, and you weren’t wearing anything under that…’ he searched for an accurate description of her nightwear ‘…thing.’
‘What a complete sleaze you are!’ She choked, going hot and sweaty all over.
‘My hand quite unintentionally—yes, unintentionally,’ he repeated firmly in response to her hoarse derisive hoot,
‘came into contact with your behind—so hang me! I could have dropped you—would you have preferred that? I’ll remember the next time.’
‘There won’t be a next time.’ Tess’s breathing was laboured and noisy. She couldn’t wipe away the image in her head of his fingers moving over…Self-derision swelled in her tight chest. Has it come to the point when sexual thrills are so sparse in my life that I’m reduced to wishing I’d been conscious while I was being accidentally groped?
‘I had no idea you were such a prude.’
If he had been privy to some of the fantasies swirling around in her head, he’d know how wildly inappropriate that description was! ‘Don’t you dare take that patronising tone with me, Rafe Farrar!’
‘And considering you were the one squirming and strangling me…Talk about overreaction.’ He began to talk fast to cover up the fact that he’d just revealed how memorable her sleepy embrace was turning out to be. ‘What did you think I’d done? I like a bit of response from the women I sleep with,’ he teased.
‘Ben!’ Tess protested, her eyes belatedly going to the child who was happily immersing a toy car in the congealing remains of his cooked breakfast.
‘Is not interested in what we’re saying, and if I lower my voice much more I’ll be whispering. I’ll tell you something for nothing…’
Tess planted her hands on her slim hips and tossed her head. ‘Since when was anything you said worth more?’
‘You know,’ he observed, eyeing her through narrowed, unfriendly eyes, ‘you never used to be such an uptight bundle of repressions. Sex with me last night would have done you more good than half a bottle of vintage elderberry wine! For that matter,’ he added grimly, ‘it would have done me more good too.’ If she tried to deny it he could always provide the proof…somehow he didn’t think he’d find the task too tedious.
Total mind-blowing shock swept over Tess. She focused hard on the shock and outrage and turned a deaf ear to the pulsing excitement that all but deafened her.
‘Have sex…with you!’ she yelped, abandoning the hushed undertone they’d automatically adopted during their heated interchange in favour of strangled squeak.
‘You make it sound as if the thought had never occurred to you!’
‘It hasn’t!’ she responded, horrified.
‘Like hell!’ he thundered scornfully. ‘You know perfectly well we’ve both been tiptoeing around it all morning.’
It was at this point Tess stopped pretending there was anything controlled about her panic. ‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me now what a great lover you are,’ she sneered.
His eyes narrowed as he sucked in his breath sharply. ‘Modesty forbids,’ he drawled, ‘but I can guarantee you wouldn’t be this uptight this morning if we had had sex last night, and I might have actually got some sleep!’
‘You think it would have been that boring…’ She nodded and gave a twisted smile. ‘You’re probably right. I may have been happy playing the surrogate sister for you when we were kids but I’m not about to play the surrogate lover now!’
The idea of him closing his eyes and pretending she was the woman he loved filled her with an intense repugnance. ‘I’m sure there are less…less drastic cures for insomnia,’ she choked.
‘A pill isn’t going to solve my problem. Or yours.’
‘And…’ she cast a worried look in Ben’s direction and lowered her voice to a hushed whisper ‘…sex is…?’
‘No,’ he conceded through gritted teeth, ‘but it might make us both forget for a little while.’
The bleakness in his deep voice penetrated her anger and inconveniently touched her soft heart. She’d been too wrapped up in her own problems to think much about his.
‘Is it really that bad for you, Rafe?’ she asked sadly. Without being aware of what she was doing, she reached out and touched his face.
Eyes dark as night moved from the compassion shining in her eyes to her slim arm. His own hand came up to cover hers where it lay. She felt the controlled strength in the grip of his long fingers and shivered.
‘Bad enough for me to think about sleeping with you, Tess?’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You really do take this modesty thing way too far. You’re a lovely woman.’
‘Not beautiful?’ She didn’t lay awake at night contemplating cosmetic surgery to correct her deficiencies, but right now making a joke about it was surprisingly hard.
‘Beauty fades. You’ve got good bones,’ he announced firmly.
‘How poetic!’
‘One of these days you’re going to make one wisecrack too many,’ he predicted darkly. ‘As I was saying, when a man’s in bed with an attractive woman his mind naturally turns to…’ At least that was the way he’d eventually justified his fantasies during the long, long night.
‘The gutter?’ Maybe she was just starved for admiration of the male variety. It might explain the way
her senses leapt in response to his casual announcement. After all, she knew it was just talk. If there had been any spark between them she’d have noticed years ago…it wasn’t as if they hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to have sex over the years if they’d wanted. They just hadn’t wanted to.
‘Is it so bad, Tess, to want to give and receive a little comfort?’ The cynicism she hated was absent from his voice as his eyes slowly searched her face.
Put it like that and I sound churlish if I disagree. My God, but this man had a great way with words. It wasn’t just what he said, it was the way he did it. Those eyes, that charisma—was it any wonder her brain had stopped functioning?
‘No…yes…You’re confusing me…’ she protested weakly.
‘The more I think about it, the more I think that closing the bedroom door and saying to hell with the world would be the best thing for us both!’ He sank his fingers into the rich softness of her hair and brought his face down to hers.
‘Who would we be hurting?’ he growled.
Tess was sure there were several good answers to that husky, intimate question, but at that moment she couldn’t bring one to mind.
‘Right now you’re hurting me.’ She twisted her confined head a little to show him how. An ambiguous mixture of fear and excitement ripped through her as his fingers slid under the heavy weight of her hair down to the back of her neck.
The touch was like neat electricity; it blitzed along her nerve-endings. Eyes half closed, breath coming fast and shallow, Tess moved her head from side to side, not actually to resist the fresh constraint, more to appreciate the texture of his fingertips against her skin. Did it make her a sad, undersexed excuse for a woman that this was the single most sensual incident in her life?
Rafe felt the voluptuous shudder of pleasure that quivered through her slight frame and his eyes darkened. ‘I knew you’d agree.’ The intensity of his own relief took him by surprise. It was almost as great as the anticipation that sharpened every sense in his body.
Roused by the ‘I told you so’ note in his voice, Tess opened her mouth to put him right. She would have, too, in no uncertain terms if he hadn’t at that same moment covered it with his.
Her eyes widened in shock and refocused on his face so close to her own. At this distance she could have appreciated how fine-textured his olive-toned skin actually was if she’d been in a fit state to think about such matters. It was the expression in his spectacular eyes, which like her own were open, that obliterated every other thought. She gave a deep sigh as her eyelids drooped over her burning eyes. The flood of pleasure was so intense, she moaned low in her throat, the sound merging with the masculine groan that vibrated deep in Rafe’s chest.
Tess’s hands clutched at empty space, and curled into tight balls to stop herself grabbing at him and hauling him on top of her…Yes, she realised as he lifted his head, that was exactly what she wanted to do.
Eyes spitting green flames, she wiped the back of her hand firmly across her mouth. It didn’t stop her tasting him but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
‘You kissed me.’
‘I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t noticed. What’s the verdict?’
‘The verdict is you’re off your head if you think I’d agree to have sex with you!’ She decided last minute to rephrase the why would I do that? She’d be deep in trouble if he took it into his head to show her why! ‘If you can’t read my body language, read my lips.’ She pointed to her mouth and very slowly mouthed, ‘Last night was the last time you’ll be sharing my bed!’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THAT’S the sort of statement that is destined to come back and haunt you,’ Rafe remonstrated, testing the springy resilience of the pouting curve of her lower lip with the tip of his thumb.
It was stupid to just stand there and let him take liberties, but for some reason Tess found she couldn’t move. She was intensely conscious of the heavy aching feeling low in her belly.
‘Just think how silly you’re going to feel, angel, when I remind you of that the next time we’re in bed together.’
Joke or no joke, his arrogance took her breath away. It did other things too, things like making her breasts tingle and swell against the thin top she wore. Graphic images crowded into her head, several involving sweaty bodies entwined. Her body temperature soared.
Tess caught her breath sharply and willed her weak limbs not to tremble. Angrily she wrenched her eyes away from the hypnotic warmth of his. She’d never expected to see the famed Farrar charisma this close up and she didn’t imagine for one moment that it was accidental.
Even if he wasn’t accustomed to rejection, it wasn’t fair of him to use Tess to massage his damaged ego! Resentment mingled with a nerve-stretching excitement that made her head spin.
Serve him right if I bit him, she decided with uncharacteristic venom as her eyes continued to be mesmerised by the hand which probed the soft moisture of her inner lip.
She’d never before appreciated just how beautiful his elegant hands were, strong with the most lovely long, tapering fingers. Disturbingly, as her violent feeling evaporated, she was left with a compulsion to extend her tongue and run it…A tiny fearful moan escaped her parted lips…Cut this out, Tess! Right now.
She jerked her head away to dislodge his hand. His fingers trailed along the skin of her neck before they fell away completely. Tess gave a sigh of relief.
‘One rejection and you’ve got to prove you’ve still got what it takes…?’ she taunted hoarsely.
‘And have I?’
She couldn’t think of an honest reply that wouldn’t seriously incriminate her.
The sound of distant voices became clearer. ‘Here, have your keys! I’m sure I don’t want to drive your beloved car again. It’s not my fault the lane is so narrow. Aunty Tess!’
Tess fought her way through the fog of sexual arousal. It was like swimming against a particularly strong tide and several unfriendly currents.
Chloe! How the hell did I forget about her…? The answer was standing, all six feet four of him, beside her looking quite unfazed by the entrance of her two visitors.
‘Trouble in Paradise?’ Rafe wasn’t looking at her guests when he spoke. Tess tore her eyes away from his mocking face and turned to face the music and her niece. Incredulity and shock warred for supremacy on her lovely young face as Chloe looked from her aunt to Rafe and back again. She didn’t seem to like what she was seeing or thinking. Her full lips trembled.
Surely fuller than the last time Tess had seen them; the fleeting thought was replaced by far more urgent matters. Had Chloe seen and understood what was going on? Perhaps I should get her to explain it to me. Tess pushed aside this whimsical thought.
‘Is that your car out there?’ The surprisingly boyish face of Chloe’s companion bore an apologetic grimace.
Rafe looked from the keys the older man was pocketing to Chloe. ‘How bad is it?’ he enquired stoically.
‘Pooh! It’s only a scratch!’ Chloe protested dismissively.
Whatever Chloe had seen or understood about the scene she’d walked in on, it had made her look as sick as the proverbial parrot. Chloe might be in love with the handsome man beside her, who was, Tess noted worriedly, much older than he appeared on the small screen, but she obviously hadn’t reached the point in her life where she could laugh at her teenage crush on Rafe.
A laugh—surely hysteria, for there was nothing remotely funny about this situation—was ruthlessly bitten back. Tess closed her eyes for a brief moment and forced her stiff lips into a welcoming smile.
‘Chloe, how lovely to see you.’ The patent insincerity jarred on her ears. ‘And you must be Ian.’
It was at this point it struck home that during their altercation Rafe had taken hold of her wrist, which he now twisted neatly behind her back before plastering himself in a very misleading manner to her side.
Normally Tess wouldn’t have thought twice about the casually affectionate body con
tact. Only normally Rafe hadn’t just…What the hell had he just done—made a pass…? She didn’t know and, she told herself firmly, she didn’t much care. It was perfectly understandable for her to feel ultra-conscious and uncomfortable about the hardness of the muscular thigh that was tightly pressed against her. Struggling would make this all look worse than it already did.
The smile she received from the older man in return for her cautious one was warm and open. She’d expected to automatically feel antagonistic, only she didn’t. She’d expected to get slick and instead she got sincere—it was pretty disorientating. Rafe had to take his share of the blame for her disorientation; the faint scent that rose from his body made her sensitive nostrils flare. It was so…so male.
‘Ben, look who’s here, it’s Mummy.’ Tess didn’t see the startled expression on Rafe’s face when she made the introductions.
The rigid smile was still fixed on her lips as she shot him a seething glare. It was hard to see the expression in his eyes from under the decadent sweep of his dark lashes. Her glance slid downwards to his mouth…don’t think kissing…don’t think kissing…Just what was he playing at now?
Ben didn’t appear overly impressed by all the ‘darlings’, ‘dear little Benjys’ and ‘isn’t he sweet?’ and even less impressed by the burning kisses pressed to his small grubby face. Tess dreaded what he might do any moment—when it came to tactlessness eighteen-month-olds were in class of their own. Ben might be limited verbally, but he had effective ways of making his likes and dislikes known!
Chloe smiled expectantly at Ben, who was not looking happy. Tess started to gush, she knew it, she could hear herself, but for the life of her she couldn’t stop.
‘He was so excited when I told him about your visit, he couldn’t go to sleep last night. To make matters worse he was awake very early this morning. He’s exhausted, but will he admit it? You know how it is with kids.’ That’s the problem, idiot, she reminded herself: Chloe doesn’t begin to know how it is with kids, and certainly not this particular kid.