by Kim Lawrence
She automatically opened her mouth fully to intensify the erotic exploration of his thrusting tongue. Her cooperation became almost frenzied as her fingers sank deep into his luxuriant dark hair. With growing urgency her trembling fingertips moved over the strong contours of his face. He turned his head and caught one finger in his mouth. Holding her eyes with his smouldering gaze, he began slowly to suckle.
It was all too much. Flora’s knees buckled. She would have stumbled and fallen if he hadn’t supported her.
The cold nose of a curious farm dog pressed against her leg made her start. She looked down into the liquid brown eyes of the Border collie and groaned. ‘Oh, God,’ she gasped, ‘this is stupid!’ She pulled free of his arms and he didn’t try and prevent her.
‘On a spectacular scale, probably,’ he conceded. ‘But who gives a damn?’
His light-hearted response drew a reluctant laugh from her. ‘Call me hemmed in by convention, but me, actually. Also I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you getting the sack.’ Feeling painfully awkward, she tucked the hem of her shirt back in the waistband of her trousers.
She couldn’t quite get her head around her swift and total surrender; it made her pulses go haywire just thinking about those wildly erotic moments. Josh had kissed like a starving man, which wasn’t surprising considering he must have been repressing the sensual side—and he did have a very sensual side—of his nature since his wife’s death.
Obviously she’d be a fool to read anything deeper in his desire for her. She half wished she were into self-delusion—it would be quite a nice illusion to imagine there was anything remotely resembling a future in any relationship she embarked on with this man. How could it…? He was still in love with his wife!
‘What time is it?’ he suddenly asked sharply.
Still distracted, disorientated and plagued by all manner of mystifying aches, she glanced at the slim face of her wrist watch. ‘Almost three.’
‘Hell!’ Josh cursed. ‘I promised I’d do the fencing before teatime. A rain check, then,’ he suggested casually.
Flora found she resented deeply his self-composure when hers had deserted her totally. She wasn’t used to men who automatically took her compliance for granted and it was pretty obvious it hadn’t even occurred to him she’d refuse. Flora forgot she no longer had a mane of hair to swish and made the flicking motion with her chin that would have sent the swirling mass backwards. I’ll have to come up with an equally effective distracting gesture to give me breathing space or people will start thinking I’ve got a nervous tic.
‘Tomorrow, then.’
Flora blinked. It was a masterly dismissal; she was having a bigger problem than ever seeing him taking orders.
‘Maybe, I’ll leave the key under the doormat if I’m not home.’
‘Sure.’ His smile seemed to say he knew full well she’d be home but he was prepared to humour her.
The spectacular scenery was totally wasted on Flora during the rest of her walk back to the cottage.
CHAPTER THREE
‘IS ANYONE home?’ Josh pushed open the ajar kitchen door.
‘Thank goodness!’ Flora breathed thankfully. She gestured urgently with her tightly balled fists. ‘Don’t just stand there, come in…come in!’ she hissed.
Josh had been prepared for a cosmetic display of coolness—just at first, of course; he was fairly confident that Flora would thaw quite quickly—but this! He walked over the threshold and saw immediately that her urgency had very little to do with a compelling desire for his body.
‘Well, don’t just stand there!’ she told him in an agonised whisper. ‘Do something!’
‘Me! You’ve got the…’ Brows raised, he looked at the metal implement clenched in one white-knuckled fist. ‘What is that, anyhow? A poker?’ Whatever it was it looked lethal and more than up to the task of disposing of a rodent a lot bigger than the small defenceless one she had cornered—or was it the other way around…?
It made quite a picture. He strove to maintain a solemn expression; if Fleet Street’s best had only known what it took to shake the cool and collected Miss Graham.
His bland tone made Flora want to scream. Why wasn’t the stupid man responding with the urgency the situation demanded?
‘I hardly think that’s relevant,’ she told him, still without taking her eyes off the small, frozen figure of a field mouse. Her toes curled with disgust in her blue furry slippers.
‘Bash it or something,’ he suggested.
Flora gave an exasperated sigh. ‘If I could have,’ she pointed out witheringly, ‘don’t you think I already would have? I just can’t kill things.’ She confessed this failing with a wail from between clenched teeth.
‘Then let it go,’ he suggested. One glance told him the little rodent wasn’t going anywhere while they were here. It was literally frozen with fear, half a breath away from heart failure—and it wasn’t alone, he thought, his scrutiny switching to Flora who was giving a good impression of a statue if you discounted the odd tremor or two. He had to concede she made quite a striking statue; she reminded him of one of those long-legged impossibly graceful Degas figures, except her skin wasn’t cold bronze, it was creamy white, soft and… He cleared his throat noisily and transferred his attention to the intruder.
‘What?’ she yelped. ‘And stay awake another night hearing it scratching under the floorboards—not on your life!’
‘You want me to bash it, is that it?’
She looked at him for the first time, her big blue reproachful eyes screaming heartless monster. ‘No…no!’ she responded miserably.
‘Well, make up your mind.’ Female logic was enough to drive a man to drink.
Flora suddenly had an inspirational thought. ‘Couldn’t you put it outside…? Not near the house, though.’
‘Let me get this straight. You want me to remove the mouse, pat it on the head and tell it to go find another residence.’ So what if the heartless woman had a soft spot for furry things and children? He wasn’t going to let that influence him. It was possible Lucrezia Borgia used to get mushy about babies. It was essential he didn’t start getting sucked in by her act; he had to remember why he was here.
The popular theory amongst those who knew him well was that when they handed out the obstinacy Josh had got a second helping.
‘In essence, yes, and sooner would be better than later.’
Flora couldn’t look as he bent over to scoop up the tiny terrified creature. Her entire body sagged with relief as she heard him leave the room. It was gone. She sank down into a cheerfully painted kitchen chair and let out a long, shuddering sigh. It was only a few minutes before he returned and Flora was already geared up to defend her pathetic behaviour.
‘I know it was more scared of me,’ she assured him, determined to get the first word in before any of that mockery in his eyes could find its way to his lips. Her stomach went into a clenching routine she was getting familiar with by now. Why does every thought I have about this man have to include his mouth? ‘I know it was a stereotypical female reaction…’ she croaked.
‘I don’t know, you didn’t climb on a chair,’ he conceded.
Only because my knees were shaking too hard. ‘Thanks for that,’ she responded drily. ‘I already feel a complete idiot.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ he drawled.
‘I don’t actually have a thing about mice.’
‘I’m glad you explained that or I might have gone on thinking you were phobic.’
She gave him a frosty glare. ‘It’s that horrid scratchy noise they make—’ she gave a tiny shudder ‘—and they’re dirty.’ He couldn’t argue that point. ‘Speaking of which, hadn’t you better wash your hands?’
‘You’ve not got some cleanliness fetish too?’ he enquired suspiciously. His eyes skimmed the cluttered work surface and he shook his head. ‘I see you’ve not.’
‘It’s hardly kind to call someone a slob when they’re in a traumatised condition,’
she informed him severely. ‘I was in the middle of making my breakfast when that…’
‘Wild beast leapt out at you.’
‘You can laugh!’ Her pout quivered into a reluctant grin. ‘If you hadn’t come along I’m not sure what I’d have done next.’
‘I was wondering that myself,’ he admitted. ‘In a war of attrition the tough survive; I suppose it depends on how tough you are?’
Flora’s expression hardened as her mind automatically drifted back over the last weeks. ‘Tough enough when necessary,’ she assured him grimly.
‘I believe you.’ He turned from the sink and, shaking his wet hands, looked expectantly at her.
Flora got to her feet, extracted a clean towel from a drawer and handed it to him. ‘Well, thanks, you may be a sarcastic pig, but you were handy.’ She sniffed.
His comprehensive scrutiny of her person recalled her a little belatedly to the fact she was still dressed only in a light robe which gaped revealingly down the front to display a large quantity of her short silky slip nightdress and an even larger quantity of bare leg. Trying not to act as if his eyes didn’t make her want to crawl out of her hot skin, she casually belted the robe around her middle—perhaps too casually because he looked mildly amused by her action.
He was wearing jeans as he had the day before but this pair was more disreputable with large jagged tears in the knees, his white tee shirt was clean and nicely pressed but permanently stained with large multi-coloured blotches of paint. The thin fabric clung, giving more than a mere suggestion of his muscle-packed torso. Overalls would have been more professional, she decided disapprovingly. A tent might be even better, an acidly derisive voice in her head added, and a lot less revealing. If she was honest with herself Flora knew that even if he wore a paper bag over his head it wouldn’t deter her lustful and lurid imagination.
‘What are you doing here at such an ungodly hour?’ she grumbled, unhappily acknowledging that all the determination in the world couldn’t prevent her reacting at some basic instinctual level to this man—in short she fancied him like hell! Unfortunately, an equally strong gut instinct told her, it would all end in tears, as her granny, had she had one, might have said.
‘Ungodly!’ he echoed derisively. ‘The day’s half over, woman. At least,’ he qualified, ‘it is if you’ve been up since five.’
‘Who looks after Liam while you work?’ she wondered out loud.
‘Oh, he’s having a whale of a time. Megan dotes on him—for some mystifying reason she can’t get enough of him.’
Did that go for the father as well as the son? Flora wondered darkly. Could this mysterious Megan, whom he hadn’t seen fit to mention before, be just as keen to get her hands on Josh? She didn’t like the sound of this Celtic temptress one little bit.
‘Megan…?’ She heard the sharp tone in her voice and had no trouble detecting a shrill thread of pure, unadulterated green-eyed monster! What made this mortifying discovery even harder to swallow was the strong probability that Josh too had heard and was even now drawing the exact same conclusion she was—it wasn’t as if he was exactly slow or unaware of his own charms!
Determined to bluff this out if she died in the effort, she lifted her chin up and pinned a suitably disinterested expression on her face. If he dared to suggest she was doing anything other than making polite chit-chat…! She could fake it as well as anybody; at least, she could normally. The fact that Josh Prentice’s presence seemed to seriously inhibit certain essential social skills increased her panicky feelings.
‘What a lovely name,’ she gushed insincerely.
‘I think so,’ Josh murmured pleasantly. He bit back a complacent grin as her sickly smile slipped slightly. ‘You must meet her—I feel sure you’d get on.’
‘I can’t wait. But actually I didn’t come here to socialise.’
‘Why exactly did you come here?’
Josh saw wariness slide into her blue eyes before they slid away from his completely.
‘I thought I’d already told you my fiancé and I recently split up.’
He struck the side of his head with his open-palmed hand. ‘How could I forget? Paul the prat! So you’re here to lick your wounds and recover from your emotional devastation,’ he drawled sarcastically.
She ground her teeth and glared at him in open dislike. Why doesn’t he just come out and say I’m a hard cow!
‘Not everybody parades their feelings for the world to see!’ she snapped.
He carefully folded the towel and handed it back to her. When she went to take it he didn’t let go. ‘Not everyone has emotions to parade,’ he taunted softly.
Her eyes sparkling with temper, Flora snatched the towel free after a short and undignified tussle.
‘You don’t expect me to believe you were actually in love with this guy! Oh, I’m sure he had a lot to recommend him, like moving in the right social circles, and call me intuitive or just plain psychic, but was he by any chance loaded?’ His languid smile grew closer to a sneer as her bosom continued to heave dramatically and her eyes filled with tears of anger.
‘I don’t give a damn what you believe!’ she gritted back defiantly.
He made her engagement sound shallow and calculating—he obviously thought she was both. In fact Paul had never actually proposed, so there had been no specific moment when she’d had to come to a decision; it had just been something he and their family and friends had taken for granted would eventually happen. And Flora herself, when she’d thought about it, hadn’t been able to come up with a single reason why they shouldn’t get married!
She wanted children eventually, and she’d never enjoyed the meat market that passed for the singles scene, and as for waiting for the one true love thing, she was far too old and worldly wise for such nonsense. Besides, she’d seen close to what loving someone too much could do if that special someone was taken from you. If that sort of loss could destroy someone as strong as her father, what chance would she have?
‘Well, what am I to think? You didn’t exactly fight me off with a stick, did you…? Hardly the actions of a woman who loves someone else.’
No, she hadn’t, and in not doing so she’d laid herself wide open to this sort of derision. She silently cursed the hormonal insanity responsible for her wanton behaviour. ‘That’s because sex has nothing to do with emotions.’ Here’s wishing…she thought wistfully.
‘That’s a very masculine point of view.’
Flora found the creamy skin of her throat where his eyes had touched was tingling. She resisted the temptation to lift a hand to protect that vulnerable area from his gaze.
Happily her breathing had returned to something that would pass for normal; Flora gave a sigh of relief. ‘It’s a man’s world,’ she reminded him calmly. ‘I find a girl gets on much better if she lives her life by their standards,’ she claimed brazenly.
‘In fact, you’re one of this new breed of female who can drink as hard and curse as hard as any man. Impressive! I’m not knocking it; I can see the advantages. Seduction would be so much simpler, not to mention cheaper, if a man could dispense with flowers and romantic dinners, if he could just say do you fancy a…’
‘You’re about as romantic as a hole in the head!’ she flung angrily at him. Her eyes narrowed and she threw the towel still clutched in her hands in the linen basket, wishing with all her heart that this infuriating man could be disposed of so easily. The man had a positive genius for misrepresenting everything she said.
‘I suppose you think nature arranged it for men to have fun spreading their oats while women stay at home darning their smelly socks.’ She looked on resentfully as he threw back his head and laughed; it was a rich, deep, uninhibited sound. ‘What,’ she enquired frigidly, ‘is so funny?’
He wiped the moisture from the corner of his eyes, which she discovered crinkled in a deeply delightful way when he laughed.
‘The idea of you darning a sock, that’s what,’ he told her. ‘In fact, I’d eat mine if
you even knew what a darning needle looks like.’
‘It was a figure of speech; nobody darns socks these days.’
‘Megan probably does,’ he mused thoughtfully.
‘Then she sounds the perfect mate for you,’ she snarled back nastily. ‘A doormat.’
‘I know it brings out the matchmaker in most people to see a single father, but I’m not actually interested in finding a mate.’ He was gambling that she was the sort of woman who couldn’t resist a challenge and hopefully not him either. He firmly quashed unspecific feelings of unease. It wasn’t as if there was any law that said you couldn’t enjoy revenge!
‘Does Megan know this?’ she hissed unpleasantly.
‘Megan’s already married,’ he admitted sadly. ‘To Huw.’
‘Huw?’
‘Geraint’s father. You remember Geraint—the young farmer, big bloke, very eager to sow his share of oats. Megan is his mother.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t know why you’re jealous, you know you’re the only woman I want to kiss.’ Self-loathing darkened his deep-set eyes and robbed the statement of flattery. Even so, Flora found his words tugged at her senses, producing a dangerous drowsy dreaminess.
Now his libido had come out of its grief-induced coma, Flora doubted he was going to be satisfied with one woman for long. She might be the first but she had no illusions about being the last. This was one good reason not to go any further down this particular path. In theory the uncomplicated ‘sex of the safe variety is harmless’ line worked fine! In practice the whole thing was an emotional minefield she didn’t want to negotiate.
‘I’m not the jealous type, never have been.’ She gave a happy carefree trill of laughter—at least, it was meant to be carefree; unfortunately it emerged as shrill. ‘Don’t let me hold you back if you want to get on with your work,’ she told him pointedly. She proceeded to make loud bustling noises with the crockery messily spread out on the work surface.