It had occurred to Maggie that he was going to kiss her. What hadn’t occurred to her was that through her rage and disappointment she could feel any spark of physical attraction, so her confusion was boundless on discovering herself pitched forward into a hothouse of sensual awareness; a sudden, wide open appreciation of Jack McKinnon, the feel of him, the taste of him, the sheer pleasure of him.
This can’t be happening to me, she thought, but she was unable to resist the lovely sensations he was arousing in her as he kissed her lips, then her neck and throat, and it was all so warm and close and— most curiously—entirely appropriate.
So appropriate, she didn’t protest when he slipped his hand beneath her top and cupped her breasts in their flimsy layer of silk and lace.
She even voiced her approval. ‘Mmm… mmm.’
‘Nice?’ he murmured.
‘Very.’
‘How about this?’ He circled her waist with his arm and started to kiss her deeply.
She clung to him and moved against him, loving the hard strength of his body against hers and becoming extremely aroused, so much so, she doubted her ability to withstand any kind of closure between them other than the final one between a man and a woman.
He was the one who brought them back to earth, slowly, until she was lying in his arms, her eyes dark, her mouth red, her hair gorgeously mussed and her breathing highly erratic.
She blinked several times, her eyes were very green and quite bewildered. ‘Where did that come from?’
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Powerful emotion often has its other side.’
‘You mean being so angry with you made me—I don’t know—vulnerable to that?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘How about you?’
‘I—’ he paused ‘—have wanted to do it before. Why don’t you finish what you were saying?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve lost the thread—’
‘No, you haven’t,’ he contradicted. ‘You were all set to be extremely passionate about the ‘‘singular difference’’ between the facts and what I was implying.’
He was so close she could see the fine laugh lines beside his mouth, a little nick in one of his eyebrows, she could smell soap on his skin and there was a patch of stubble on his jaw his razor had missed.
It came to her with a punch that she’d never looked so closely at a man before, never been interested enough to wonder, for example, how he’d cut his eyebrow and what it would be like to wake up in his arms…
‘I…’ She tried to collect her thoughts. ‘You seemed to be completely confident I’m one of those predatory girls who won’t rest until she gets her man, plus—’ she looked at him challengingly ‘—the hoary old spoilt-little-rich-bitch-who-has-to-get-her-own-way bit. That couldn’t be further from the way it really is.’
‘Which is?’ He arched the split eyebrow at her.
‘It’s never happened to me before,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ve always had to fend men off. I’ve never before been… really, really interested. Oh, there’ve been a few flirtations and I’ve had some nice friends—Tim is one of them—but you could truthfully say I’m a bit of a novice who’s been quite happy…’ she sighed and shrugged ‘… doing my own thing, I guess.’
‘Go on.’
‘For some…’ she paused ‘… mysterious reason that changed overnight when I was locked in the shed with you. Suddenly I was interested and no one,’ she said with emphasis, ‘seems to be able to give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be, not even you, although you dropped me like a hot potato.’
‘Maggie—’
‘Look.’ She laid her hand on his arm. ‘Perhaps you are right about me. Perhaps I don’t take no for an answer easily, but it’s pretty important for me at least to be able to assess what this change means to me.’
He put his finger under her chin and tipped her face up to his.
‘In other words…’ she smiled fleetingly ‘… give me one good reason to say to myself, Maggie Trent, you came of age over the wrong man because there’s absolutely nothing you can offer him—or there’s someone else in his life—and I will go away.’
He stared into her eyes, fingered her chin lightly, then laid his head back with a sigh. ‘Your father and I will never see eye to eye—’
‘Forget about my father. It so happens I have the same problem with him. And I have taken quite some pains, believe me, to live my life the way I want to rather than the way he wants me to. Yes,’ she added intensely, ‘it may still be a pretty privileged life compared—perhaps—to how you grew up, if that’s what you hold against me!’
He smiled slightly. ‘No. There’s not a lot I have against you, personally.’
‘And there’s no one else?’ she asked seriously.
He watched her for a long moment, then shook his head.
‘Well, then.’ She gestured. ‘Would it be such a bad idea if we got to know each other better?’
‘Taking into consideration the fact that I have wanted to kiss you and you don’t seem to mind being kissed by me?’ he queried.
A glint of laughter shone in her eyes. ‘I wasn’t going to say that, although I suppose it is fairly pertinent, but there’s a lot more to getting to know someone, isn’t there?’
If I had any sense, Jack McKinnon mused as he studied the lovely crumpled length of her across his lap, I would end this now, for once and for all.
On the other hand, I did walk away from her and she was the one who wouldn’t accept it. Does that absolve me? Not in her father’s eyes, I have no doubt. Whichever way I travel with her, to the altar or simply an affair, David Trent is going to hate like hell me knowing his daughter in a biblical sense. But will it be revenge? Only if she falls in love and I don’t…
What if I’m right and there’s a genuine naivety— and all she’s said so far bears that out—that would make it child’s play to have her fall in love with me and want to marry me? Talk of revenge or poetic justice, if you like, and there’s no doubt the bastard deserves it, but…
‘Maggie…’ he paused ‘… what if it doesn’t lead towards wedding bells or a relationship, at least?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know—how can I? But the really important thing to me is to know that I didn’t sit back and let something I judged special to me just pass me by.’
He grinned suddenly and bent his head to kiss her lightly. ‘You’re… I don’t know, pretty special yourself, I guess.’
‘So we could be friends, at least?’
‘We could be friends, at least,’ he agreed wryly. ‘There is a proviso, however.’
‘You’re not the marrying kind?’ she hazarded. She said it perfectly seriously, but there was a glint he was coming to know in her eyes.
‘I—’
‘I don’t know if I am yet,’ she interposed. ‘Because—and not that this has anything to do with being rich, spoilt and privileged; I’m quite sure I would have been the same if I’d been born in a poorhouse— I can be very dictatorial, I’m told.’
‘I wonder why I find that quite easy to believe?’ he murmured.
‘Some of my actions to date may have led you to suspect it?’ she suggested with deep, suspicious gravity.
‘One or two.’ He circled the outline of her mouth with his finger. ‘So how long did you plan to spend up here at the Cape?’
‘I booked in for a week, but I have another week’s leave up my sleeve. It seemed like a great place, especially for someone dodging journalists and P. I. s, even if you weren’t here.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘How did you find out about this place?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’ She hesitated. ‘But don’t worry, it won’t go any further.’
He frowned.
‘How long are you here for?’ she queried.
‘Same. Another week,’ he said abstractedly.
‘When did you arrive?’
‘A couple of days ago.’
‘Oh, good!’ She sat
up. ‘That gives us plenty of time.’
He removed his arms and folded them across his chest. ‘Are you planning to move in with me?’
She thought for a moment, then glinted him an impish glance. ‘No. That would look as if all I was after was your body.’
‘Perish the thought,’ he murmured and drew her back into his arms.
‘If you’re going to kiss me again…’ she began.
‘I am. You have a problem there?’
‘Not per se—’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he commented, and ran his fingers down her thigh.
‘There is only the fact that—’ She stopped and shivered as he stroked her neck and the soft skin just below the neck of her top. ‘Uh—the fact that…’
‘Go on,’ he invited.
‘Things could get out of hand rather easily.’ She grimaced. ‘For me, at least.’
‘Then you’ll have to rely on me to exert the willpower.’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Are you laughing at me, Jack?’
‘No. Yes,’ he corrected himself.
‘Am I so—laughable?’
He did kiss her, lightly, his grey eyes gleaming with amusement. ‘No. You’re unique, that’s all.’
She lay back in his arms. ‘That’s one of the things I like about you.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘I feel safe with you,’ she said.
He paused and lifted his head to stare into the distance.
Maggie waited but he didn’t enlighten her about whatever he was seeing in his mind’s eye. Then, with a strange little sound in his throat, he gathered her very close and kissed her deeply.
Once again it was a sublime experience for Maggie. She felt comforted and cradled but very alive at the same time, and supremely conscious of him, and she uttered a blissful sigh at the end of it that made him laugh.
‘The next bit might not be quite as pleasant,’ he said, still grinning.
‘The next bit?’
‘Mmm…’ He moved her off his lap and sat her in the corner of the settee. ‘Getting rid of the sliver of china in your foot.’
‘Oh, that.’ She waved a hand. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’
But although he was quick and decisive with his tweezers, she had to sniff back a tear or two as the sliver came out.
‘I should have done that the other way around,’ he said with a keen glance at her as he bathed her foot in a disinfectant solution.
She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
‘Taken it out first and kissed you afterwards,’ he elucidated as he peeled open a plaster.
She leant forward and cupped his cheek. ‘Kiss me now, quick—and I’ll be fine.’
But as his lips rested on hers briefly and they were cool and he smelt of disinfectant she had to resist an almost overwhelming urge to ask for more…
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY had five wonderful days.
They went sailing on his boat, The Shiralee, and fishing.
Maggie was in her element on a boat. One thing she did share with her father was a love of the sea and as she was growing up she’d crewed for him.
‘I see you know what you’re doing,’ Jack said to her on their first sail.
‘Aye, aye, skipper!’ she responded as she turned the boat smartly into the wind so he could set the sails.
He climbed back into the cockpit and put his hands on her waist from behind as she stood at the wheel, and the jib ballooned out in the breeze. ‘OK, cut the motor.’
The silence after the motor died was lovely, to be replaced by the equally lovely whoosh of wind in the sails and the rush of water against the hull.
Maggie leant back against him as they braced themselves against the tilt as The Shiralee heeled and sped along. ‘She sails well,’ she said.
He slid his arms around her. ‘So she should, I designed her myself.’
Maggie smiled. ‘No false modesty about you, Mr McKinnon.’
He turned her around in his arms. ‘Not, at least, about boats. You’re looking very trim, Miss Trent.’
Maggie glanced down at her short navy shorts and blinding white T-shirt. She also wore a peaked navy cap with her hair pulled through at the back, and sunglasses. ‘A suitably nautical presence for your boat, I hope?’ she queried gravely.
‘I would say so.’ He removed her sunglasses.
Maggie raised her eyebrows.
‘Your eyes are amazing. And it is a pleasure to see them not blazing or looking absolute daggers at me,’ he said.
A gurgle of laughter rose in her throat. ‘That feels like another lifetime ago.’
‘On the contrary, it’s only a day ago that you slapped my face.’
She coloured and he watched the tide of pink stain the smooth skin of her cheeks. All the same, she said, with an attempt at insouciance, ‘Ah—just heat of the moment, I guess.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ he murmured.
Maggie stilled. ‘What are you trying to say, Jack?’
His gaze lingered on her face, then he grimaced. ‘I’m not sure—’
‘That I might be highly impulsive, if not to say irrationally so?’
‘As a matter of fact—’ he paused ‘—there is only one ‘‘highly’’ I’m conscious of at the moment in association with you and that’s—kissable. How say you, Maggie?’
The growing frown in her eyes was replaced by something quite different. ‘Actually, I love the sound of that!’
He laughed and started to kiss her thoroughly until the wind changed and the sails started to flap and they had to draw apart and concentrate on their sailing.
‘Goodness, we did come close to those rocks!’ Maggie called.
He was reeling in the jib. ‘I suspected there was a touch of Delilah in you, now I’m wondering about a siren,’ he called back.
Maggie watched him. He was precise and economical in his movements and his physique was breathtaking in khaki shorts and nothing else as he reached up to free a rope.
I knew it, she thought with a sense of satisfaction. There’s definitely an action man in there.
There was also, she discovered, an inspired cook within the man.
He’d produced a divine chicken stir-fry served with saffron rice on their first evening together. He grilled fish to perfection. He had a marinade for steak that was to die for. A lot of the food he produced was seafood he’d caught himself—fish, crabs, oysters and painted lobsters.
They explored Bona Bay on Gloucester Island and Breakfast Bay. Once they sailed east through the passage and south to Double and Woodwark Bays and they fished off Edwin Rocks. Maggie caught a Spanish mackerel that day to her intense excitement.
‘I’ve hooked a very large fish, Jack,’ she told him as the trolling line she was manning sang out.
‘You’ve probably hooked a rock,’ he said prosaically.
‘Don’t be silly!’ She was highly indignant. ‘That’s no rock! Will you please slow this boat down so I can reel him in?’
Fortunately they were motoring, not sailing, so he was able to stop and drop the anchor and Maggie was able to get the rod out of its holder and start winding in.
‘Here, you better let me do it.’ He came over to take the rod from her. ‘I think it is a fish.’
‘I told you so, but it’s my fish. Stand aside!’
‘Maggie—’ he was laughing at her ‘—you’ll never handle it.’
‘Oh, yes, I will!’
She nearly didn’t. She wound until her arms and shoulders were screaming in pain, and her face grew scarlet.
‘Don’t bust a gut,’ he warned.
‘It’s nearly in,’ she panted. ‘Oh, there it is—glory be!’ she enthused as the fish leapt out of the water. ‘What a beauty!’
‘Steady on, now.’ He leant over the side of the boat with the gaff in his hands. ‘OK! I’ve got it. Well done!’
Maggie collapsed in a heap and burst into tears.
Jack looked heavenwards, then
secured the fish and bent down to scoop her into his arms. He sat down on the padded cockpit seat with her, holding her close. ‘You’re the most stubborn girl I know,’ he said ruefully, ‘but I do admire you. Don’t cry.’ He smoothed the tangle of her hair out of her eyes. ‘You won!’
‘I know.’ She licked some tears from her upper lip and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘I just felt very sorry for it all of a sudden. It put up a great fight. I would have liked to let it go.’
‘Too late now, but it won’t be wasted. Is there any difference between buying fish to eat in a fish shop and catching it yourself?’
She considered. ‘No. No, you’re right. So you’ll cook it?’
‘I won’t waste a scrap of it,’ he promised. ‘Even the carcass will be used for the crab pots and I’ll reserve some for bouillabaisse.’
‘You’re a real hunter-gatherer—aren’t you?’
‘In certain circumstances,’ he agreed.
‘Good. I like that. Ouch.’ She looked at her winding hand. ‘This could be a bit sore for a couple of days.’
‘I have two temporary solutions.’ He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it, then her palm, and gave it back to her. ‘The second solution is probably even more efficacious in the short term.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she began. But he sat her on the cushions and disappeared down below. Two minutes later he emerged with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
He popped the cork ceremonially and poured the champagne. He handed her her glass and raised his to propose a toast. ‘To a magnificent fighter!’ he said, in the direction of the fish.
‘Hear, hear!’ Maggie agreed and dissolved, this time, into laughter.
He sat down and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I should have said—to two magnificent fighters.’
She laid her head on his shoulder, feeling more content than she could ever remember.
True to her word, she didn’t move in with him, but apart from the hours she slept in her cabin at the resort, often restless hours, the rest of her time was all spent with him.
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 24