‘I told you that I would. I expect you assumed that I would let you down.’
‘No! Of course not!’ More awkward silence. ‘You made a very good Santa Claus,’ she continued, clearing her throat. ‘Very convincing, all things considered. The kids loved you. Really good idea to get them sitting around you like that.’
‘Good.’
‘Didi says we’re going to that new fish restaurant.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a relief.’ Course, she could give a hoot what he thought of her. ‘Because I wouldn’t want to end up anywhere overdressed.’
Pierre glanced briefly at her. She looked stunning. It was a description he had never imagined he would ever have used for her, but she did. ‘You won’t be,’ he said shortly, returning his attention to the road.
‘I’m sorry if you feel that you’ve had to drag yourself out to dinner with me,’ Georgie burst out, increasingly irritated by his foul temper, for which she wasn’t to blame. ‘You could have made an excuse with Didi. I would have been more than happy to have cancelled.’
‘I’m sure, but Didi would have been disappointed and I’m not having that. Whether you would have preferred to have ducked out is irrelevant.’
‘In that case, the least you could do is to be polite.’
‘I’m sorry. Is that not what I’m being?’ He eased his car in front of the restaurant and killed the engine, but before getting out he swivelled around so that he was facing her, one arm resting loosely on the steering wheel.
In the shadowy darkness, his face was given harsh definition and Georgie had to remind herself that this was, after all, just an ordinary human being.
That consoling thought gave her the strength not to cringe back into the passenger door.
‘Maybe you’re piqued because I didn’t compliment you on your feminine look,’ he gritted. ‘I don’t flatter myself that the effort was for me, which isn’t to say that I shouldn’t have known that you would want to be noticed. So, is that it? Shall I help you along with your fishing session by telling you that you’re a triumph of beauty?’ Pierre felt as though he had reverted to being a teenager again and worse, a teenager who hadn’t got his way with the girl he was after. He raked his fingers through his hair and looked away, angry with himself for his loss of self-control.
‘I wasn’t fishing,’ Georgie told him, reddening. She swung to open the door and he let her, rousing himself after a few seconds and following her.
‘I don’t care what you think of me!’ Georgie informed him as he pushed open the door and allowed her to sweep past him. In her wake, she left that clean, vaguely floral scent that he realised he now associated with her. The woman had bewitched him, with her ridiculous outfits and yapping personality and with supermarket perfume that filled his nostrils and left him wanting more.
Pierre didn’t know who he cared for less in this unwelcome scenario. Himself for being weak or her for just being her.
If he had slept with her, he knew that this would not now be posing a problem. He was a predator who enjoyed the chase as much as the capture. The fact that Georgie had eluded him had succeeded in doing the one thing no woman had done before—it had buried the thought of her deep inside him, taking away his ability to think clearly, making him a victim of his own basic desires.
From behind, as they were shown to their table his eyes lingered on the boyish swing of her hips and the slimness of her legs, for once not concealed underneath flowing, hippy layers. Her hair hung down her back and he wanted to reach out and grab it and pull her back into him, he wanted to crush her mouth with his and taste her surrender. In short, he wanted everything he had been denied.
The restaurant was buzzing, despite the bracing temperatures outside. He wondered how he could ever have summed the place up as a backwater with only limited accessibility to mod cons.
‘Shall we try again?’ he asked as soon as they were seated. ‘We’re here. We might as well behave as adults and enjoy the evening.’
Georgie looked at him warily. ‘You’re the one who seems keen to pick a fight with me.’
Pierre, in that instant, was faced with the unthinkable re-alisation that he would release his much-cherished pride and pursue this woman despite the knock-back. It was either that or be driven crazy from frustration.
He looked down and then straight at her. ‘You could be right,’ he agreed, and he was gratified to see her eyes widen in surprise. ‘I’ll be man enough to admit that you’ve got under my skin.’ He made no move to lean towards her or even to invest his words with any sense of urgency. Instead, he shrugged. ‘I can’t stop thinking of you.’ He let that indisputable truth drop like a stone into a pond and waited for the ripples to spread out. ‘In fact, you very nearly made me lose concentration at my meeting yesterday. Not good. A successful businessman doesn’t start talking about management buyouts only to end up staring out of the window because he’s completely lost his train of thought.’ Pierre spotted the waitress out of the corner of his eye and beckoned her over, although he remained looking at Georgie, even when he ordered them a bottle of white wine.
‘I…I don’t believe you…’
‘Why would I lie?’ The wine had arrived. He tasted it, watching her over the rim of his glass, and then nodded for the waitress to pour. ‘You haunt me,’ he told her casually. ‘I can even recognise your smell.’
‘D-don’t be silly,’ Georgie stammered, feeling suddenly exposed in her daring little outfit behind which she couldn’t conveniently hide. She quickly gulped down some wine, then a little more, until she realised that the glass was empty. Not for long.
‘And I did notice your outfit tonight, by the way…’
‘Did you?’ she squeaked.
‘How could I not? I bet that’s your one and only miniskirt.’
‘It’s…I…’
He had thrown her into a state of confusion, which seemed only right considering that was the place she had so neatly managed to stick him. ‘Never mind that most girls your age have wardrobes of them. Still…you don’t have a problem looking utterly desirable in whatever you wear. How did you manage to get your hair to look like that?’
‘Straighteners,’ Georgie answered, flustered.
‘I prefer it curly, though. Curly hair suits your personality. But enough of all this. I don’t suppose you want to hear how I feel about you. Nothing worse than someone who continues the chase when the game is over…’ Pierre swirled his glass and stared at her, allowing his words to sink in. He might not be the sort of man much interested in laying his feelings on the line, but, with the instincts of someone highly attuned to female behaviour, he ruthlessly exploited that most dangerous of all emotions—curiosity. And she was curious, even though he could see her warring feelings written on her face. He had taken her by surprise and, having opened an unexpected door behind which he had invited her to peep, he was now about to shut it, leaving her wanting more.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he expertly changed the topic and began chatting to her harmlessly about his drive down from London.
Who cared about his drive down from London? Georgie thought. It was wrong but what she really wanted to hear was more about his feelings for her. She knew, in her head, that it all amounted to the same thing—passing lust—but how different it sounded when he was looking at her with those stunning eyes, not demanding a thing, just telling her what he thought. She surfaced to find that he was asking her something and immediately answered to discover that she had said yes to another bottle of wine. Where on earth had number one gone?
‘We really shouldn’t drink much more,’ she felt obliged to tell him. ‘I mean, you’re driving. How are we going to get back?’
‘I have only been sipping my wine. Georgia. Tell me about the people you work with. They seem a nice bunch.’
Georgie was beginning to feel pleasantly light-headed, a combination of the wine and the headiness of his words. Mention of her colleagues brought her back down to
earth with a bump.
‘They’re very nice,’ she agreed, thinking of Claudette, Janice and Liz, last spotted batting their eyelashes and flirting as though sightings of attractive men were a rare event to be enjoyed before they vanished.
‘Now why do I get the feeling that you’re not being entirely sincere?’ Pierre frowned. ‘Is there some sort of problem there, Georgie? Small places can get a bit hothouse, especially when the crew are largely female and roughly the same age.’ It wasn’t like Georgie to be reticent in her friendliness. He felt a sudden and powerful urge to protect her even though he knew very well that she could be as ferocious as a bulldog when it suited her. ‘Is there some kind of bullying going on? I don’t suppose there would be anyone to complain to…’
‘What on earth are you talking about, Pierre?’ Georgie asked, astonished at his train of thought, which had sprung from nowhere and seemed to be heading for destinations unknown.
‘I’m talking about what’s going on in that school of yours. You’re obviously not happy there.’
‘I’m very happy there.’
‘Then why the tone of voice when I mentioned the girls you worked with?’ Her change of expression said it all and Pierre gave her a slow, knowing smile. ‘Ah. I see.’
‘See what?’
‘No need to be jealous.’
‘Jealous? Me?’
‘Jealous. You. Now then, what are you going to have? To eat?’
Georgie hadn’t even noticed the arrival of the waitress. She glanced down at her menu, flustered by the way he kept leading her along only to leave her high and dry by changing the subject. How had he known that she was jealous? She had barely admitted to the emotion herself! She ordered the freshly caught fish of the day from the menu and wondered whether he would now start talking about something utterly boring and harmless, maybe the weather or her work. They had already killed the tedious subject of motorway traffic.
‘Good choice.’ Pierre snapped shut his menu and poured her another glass of wine. ‘Not everyone would have had the gumption to order the dressed crab. Now where were we? Oh, yes. You were going to tell me why you’re jealous of your colleagues. I only chatted to them, although…’ He pretended to ponder an interesting possibility that was taking place in his head.
‘Although what?’
‘You’re pouting.’
‘I’m not pouting. I don’t pout, Pierre. Anyway, I’m drinking far too much. I need to get some food inside me.’
‘You should have had something a little more substantial for starters than the smoked salmon salad,’ he mused. He signalled for some bread, which Georgie dived into in an attempt to steady her frayed nerves.
‘You were saying…’ she reminded him. ‘Actually not so much saying as thinking about one of my colleagues.’ She gave a light laugh that tried and failed to sound carefree. ‘Typical of you to tell me that you find me attractive only to spoil the effect by lusting after Janice.’
‘What makes you think that it was Janice?’
‘Long brown hair? Big blue eyes? Cleavage in full display even in winter?’ How catty did she sound? ‘That was horrible. I take it back.’
‘I prefer green eyes anyway…’
Georgie could feel dangerous recklessness steal into her well-erected defences and begin to chip away at them. She would have been able to cope with a full-fledged assault, but these sexy, lazy compliments and the way his eyes were drinking her in made her feel hot and bothered and warmly, wetly excited.
She looked away, concentrating on what she was eating, but her hands were trembling. She heard herself make some stupid remark about how tasty the food was. The truth was that she was barely aware of what she was eating.
Regret, like a thief, crept into her heart, plundering her moralistic views about sex and love being entwined.
She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when he quickly took up the mantle of polite chit-chat that she threw to him and began telling her about some of the weird things he had eaten in the course of his travels.
But the way he looked at her…Georgie wondered whether it might be the wine turning her brain to cotton wool, whether she was imagining the brush of his fingers against hers as he helped her with the dressed crab, which she had to apparently dissect with some peculiar instruments. He adroitly fished some of the meat from a claw and offered it to her on a small fork and the gesture seemed almost seductive.
‘I feel a little giddy,’ Georgie said abruptly, pushing her plate to one side and taking a few deep breaths. She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds and opened them to find him staring at her in concern.
‘Describe.’
‘Light-headed? Woozy? Grateful that I’m sitting down because I might fall over if I stand up? That sort of giddy?’ To prove her point, she stood up only to sink back into her chair. ‘You gave me too much wine!’ she accused balefully.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Pierre said, but in a soft, mildly reproving voice, as if gently chastising a wilful child. ‘I didn’t hold a gun to your head and force you to drink. You wanted to drink because…’He paused and waited for her to ask him to expand on his statement.
‘Because you didn’t want to come here tonight…’
‘I suppose…’ Georgie thought, confusedly, that she might not have wanted to come, but she had certainly enjoyed the evening. Enjoyed it in the way someone enjoyed a roller-coaster ride—with fear, trepidation and excitement. All unexpected.
‘I’ll get the bill. We’ll leave.’
She leaned into him as they left the restaurant and, once outside, the cold air restored some of her diminished equilibrium. At least the giddy feeling was beginning to recede.
‘Thanks for the evening.’ She turned to him as soon as he had pulled up outside her house, which looked coldly, darkly uninviting. She should have left the light in the downstairs sitting room on.
‘Not so fast.’ Pierre opened his car door and stepped out, not giving her the chance to argue. ‘I’m not leaving you in this state,’ he murmured and as she fumbled out of the passenger side he lifted her off her feet and walked towards the front door. One impractical shoe, dangling from her foot, fell and was ignored.
‘Put me down,’ Georgie protested weakly.
‘Sure. As soon as we’re inside. Give me your key.’
Georgie yawned and extracted the key from her bag. Not just the one key, but an array of them all pegged together on a key chain that seemed to contain everything but the kitchen sink. Pierre was pretty sure that it jangled loudly enough to rouse every resident on the street. Totally impractical, needless to say. But incredibly sweet.
He kicked open the door and then nudged it shut behind him, fumbling to find the light switch but not ready to put her down.
‘Coffee,’ he told her, when he finally rested her gently on the sofa in the sitting room. ‘Black and sweet. And water. At least a bottle.’
‘Yuk.’
‘Don’t fall asleep on me,’ he warned, leaving the room. ‘If you don’t rehydrate, you’ll wake up with the most God Almighty hangover.’
He returned minutes later and carefully sat her up so that he could make her take tiny sips of water.
‘I don’t need you to do that, Pierre.’ Georgie hiccupped. ‘I’m not that far gone.’
‘I want to,’ he murmured softly, which sent a thrilling little tingle racing down her spine. He positioned her so that he was sitting behind her and she was lying against him, with her back to his chest and her soft, silky hair threading across his face.
If she couldn’t feel his erection, then she really must be in the land of sweet dreams because he could feel it pushing against his trouser zip, big and hard and pulsing. He shifted his body weight and she sighed against him, a soft, purring sound that made him clench his jaw in frustration.
‘Feeling better?’ he wrenched out and she nodded and sighed again, then, agonisingly for him, she wriggled against him and then she stilled.
‘I should
go,’ he murmured. ‘You can feel the effect you’re having on me.’
Georgie discovered that the last thing she wanted was for him to go. She squirmed until she was facing him, her legs straddling his hips, then she lightly sat on him, feeling his hardness rub against her tights and underwear, powerful and rigid even through the layers of cloth separating them.
Since this was precisely what he had wanted, he could barely believe himself as he pushed her very gently off him and stood up.
Georgie looked up at him in disbelief.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and half sighed, half groaned. ‘Don’t think it’s not what I want. It is. I’ve told you how I feel about you. Twice now by my reckoning.’
‘Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.’
‘You’ve had too much to drink. Call me old-fashioned—’ he gave a crooked smile ‘—but I’ve never taken advantage of a woman under the influence of drink.’
‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’ She pulled the jumper over her head, revelling in the way he went completely still, as if he had drawn in his breath and could not now release it.
It felt good not to have the wool rubbing against her skin.
In one swift, easy movement, she removed her bra and then she lay back on the sofa and looked at him drowsily. She could see his bulging arousal and, taking her cue from that, she lifted her hands to her breasts and trailed her fingers across her nipples. They tightened into stiff buds and she moaned softly.
Pierre looked at her, mesmerised. Her body was smooth and pale and as she breathed her breasts rose and fell, small and pert and her perfect, pink nipples…He briefly closed his eyes to block out the tantalising image.
‘I like you looking at me,’ Georgie said, and Pierre wondered whether she would be saying that were she stone-cold sober. More likely she would have coldly thanked him for a nice evening and then shut the door quietly but firmly in his face. She reached to pull down her skirt but before she could take that step further he was in front of her, lifting her from the sofa and, regardless of her alcohol intake, he slung her over his shoulder and headed for the stairs while she fruitlessly pummelled his back with her fists and demanded to be put down immediately.
Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience Page 13