The Blind Date Surprise

by Barbara Hannay

  ‘I think I’m coping just fine, thank you. I love it here.’

  ‘Don’t you miss the wholesomeness of the country—those wide open spaces and all that fresh air?’

  ‘I can’t say that I do.’ Annie smiled pleasantly. ‘I miss my dog, but Theo’s Dalmatian, Basil, makes up for her.’

  Claudia’s right eyebrow hiked high. ‘Basil’s a darling, isn’t he?’

  Despite the warm words, there was a new brittle edge in Claudia’s voice. She shot a swift glance towards Theo and a disturbing watchfulness dimmed her dark eyes. And Annie realised with a prickle of alarm that this woman had almost certainly been involved with Theo at some time in the past. Had they been lovers?

  And swiftly following that thought came another. It was quite, quite possible that Theo’s gesture of kissing her hand in full view of everyone had been more significant than she’d realised.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEO doubted he could take much more of sharing Annie with a crowd. His colleagues were finding her as intriguing as he did. But ever since last night when he’d kissed her the sole focus of his thoughts had been kissing her again.

  Tonight, in her fascinating skin-toned dress, she was driving him wild with the need to touch her, to hold her and taste her.

  At last the buzz of conversation was interrupted by Professor Gilmore clearing his throat into a microphone, and everyone’s attention turned to the little dais near the musicians where a microphone had been set up. Taking Annie’s hand, he drew her away from the crowd, towards the back of the room.

  ‘This is the formal part of the evening. Speeches and presentations,’ he told her. ‘So from now on the night gets even more boring.’

  ‘But I haven’t been bored. Your friends are very nice.’ Correction, most of them are nice.

  ‘You’ve been a big hit,’ he murmured. ‘But let’s get out of here.’

  She turned to him, her blue eyes round with surprise. ‘Already?’

  He hoped his smile didn’t look wolfish. ‘Yes, we’ve done our duty. There’s no need to hang around. Come on, let’s go while no one’s looking.’

  Still holding her hand, he led the way out through a side door.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Oh.’ A pink tide rose from her neck to her face.

  ‘Is that okay with you, Annie?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Yes, of course.’

  As they walked through the university grounds to the car park, it took every ounce of Theo’s restraint to stop himself from hauling her into one of the dark recesses along the way and pressing her against a wall while he kissed her senseless. What the hell had come over him? It was years and years since he’d felt so out of control.

  And yet, he’d never needed control more.

  Annie might be enthusiastic and uninhibited, but there was an air of trusting innocence about her too. She was young. She was vulnerable.

  He had no idea how experienced she was with men. She needed to be wooed. She deserved gentle loving.

  Over the past twenty-four hours he’d thought it through a thousand times in his imagination. And he burned with his plans for making love to her—slowly, with exquisite restraint and sensitivity.

  At least, that was the plan.

  Annie could hardly breathe. Her sense of anticipation was excruciating.

  Although nothing had been said, she knew deep in her bones why Theo was leaving the function early. Their physical awareness of each other had been building ever since last night and now they were both so turned on the atmosphere between them was almost crackling with electricity.

  When they reached Theo’s car he opened the door for her. She was too self-conscious to look at him. She slipped quickly into the passenger seat and when her bare shoulder brushed against his coat sleeve a flame of heat shot through her.

  The heat burned inside her while she listened to his footsteps crunching on gravel as he walked around the back of the car. Her chest grew tight as he opened his door and lowered his long body into the driver’s seat beside her. Tonight he’d pulled the car’s hood in place so she wouldn’t be blown about, and the tang of his aftershave reached her in the confined space.

  Without speaking, he turned the key in the ignition, revved the motor and his sports car took off, zooming through the night like a low-flying jet. Omigosh. Annie had to remind herself to breathe.

  Theo was taking her home…to make love to her.

  She was acutely aware of every inch of his body so close beside her. She watched his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, watched the purposeful movements of his left hand as he shifted the gear stick. He had very nice hands—strong, confident, capable. Perfect.

  Crumbs, I’m forgetting to breathe again.

  She leaned back against the cool leather of the car seat and closed her eyes. But that was no good because it encouraged her to imagine Theo’s hands touching her. Another burst of heat flared inside her.

  Eyes open again, she tried to concentrate on the cityscape that flashed past them. In a kind of daze she watched flickering neon signs and the traffic lights changing from red to green, the yellow rectangles of windows in office blocks. She looked at the traffic, which seemed to be engaged in a wickedly daring dance of ducking and weaving between lanes. After the bumpy and unlit outback tracks she was used to, everything in the city was so exciting and dangerous.

  Closer to the city centre the buildings grew taller. No chance to see the moon or the stars. But it didn’t matter. Tonight, everything she wanted was right beside her, driving expertly, hurrying home.

  If only she wasn’t feeling so nervous. Why couldn’t she be cool about this? Come off it, Annie. No girl could be cool about sex with Dr Theo Grainger. This was a Big Deal! No doubt about it.

  Would Theo be able to tell how long it was since she’d made love? Was he used to experienced, sophisticated lovers? Women like Claudia?

  His voice broke the silence. ‘I half-expected you to bombard me with questions all the way home.’

  ‘I’m—um—I’m fresh out of questions.’

  For once, she couldn’t think of anything to say. And neither, it seemed, could Theo. He drove on in silence till they reached his house and he parked the car in the garage. They both made a fuss of Basil, who was prancing about their legs with his tail wagging madly as they walked to the back door. In the kitchen, Theo’s keys made a clinking sound as he dropped them on to the granite-topped bench. Then there was silence.

  And, out of the blue, Annie found herself rushing to speak at last, to say something…anything. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Hungry?’

  ‘My brothers are always starving when they come home from cocktail parties. As far as they’re concerned, canapés aren’t real food and they always complain that they can never get enough to eat.’

  Theo looked mildly surprised. ‘I guess we could have some supper.’

  ‘Would you like something light? Scrambled eggs, perhaps?’

  ‘That sounds—er—fine.’

  While Annie busied herself finding eggs and milk and a saucepan, he took off his coat, removed his bow-tie and loosened his collar. She dashed out into the courtyard and snipped some parsley and chives from the potted herbs and returned to find Theo observing her assembled ingredients with a puzzled frown.

  ‘Shall I put on some music?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, whatever you like.’

  Without stopping to choose, she grabbed a CD from the stack and slipped it into the player and next minute the slow, sexy sounds of a romantic ballad rippled around them. What a dumb, dumb selection.

  As she turned back to the bench she felt so tense she thought she might crack in two.

  ‘Annie.’ Theo came up behind her. She was holding an egg and his hand closed gently over hers. ‘Are you really hungry?’

  She almost crushed the fragile eggshell as she turned to face him. ‘No. I mean, yes. Well, I just thought—’


  What was the matter with her? This wasn’t the way tonight was supposed to happen. Everything was turning out wrong, wrong, wrong.

  He smiled slowly, took the egg from her grasp and set it back in the bowl with the others. ‘Why on earth are we making scrambled eggs when neither of us is hungry?’

  ‘I—I—because I suggested it, I guess. I—thought perhaps—’

  He placed a finger against her lips. A finger that was strong, confident, capable. Perfect.

  Her heart thumped so loudly she was sure he must hear it.

  ‘Let’s forget supper,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  Holding her by the shoulders, he let his thumbs trace the line of her collarbones. ‘I’m afraid this attraction thing isn’t going away. Not for me, at any rate.’

  ‘No, not for me, either.’

  His fingers traced back and forth over her shoulders, following the superfine silken straps. ‘All evening I’ve been wanting to tell you how incredible you look. This naked shimmer is a major distraction for me.’

  Now she could feel her heart thumping in her chest and in a pulse in her throat. ‘That’s what I was hoping when I bought it.’ Crikey, that sounded much, much braver than she felt.

  ‘So—you planned to seduce me?’

  ‘Yes, I—um—toyed with the idea.’

  His face broke into one of his lovely smiles. ‘I must say I like the way your mind works, Annie McKinnon.’

  Then, dropping his hands to her waist, he tested the texture of the shimmering fabric. His hands spanned her ribs and he lowered his head till their lips touched. He teased her with a hardly-there brush of his mouth over hers and Annie hoped he didn’t mind that she seemed to be shaking.

  Apparently not. Next minute his hands cradled her face and he kissed her properly, and his lips were slow, soft and tantalising. Swoon-worthy.

  ‘So this attraction thing…’ he murmured. ‘Want to do something about it?’

  ‘Yes…I do.’

  Annie was definitely trembling now and there was every chance her knees might give way, but the next minute Theo lifted her up in his arms.

  Goodness, this was the sort of caveman stunt a man like her brothers might have pulled, but she hadn’t expected anything so macho from Theo. ‘I’m too heavy!’

  Ignoring her protests, he carried her across the kitchen, through the lounge, to the stairs.

  ‘Not the stairs, Theo. You can’t. You’ll strain something.’

  Without any sign of strain, he carried her up the stairs and into his room.

  His room.

  The room with the sumptuous bed, the rich cream bedspread and the tumble of black and cream silk cushions. The glow of timber shutters closed against the night. Lamplight.

  And Theo.

  Theo, lowering her on to his bed, then joining her and kissing her some more. She let her eyes drift closed as he kissed her slowly, lazily, as if he had all the time in the world for nothing but kisses. She surrendered with total complicity to the leisurely caress of his sensuous lips, to the playful flirtation of his gentle little bites, and the arousing dance of his tongue meeting and mating with hers.

  The last of her nervousness melted away as she luxuriated in the warmth of his unhurried, easy seduction.

  ‘You have the most gorgeous mouth,’ he murmured.

  ‘Your kisses are sensational,’ she whispered back.

  He kissed some more while his hands traced slow, circling patterns on her shoulders and up and down her arms. Beneath his easy touch her body turned languid and warm. Why had she ever been nervous? This was Theo and he was perfect. He knew exactly what was right for her.

  Then he stole her breath as his hand slipped lower to caress her thighs. A flowering of longing spilled deep inside her and suddenly she was impatient to feel his touch all over.

  She gasped. ‘I’ve got to get out of this dress.’

  A surprised little laugh escaped him as she rolled into a sitting position.

  ‘Can you undo my zip?’

  Theo obliged, and she wriggled in a frantic attempt to shed her clothing.

  ‘Whoa, Annie, don’t tear your dress. It’s too lovely to wreck the first time you wear it.’

  She raised her hands over her head. ‘Can you help?’

  Theo could. And she watched in a fever of anticipation as he carried her dress across the room and draped it carefully over the chair in the corner, but when he removed his own clothes he let them fall to the floor without paying them any attention.

  His attention was for Annie.

  And she couldn’t drag her eyes from him. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. Her heart pounded, her skin burned, her body yearned for his.

  His eyes paid homage to her as he moved back on to the bed, and everything in her world became perfect when his lips found hers once more. His hands began to glide down her arms, over the bumps of her hips, into the dip of her waist and then to the swell of her breasts.

  And she explored him the way he was touching her, tracing the wonderfully muscular contours of his shoulders, the smooth sweep of his back, the hair on his chest. Then lower.

  With each kiss, each tender touch, their hunger mounted and their sense of intimacy deepened. Sweet, poignant longing coiled and built inside her, making her body arch with pleasure. She felt heavy-limbed and anchored by desire and yet blissfully free, happy that the soft, needy little sounds that escaped her would let Theo know how much she loved his touch, was grateful for each daring caress.

  And her eagerness released a new kind of wildness in them both. The tempo of their lovemaking changed as Theo’s gentle, lazy seduction gave way to focused passion.

  Annie whispered his name and he whispered hers back to her, turning her name into a breathless caress as he murmured it over and over, until at last the words were lost inside one long, hungry kiss before they were both swept beyond recall—hot-blooded lovers drowning in a flood of desperate need.

  Theo lay in the stillness of midnight, in the slanted moonlight that stole through the shutters, with Annie’s head resting against his chest and her soft breath warm on his skin, and he waited for regret to attack him.

  He had every reason to feel remorse. He had just made love to a woman who was almost certainly too young and trusting for an uncommitted, casual relationship. Annie McKinnon was the kind of girl who needed to believe that the act of sex was an act of commitment. An act of faith.

  Now, as she slept, he threaded his fingers through the soft golden strands of her hair and examined his motives again and again, searching for blame.

  But the search was in vain. Although Theo tormented himself with self-recrimination, he had absolutely no sense of regret. Sane, logical reason and theories about incompatibility simply refused to stack up against the overwhelming force of his feelings.

  With Annie tonight, he’d felt a helpless tenderness and a depth of emotion that made absolute nonsense of theory and reason. Perhaps he’d lost his head, but he’d found his heart. And while common sense pointed to the fact that tonight had been an error of judgement, something far deeper told Theo Grainger that it was quite possible he’d made a deliberate choice and that the passion he’d shared with Annie McKinnon was neither casual nor uncommitted.

  Which led him to one surprising conclusion.

  It was quite, quite possible that he was falling in love with her. And nothing about it felt like a mistake.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BREAKFAST next morning was lazy, luxurious…and late.

  Basil missed out on his early walk while Annie and Theo stayed in bed. It was almost mid-morning before they wandered downstairs.

  Theo didn’t seem to be in a rush to get to work and he was more than happy to hang around while Annie made a special breakfast of pancakes with strawberries and cream.

  Sitting in the courtyard under a smiling sky, they took time over coffee, stealing kisses that tasted of strawberries, and basking as only new lovers can in the warmth of
their exquisite happiness.

  They talked about happiness. Their happiness. About whether Basil, who was stretched blissfully over their feet, could sense their happiness. And was it possible for dogs to ever be as happy as Annie and Theo were right now, on this bright, beautiful, beaming morning?

  Neither of them dared to suggest that the state of happiness could be slippery—that happiness could slide from beneath your feet when you least expected it.

  ‘What’s the Italian word for happiness?’ Annie asked instead.

  ‘Felicità.’

  ‘Oh, I like that. Italian always sounds so amazingly sexy.’

  They might have spent ages talking and gently flirting, just as they’d spent ages making love last night and again that morning, but eventually Theo looked at his watch and sighed. ‘I had better get to work.’

  ‘I’ll take Basil for his walk,’ she volunteered.

  ‘It won’t hurt him to miss a day.’

  ‘No, but I’d like to take him. I need to walk off these pancakes so I have room for lunch with Mel.’

  Theo made a teasing comment about ladies who lunch and they kissed some more, before he left.

  Mel took one look at Annie and gasped. ‘Omigosh, it’s happened, hasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  It took several seconds of panic before Annie reassured herself that it wasn’t possible for the whole world to guess what she’d been doing last night just by looking at her. Just the same, the knowing gleam in Mel’s eyes brought a rush of embarrassment. And she blushed.

  ‘You’re up to your eyebrows in love,’ Mel said.

  ‘It shows?’

  ‘Of course it shows, Annie. Your glow is bright enough to light up the Power House.’

  There wasn’t much point in trying to pretend otherwise, so she nodded.

  ‘And?’ Mel prompted.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And what about Theo? Is he wrapped, too?’

  ‘It…it seems…yes, I think he is, Mel.’

  ‘Wow, Annie, scoring with Dr Theo is such a coup.’

  Annie drew a deep breath. A coup? Scoring? Was that what she’d done? Surely not. Making love with Theo had felt ever so much more special than notching up points in some kind of competition.