He took a step towards her. Two steps. His deft brown hand reached out and tidied a stray strand of hair behind her ear, then brushed a smudge of flour from her cheek.
'Oh, we're hardly strangers now, are we, my dear?' he challenged, and his mouth came down on hers in a featherlight kiss.
It was only a moment that they stood there, but Rose felt her lips tingling and her breath coming in a shallow, fluttering rhythm as if she could not get enough air. She had been a fool to think that she and Greg could be friends—she knew perfectly well that friendship wasn't what he wanted from her. Nor, if she was being honest, what she wanted from him. And yet she seemed powerless to resist the force of attraction that swirled and rose about them as relentlessly as a Cornish high tide. With a faint gasp that might have been protest or dismay, or even reckless exhilaration, she laid her head against his chest and felt his fingers clutch possessively at the silky turbulence of her hair. Then, recovering her common sense with an immense effort, she clutched his shoulder, spun him around and steered him towards the dining-room.
'Dinner's ready,' she said in a failing voice.
They worked their way through a delicious meal of golden crusted fish pie, crisp green salad, fresh strawberries and cream and richly aromatic black coffee without saying a single word of any significance. Yet the looks and smiles that passed between them were charged with a meaning that sent
waves of guilty, delicious pleasure rippling through Rose's limbs. How could she keep her mind on anything while Greg gazed at her with those warm, caressing, dark eyes? How could she possibly discuss bathrooms and architects and bricklayers and Cornish fishing villages and sailing trips when her whole body cried out to be in his arms? It was as if two different conversations were going on at the same time. One harmless and mundane, that anyone could have overheard without embarrassment, the other silent, wordless, yet fraught with unbearable sexual tension. A silent dialogue of body language that made Rose feel as exhilarated and apprehensive as if she were about to take a parachute jump for the first time. At ten o'clock, unable to bear any more of it, she stammered a disjointed goodnight and headed for the stairs.
Greg caught her up when she was already standing on the bottom step. His hand closed over her wrist as she clutched the banister. 'Don't forget our trip to Talland Bay tomorrow,' he reminded her.
Neither of them bothered to rise early the following morning, and when Rose finally did surface she found that Greg was in the midst of cooking an impressive breakfast featuring orange juice, scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, grilled tomatoes and enough toast and marmalade to feed the crew Of a troop ship. He cast her a long, brooding glance as she entered the kitchen and she felt a tingle of warmth deep inside her as she defiantly returned his gaze. Without taking his eyes off her, he reached for the coffee grinder on the bench beside him.
'You could make the coffee,' he suggested abruptly.
His fingers brushed against hers as he handed her the heavy wood and chrome appliance, and his face was so close that she could easily have stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. There was something deeply disturbing about the intimacy of the situation, so it was probably fortunate that a strong smell of sizzling egg white assaulted their nostrils at that moment.
'Something's burning,' Rose warned.
Greg swore under his breath and retreated to the cooker, which gave her a chance to compose herself. The intense physical attraction which sparked between them was something totally unfamiliar to her. She had seen
good-looking men before and admired them, but she had never before met a man who woke such alarmingly primitive responses in her. It seemed Greg only had to look at her with those narrowed dark eyes and a strange, throbbing heat began to pulsate through her entire body. The sensation was dangerous, unfamiliar and deeply disturbing. Rose felt a wild impulse to race out of the house, slamming the door behind her, and never, ever see Greg IVelawney again. She felt an even wilder impulse to slink up behind him, put her arms around his body and hug him so hard that her breasts were crushed provocatively against his back. What was happening toper? Was she losing her mind? With a faint groan she began to turn the handle of the coffee grinder, taking out her frustration on the beans until the rich aroma of ground coffee filled the room. Meanwhile Greg had been busy at the cooker.
Rose made more toast and then hovered in the doorway, as far away from Greg as she could decently stand without looking absurd.
'Can we eat in the conservatory?' she asked in an unnaturally bright voice. 'I like looking at the sea and, besides, I have some sketch plans of my cottage that I want to show you.'
To Rose's relief, once they were safely settled in the conservatory, the atmosphere between them seemed less feverish. They ate their eggs and bacon and drank their coffee with the sketches scattered all over the table so that they could argue while they had their meal. Even that had a certain curious charm for Rose. She had lived on her own for several years and had never realised how much she craved the simple pleasure of a man's company at breakfast.
Luckily Greg was no longer giving her unsettling glances, but was directing all his frowning intensity to her sketch plans of the cottage. She noticed that he was wearing one of the infamous red shirts that had caused her so much soul searching and for a moment was tempted to tackle him on the subject.
The words quivered on her tongue, but she bit them back. To confront him now would only plunge them both back into the seething emotional turmoil that she wanted to avoid. No, it was better to let the whole issue drop and keep the atmosphere light between them. She must try and view Greg as a friend, who was simply giving her a tradesman's sound advice on her home improvements. In this he was very successful. She was both annoyed and pleased to find that he came up with several brilliant suggestions which
would never have occurred to her. When they had cleared the table, he shuffled all their sketch plans into a pile and clipped a handwritten note about her final decisions on top.
'Right,' he said briskly. 'If you're happy with that, we'll drop it all off to John Gleeson the builder as we go through Polperro. You couldn't do better than employ him. He'll give you a fair price, do honest work and subcontract all the plumbing and wiring, so you'll have nothing to do but put your signature on the paper. Agreed?'
'Agreed,' said Rose, feeling rather taken aback at the speed with which Greg operated.
'Good. Then let's go to the beach,' he urged. 'Charlie's staying at Plymouth for the weekend with his girlfriend and he's lent me his car, so when you get sick of the sea we can drive around and see a bit of the countryside.'
Charlie's car smelt of rubber and seaweed, but Rose was too excited to care as she climbed into the passenger seat and tossed her denim beach-bag into the back. Now that the decisions about the cottage were out of the way, she felt like a child on holiday, relaxed, brimming with high spirits and anxious to enjoy every moment. And that wasn't hard to do in Cornwall.
After a quick trip to John Gleeson's house, where she signed some papers, they drove on to Talland Bay, where they parked the car on a grassy expanse overlooking the beach. It was another fine, hot day and the shouts of excited children rose to meet them as they picked their way down the sandy path to the shore. The air was warm and filled with the mingled scent of gorse bushes and salt, and Rose felt the tension of the previous months beginning to evaporate like a sea mist in the hot sun.
'Let's go over on the far side,' suggested Greg. 'There's shade there from the rocks, or you can sit in the sun if you prefer, and it looks a bit quieter away from the kids.'
Rose followed him over the beach, enjoying the way the gritty sand crunched underfoot, the tug of the wind in her hair, the vivid colours of the sea, deep blue in the distance and emerald-green close to shore just before it
splashed in a lacy border of foam. She still felt quite tired and disoriented by the long trip from Australia and the hectic activity of her first few days in Britain, so the prospect of a lazy day by the beach was shee
r bliss.
'Where do you want to sit?' Greg asked her. 'In the sun or the shade?'
Rose pulled a face. 'Ten minutes in the sun and then I'll move into the shade,'
she announced. 'I burn easily.'
'You'd better put some sunscreen on. Do you want me to help you?'
I'm not sure that I should have agreed to this, thought Rose dreamily five minutes later as she lay face down on a towel in the hot sand with Greg massaging sunscreen into her back. A brief blue two-piece swimsuit seemed like a very inadequate barrier against those disturbingly skilful, caressing fingers. But while her mind might have grave misgivings, her body didn't.
She lay purring softly like a drowsing kitten, uttering little mews of pleasure as Greg's hands moved in circles of fire over her body.
'Turn over,' he instructed.
A hot rush of colour flooded her cheeks. This was even worse! She gasped, sat up and reached out her hand for the bottle.
'I—I can manage the front myself,' she stammered.
'Don't be so prissy, Rose!' exclaimed Greg in disgust. 'It's only sunscreen.'
Rose said nothing, but doggedly continued to hold out her hand for the bottle. Instead of relenting, Greg held it tantalisingly out of reach.
'Care to fight me for it?' he mocked.
Rose's eyes flashed with annoyance and she glanced around at the crowded beach. 'No, I wouldn't,' she muttered between her teeth, cringing at the thought of the scene that would follow.
'Pity,' mourned Greg, gazing at her from under half- closed eyelids with a sultry expression that made every nerve in her body quiver. 'It might have been rather fun. Well, if you're not going to fight me for it, you'll have to he down and let me do what I want with you, won't you?'
'You manipulative brute!' breathed Rose indignantly. 'And what if I decide to go home?'
'It's a long walk,' murmured Greg, clearly enjoying this battle of words.
'You'd be much wiser just to lie down, close your eyes and think of the Empire.'
That made Rose give an unwilling gasp of laughter and the contest was over.
Still simmering with resentment at her defeat, but unable to quench a bubble of laughter, she lay down in a pose of rigid self-sacrifice and deliberately assumed a grim expression.
'I'm thinking of the Empire,' she said defiantly.
But she didn't think of the Empire as Greg squeezed the warm, creamy liquid into his palm and begun to rub it in smooth, fluid strokes across her belly, over her chest and up and down on the ripe, swelling curve of her breasts above the flimsy bikini top. Partly to avoid meeting Greg's gaze, Rose closed her eyes, but that was a mistake. The images that filled her mind weren't of duty and self-sacrifice at all, but of a frenzied pleasure more intense and more thrilling than anything she could ever imagine. By the time Greg had finished massaging her, prolonging the exquisite torment with a brisk, tingling rub of the soles of her feet, she felt as if her whole body was in the grip of a fever. Every muscle was clenched agonisingly, her breath was coming in shallow gulps and an unfamiliar, aching sense of need was coursing through her.
'Your turn,' said Greg, handing her the bottle with a sly smile.
'What do you mean, my turn?' she demanded indignantly.
'Time to get your own back. Don't you want to rub me?'
'No,' retorted Rose scathingly.
Yet she did, that was the awful thing. Darting a hasty, furtive glance at Greg's virile body clad in the briefest of black bathing trunks, she felt a crazy, intoxicating urge to accept his invitation, to push him back on the towel, hot from the sun, and rub that slick, creamy lotion over the hard, rippling muscles of his belly and those long, suntanned, hair-roughened legs. She wanted to make him lie face down so she could straddle his body with her legs and stroke and tease and glory in the hard, muscular strength of his back. And that wasn't all she wanted. She wanted to lie beside him and kiss him, feel his warm mouth, tasting of salt, mingle with hers, feel the velvety caress of his fingers between her thighs just as she had felt it a moment before when he was applying the sunscreen. Rose was appalled at the things she wanted.
'No, thank you,' she added primly. 'I'd rather read my book.'
And, squeezing herself into a defensive huddle with her knees drawn up, as if she were trying to avoid death from hypothermia, Rose did exactly that.
Greg watched her with amusement for a moment, then carelessly dolloped some sunscreen on his own body, rubbed it in and lay down to sunbathe.
After a while his eyes closed as if he was asleep and Rose let out a ragged sigh of relief, dropped her book and stretched out flat on her back herself.
Heavens, this was more nerve-racking than doing final exams at university... Soon her own eyelids began to droop and she sat up with a jolt to find that Greg was watching her with an unmistakable look of brooding desire on his face. Hastily he closed his eyes as she frowned at him.
Torn between an urge to burst out laughing or lose her temper, Rose opened her denim bag, slipped on her blue shorts and a white T-shirt, then put a straw hat on her head and ostentatiously moved her towel away into the shade. She thought she heard Greg heave a faint sigh of disappointment. Yet as the day wore on she could not manage to stay annoyed with him, since she felt so relaxed and at ease in his company. Early in the afternoon the heat of the sun drove them into the water to cool off and Greg swam powerfully and effortlessly like a seal, while Rose shivered in the shallows.
'Come on,' he urged, shaking his wet, dark hair out of his eyes. 'It's gorgeous in here. Really warm once you get used to it. These waters are part of the Gulf Stream, you know.'
'Really warm?' bleated Rose, taking another heroic step three inches further into the water. 'You must be joking! Only a polar bear would call this water warm.'
With a sudden flashing violence, Greg surged out of the water, seized her wrist and put an end to the argument by dragging her down with him. For a moment she gasped and fought as a cloud of bubbles exploded in the chill green water around her. Then his arms came around her and a giddy sense of exhilaration took hold of her as they shot to the surface together.
It was late afternoon when at last they decided to leave the beach and, in spite of the suncreen, Rose's face was beginning to tingle warningly. All the same, she couldn't remember ever having a more marvellous day. This is crazy, she told herself sternly as they crunched up the sand together. You can't afford to encourage Greg when ne keeps flirting with you so outrageously. He'll get the wrong idea. But an unfamiliar part of her mind answered defiantly, what if he does? You're old enough to take care of yourself, aren't you? Anyway, maybe he'd be getting the right idea. Rose winced at her own thoughts. It was as if moving to Cornwall had unleashed a whole new and unfamiliar identity for her. She felt wild, sensual, a fitting partner for the man striding beside her. Not a tame woman any more, but a woman ready to take risks...
'Well, now what would you like to do?' demanded Greg. 'Home for a shower and then a Chinese meal in Looe?'
'Sounds good to me,' agreed Rose.
In compliment to Greg, she wore the embroidered sweater and the soft blue muslin skirt when they went out to dinner. Greg himself was casually but impeccably dressed in beige drill trousers and a striped beige and brown short-sleeved shirt. When they were shown into a secluded booth in the restaurant they both leaned back, sighed and smiled at each other with the ease of two people totally at home in each other's company.
'Something to drink?' invited Greg.
'Mm, please,' agreed Rose. 'About half a gallon of orange juice with lots of ice.'
'All right,' nodded Greg, leafing through the wine list. 'I'll have a gin and tonic and then something to go with the meal. I don't know about you, my love, but I think only a light white wine goes well with Chinese food.
Perhaps a Vernaccia Bianca from Italy. What do you think?'
'Yes, all right,' agreed Rose, rather impressed by the knowledgeable way that Greg had pronounced the Italian name.
'Now what about the serious question of food?' he asked. "
'I'd like some wan tun soup,' said Rose. 'Or maybe some spring rolls as a starter, but after that do you think we could get one or two dishes to share?'
'Why not? The Peking duck here is very good, I can recommend it. So how about that with some chilli beef and vegetables, honeyed prawns and steamed rice?'
'Yum!' she said ecstatically.
When the waitress brought their drinks and had taken the rest of their order, Rose leaned back in her chair and heaved a sigh of pleasure.
'I'm having such a wonderful time this weekend,' she announced dreamily,
'that I can hardly believe things were so awful only a few weeks ago. It all seems like a bad dream now, jumbled, unpleasant, not quite real.'
'Do you miss him?' asked Greg abruptly.
Rose's face shadowed. She gave a faint groan and traced a pattern round the rim of her orange-juice glass with her finger. Her thoughts went winging back to Martin and she felt a rush of humiliation, yearning and hurt pride.
'Not when I'm busy,' she admitted. 'As long as I keep occupied, I don't have to think about him and it hardly hurts at all. But I suspect it would be a different matter if I ever saw him again. I'd probably be right back where I was a little while ago. Hating him for being so callous, but still wanting him unbearably.'
'That's insane,' growled Greg. 'He treated you abominably.'
'I know,' agreed Rose with a sigh. 'But falling in love doesn't make people act reasonably, does it?'
'No, it certainly doesn't,' retorted Greg. 'So it's probably a good thing that your rotten ex-lover is safely on the other side of the world. But just tell me this. Once you're properly over it and the whole thing really does seem like a distant nightmare, what then?'
'What do you mean?' asked Rose, frowning.
At that moment the waitress arrived with Rose's soup and Greg's spring rolls so that they were forced to interrupt their discussion. Yet while the girl fussed around with blue and white patterned rice bowls, chopsticks, china spoons and a container of sweet, sticky sauce, Greg's eyes smouldered with inquisitorial fervour.
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