by Helen Brooks
By Friday evening Cory was a nervous wreck. In spite of knowing she was determined to go nowhere with Nick Morgan, she found herself packing an overnight case—just…in case. Which really made her a candidate for the funny farm, she told herself wearily, glancing at her watch. Six o’clock. Nick knew she usually arrived home from work about five-thirty. He could be here any minute. Her stomach turned over and she had to sit down suddenly. Of course he might be much later.
She had missed him more than she would ever have believed possible this last week. She had dreamt about him when she was asleep and when she was awake and had made some elementary mistakes at work which had caused her to start checking her paperwork over and over again. She hadn’t felt the slightest bit hungry all week—that was the only bonus in days and nights of misery because she had lost three pounds.
She had phoned his office at lunchtime but his secretary had told her he was arriving back in England some time in the afternoon, and no, she didn’t have any idea if Mr Morgan was coming into the office or going straight home. Cory didn’t know if she altogether believed this, but the secretary would say exactly what Nick had told her to say, that was for sure. He must have known she was less than enthusiastic about going away for the weekend by the tone of her voice when he’d called her from Germany. That being the case, his astute and intelligent mind would know he had far more chance of persuading her if he stood before her in the flesh than by speaking to her on the telephone.
And he was absolutely right. Cory groaned out loud. In all her dreams she’d woken filled with a raging hunger for his embrace, an intense longing to feel his arms round her and his mouth on hers. He was just too good at everything he did, that was the trouble, and his lovemaking was top of the list.
When the door buzzer went a moment later Cory jumped so much she nearly fell off her chair. Telling herself she had to be the most feeble woman in the world, she walked over to the intercom in the hall. ‘Hallo?’ she said flatly as the butterflies in her stomach did the tango.
‘It’s me.’ Just two words but they had the ability to make her start trembling.
‘Hi.’ She breathed deeply, willing herself to calm down. ‘Come on up,’ she said, leaning with one hand against the front door as her legs threatened to give out.
She was still standing in exactly the same position when he knocked on the front door moments later.
You can do this, she told herself firmly, ignoring the racing of her heart. Just be cool and calm. No tears, no hysterics, no big scene. The ‘we can still be friends’ scenario, even though you know you can’t.
She opened the door. Nick was leaning against the stanchion, an enormous bunch of flowers in his hand. He wasn’t smiling; in fact, his expression was one she hadn’t seen before, almost brooding. The next moment she was in his arms, the flowers tossed carelessly on to the carpet.
He covered her lips with his in a kiss of such explosive desire that the world stopped, or Cory’s world at least. He’d kissed her hungrily before, passionately, until her legs had become weak and her mind befuddled, but nothing—nothing like this.
Her arms had wrapped round his waist and she pressed against him, wanting to absorb his heat and his strength, needing to fuse their bodies together. Curves melted against hard angular planes, rock-hard thighs against soft feminine places until neither of them could have said where one body began and the other finished.
Nick pulled his mouth away for a millisecond to fill his lungs, but then his mouth returned to hers as though he couldn’t bear even a moment of separation. His tongue touched hers, probing, urging her to respond, and she gave herself up to the wonder of pure sensation.
He had moved one hand to her head to hold her in place, one leg slid between hers to bring his lower body in alignment with her hips as he moved her against the hall wall, pinning her against him. The action both eased and increased the rocketing sensations shooting to every part of her body and she caught her breath at the sharp pleasure.
‘Hell, I’ve missed you.’ He lifted his head slightly so he could look into her face. ‘You’ve no idea…’
She had. Oh, she had.
‘I’ve dreamed of doing this every hour of every damn night.’ He bent his head again to tease one corner of her mouth with his tongue, before kissing her cheek, her jawline, then forging a burning trail to her ear.
‘Say you’ve missed me,’ he murmured, his breath in her ear making her shiver with delicious anticipation. ‘Say it.’
‘I’ve missed you.’ She arched against him, her body saying it too. ‘So much.’
He shifted her in his arms, his hands running over her soft curves and cupping the fullness of her breasts through the soft fabric of her top. She gasped against him and he smiled, a slow, masculine smile that made her toes curl. ‘You feel great,’ he said very softly. ‘You taste great. You are great.’
‘So are you.’
He chuckled into her mouth. ‘Not good enough. You’ve got to give your own accolades, not steal mine.’
Her eyes were heavy, her mouth swollen with his kisses. ‘You’re amazing,’ she murmured dazedly. ‘Will that do?’
‘For starters.’ He shifted her in his arms but then, instead of continuing to make love to her, he reached down and picked up the discarded flowers. ‘Put them in water before we go,’ he said quietly.
If she hadn’t noticed his hand shaking slightly she would have thought he was totally in control, despite the hard ridge of his arousal which had been forged against her only seconds before. The sight was comforting; she was trem bling so much she knew he must see it. She took the flowers without saying anything, walking with them into the kitchen where she buried her hot face in the fragrant freesias and soft white roses. She drank in their perfume, not thinking, not allowing any thought to come into her mind. Then she filled a vase with cool water and put the bouquet in it just as it was. She would arrange them properly when she came back.
Because she was going. She was going to have this one weekend if nothing else, she told herself, still a little dazed and numbed by the powerful emotions which had been released between them. It was probably the most stupid thing she would ever do in her life, a guarantee of emotional suicide at some point in the future, but suddenly she didn’t care. He was here, here with her, and for the moment that was enough.
‘Where are we going?’
They had been travelling for some miles before Cory asked the question, her voice low and husky. She was still registering the sensations which had taken her over at the flat—the way their bodies had fitted together, the pleasure given and received, the wonder of the world of passion and need and hot desire he’d taken her into.
‘Guess.’ He gave her a quick smile. ‘You know about this place but you’ve never been there.’
‘That applies to more parts of Britain than it should.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not exactly a seasoned traveller.’ She kept her eyes on him as she spoke although his gaze had returned to the road through the windscreen. He looked hard and dangerous and too sexy by far. He was dressed more casually than usual and she knew he must have gone to the flat before coming to see her. His formal suits or tailored trousers had been replaced by well-washed black jeans, tight across the hips, and his open-necked black denim shirt emphasised his flagrant masculinity more than any silk shirt could have done.
Suddenly it dawned on her. ‘We’re going to your home,’ she said. ‘The house in Barnstaple.’
‘Quite right.’ He reached for her hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. ‘I thought it was about time you saw where I live.’
‘You live in your flat.’
‘No.’ The blue eyes flashed her way for a moment. ‘I only occupy that. There’s a difference.’
She stared at the dark profile. He’d shaved recently; there was a tiny nick on his chin where he’d cut himself. The rush of feeling this produced was scary.
‘Besides which I thought you might like to meet a few of
the family,’ he continued casually.
‘Your family?’
‘I was thinking of the one next door,’ he said with gentle sarcasm. ‘Of course my family. Why? Does that bother you? They’re really quite normal.’
Cory didn’t know what to say. She wanted to ask if he usually took his girlfriends home to meet his family but she didn’t dare. Of course it was highly likely that he did, she warned herself quickly when her treacherous heart did a few cartwheels.
‘It seemed a good time with my mother’s birthday being on Sunday,’ he added.
‘Your mother’s birthday?’ She sat bolt upright in her seat, all the nice floaty sensations that had stayed with her from the episode at the flat gone in a moment. ‘It’s your mother’s birthday and you didn’t tell me? I haven’t got a card or a gift for her.’
‘She won’t be expecting one,’ he said with typical male denseness regarding the niceties of such occasions.
‘Of course she will.’ Cory was horrified. ‘Have you bought her anything?’
‘I’ll get something tomorrow,’ he said calmly, his voice stating there was no need to get in a panic. ‘When I’ve asked her what she wants. Something for the house, maybe.’
Men! Cory shut her eyes for a moment. ‘A nice new vacuum cleaner, perhaps?’
He seemed quite oblivious to the sarcasm.
‘Nick, your mother is a woman, in case you haven’t noticed,’ Cory said evenly. ‘Do you ever get her something for herself? Chocolates? Flowers? A book? Clothes?’
‘Clothes?’ She could have suggested something obscene, such was his scandalised expression. ‘Of course not. I have bought her chocolates and flowers before, though.’
There was some hope for him then. ‘And I bet she loved them, didn’t she?’
‘My mother always loves anything I buy her.’ There was a definite note of hurt in his voice now. ‘It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?’
So they said. And it must have been a man who coined the phrase. ‘We’ll shop tomorrow,’ she said, ‘for something for you to give her and something for me. What’s she like? Describe her to me.’
‘My mother?’ His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘She’s quite a woman.’
She would have to be to have a son like you.
‘She and Dad had the sort of relationship where they’d be hammer and tongs one minute and then falling into each other’s arms the next—two strong minds, you know?’
She nodded.
‘But us kids never doubted how much they loved each other or us. Dad was the more staid, upright one, very conventional—typical lawyer, I guess.’
‘Your father was a lawyer?’ Somehow she’d assumed he would have been a businessman like Nick.
‘A damn good one.’ There was a wealth of affection and pride in his voice and it touched her deeply. ‘Mum…’ He smiled again. ‘Mum is one on her own. A true original. Nonconformist, feisty, stout-hearted. Dad used to say she was sent to keep him humble.’
Cory smiled but she thought Nick’s mother sounded a bit scary. ‘Does she work?’
‘She was involved in animal welfare when Dad first met her but while we were young she did the housewife bit and thoroughly enjoyed it. Once my youngest sister was at school she started doing one of her great loves—painting—and also went back to the animal welfare thing, but in a smaller way. She does voluntary work at a local sanctuary. On the painting side—’ he paused briefly while he executed a driving manoeuvre Cory was sure was illegal and which caused several other motorists to make use of their horns ‘—she’s done very well. She sells all over the country now.’
Cory was feeling more nervous by the minute at meeting this Superwoman. ‘What about your sisters?’ she asked a little weakly, feeling she didn’t really want to hear the answer.
‘Rosie’s thirty years old, married her childhood sweetheart at eighteen and has two kids, Robert who’s ten and Caroline who’s eight. She’s utterly content being a wife and mother and is in nature a carbon copy of our father. Jenny’s twenty-eight, travelled the world with a backpack from eighteen to twenty-three, married an artist who has his own pottery business and had twin girls four months after the wedding.’ He raised a laconic eyebrow. ‘That was a couple of years after Dad died, which is just as well as he’d have blown a gasket.’
Cory giggled. ‘The twins are about three, then?’
‘A few weeks before Christmas.’
‘You sound like quite a family.’
His mouth curved upwards in a crooked smile. ‘When Jenny and Rod called the girls Peach and Pears, Mum thought the names were terrific and Rosie and her husband were horrified. There isn’t a more devoted aunt and uncle than Rosie and Geoff though. Sums us up, really.’
‘What about you?’ she asked interestedly. ‘What did you think about the names?’
‘Jenny had survived what proved to be a traumatic birth when she haemorrhaged and we nearly lost her and the twins were well and healthy. They could have called them Noddy and Big Ears as far as I was concerned.’
Male logic. Cory smiled. ‘I like Peach and Pears,’ she said very definitely. ‘I don’t see why people are locked into tradition about names. Flower names are considered perfectly proper so why not fruit or anything else for that matter?’
‘Do I detect a smidgen of bohemian coming through? Is it possible that in the future you might be considering artichoke or cabbage, or even New York if the unfortunate infant was conceived away from home?’
Her smile faded. She didn’t reply for a moment and then she said flatly, ‘I don’t intend to have children.’
‘Perhaps all for the best if cabbage is a possibility.’
His voice was light and easy and he was smiling, but the warm intimacy in the car was gone and they both knew it. Cory felt a moment of deep regret that she had broken the mood.
The nifty little sports car fairly ate up the hundred and seventy miles or so to Barnstaple once they were out of London, but it was still almost dark when they neared the coast.
For some reason Cory was feeling an illogical sense of panic at the thought of seeing Nick’s house. She couldn’t actually have said why. It wasn’t so much that this was the weekend she would finally take the plunge and go to bed with him, more that this house—his home—would reveal more about him than the flat ever could. And what if she didn’t like what it revealed? Certainly the flat, beautiful as it undoubtedly was, didn’t do a thing for her. But then he had said he didn’t live in the flat, merely occupied it.
The morning star was high in a sky which was turning from mauve washed with midnight-blue to deep velvetblack when the car finally turned off the wide, pleasant avenue they’d been travelling along for a minute or so. A smaller road, almost a lane, took them past several houses set in beautifully manicured grounds. After several hundred metres there were no buildings at all, just the high stone wall one side and to their left rolling fields in which the round white bodies of sheep stood out in the evening shadows. Then the stone wall curved round in front of them, forming the end of the lane, and after drawing to a halt Nick opened the wrought iron gates set in the wall by remote control.
This was going to be some property! Even before they drove on to the long gravelled drive winding between established flower beds and mature trees, Cory was preparing herself for her first sight of Nick’s home. And then there it was in front of her. A large mellow-stoned thatched building flanked either side by magnificent horse chestnut trees, its leaded windows on the ground floor lit by lights within the house.
‘Good,’ Nick murmured at the side of her. ‘Rosie’s remembered to leave the lights on. She always comes in and stocks up the fridge when she knows I’m coming home,’ he added as they drew up in front of the huge stone steps leading to the front door.
‘Nick…’ For a moment Cory was devoid of speech. ‘This is beautiful, just beautiful.’
He smiled at her in the shadows, his blue eyes glittering. ‘I fell in love with the place the fi
rst time I ever saw it,’ he admitted softly. ‘It dates from 1703, although bits have been added here and there. Come in and have a look.’
The minute Cory stepped into the wide gracious hall she knew the inside of the house was going to match the outside. Warm-toned oak floorboards stretched into every room on the ground floor, their richness interspersed with big rugs. The huge sitting room, which overlooked the grounds at the back of the house, had big squashy sofas, one wall lined with books, low coffee tables and an enormous fireplace with a pile of logs in one corner ready for burning. The dining room, big breakfast room, Nick’s study and the farmhouse-style kitchen complete with Aga were all beautifully decorated but with a cosy feel to them which ran throughout the house.
By the downstairs cloakroom off the hall an open tread wooden staircase led to four generous-sized double bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms, and a gigantic master bedroom. This room caused Cory to take a sharp breath when she first entered it. It wasn’t the walk-in dressing room, which would have swallowed her sitting room at home, or even the en suite bathroom, which was more luxurious than the one in Nick’s flat that was the trouble. It was the bed. It was unlike any bed Cory had ever seen. In fact, it was more of an ocean of billowy space than anything else.
That he had been expecting her discomfiture was obvious in the amused tilt to his mouth when he said, ‘You might have guessed I had the bed made specially. I’m a big boy; I like a lot of room.’
‘You’ve certainly got that,’ she squeaked weakly, wondering how many of his women he had shared it with.
It was set in front of huge windows, which had the same outlook as the sitting room below, the three carpeted steps which led to it the same length as the bed. The duvet and numerous pillows and cushions were various shades of coffee and taupe and this colour scheme was reflected through the whole suite. The bed was sensual and outrageous and sinful; it dominated the whole room and declared without any apology that pleasure was its chief aim.
