His After-Hours Mistress

by Amanda Browning

  ‘And waste a perfectly good dance floor? I think not,’ he countered, giving her no chance to refuse.

  This wasn’t at all what Ginny had had in mind, but she could hardly create a scene over a dance. And dancing was all it was, she told herself firmly. Slowly, they began to circle the room.

  ‘What was all that about with Dad?’ Roarke asked curiously, and Ginny pulled away enough to look him in the eye.

  ‘That was your father’s way of telling you he’s not as blind as you think. At least, not any more,’ she told him seriously, and saw the message strike home in his eyes. Roarke tried to find his father amongst the dancers, but he had vanished from sight. He turned back to Ginny.

  ‘What did you do?’ he challenged suspiciously, and she shook her head.

  ‘Nothing, honestly. He came to me and suggested he break you and Jenna up—in the nicest possible way, of course. From what he said, he’s no longer fooled by her, and he’s sorry he misjudged you.’

  Roarke’s eyes shone with affection for his parent. ‘The old fox. He said that, did he?’

  Ginny smiled, pleased for him. ‘Not in so many words, but I could read between the lines. I won’t steal his thunder. Anything else you want to know, you’ll have to take up with him.’

  ‘I will, just as soon as the time is right,’ he confirmed, then held her gaze, looking deeply into her eyes as if searching for something. ‘You’re something of a lucky charm, Ginny Harte,’ he murmured softly, but she shook her head.

  ‘There’s nothing the least bit magical about me.’

  His brows curved upwards. ‘Then how come it feels as if you’re casting a spell over me?’

  Her nerves leapt, and her pulse started to beat just that little bit faster. ‘That’s indigestion from too much rich food,’ she retorted, making him laugh.

  ‘I can handle the food, it’s you I’m worried about.’

  Tiny tingles were being set off along her nerve-endings. ‘I’m no threat,’ she countered huskily, vitally aware that being this close to him was undermining her resolve to keep her cool. The warmth coming off him was heating her blood.

  Still his eyes searched hers and she was unable to look away as he sighed. ‘Maybe not to world peace, but my sanity is in real danger.’

  Her throat closed over, for the banked fires in his eyes told her he was feeling just the same as she was. Together they were combustible, and it was happening so fast it took her breath away.

  ‘Then let me go,’ she suggested tightly, though her whole body was sending out the message that it wanted to be closer, not farther away.

  ‘Something tells me that will be impossible unless you walk away,’ he confessed, and her stomach tightened as desire flared inside her.

  Her brain knew the right thing to do, the safe thing, but it reacted sluggishly, unlike her senses, which were going into overdrive. Walk away? When it came to doing that, she was in the same boat as Roarke. She didn’t have the strength to do it right now. In a moment of perfect clarity, Ginny knew that there was only one thing she wanted to do. She would worry about the consequences later, but right now she made her choice and moved that fraction closer to rest her head on his shoulder, her arms rising to encircle his neck. Beside her she felt Roarke take in a deep lungful of air, and then his arms tightened round her. Her eyelids dropped, closing out the world.

  They danced on as one slow song changed to another. Their bodies moved, touching just enough to tantalise. Ginny breathed in the aroma of his cologne, which made a heady potion blended with his own male scent. The brush of his hand tracing lazy patterns up and down her spine was totally alluring, and in response her hand sought his nape, her fingers caressing up into his lush dark hair in combing strokes.

  And all the while they danced she could feel his body hardening, responding to the stimulus, whilst her own was going into meltdown. She hadn’t wanted this, she told herself. Lord knew it was the very last thing she had wanted, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself craving more. It felt so good, how could it be wrong?

  A little while later the music changed to a faster tempo, and they were reluctantly forced to move apart. Ginny glanced into eyes as stormy as she knew hers must be. Tempestuous forces had been created, and were barely leashed. Neither had wanted the dance to end and that was why, when Roarke took her hand, she allowed him to lead her off the floor and out into the night without a word of protest.

  There were extensive gardens surrounding the hotel and Roarke followed a meandering path, eventually stepping off it into the shadows round the bole of a tree. Leaning back against the trunk, he drew Ginny towards him. The freshness of the clear air brought with it a momentary return to sanity and she resisted, pressing her hands against his shoulders.

  ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she protested, though there was little force behind it.

  Roarke continued to urge her closer. ‘I know. This is the last thing I expected or wanted. I must be crazy, but what the hell…’ He began to lower his head.

  ‘No, Roarke,’ Ginny commanded weakly as his lips hovered over hers. ‘I don’t…’ The words were cut off as his mouth claimed hers with a devastating passion, and her resistance vanished like dust in the wind. A groan of satisfaction escaped her as her hands stopped pushing him away and clung on tightly instead.

  The kiss was every bit as mind-blowing as the others they had shared, and it reinforced the strength of their attraction. Lost to the world, they were swept away by the passion they sparked in each other. One kiss was never going to be enough. They were caught in the grip of a fever, and the only cure was to allow it to run its course.

  Finally, Roarke managed to drag his mouth from hers. Breathing heavily, he rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. ‘If I don’t stop now, I don’t think I’ll be able to,’ he declared in a voice made thick by passion.

  Ginny groaned, every bit as breathless herself. ‘Why is this happening to us? What did we do to deserve it? I was happy disliking you!’ She railed against the fate which had brought them together.

  ‘You won’t get an argument from me about that!’ he agreed, planting a trail of kisses down her cheek to her jaw line.

  Ginny’s head tipped backwards, allowing him access to the tender skin of her throat. ‘I didn’t ask to want you this way!’ she groaned achingly. It wasn’t what she had planned. It wasn’t fair.

  Roarke’s teeth nipped gently at her earlobe, making her gasp and shiver. ‘What have you done to me, you little witch? I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself. You’re like a drug, the more I have the more I want.’

  Her hands had somehow found their way to his chest, delighting in the heat that scorched her fingers through his silk shirt. ‘I know, but we have to stop,’ she said vaguely, concentrating on freeing one of his shirt buttons so that her fingers could slip inside. His flesh was warm and firm, inviting her to explore further.

  ‘God, that feels good,’ Roarke groaned against her neck, his tongue darting out to taste her.

  Ginny shivered, caught in the grip of an intense desire. She had never felt like this before. Not with Mark and definitely not Daniel. She froze. Daniel! His name was like a douche of cold water, cooling the fire in her blood. From somewhere she found the strength to wrench herself away.

  ‘Oh, God! What am I doing?’ she whispered in an agonised voice. She raised her head to look at Roarke, who stood watching her, breathing heavily. She shook her head slowly. ‘This is wrong.’

  Roarke dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Not wrong, sweetheart, just damned unexpected,’ he growled back. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a man and woman wanting each other.’

  Ginny rubbed her forehead to ease the beginnings of a headache. ‘But you’re the wrong man, and I’m the wrong woman.’

  That brought a twitch of humour to his lips. ‘Obviously not. Nature seems to be telling us we’re the right people, physically at least. Maybe we should listen to what we’re being told.’

  ‘And sleep w
ith each other, you mean?’

  ‘Sleeping comes later.’

  She scowled at him ‘You just couldn’t resist that, could you?’

  ‘Actually, it’s you I’m finding impossible to resist. Experience tells me it isn’t just going to go away, so ignoring it isn’t going to work.’

  Ginny had been reaching that conclusion herself. Words were easy to say, but they only had to look at each other to go up in flames! Her eyes met his, and even in the darkness she could see the intensity there. ‘You seem to be taking this very calmly.’

  His response to that was to take her hand and place it over his heart so that she could feel it racing. ‘I’m not calm, Ginny, far from it. In fact, I’m as confused as I ever hope to be.’

  ‘You’re saying this has never happened to you before? I can’t believe that,’ she charged him mockingly and he grimaced.

  ‘Laugh if you want to, but it’s true. Finding myself wanting you this badly has knocked me for six. It isn’t a feeling I’m familiar with. When I’m around you I can’t seem to think straight. I only know I want to make love to you. You feel it too. We’re caught in a fever, Ginny, and there’s only one cure. We have to let it burn itself out.’

  ‘It sounds so cold-blooded,’ she said with a shiver that had nothing to do with coldness and everything to do with the idea of making love with him.

  He laughed huskily. ‘Believe me, sweetheart, our blood will be anything but cold. I’m not suggesting a long-term commitment. These things never last long. It will burn itself out quickly unless we try to ignore it. We wouldn’t be hurting anyone.’

  Ginny looked steadily into his eyes. ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘Normal service will be resumed. I have no doubts we’ll be back to daggers drawn in no time.’

  Ginny turned her back on him and took two paces away, needing the thinking room. She had to be crazy to even be thinking of doing it, but what he was suggesting made a strange kind of sense. It wouldn’t be a love affair in the usual sense. All they needed was to drive the fever from their blood and turn things back to normal. No one need ever know.

  ‘My choice?’ she asked over her shoulder, and Roarke nodded.

  ‘I leave the decision up to you.’

  She chewed on her lip. ‘You’d abide by my decision?’

  He groaned audibly. ‘I might want you with a certain amount of desperation, but I’ve never seduced a woman against her will, and I don’t intend to start with you.’

  Ginny shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you. You’ve aggravated me constantly ever since we met, and yet…’

  His teeth glittered as he grinned. ‘You can’t keep your hands off me?’

  She sighed and winced. ‘Something like that,’ she agreed, then turned back to him. ‘This has got to be the weirdest situation. I’m standing here actually considering sleeping with you, when only days ago I was having dinner with another man.’ And planning to marry him—if he asked her.

  That wasn’t going to happen now. Not because Roarke figured in her future, but because her attraction to him was showing her that a marriage without love and desire was impossible. She was a woman with passion, and to contemplate ignoring those needs and settling for Daniel was wrong. She didn’t love him, and certainly wasn’t sexually attracted to him. Such a relationship would be a disaster. He deserved better—and so did she.

  ‘Sweetheart, you can be damn sure we’re no good to anyone else whilst we’re wanting each other this way,’ Roarke drawled with some of his old irony, uncannily echoing her own thoughts. ‘Come on, let’s head back before someone discovers we’re missing and wants to know where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. I’d hate to have to lie to my mother.’

  Ginny laughed as he intended she should, and the tension which had been surrounding them eased considerably. ‘She must know the kind of thing you get up to.’

  They strolled back along the path. ‘She imagines what I get up to; she doesn’t know. I haven’t talked to anyone about my relationships since I was in my teens. I once hurt a girl I liked very badly, by talking to someone who couldn’t be trusted. She slapped my face in front of practically the whole school, and I deserved it.’

  Ginny couldn’t resist slipping her hand into his and squeezing it gently. ‘You know, you really are a nice guy. Though it pains me to say it, I doubt I could go back to actively disliking you.’

  Roarke glanced down at her quizzically. ‘Your trouble is, you’re not as frosty as you like to make out, which will make it impossible for me to see you as anything but warm-hearted. I used to enjoy taunting you in the office.’

  She laughed softly. ‘I know. What will we do now that we’ve started a mutual admiration society?’

  He sent her a wolfish grin, the kind that curled her toes and set her heart tripping expectantly. ‘Oh, we’ll think of something to keep us amused. I have quite an imagination.’

  It didn’t sound to Ginny as if he was talking about verbal badinage, but she chose not to pursue it. For the moment the fires had been banked and it was easier to assume an appearance of calm.

  Her thoughts were distracted not long afterwards by a sudden swell of noise from the front of the hotel, which separated itself into the sound of voices laughing and talking. As they rounded the side of the building, they could see the bride and groom were standing on the top of the entrance steps, clearly about to leave. As they joined the back of the group, Ginny could hear several voices urging Caroline to throw her bouquet. Laughing, she placed her hand over her eyes and launched the bouquet into the air with the other.

  There were gasps and cries of ‘Catch it!’ but Ginny was so busy watching the arc it made that she didn’t realise it was heading straight for her until almost the last second, when she raised her hands to protect her head—and caught the bouquet instead. Nobody could have been more surprised than she, but then she became aware of the pointed remarks about confetti and wedding bells which were being sent Roarke’s way, and colour stormed into her cheeks. Instinctively, she looked around for someone more deserving to pass the flowers on to, but everyone was smiling at her and wishing her good fortune, so she could do nothing but hold on to it.

  It really was a lovely bouquet, and smelled heavenly, she discovered when she buried her face in it to avoid having to look Roarke in the eye. Eventually, though, she had to look at him, to find him brushing off the comments with good humour. Sensing her watching him, he sent a questioning look her way.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to catch it. I thought it was going to hit me, so I put my hand up. I ought to have ducked.’

  He grinned. ‘If you’d done that, I would have caught it instead. Something tells me Caroline knew what she was doing,’ he added thoughtfully.

  Ginny looked startled. ‘You mean she threw it our way deliberately? Why?’

  ‘Because people who are happy themselves want to see others find happiness the same way. She obviously thinks we should get married,’ Roarke explained sardonically.

  ‘That would be a sure-fire recipe for disaster. We’re simply not compatible.’ Ginny had the answer to that.

  ‘We’re not totally incompatible, either. In some areas we appear to be getting along like a house on fire,’ he corrected wryly.

  A chauffeur-driven car drew up outside the hotel, and that was the happy couple’s cue to make their escape. They did so in a shower of confetti, and then they were in the car and being driven off to start their honeymoon. As ever, a faint sense of anticlimax settled over the party, and they slowly made their way back inside. However, it was not long before the younger family members were dancing, and the level of noise rose as the celebration got under way again. It showed every possibility of continuing long into the night.

  By unspoken agreement Ginny and Roarke did not dance again, but spent the next few hours chatting with various members of his family. Though she had only met them briefly, Ginny knew she would miss them, for they had made h
er welcome with a kindness she was not familiar with. At least now she had had a glimpse of what a real family could be like, and that was what she wanted for herself.

  Around midnight Ginny began to feel the effects of the long, eventful day, and when she stifled yet another yawn Roarke suggested they should leave. They made their farewells, and headed for the door. Ginny would have liked to have said a few words to her mother and sister, but the Brigadier had them under his watchful eye, and she decided it would probably be best not to rock the boat any more than she had already today.

  It didn’t take long to be driven back to the house. Lights were on, but most of the family and guests were still at the hotel. Roarke led the way into the drawing room, unfastening his tie as he went and slipping it into his jacket pocket before releasing the neck buttons on his shirt. His hair was mussed up from where he had combed his fingers through it, and there was the shadow of beard on his jaw. To Ginny he looked handsome and sexy as hell.

  ‘Fancy a nightcap?’ he asked, strolling to the sideboard where a stunning array of drinks were set out. He turned to her, holding a cut glass brandy snifter in one hand and a bottle of Napoleon brandy in the other.

  I fancy you more. The thought just slipped into her consciousness, accompanied by the impulse to close the distance between them, pull his head down to hers and share a kiss that would do more for her than any alcohol ever could.

  Something of what she was thinking must have reached him, for suddenly there was an intense look in his eyes.

  ‘Are you going to carry through on that?’ he asked in a tellingly husky voice, making her nerves jump at his perspicacity.

  ‘Carry through on what?’ she countered, equally gruffly.

  He took a step towards her. ‘What you were just thinking.’

  She swallowed to moisten a dry mouth. ‘How do you know what I was thinking?’

  ‘You have very expressive eyes, and though I might not know the exact words, the gist is sending my pulse-rate rocketing.’