by Kim Lawrence
‘Huw, Geraint’s dad, broke his leg, which makes them one man short at one of the busiest times of the year. I offered to extend my stay and help out a bit…mind you, I didn’t intend to stay this long…’
‘You didn’t…?’ It was hard not to sound smugly pleased.
He shook his head. ‘Are you still mad with me, Flora?’ he asked with a cajoling smile.
‘I suppose you think that grin will get you everywhere.’
‘It’s worked so far.’
‘I just bet it has,’ she growled sourly. ‘Well, you’ll find I’m not such a pushover.’ If only! Josh appeared to accept her strictures meekly—too meekly probably, she concluded suspiciously.
‘I offered to cook for you because I thought you couldn’t afford to take me out, and I didn’t want to injure your masculine pride by offering to pay.’
‘I know,’ he admitted frankly. ‘It made me feel like one hell of a heel.’
She sniffed; his remorse was a bit late coming. ‘Not enough of a heel to tell me the truth,’ she observed acidly. ‘I hate cooking,’ she added so that he’d appreciate the enormity of her sacrifice. ‘I’ve thawed enough to feed an army.’
She’d read the article before she’d started preparing the meal so at that precise moment all the thawed food was dripping on the kitchen table. There must be some deep-buried sex-linked gene, she mused, that had suddenly made her feel she had to feed her man. Well, he wasn’t hers in any strictly technical sense, but, she admitted to herself with a rush of honesty, she’d like it if he were! Such proprietorial instincts were alien to her; everything tonight was conspiring to unsettle her.
‘It’ll all ruin now,’ she fretted.
‘I’m not fussed about eating.’
‘Aren’t you hungry? All that physical labour mending…things…’ Her technical knowledge of farming was seriously limited.
‘The most physical thing I did today left me feeling amazingly invigorated,’ he explained glibly.
If Flora had needed further elaboration the bold, bad gleam in his eyes was enough to confirm her initial suspicions.
‘Me too,’ she asserted huskily.
‘I make a mean omelette, we could eat later…?’ His deep, throaty voice trailed suggestively away. His burning eyes ignited a fire all of her own; it was inside—deep inside.
She shrugged. ‘I suppose,’ she conceded gruffly, ‘that might be all right.’
‘How all right?’ he persisted.
Flora gave a disgruntled grunt of irritation and glared at him. ‘All right,’ she informed him spikily. ‘It would be very all right. In fact, if you must know, it would be a hell of a lot more than all right, and in case you didn’t get the drift I can’t stand omelettes,’ she added on the one-in-a-million chance he still had any doubts about what part of the evening’s timetable she found attractive!
Josh’s startled, delighted laugh was a low, sexy rumble that made her toes curl. ‘My repertoire extends beyond omelettes.’
Just thinking about Josh’s no doubt extensive repertoire made her stomach muscles cramp. A troubled light entered Flora’s blue eyes. ‘Mine’s a bit limited,’ she confessed; they both knew she wasn’t talking culinary skills.
The memory of Paul’s spiteful accusation was draining her confidence reserves—it wasn’t as if she’d actually believed him at the time, not really… What made her think she could please a man? Especially one like Josh. Maybe Paul had been right—maybe she was frigid! She hadn’t felt very frigid in Josh’s arms; in fact she hadn’t acted frigid either. The memory of how she’d acted brought a blast of colour to her cheekbones. Flora didn’t look at him but she could feel Josh staring at her.
A firm hand on the angle of her jaw forced her reluctant head up. ‘I don’t have a little book filled with set game play, Flora.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, embarrassed by her obvious plea for reassurance. She shook her head and missed the heavy swish of long hair; it had always distracted attention from her face very satisfactorily. Right now she needed some help with distractions; she felt wretchedly exposed. ‘I’m not usually so needy.’
His eyes darkened. ‘Me neither,’ he told her throatily.
Flora’s eyes grew round and a startled, ‘Oh!’ escaped her parted lips.
‘You don’t always have to stay in control of a situation,’ he insisted.
‘I think I do. Maybe I don’t trust…’
He stiffened and she rushed in to mend any damage her careless comments had done.
‘Not you, I don’t distrust you.’ She was so anxious to reassure him. ‘It’s me…I don’t trust feeling this way. People do crazy things when they let…lust get out of hand…’
‘Lust. I suppose that could be considered progress,’ he murmured drily.
Flora was bewildered by the spark of anger in his eyes. ‘I mean, think of what we did this afternoon…’ she began worriedly.
‘I am.’
An inarticulate moan escaped her lips. ‘Funny man, you slay me,’ she croaked. The irony was he did just that! ‘Haven’t you realised we didn’t use…? I’m not taking the pill, you know…the contraceptive pill, that is,’ she elaborated stiffly. ‘I don’t think there’s too much danger of anything happening.’ Her frown deepened. ‘But that’s not really the point…’
‘It’s very much the point,’ he contradicted harshly. ‘By “anything” I’m assuming you mean pregnancy?’
Flora nodded uncomfortably. ‘I’m not really ready to get pregnant.’
‘I’m not ready for you to be pregnant—ever,’ he ground out white-faced and grim. His vehemence shouldn’t have hurt her—it was only natural a man didn’t want a child from a casual liaison—but it did! The sheer depth of his anger confused and wounded her.
‘It wasn’t just me being foolish and reckless,’ she reminded him bitterly. You could mess around with euphemisms like spontaneous, but when you came down to it she’d been plain stupid and his reaction was only underlining her stupidity.
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ The lines bracketing his strong mouth deepened. ‘I wouldn’t deliberately expose anyone I cared about to that sort of danger…’ he grated. ‘It was criminally irresponsible of me.’ He ran a hand savagely through his hair and glared broodingly—seemingly blindly—ahead. ‘As it was I took advantage of the fact you’ve been through a hellish time and you were screaming out for comfort…’
‘I’m not a child, Josh. I knew exactly what I was doing,’ she contradicted him firmly. ‘And I wanted to do it. In fact,’ she added, not much caring if she sounded brazen, ‘I’d been imagining doing it since I met you, so it had nothing whatever to do with being grief-stricken.’ She heard the sibilant hiss of his sharply indrawn breath. ‘So if you feel the urge to don sackcloth and ashes leave my emotional traumas out of it,’ she gritted stubbornly.
Suddenly it clicked: his wife had died in childbirth—small wonder he looked spooked at the idea of unplanned pregnancy. Poor Josh, it was his emotional traumas they were talking about here.
‘Crossing the road is a calculated risk, Josh,’ she reminded him gently. He looked down at her slim fingers against the dark cloth of his sleeve but he didn’t reject her touch. ‘I know that statistics don’t mean anything when someone you love is the rare exception, but childbirth really isn’t normally that dangerous these days.’ Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek as she blinked rapidly before raising stunned eyes to his face. ‘Did you just say you cared about me?’ she queried sharply.
He looked pretty overwhelmed by her abrupt query, or maybe it was her blatant admission that she’d been silently lusting after him since they’d met—looking the way he did you’d have thought he’d have been used to lecherous females. The dark bands of colour that stained the sharp crest of his cheekbones might even have indicated embarrassment, but at least he didn’t avoid her eyes. He returned her scrutiny gravely and to her amazement made no effort to deny it or shrug her comment off as a joke.
‘If I did, would that be saying too much, too soon?’ There was an aggressive edge to his defensive query.
Was he kidding? Swallowing the solid lump of emotion that welled in her throat, she shook her head vigorously.
‘Then I admit that I care for you—I care for you too much to gratify the urgings of your body clock. I think we should get one thing straight from the outset: if you want children from a relationship, I’m not your man,’ he warned her heavily. ‘I already have a child, you don’t—so you could call it unfair.’ His broad shoulders lifted and a thin, bitter smile formed on his lips. ‘It probably is, but that’s the way it is. When Bridie died I wanted to blame someone, anyone.’ His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath before plunging further into explanations he had no experience of giving.
‘It’s taken a long time, but I’ve finally accepted that it wasn’t something anyone could have predicted or prevented. The luck factor, or bad luck factor you refer to, just makes it worse if anything. I’m simply not prepared to take that risk with someone’s life again. Take it or leave it.’
In other words take him or leave him! Feeling the way she did there wasn’t ever a possibility that cool choice was going to enter in her decision. Even though, deep down, she knew that having this man’s babies would bring her deep fulfilment, it was the man she wanted.
Babies. Relationships…! That was all a major leap from love-making in a hay barn! She’d automatically assumed his feelings were less intense than her own—a bit of stereotyping; it seemed she was wrong with a vengeance! Her fuddled brain couldn’t keep pace with what he was telling her…what he was revealing about his expectations.
‘I’ve seen couples who can’t have children,’ he continued, showing her a stony, unlover-like countenance. ‘Seen how the constant preoccupation with procreation can drive a wedge between them. It’s possible that knowing you could have a baby but your partner doesn’t want one could be even worse.’
‘Josh, are you saying you see us together…long term?’
A look of intense exasperation swept across his face. ‘Hell, woman, do you think I’d be telling you this if I didn’t? I just want you to know what you’d be getting into.’
A sudden naughty grin chased the last lingering shadows from her face. ‘Into bed with you, I hope,’ she announced boldly.
Josh responded with an equally roguish grin. The amusement slowly faded from his eyes as he took her by the shoulders. ‘You’re quite sure you understand that my terms are not negotiable?’ he asked her sternly. ‘You’re not harbouring any foolish idea that you’ll be able to change my mind eventually.’
‘No,’ she lied earnestly. ‘If I knew you couldn’t have children I’d still want to be…’ A sudden notion occurred to her. ‘You haven’t had the…? Have you?’
He gave a very masculine wince. ‘Snip? No, call me squeamish…’
‘Not at all,’ she responded swiftly, trying to disguise her relief with a businesslike practicality. ‘There are other less drastic and perfectly successful forms of preventing fatherhood.’ Not to mention motherhood!
Surely when the healing process was complete he’d see that his attitude was an overreaction—understandable, but nevertheless overreaction. Right now all that mattered to her was that Josh cared for her and they could be together. Her heart was bursting with optimism. Tomorrow could take care of itself; she was going to take care of Josh.
‘And I came well supplied with one of those, but I’m open to any alternative suggestions.’
‘Yes, well,’ she croaked, trying and failing spectacularly to match his relaxed attitude to all things intimate.
Thumbs either side of her jaw, he bent his head and let his nose gently nudge the side of hers. She felt dizzy as his warm breath whispered over her skin and her body reacted of its own accord to being close to him.
‘I need you, Flora. I need you to kiss me.’ The ragged tempo of his breathing deepened. ‘I need to feel your hands on my body, I need to feel your body on my body, I need like hell to be inside you…’ The intense melting sensation between her legs made her shift restlessly as Josh groaned deeply and lifted his head. She could see that the strain in his voice was reflected in the taut lines of his strong, vibrantly handsome face.
‘Is that needy enough for you?’ he enquired, his sardonic gaze sweeping over her.
‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed gustily. ‘Definitely.’ She allowed her sultry gaze to move slowly over the intriguing contours of his face before reaching up and laying her fingers on the back of his firm, strong neck. ‘I really want to kiss you too,’ she confessed huskily.
‘I’m all for following your instincts, angel. That was a very mysterious smile?’
‘No mystery,’ she assured him dreamily. ‘I was just thinking I don’t feel very angelic just now.’ Her body was almost audibly thrumming with the slow throb of sexual arousal; it bathed her…drenched her. She wanted Josh to make love to her more than she wanted anything—including babies, she firmly told the cold voice of logic that lurked discreetly in the back of her mind.
Sinking her fingers deeper into the lush dark growth on the back of his head, she set about doing something about the kissing part. He co-operated fully with her design, fully enough to leave her an inarticulate, clinging mass of screaming nerve-endings and equally noisy hormones by the time the lengthy embrace ended.
‘Oh, my!’ she half sobbed. ‘You kiss beautifully.’ She closed her eyes; looking at him made her feel dizzy.
‘You do everything beautifully.’ He watched with a ferociously rapt expression the delicate fluttering of her closed blue-veined eyelids.
She felt warmly compliant as he picked her up. His splendid physique was not just for show—he was amazingly strong. He was amazing in many ways, she mused, tightening her grip around his neck.
‘I think we’ll do this properly in a bed this time. Up here?’ He inclined his head towards the narrow staircase.
‘I thought you did it properly last time.’
‘True,’ he conceded modestly. ‘But I’m still removing hay from places hay was never meant to be, very uncomfortable. Not that it isn’t a price I’m willing to pay…’
She nodded in eager agreement. ‘I hate to point out a flaw in your plan,’ she said as he approached the narrow staircase, ‘but, as much as I like this mode of transport…’ and she did very much ‘…I don’t think this is strictly practical.’
‘It’s too narrow, isn’t it?’
‘’Fraid so.’
Josh lowered her reluctantly to the ground. ‘A man does his best to be spontaneous.’ His eyes gleamed as he smoothed the wrinkles in her dress thoroughly with the flat of his hand. ‘Actually,’ he confided, ‘not actually spontaneous in the strictest sense—I’ve been working all day on this scene where I kick open the bedroom door and throw you masterfully on the bed.’ He dwelt with visible pleasure on the cherished image.
‘It sounds good to me. But don’t say die, all is not lost,’ she told him solemnly, entering into the spirit of things. ‘How about it if I get up the stairs under my own steam and take it from there pretending you carried me up?’ Eyes sparkling, she looked expectantly up at him.
‘That’s what I like to hear—lateral thinking,’ he approved.
‘Right, then!’ she enthused, not feeling in the mood to delay things. Hitching up the long skirt of her dress in one hand, she attacked the stairs two at a time, fairly flying up them. When he reached the top she was standing there with her arms open.
‘What are you waiting for?’ she asked pertly.
Josh’s deep, delighted laugh rang out. ‘To wake up?’ he wondered wryly.
‘Nightmare?’
‘Dream, angel, the best dream ever,’ he told her truthfully, and he’d do anything, including lie, to keep that dream alive.
CHAPTER SIX
CAN he still taste me? Flora wondered dreamily, running the tip of her tongue sensuously around the outline of her full lips. When she breathed
deeply all she could smell was the scent rising from her own warm, sticky skin; it was an erotic, mind-blowing combination of sex and Josh.
When her eyes flickered open they were still a deep, aroused navy blue. Each and every individual muscle in her body was totally relaxed in sharp contrast to the knife-edge tension of moments before. Silently she sighed with voluptuous pleasure at the memories still fresh in her mind. His love-making had brought her to a pitch of indescribable anticipation that had scarcely been bearable.
Her anxiety had reached fever pitch when she’d thought that she might not be permitted the pleasure of driving him a little crazy too. Huskily she’d told him what she wanted to do and happily he hadn’t been too shocked by wanton requests she would have blushed to recall had she not been transformed into a totally shameless hussy. It was strange that Josh was the only man with whom she could imagine shedding every inhibition.
Her satiated stomach muscles quivered when she visualised his face as her greedy fingers had closed over the hard, silky length of him. It had been his turn to plead when her caresses had grown more intimate.
‘I wish I could stay the night,’ Josh murmured beside her. He reached over to rub the end of her twitching nose affectionately with the tip of one finger.
Lying replete in the crook of his arm, Flora stretched voluptuously and flipped over onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. Josh’s attention was immediately drawn to the gentle sway of her small breasts as they adapted to her new position.
‘Do you have to go yet?’ she coaxed, her full lower lip quivering as she tried to suppress a strange and unusual urge to pout prettily.
The thing was she just wasn’t herself. Just looking at his superb lithe body made her feel and act like a sexually deprived fool with an IQ in single figures, and the crazy part was she didn’t care. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she wriggled her toes in the air. The movement made her freshly aware of some unusual aches—not unpleasant ones—in her body, which still glowed from the rough intimacy of their love-making.
