by Kim Lawrence
‘If Liam wakes I like to be there.’
‘Of course you do,’ she responded contritely, immediately remorseful for her clinging-vine imitation. ‘I understand Liam comes first.’ It would be nice to know I was a contender for one of the medal positions though, she mused wistfully.
She rolled onto her back and, bringing her knees to her chest, pulled herself briskly into a sitting position. Josh didn’t strike her as the sort of man who enjoyed clingy women—probably ran a mile when he saw one coming. She squared her shoulders and gave her version—and pretty good it was, if she said so herself—of the definitive non-clingy smile.
‘What?’ he asked, his brow forming a censorious frown. ‘No humble apology for keeping me up past my bedtime…no pun intended?’
Startled, she encountered the mocking indulgent glow in his eyes—he knew what she was doing and he was laughing at her. Nobody had ever accused her of being transparent before—could he read her mind? He certainly managed to anticipate her needs with spectacular success. With a wryly self-conscious grin, she retracted the toe she’d already placed on the floor.
‘Crude pun, you! Never!’ she gasped, her voice oozing sweet malice.
She yelped as Josh’s hand shot out to grasp her foot mid-air; his reflexes really were remarkably well tuned. For a moment he looked thoughtfully at the graceful arch of her foot before drawing it decisively to his mouth. All the time his eyes were on her face, watching the delicate fluctuations of colour, seeing the startled little gasp form when his lips touched her flesh.
‘You’re gorgeous, quite literally from head to toe.’ His eyes touched her tousled blonde mop of silky hair.
The rasp of his vibrant voice was like a caress; a responsive quiver shuddered through her. Almost frightened by the intensity of her desire for him, Flora obeyed his gentle but firm encouragement and wriggled her bottom along the mattress until she was able to sit on his lap and wrap both her long legs around his waist.
‘I thought I was coming on too str…’
He held up a finger to his lips to still her explanation. ‘I know what you thought, but don’t bother killing yourself being casual and undemanding, angel. I don’t feel particularly casual myself…’
‘Really!’
‘Also,’ he announced with unapologetic arrogance, ‘I’m a fairly demanding bloke. Actually, I’ve rarely felt less casual,’ he announced starkly.
‘That’s…’
Josh grew rapidly impatient with her gobsmacked silence. ‘The best joke you’ve heard in ages? Food for thought…? Scary…what…?’ She was staggered to see that Josh’s habitual cool had deserted him totally.
‘You know, you’re nearly as conceited as I thought,’ she told him, rubbing a loving finger softly along the deep frown-line between his eyes. ‘I’m crazy about you, you silly man.’ He must have been walking around with his eyes closed if he hadn’t noticed that! ‘I didn’t think I was being that subtle.’
As fast as things were going, she thought, on sober reflection, that it might be too soon, despite Josh’s surprisingly upfront admission that his feelings ran a lot deeper than shallow, to throw explosive words like love into the conversational melting pot just yet.
The tantalisingly dominant, but too brief touch of his firm, warm lips against hers left her craving more despite their recent love-making. ‘You know something.’ He cupped her face between his big clever hands. ‘You’re absolutely nothing like I thought you would be. In fact, I couldn’t have been further off the mark.’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t comprehend his own shortsightedness.
Flora raised herself up on her knees and, grabbing hold of the old-fashioned brass bed frame, deliberately pressed her breasts against his chest, which expanded dramatically as he gasped for breath. The fierce, earthy gleam in his eyes made her whimper low in her throat.
‘I can see how you might have thought I have criminal tendencies,’ she reflected, thinking back on their inauspicious meeting, ‘but I don’t go around letting down tyres every day,’ she promised him, licking her finger and crossing the approximate area of her heart with a wobbly finger. ‘Honestly.’
Something flickered in his eyes that made her stop. ‘But you didn’t mean that, did you?’ Of course he’d seen her before and why not? So had half the population of the country. Her face and name had been plastered on TV screens and every tabloid front page in the country.
‘You already knew about my father and the court case,’ she said blankly. Wondering why it had taken her so long to realise this, she settled back down onto her heels.
‘Yes, Flora, I knew.’
‘I don’t think much of your choice of reading material,’ she joked feebly, before a hurt furrow reappeared on her brow. ‘I don’t understand… Why didn’t you say?’ She puzzled briefly before her face cleared and her hunched shoulders relaxed. ‘Sorry.’ She touched the side of his face gently with her hand. ‘I sort of forgot some people actually have a modicum of sensitivity. Sad, isn’t it?’ she mused. ‘I got so used to everyone acting as though me and my life were public property that when someone shows some kindness I get confused.’
‘I wasn’t being kind, Flora.’ He spoke so harshly her hand fell away. ‘I made as many snap judgements as the next man in the street about you—maybe more,’ he grated. ‘So have a care when you place me on a pedestal I’m woefully unsuited to.’
The warning in his voice made her shiver. ‘I prefer you in my bed.’ Her sally didn’t draw an answering smile.
‘The only difference between them and me is that I got to know the real Flora.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up over this, Josh,’ she urged. ‘We’ve all believed cruel lies, or skilfully edited half-truths we read in newspapers, myself included.’
Self-contempt flared in his eyes as he scrutinised her beautiful, troubled face. ‘God help you, angel, but I’m probably falling in love with the real Flora.’
The colour seeped dramatically from her face. ‘You are?’ she croaked. He didn’t look as if he was joking; then again he didn’t look as though love was making him deliriously happy either!
‘Nothing’s one hundred per cent certain in life, but I wouldn’t go laying any bets against the sort of odds we’re talking here.’ His expression hadn’t altered; he continued to watch her with the same wary expression in his silver-shot eyes.
‘I don’t think it would matter what the odds were,’ she reflected slowly, ‘which in itself is strange because I’ve always been the last person anyone would have called a risk-taker…play it safe Flora, that’s me. I’d still want to take a shot at making this thing work, Josh, even if we had everything and everyone conspiring against us,’ she declared stubbornly.
It’s taken me a long time to lose my heart to anyone, but now I’m going the whole way and then some! Part of her was appalled by her frank, no-holds-barred demonstration of faith; another part of her found the experience oddly liberating.
The conflict Josh’s mobile features had been clearly displaying was supplanted by a white-hot flare of male gratification as he listened to her impassioned words.
‘You sound very fierce.’
‘I feel very weak,’ she told him honestly. What woman wouldn’t when straddled across the lap of a man with a body like Josh’s? Her eyes glided warmly admiring over his athletically sculpted frame; perfect harmony was the only description that came close to summing up the muscle ratio of his impressive proportions. Deeply debilitating desire flowed through her veins.
‘A weak, wanton woman…I like it.’
‘That’s what I want to do,’ she whispered huskily.
‘What do you want to do, Flora?’
Her eyelids felt heavy as the heat which pervaded her body spread. ‘Whatever you like,’ she explained languidly.
The sibilant hiss of his sharp inhalation cut the silence like a knife. ‘My God, Flora…’ His voice sounded as shaky as the hand he curved around the back of her head. She gave a slow, sultry smile as he
pulled her face to his. ‘Have you got the faintest idea what you’re doing to me?’
‘From where I’m sitting,’ she announced innocently, ‘it’s hard to miss what I’m doing to you.’
A strangled laugh rumbled in his chest, only his eyes weren’t laughing—they were filled with intense, raw need. The earthy sexuality of that look made the teasing expression fade abruptly from her own face. Nervously she ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips.
His hands spanning her waist with casual ease, he drew her up onto her knees and then, eyes still holding hers, brought her smoothly and decisively downwards again. The corded sinews stood out in his neck as his eyes closed and his head jerked back. His mind blanked and his arousal grew even more intense as he adjusted to being sheathed within the hot, moist tightness of her receptive, eager body.
‘You want me…?’
A low, needy moan emerged from her throat. She couldn’t speak—hell, she’d forgotten how to breathe! She could feel, though—every atom of her being was concentrated with mindless hunger on the incredible sensation of being intimately melded with him.
Each slow, controlled thrust of his body turned her insides molten and pulled her inner muscles and nerve-endings tantalisingly closer to the release they screamed for. Her fingers dug into the resistant muscles of his shoulders as her forehead came to rest against his. His face was a dark, unfocused blur, and his breath, hot and fast, mingled and merged with her own shallow gasps just as they were merging…becoming one.
He shouted her name at the moment of climax and Flora, still with her arms linked around his neck, felt her body go suddenly flaccid with the shock of release. She loosed her grip and Josh lowered her slick, hot body gently to the bed.
Propped up on one arm, he watched the shallow rise and fall of her small breasts. He ran a finger through the delicate valley the twin soft mounds formed. Flora’s eyelashes lifted from the curve of her cheek. She had never in her blissful ignorance imagined that loving someone could make a person want to weep. It was the most overwhelmingly intense feeling she’d ever experienced in her life.
‘I know you’ve got to go.’
‘Soon,’ he admitted softly. ‘But not yet. I want to look at you a while, and maybe hold you.’
The tender expression on his face brought the tears even closer to the surface. ‘I thought men didn’t go in for that sort of thing,’ she teased in a wobbly voice.
‘Depends on the man…and the woman he’s with. On second thoughts,’ he added, retrieving the tumbled sheet from the bottom of the bed and drawing it up over her still-quivering thighs, ‘perhaps it would be sensible to hold back on the holding bit…considering the time restraint…’ he added in response to her look of enquiry.
‘I’m glad you find me irresistible but I think, under the circumstances,’ she remarked drily, ‘it would be quite safe. Unless, that is, you’re superhuman.’
‘That,’ he told her, his eyes gleaming naughtily, ‘is a challenge I’d love to rise to on another occasion when I’m not obliged to love you…’
‘Twice,’ she couldn’t resist adding with dreamy-eyed complacence.
‘Being the modest type, I wasn’t going to labour that point.’ He loftily ignored her hoot of derisive laughter. ‘However, if we’re talking stamina…’
‘I’m sure your staying power is tremendously impressive…for a man of your age.’ She ducked under the sheet with a sly chuckle.
Flora was hopelessly outmatched in the resultant wrestling match but this didn’t hamper her enjoyment of the rough and tumble playfulness. Love-making and laughter had never seemed compatible bedfellows to her before, she reflected, finally pleading breathlessly for mercy.
‘It’s unscrupulous of you to take advantage of the fact I’m ticklish,’ she protested, pushing several wayward strands of hair from her hot face and grinning reproachfully across at him.
Her glance flickered downwards to where her limbs were still snarled in a deeply satisfactory tangle with his long, long legs. Her skin looked very pale against his darker hair-sprinkled flesh; a strong, athletically built young woman, she was amazed how delicate she appeared up against him. The stark contrasts between them excited her even in her present satiated state.
‘I’m a very unscrupulous man, Flora.’
He had stopped smiling and her own smile became uncertain; there had been an odd, indefinable but distinctly sobering note in his voice.
‘I’d better be going.’ He rolled away from her onto his back and in a single fluid motion rose from the rumpled bed.
Flora nodded, unable not to watch him as he padded with unselfconscious grace across the room, pausing to retrieve several garments as he did so. He really was magnificent! She couldn’t figure out what had broken his mood, but something definitely had.
‘Not up for milking in the morning, I hope.’
Josh fastened the last button on his shirt across his chest. ‘Not until the evening tomorrow, and that’ll probably be the last time. Huw’s plaster is due off. Actually I promised Liam I’d take him to the beach in the morning for a picnic, a sand-in-your-sandwich sort of affair.’ His long lashes lifted as he looked at her. ‘Wondered if you’d like to come?’
‘Sand is my favourite sandwich filling,’ she replied, hoping she was managing to match the insouciant tone he’d set. Hopefully he wasn’t as indifferent as he sounded.
He nodded and didn’t look displeased by her reply. Flora felt content with this. It would be plain daft to start getting neurotic every time she didn’t understand his mood. Josh was a very complex man, which was good as well as occasionally frustrating. Being lovers required no great effort on her part—what after all could be simpler than pleasing Josh and being pleased by Josh? The intimacy of being genuine friends seemed a much harder aim to achieve, and she wanted—really wanted to be his friend, not just his lover. She wanted the sort of friendship that would endure. Right now, though, she was concentrating on the important things—things such as he’d said he was falling in love with her. That was what mattered.
‘I’ll pick you up around eleven.’
The hard kiss he dropped on her unsuspecting lips was not at all indifferent, which proved conclusively to her how justified her optimism had been.
Flora only risked immersion ankle-deep in the sea and even that gave a nasty jolt to her nervous system—it was like ice. She worked up a healthy glow though, chasing an incredibly active three-year-old around the large beach, which was empty but for the odd person or two walking dogs or jogging.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ Josh caught her by the arm and swung her around. His eyes skimmed warmly over her lightly flushed features. ‘Or are you lusting after Caribbean sunshine?’
The only lusting she was doing was after him. ‘Caribbean sunshine has its place, but just now I wouldn’t exchange five-star service and rum punches for being right here with you and Liam.’ Her cheeks grew self-consciously pink as his scrutiny intensified. Her shoulders lifted. ‘Call me strange…’
‘I’d prefer to call you—oh, God, no!’ He broke off and groaned at the crucial moment. It seemed she was never destined to hear what he would have called her—he was looking past her towards a diminutive figure heading very decisively in the direction of the water’s edge. ‘You can’t take your eyes off him for a second!’ he yelled, hitting the sand at a run.
Flora couldn’t keep up with his long-legged pace and by the time she’d reached the strip of hard wet sand, rippled where the tide had recently retreated, Josh and son had emerged from the water.
‘He just flung himself in head first,’ Josh informed her, torn between laughter and horror as he struggled to contain his son who seemed determined to repeat his experience. ‘He hasn’t got an ounce of fear in his body,’ he observed in a distracted, but proud parent manner.
With Flora laughter won out; she chuckled out loud as the two came nearer. Josh’s capable hands were full of struggling toddler as he impatiently puffed an errant hank of dark
hair from his eyes.
‘I’m glad you find it funny,’ he observed with a disgruntled snort.
‘Well, you do look funny,’ she informed him honestly. ‘And there was no harm done.’
‘Thanks.’ He glanced down at his moleskin trousers which were wet as far as mid-thigh. ‘As for no harm done, I doubt very much if these will ever be the same again.’
‘And I’m sure you’ll really lose sleep over that.’ Josh didn’t strike her as the sort of man who listed sartorial elegance very high amongst his priorities, but then he, lucky chap, looked better in the most commonplace comfy casuals than most guys did in the most up-to-date designer gear. ‘I strongly suspect that you have slobby tendencies.’
‘It’s starting already, is it?’ He raised his eyes heaven-wards in appeal. ‘I ask you, is it a sin for man to put comfort before fashion?’
‘What?’ She took off her fleece jacket and tucked it firmly around the drenched youngster who was already looking a bit blue around the edges. The fresh wind made her shiver as it penetrated the thin shirt she wore underneath.
‘You want to make me over, make me presentable for all your smart, slick city friends,’ he teased reproachfully.
‘Huh, it would take more than a suit to do that.’ Chin resting on her fingertips, she gave him a thoughtful once-over. ‘Yes, much more than a suit.’
Actually she could think of several women of her acquaintance who would drool openly if they saw him at this precise second, with his dark wind-whipped hair all deliciously mussy and those trousers clinging like a second skin to the muscular outline of those thighs. On second thoughts, not some…all!
Josh gave a lopsided grin. ‘Cow,’ he observed affectionately as they puffed their way up the beach.
His puffs were due to the fact his burden didn’t want to be rescued, whereas Flora suspected hers had more to do with her lack of fitness. She thought regretfully of the expensive gym she’d joined and never actually attended above twice. I’ll turn over a new leaf, she promised herself.
