by Penny Jordan
As Seb’s body read her responsiveness to him it reacted instinctively and Katie’s sensually soft purr gave way to a shocked strangled gasp as she felt the betraying hardness of Seb’s body.
Outside, behind the closed door, one of the children called Katie’s name. As Seb heard it, it brought him back to reality. Immediately he lifted his body away from Katie’s, releasing her, and just as immediately Katie pushed herself away from him and darted down the passage.
The hallway was empty—thankfully—and Katie headed instinctively for the stairs and the sanctuary of her bedroom.
From outside in the garden she could hear the laughter and chatter of her parents’ guests but she felt as remote from them as though she were on another planet, their voices nothing more than a backdrop to the appalled anguish of her own thoughts. Her whole body was trembling, shuddering from head to foot, galvanised by what she told herself was her total revulsion for what had happened.
The way Seb Cooke had treated her, touched her, was unforgivable...unforgettable...an insult...an assault against both her emotions and her most dearly held moral beliefs. She hadn’t encouraged him, she hadn’t wanted him.
Hot-faced she closed her eyes, choking back the devastatingly honest inner voice that told her that she wasn’t being truthful with herself.
Squeezing her eyes tightly closed Katie whispered under her breath, ‘All right, so I did...react to him, but that was just physical...any man could have...’ Biting her lip she opened her eyes. Any man could have what? Exacted the same response from her. If that was true...
Frenziedly she whirled round and paced the floor. It was because she had been thinking about Gareth... It was Gareth who she really wanted...who she loved, and it had been a combination of that love for him and her anger at Seb’s obviously intended, if not actually uttered, jibe that she was sexually untouched and frustrated...that she was—oh, the shame of it—still a virgin.
How had he guessed...known...? Katie closed her eyes as a fresh wave of anguish-fuelled despair drenched her.
At her age she was past the stage where her virginity could be considered a praiseworthy indication of her respect for herself and her determination not to rush into sexual experimentation simply for its own sake.
Her discovery while at university that she loved Gareth had prevented her from following the path taken by most of her peers and forming an intimate loving relationship with a fellow student. The result was that now she was almost something of an oddity, an adult who was not really properly a woman at all. Only she knew how left out, how uncomfortable, how ashamed she felt on those occasions when her female family peers and most especially, her twin sister, appeared with that bemused, slightly dazed and wholly femalely smug look in their eyes which said that they had recently enjoyed good sex. But even worse than that were those times when her twin Louise tried to coax her to confide in her.
‘Who are you dreaming about?’ she had teased Katie the last time they had seen one another. ‘Do I know him...?’
Katie had shaken her head of course, retreating immediately behind a protective wall of cool hauteur which had left Louise looking both bewildered and hurt. But how could she tell her that the man she had been daydreaming over was Louise’s own husband?
Determinedly Katie gritted her teeth. What had happened with Seb Cooke had simply been an expression of her very natural longing to be able to offer someone her own sensuality, she was sure of it. A very dangerous expression of course, but the relief of knowing there was a plausible, acceptable reason for the way she had let herself go in his arms, the way she had not just responded to him but allowed him to see how much he was arousing her, was such that she immediately began to feel more like her normal self.
It would have been unbearable to have had to face him knowing that she had actually wanted Seb. But he still thought that, she reminded herself.
Downstairs, Seb was saying his ‘goodbyes’ to his hostess. Fortunately their stay had only been a brief one as Chrissie was expecting her parents down to visit the following day and she and Guy still had to pick up Anthony from Guy’s sister.
He still had no idea what on earth had come over him for those few minutes he had held Katie Crighton in his arms, or rather he was perfectly well aware what had, but what he did not know was why it had. He had known far more forthright women, women who had made it more than plain that they would love him to take them to bed, and had been able to turn away from them without even the merest twinge of the savage flood of desire that Katie had aroused in him.
Anger and desire. As a scientist he ought to know that there was no more potentially dangerous sexual combination and as a scientist, too, he ought also to know that as a man his desire and his arousal were simply physical reactions... Maybe. But as a man he also knew that what he had felt when he touched Katie had had the same raw, powerful energy that nature herself possessed and as yet man had found no satisfactory way of controlling. Ask any scientist who had tried to find a way of combatting a hurricane, a tidal flood, a volcano or an earthquake... Damn the woman, she was the last kind of complication he needed in his life, now or at any time. Even so, just for a moment he allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes and briefly reliving that moment out of time when she had opened hers and looked at him, her eyes full of shocked liquid pleasure. Had she looked into his and seen there just what he was thinking? Feeling...wanting...? Just how much he had yearned to have her then lying naked on a bed beneath him while he licked the damp salt taste of her pleasure from her body and felt her quiver in the aftermath of her orgasm while he did so.
A bad father and a bad husband he might have been, but as Sandra had once openly and frankly told him, as a lover his sensuality had totally overwhelmed her.
A sensual scientist. It was a contradiction in terms, two imperfect halves that when put together rubbed and jarred against one another causing friction and pain.
* * *
IN THE FRONT seat of the car Chrissie commented quietly to Guy, ‘Katie still doesn’t look very well. I don’t think she’s been as happy as she used to be since Louise got married... I suppose it must be hard for her, them being twins...’
‘Mmm....’ Guy agreed. ‘She did seem rather subdued, but then she always has been the quieter of the two of them. Well, at least she’s got Louise’s visit home for Ben’s party to look forward to.’
‘What did you think of her, Seb?’ Guy asked and then laughed, ‘Or shouldn’t we ask? There were certainly some sparks flying between the two or you.’
‘I found her rather too idealistic and over-emotional,’ Seb responded curtly. ‘Not my type at all.’
In their front seats Guy and Chrissie heard Seb’s response. It had been unexpectedly curt and did not exactly bode well for Katie and Seb’s future as close neighbours.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR THE UMPTEENTH time since she had arrived at work, Katie smoothed down the skirt of her impressively formal black suit. She couldn’t remember ever having dressed for work with such anxiety and awareness. This suit was one she had bought in London at Louise’s urging and was much more her sort of thing than Katie’s own.
The jacket was immaculately tailored, the skirt short and straight. It was an outfit that breathed professionalism and power. In it, with her hair smoothed back she looked, Katie had decided, impressively formidable and there was no way that anyone, but most especially Seb Cooke, with whom she had an appointment in fifteen minutes’ time, was going to get the wrong impression about her attitude towards him. He was a client and, of course, that was all and she intended to treat him as such.
‘Goodness. You look smart,’ Olivia commented as she walked into the room and did a small double take as she studied Katie’s suit. ‘Very elegant.’
‘It’s Armani,’ Katie felt impelled to tell her, admitting wryly, ‘Louise chose it...’
&nbs
p; ‘Mmm... It’s the kind of suit that men visualise a woman wearing with absolutely nothing on underneath,’ Olivia murmured teasingly. ‘Or so Caspar would have had me believe when I bought one.’
Normally Katie would have taken her comment with a good-humoured pinch of salt but the way Seb had behaved towards her, her own reaction to him, their aggression and the passion which had burst into life between them, had put her so much on edge that instead she demanded flatly, ‘I hope you aren’t serious.’
‘Men are never more serious than when they’re talking about sex,’ Olivia responded dryly. ‘I promise you that when Caspar saw me wearing what I had innocently imagined was a perfectly respectable and business-like suit to go to court in, he told me that the only “briefs” that would be on everyone’s mind in the courtroom would be mine and that in those male minds they would most definitely be black and silky. Absurd, I know.’ She gave a rueful grimace. ‘I had a hard time getting my own head round it, but apparently there’s a deep in-built male psychological reason for it, something to do with their need to compete with and diminish a woman’s worldly power, a throw-back to their childhood when they had to learn to detach themselves from their mothers and learn how to become men... They’re quite sad sometimes really, aren’t they, poor things,’ Olivia continued cheerfully, pausing as their receptionist came in to tell Katie, ‘Seb Cooke is here to see you.’
‘Mmm... Seb Cooke.’ Olivia rolled her eyes naughtily and told Katie robustly, ‘Now, in your shoes, were I single and fancy free, I rather suspect that if I had a Seb Cooke seated across my desk from me, I’d be the one doing the mental undressing and the sexy intimate visualisation...’
‘Olivia!’ Katie protested. ‘I’m not... He doesn’t...’
But Olivia was already on her way to her own office, leaving Katie to ask the receptionist to show Seb into her own small cupboard-like room.
She hadn’t seen him since the incident at her parents’ home and as he walked in and she indicated to him that he was to sit down, Katie was sharply aware of how relaxed and in control he appeared in contrast to her own nervous discomfort.
‘This shouldn’t take very long,’ she told him as crisply and professionally as she could as she, too, sat down. ‘The contracts are pretty straightforward and it’s only a matter of reading and signing them and then completion can take place virtually immediately.’
‘Good. I’ve got a business conference to attend soon and if possible I want to move in to the apartment beforehand.’
Katie didn’t say anything. She, too, ought to have been looking forward to her own occupation of her apartment—she would have been doing so had it not been for the fact that he was going to be her closest neighbour.
Had what happened over the weekend occurred before she had made her decision to buy the apartment, would she have changed her mind?
Like her, Seb was wearing a formal business suit, its jacket unfastened over an immaculately laundered crisp, white shirt and a subtly patterned tie. Who ironed his shirts? she wondered absently. Surely not Seb himself. Her father had occasionally ironed his own when they were all growing up and he had needed one of his ‘court’ shirts in a rush. He had even ironed their school shirts once when her mother hadn’t been well. Katie could still remember how oddly creased they had remained despite his best efforts, the mystery not being explained until her mother had discovered he had had the iron on the wrong setting.
Seb watched her furrowed forehead as he recognised both the deliberate distance she was putting between them and her not quite totally hidden anxiety.
What did she think he was? Some kind of potential sexual bully who might pounce on her given the least excuse? There was no point in him saying anything. How could he when he couldn’t even furnish himself with a rational explanation for what had happened...for what was still happening, he recognised as she leaned across the desk, pushing the contract towards him, and he caught the clean, freshly washed scent of her hair and his stomach muscles contracted sharply in reaction to the savage surge of desire that kicked through him.
As she watched Seb virtually openly recoil back from her as she pushed the contract towards him, Katie could feel her body and then her face start to burn with chagrin. What did he think she was going to do...flirt with him; come on to him? The urge to tell him that he was wrong, that she loved someone else, was almost overwhelming.
Deliberately keeping her eyes down so that she didn’t have to look into his face, she watched him sign the contract. He had very long, strong-looking fingers with well-kept clean nails. His hands, while large, possessed a flexibility that for some reason made her heart start to beat far too heavily.
Briefly she closed her eyes and then wished that she had not done so as she had a momentary vision of those hands, his hands resting against her own skin, her naked skin, stroking and caressing it, cupping the soft flesh of her breasts whilst his fingers...
In her mind’s eye she could see the hard darkness of his hand contrasting with the softer paleness of her own flesh. She could feel the hot, dizzying ripples of sensation spreading through her body from that point of contact like liquid fire. She could actually see, as though somehow she were standing outside herself as another observer, the way she was lifting her own head and looking at him, focusing on his face...his eyes, his mouth, but what shocked and appalled her most of all was not what she was mentally visualising but the sensations she was experiencing—the hot, sharp female pleasure she was feeling...the longing.
Her office was suddenly as claustrophobic as the passageway of her parents’ home had been and she could feel the same sense of panic and anxiety beginning to rush through her. She felt hot...faint...weak...and she wanted...
Seb had finished reading the contract, which he had signed and was now passing it back to her. With a tremendous effort of will Katie forced herself to focus on the reality of why he was here in her office.
Seb, meanwhile, was already standing up, patently anxious to leave, but surely not so anxious as she was for him to go.
So why then, as she witnessed his signature, did she have this absurd desire to cry?
Shakily she pushed her own chair back and stood up.
‘We’ll inform you just as soon as contracts have been exchanged and completion takes place so that you can pick up the keys to your apartment,’ she told him quietly.
‘I take it you’re still going ahead with your own purchase?’ Seb asked.
Katie tensed. What was he trying to say? That he had expected her to pull out of her purchase? That he didn’t want her as his closest neighbour?
Lifting her head she looked him fully in the face for the first time since he had walked into her office.
‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?’ she asked him shortly.
To her relief he didn’t take up her challenge, instead merely shaking his head and walking away from her towards the door pausing once he got there to tell her, ‘I shall be getting in touch with the agents to make arrangements to have the key made available so that measurements can be taken for carpets and curtains.’
‘That’s a matter for you to sort out with the agents,’ Katie told him briefly. ‘As your solicitor I have, of course, to tell you that they are under no legal obligation to allow you to have access to the property until completion actually takes place.’
‘Indeed,’ Seb drawled, equally briefly, opening the door as he informed her dryly, ‘However, I wasn’t actually seeking your professional advice, I was simply taking the precaution of warning you as my closest neighbour that should you happen to see anyone coming to or going from my apartment it will merely be the interior designers I’m commissioning to furnish the place for me in case their presence alarmed you.’
Interior designers. Katie digested this information in silence. She was planning to call on the combined expertise and advice of her mother and
female relatives for help to decorate and furnish her own apartment.
Neither did she have any intention of telling him that the only person whose presence was likely to alarm her was his.
After he had gone she opened the office window and breathed in deep lungfuls of air. But even after she had closed the window she could still smell the subtle scent that was purely him and in the end she had to resort to taking her work out into the general office to escape from the effect it was having on her.
* * *
‘OH, DAD, PLEASE, I’d love to go.’
Seb grimaced a little at being confronted by his daughter’s enthusiasm for something he himself had hoped to avoid becoming involved in.
‘It is a very special day,’ Chrissie told him winningly, adding her own form of gentle persuasion to Charlotte’s enthusiasm.
‘Mmm...and as a member of Aarlston hierarchy here in Haslewich I suspect that you will be expected to put in an appearance,’ Guy chimed in.
They were discussing the weekend’s forthcoming ‘Fun Day’ that Aarlston were sponsoring at Fitzburgh Place for the single parents and their families who lived in Ruth Crighton’s sheltered accommodation and to which Aarlston employees were also permitted to take their own families.
‘Have you met Lord Astlegh yet?’ Guy was continuing, and when Seb shook his head Chrissie informed him with a smile,
‘You’ll like him. He’s charming. Very much a gentleman of the old school.’
‘Mmm... I can remember scrumping apples from the estate when I was a boy. His gamekeeper certainly wasn’t very gentlemanly when he evicted us and threatened us with horrible reprisals if we ever set foot there again,’ Seb remembered, looking rueful.
‘You, scrumping apples? Dad... I can’t believe it,’ Charlotte laughed, shaking her head teasingly.
‘Oh, he was quite a young tearaway as a boy,’ Guy told Charlotte straight-faced. ‘You ask my sister Laura...’
