Senses awake like never before, she was bombarded with a myriad of impressions—the taste of his mouth, warm and fragrant, the heavy thud of his heartbeat and the impression of one hard thigh thrust between her own legs. She clutched at him because her knees showed a tendency to shake. And it wasn’t just her knees; her entire body was vibrating as a tide of heat raised her temperature several degrees. Standing on tiptoes, her slender body stretched in an arc, she could just place her hands around his neck.
With a husky groan he placed both hands on her waist and physically put her from him. She took several gulps of air and tried to steady her laboured breathing. Adam was staring at her as if she had two heads. His narrowed eyes gleamed with a very uncomplimentary mixture of horror and disgust.
‘You accused me of being unsubtle,’ Anna said huskily. Her flippancy was a cover for her confusion. The kiss, delivered solely in a spirit of frustrated retribution, had shaken her to the core.
She smoothed her sleek, short hair back into shape, recalling the way his fingertips had moved through it to cradle her skull. Her eyes went on their own volition to his hands—strong, shapely hands. Knuckles white, they lay clenched at his sides. God, can it be that bad kissing me? she wondered.
‘You’re fairly casual about where you give your kisses. I’d have thought you could take another more or less in your stride.’
‘I like to decide where I bestow them.’ She was glad to see the rush of warm colour that suffused the sharp angle of his cheekbones.
‘It was a mistake.’ How had he done anything so stupid? he wondered angrily. ‘I didn’t notice you fighting me off,’ he added in a goaded voice. ‘Quite the contrary,’ he couldn’t prevent himself from concluding.
‘How like a man to try and offload the blame,’ Anna sneered, ignoring the accuracy of his statement. ‘And I don’t like being looked at like that. I’m sure you’ve spent years perfecting that sneer, and I can appreciate how beautifully your lip curls, but it takes more than that to impress me. As for not fighting you off, I didn’t want to inflame you. Some men are turned on by that sort of thing.’
‘I hope we’re not going to delve into the sordid depths of your carnal knowledge. Cheap, tacky reminiscences are not really to my taste.’
Cheap…tacky! Her bosom swelled with indignation. ‘At least I’m not a pretentious, self-righteous, sanctimonious bore!’ she countered loudly.
‘Anna!’
The sound of her name made Anna turn around to see her two sisters standing only a few feet away.
‘Adam, I’m…’ Rosalind came hurrying forward, closely followed by Hope.
‘Don’t you dare apologize for me,’ Anna said grimly, her teeth clenched.
‘Adam is our guest.’
‘He’s not my guest. I only invited people I like,’ she responded childishly.
‘Aunt Edie…?’ Hope reminded her.
‘Relations don’t count. They have to come; it’s Mum and Dad’s ruby wedding.’
‘Adam, this is Hope.’ Rosalind interrupted this petty exchange with a reproving look at her sisters.
Anna watched with cynical interest as he recognised her famous sister. Hope, known as ‘Lacey’ professionally, had achieved fame and fortune as a supermodel. She topped Rosalind’s five feet nine by two inches and was long-limbed and athletically built rather than waiflike.
Hope had the same basic ingredients as any other good-looking female, with some indefinable extra thrown in. Her mouse-brown hair had been lightened to sun-streaked glory and her lashes were dyed, but the features were the same perfect ones she’d been born with.
Men might like to drool over her on the TV screen or on glossy covers, but Anna had seen that many were intimidated when they came face to face with the real thing.
‘This is a real pleasure.’
Adam Deacon wasn’t one of that number, Anna noticed, seeing the look of interest in her sister’s eyes as Adam clasped her outstretched hand and raised it to his lips. Anna rolled her eyes; how corny! The fact that Hope could look up into his face was in his favour: Hope was still slightly self-conscious about her height.
‘Lindy tells me you’re a doctor too.’ The smile that launched a thousand products blazed forth. ‘What have you been doing to Anna to make her lose it?’ she was unable to resist asking. An impish grin replaced the sophisticated smile.
‘He kissed me.’
‘That was pretty daring of him.’ The look Lindy exchanged with Adam was not as light-hearted as her voice; it carried a degree of censure and dismay.
‘No one’s told him about the left hook,’ Hope added with a chuckle.
‘So much for sisterly solidarity,’ Anna muttered. ‘As for you, Hope, I thought you were going to spend the entire evening on the phone to New York.’
‘Are you trying to change the subject by any chance, Anna?’ Hope enquired.
‘I’ve got things to do,’ Anna said airily. She turned and walked briskly away. Her sisters were welcome to Adam Deacon.
Organising a surprise party for their parents had been a mammoth task. At least, the secret part had been in the close-knit community where everyone knew her parents. Anna had been amply rewarded for her efforts by the expression on her parents’ faces when they arrived expecting a candlelit table for two and had found the whole hotel taken over for the occasion.
Anna didn’t mind that they were so ecstatic to see her sisters. She was always around, but it was a treat for them to see Lindy, who was a senior house officer in a busy London hospital, and Hope, who thought nothing of visiting several countries in one week. Her visits home had been infrequent since she’d based herself in New York.
Now Anna managed to make sure everyone had a full glass to toast the couple before she joined her sisters on the podium to say a few simple words.
Charlie Lacey responded in his gruff manner, tears of emotion in his eyes and his arm around his wife.
‘What can I say? Anna has kept a secret for the first time in her life!’ He held his hand up and the laughter died away. ‘I’m a lucky man,’ he said simply, his eyes on the four women in his life.
Anna smiled insincerely as later in the evening her mother introduced her to this nice doctor friend of Lindy’s who was going to be living locally.
‘We’ve met,’ Anna said, her dark brows meeting in a straight line over her nose.
‘You’ve so much in common.’ Beth Lacey gave a pleased smile.
‘We have?’ They both spoke in unison, and their eyes clashed as they each recognised the scandalised disbelief in their voices. Anna bit back the smile that quivered on her lips.
‘Of course you have; you’re both medical.’
‘Are you a doctor too?’
‘She could have been if she’d had less outside interests,’ the fond mother informed him. ‘She did train as a nurse, after—’
‘I don’t practise,’ Anna interrupted smoothly. ‘I found the hierarchical structure a little too confining for my taste; I branched out.’
‘Into what?’ Nursing must have breathed a sigh of relief to lose this anarchic spirit, he thought, watching her small hands moving expressively.
‘Therapeutic massage and aromatherapy.’
‘How…enterprising.’
Nasty, narrow-minded, patronising toad, she thought as she silently noted the faint, contemptuous smile. ‘I take it you’re not an advocate of alternative treatments?’ She bristled with antagonism.
‘Treatment—that implies that some benefit is gained?’
‘I told you you had a lot in common.’ Beth beamed with pleasure. ‘I’ll leave you children to talk shop.’
Anna noted how Adam’s startled gaze followed her parent’s retreat.
‘No, she isn’t guileless, or stupid,’ she told him. Cunning would be nearer the mark, she thought affectionately. ‘She keeps trying to set me up with eligible males, and I suppose she’s decided you fit into that category. I’ve told her if she’s that desperate for my room I’ll m
ove out, but nothing will do for her but to try and get me married off. It’s very unfair; she doesn’t interfere with Lindy and Hope, though that might have something to do with the fact they’re not around.’
‘You live at home?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘When I’m not having sex with every male in a fifty-mile radius. Mind you, I did have a wild couple of years in London before I started nursing. I didn’t actually finish my training.’
‘Some people find it hard to finish anything they start.’
She wasn’t fooled by his neutral expression. ‘We don’t have your rock-solid respectability, darling,’ Anna purred, aching to slap his smug, superior face.
‘It wasn’t a criticism, just an observation.’
‘Everything you say is a criticism.’ The man was aggravation incarnate!
‘This is a great party. There. Is that complimentary enough for you? I believe you organised it?’ At that moment a young man spun off the dance floor and hit Anna in the back, sending her straight towards Adam.
His arms opened automatically to prevent her falling. The nearly finished drink in her hand spilled down his shirt-front, and she found her cheek pressed against the damp fabric as his arms came up to steady her. A spicy, masculine aroma, the heavy thud of his heart and the tension that tautened the rock-hard muscles all made her head spin. The enforced intimacy only lasted a moment, but the light-headed sensation made her miss the cheerful enquiry from the instigator of the accident.
‘It’s only lemonade,’ she heard herself babble, seeing the damp patch spreading across his chest. ‘No permanent damage.’ She lifted her eyes and met the steady, cold regard of his. ‘For God’s sake, I didn’t do it on purpose,’ she snapped, seeing the wariness in his expression. ‘It wasn’t a further ploy in my attempts to have your body, so you can relax.’ Her breath still came in turbulent gasps as she tried to steady her racing pulses.
Adam wished he could follow her advice and relax, but tension had his spine in knots and all his anatomical knowledge wasn’t going to help him unwind them. Getting the warm, womanly scent of her skin out of his nostrils might help.
‘Have I done something to disturb you?’ he asked, watching the colour ebb and flow in the small, vivid face of the young woman beside him. He was fascinated that anyone could have their emotions so close to the surface. Was she really as transparent as she appeared? he wondered.
‘Beyond the odd grope in the undergrowth?’ she asked, privately trying to analyse just what it was about this man that disturbed her so very much.
She liked open, straightforward people, and he had the sort of reticence that made a clam seem garrulous. His green eyes were secretive and mysterious and for some inexplicable reason made the pit of her stomach disintegrate. In the space where it should be was a cold and empty ache.
‘I had no right to do that.’ His face tightened with anger at the memory still fresh in his mind. Other parts of his body responded to the memory too!
‘But you enjoyed it,’ she said intuitively.
‘Yes!’ The stark admission seemed wrenched from him.
‘If it makes it any easier,’ she said huskily, ‘I did too.’
His eyes gleamed momentarily with a very basic emotion. Anna watched as tiny golden lights illuminated the green darkness of the irises. The chilling expression that swiftly supplanted the warmth made her wish for once that she’d held her tongue.
‘No, Anna, it doesn’t make it any easier at all,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re a wildly attractive young woman and any man would be flattered…’
But he’s not, she thought, summoning a jaunty smile to cover the rising tide of humiliation that was stealing over her. She wondered whether this defence looked as pathetic as it felt.
You’ve really made a complete fool of yourself this time, Anna, girl, she thought angrily. The man’s trying to let you down gently. She’d never laid herself so open to rejection before, and why? Just because this man had her hormones in chaos. For God’s sake, Anna, she chided herself, you don’t even like him.
‘The thing is, I’m here to look for a house to move into with my wife…at least she will be…’
It was like being struck in the face; she actually flinched. For a moment she didn’t know who she was most furious with—him for letting her glimpse a forbidden paradise, or herself for ignoring all the signals. Worse than acne or halitosis, he had a wife! I asked for this, she realised bleakly.
‘Say no more,’ she said in a cold little voice quite unlike the husky animation of her usual tones. She gave a light shrug as though she didn’t feel as if she’d been kicked in the guts. Where was her sense of proportion? This man was a total stranger.
‘I’m not nearly discreet enough for married men.’ Again the light, brittle laugh. ‘I can introduce you to an estate agent if you’re interested; there are at least two here. Let me go find them.’ Without looking at him, she moved purposefully away.
The problem with being open, she acknowledged, swallowing inexplicable tears, was you laid yourself open to a heavy share of hurt and humiliation. Her eternally optimistic heart told her one day she’d find something, or someone, worth the risk.
When one of the local estate agents she’d pointed in Adam’s direction sought her out to thank her later she found even her optimism wilting.
‘I might just get rid of the Old Rectory, Anna,’ he observed, rubbing his hands together. ‘Places that size and in that price range can be the very devil to shift.’
‘Isn’t that a bit big?’ she said, thinking wistfully of the large Georgian house she’d always loved. It had stood empty for over a year now in the static property market.
‘Not for a family of four—or was it five? Anyway he wants lots of space.’
Anna watched him move away happily visualising his sale. The lick of pure rage that swept through her made her body grow rigid and her fine eyes sparkle with wrath and contempt. What an unscrupulous, faithless, pathetic excuse of a man. She hoped she would never come across Adam Deacon again because she knew she would not be able to be civil. Married men who kissed anyone but their wives were beneath contempt as far as she was concerned.
So much for instinct, she thought in disgust—lust was all I was responding to, and I bet he was lapping up every second of it. I’m as bad as him—the creep!
CHAPTER TWO
THE rain had been falling steadily from the leaden grey skies all morning. The small group of protesters had gradually drifted away until only Anna and an elderly couple remained. Anna’s arms were aching from carrying her placard, and, looking at the faces of the retired couple, she could see that they were feeling the strain.
‘Shall we call it a day?’ she suggested to the remaining stalwarts.
‘We’re fine,’ the white-haired woman assured her staunchly.
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, Ruth,’ Anna said with a smile. ‘But there’s not much point in maintaining a high public profile with no one to see us. Nobody has been in or out of the building for the past hour. We’ll regroup and work out a new strategy later in the week.’
Something a bit more spectacular, Anna thought stubbornly. Something to make those philistines in the planning office sit up and take notice. Tearing down a row of Georgian cottages to make a carpark and yet another supermarket was something worth fighting about. It made her blood boil just thinking about it. If you let some planners have their way unopposed we’d end up living in a concrete jungle, she fumed.
‘If you think so, Anna, dear,’ George Thompson said with thinly disguised relief as he wiped the water from his brow. ‘I think we will go home. Can we give you a lift?’ he asked, taking his wife’s arm.
‘No, that’s all right,’ Anna said stoutly as she shouldered her placard. ‘I’ll take the short cut across the common.’ The Thompsons lived at the opposite side of the village to her parents’ farm, and the exercise would help vent her frustration.
Hood pulled lower over her eyes, head bent again
st the rain, she trudged off across the sodden ground. She was a member of the local ramblers’ association and knew all the footpaths; she had demonstrated to keep many of them open.
The route she’d chosen took her through the grounds of the Old Rectory. Anna had decided after her parents’ party the previous week that it might be tactfully expedient to avoid the Old Rectory and its new occupants for the foreseeable future.
Moving cautiously along the path that skirted the eastern border of the overgrown garden, she saw to her relief no sign of habitation in the large, uncared-for Georgian façade. With its peeling window frames and walls overgrown by a vigorous ivy the place looked deserted.
She relaxed a little, but still moved furtively along the moss-covered path, taking care she didn’t slip into the brook that bisected this portion of the grounds. Her encounter with Adam Deacon had shaken her stubborn optimism more than she was prepared to admit, not to mention her confidence in her judgement.
When Lindy had casually introduced—and Anna hadn’t been fooled by the casual part—the subject of Adam’s family ‘responsibilities’, as her sister had so quaintly termed it, Anna had played it very cool.
‘The wife and family part, you mean?’ she responded in an equally offhand manner.
For once Anna wasn’t prepared to have her mistakes discussed by her sisters. This was one self-inflicted hurt she wanted to keep private. No wonder Lindy had been worried if she knew Adam was a married man with a family. Anna had to live with the humiliating knowledge that she’d come on to him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Adam probably imagined that she behaved like that with every half-decent male she came across. He wasn’t to know she’d never been so attracted to anyone—at least not for a very long time, she mentally corrected. She had male friends and enjoyed their company, but romance hadn’t featured much in her life. In fact her existence had been blissfully free of complications.
Wild and Willing! Page 2
