He must have brought her up and tucked her into bed. She checked her body underneath the covers, her face flooding with intense colour. How sweet of him, how like the night in London, how—embarrassing. He had removed the trousers of her tracksuit so that she wore only her sweatshirt and knickers. What had run through his mind as he had eased the soft grey material over her slim legs with those clever, sensitive fingers?
“You have lovely legs.” A stab of sheer physical longing pierced through her; she didn’t know how to assuage it, but she knew that Harper did.
She remembered the gentleness of his hands, and the warmth from the fire, and how they had talked, and she remembered too how safe she had felt with him, and how the very quality of that safety had filtered through her mind and body.
Nikki stretched, feeling her body slide under the weight of the blankets. How wonderful she felt, how exotic and yet familiar. A stealthy noise came from her bedroom door, and Nikki turned her head to watch lazily as her doorknob twisted around. The door was pushed open with a great deal of stealth, and Charles’s dark, curious head poked around the corner of it. When he saw Nikki’s wide-awake, quizzical blue eyes on him, he made a strangled sound and ducked back out so that she laughed out loud and called for him to come in.
The boy sidled in, clad in thoroughly disreputable jeans and oversized shirt. He begged her, “Harper warned me not to disturb you, but I thought I’d check to see if you were already awake—you won’t tell, will you?”
“Of course not,” replied Nikki as she propped herself up on her pillows. “Anyway, you haven’t disturbed me, I was already awake just as you thought I might be. What time is it?”
“Almost noon,” he told her, with a hint of reproof as he threw himself on to the bottom of her bed. “You’ve slept through the morning. My grandmother’s here. She likes to be called Helena, that’s why I call her Granny.”
Nikki’s laugh bubbled out again. “Do you? And what does she do?”
He grinned. “She holds her mouth tight and looks down her nose at me.”
“Well,” Nikki said with mock severity, “I can see I’ll have to watch myself around you! Why don’t you go downstairs now, so that I can get dressed? I’ll be down soon.”
He grumbled but complied, throwing over one thin shoulder carelessly, “I’ll tell Anne you’re up. Want any breakfast?”
Not wanting to be any trouble, Nikki said, “No, thanks, but I’d love some tea. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
She was skipping down the stairs in ten, dressed in a plain cream blouse, an embroidered waistcoat and tan trousers. After her deep, dreamless sleep she looked lively, buoyant, her blue eyes sparkling with vitality.
She decided to go to the kitchen in search of her cup of tea, and ran into Harper as she rounded the corner. Both his hands shot out to catch and steady her as she rocked on her feet. She looked from the broad expanse of chest in front of her eyes straight up to his face, exclaiming with a laugh, “We seem to make a habit of colliding into one another—”
Her voice died away as their eyes met, and sizzled. It was like tapping into an insulated electrical current; everything in the world stayed completely normal while she heated up and fried under the intensity of his midnight-dark gaze. The serenity of their evening in front of the fire was gone, blown up in the silent explosion. Could this have been what he felt when he put her to bed, easing her clothing away from soft, slim thighs, slipping her between the private sheets? Her lips parted, eyes stunned as they clung to him, dilating into reflecting brilliant black.
Oh, how wrong could she be? Oh, how could she have imagined such a magnitude of sexual interplay tossing in the turbulent chocolate ocean of his eyes? One blink and Harper was nothing more than friendly, his hand lingering no more than necessary to make sure she had her balance, a light smile creasing his lean, handsome face for her tempestuous entrance.
She felt bereft and grieving for what had only been a betrayal of her own wishful thinking, and yet had seemed so real for a moment when she could almost have believed that he would greet her with passionate gladness. Instead he reached out with a brotherly hand to rumple her hair and say, much as he would to Charles, “Hello there, you must have slept well. I’ll introduce you to my mother after you’ve had your breakfast. Anne’s just cooking you up something now.”
She averted her face sharply, nostrils flared with an attempt to control a stupid, stupid urge to lash out and hit him. “I’d better go on back, then,” she said tightly.
He ducked his head in an effort to see her downbent face, where all the vitality had drained away, and asked with a sharp frown, “Are you all right?”
She threw her head back and smiled at him brilliantly. “Of course I’m all right; why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a soft, thoughtful voice, and she knew she had to leave fast.
“What a pal you were to tuck me into bed last night,” she told him, reaching up to pat his cheek as she danced around him. Harper’s grey head reared back as sharply as if she had indeed struck him, and something very like anger flared in those hard, fierce eyes, but Nikki had not lingered in the hall to witness it.
At the kitchen table Anne set in front of her a complete English breakfast, and, much to her surprise, Nikki ate it. But the flavour seemed absent from both the food and the day, burned away in the heat of a moment. She would not brood; she instead concentrated on all five animals begging at her feet, on Anne, on Charles as distractions. Later, when she was introduced to the slim, elegant, white-haired Helena Beaumont, Nikki concentrated on her.
The older woman was very much reserved but impeccably polite, and fragile in a way that was totally unlike the steel quality of strength inherent in Harper and growing in Charles. Nikki could just imagine the frail English rose beauty Helena Beaumont must have been in her youth. As the afternoon progressed the older woman seemed to unbend considerably, almost in direct contrast to the increasing tension Nikki sensed building underneath Harper’s smooth, sociable façade.
But she wouldn’t focus on him. Every time their eyes came close to meeting, Nikki’s slid away from the contact, afraid that he would intuit the severe sense of deprivation she felt in his company. Everything about her response to him that Sunday afternoon was quicksilver, half averted. She was being, as he was, so friendly, so polite, so inaccessible.
When at last Helena had bidden them all goodbye that evening after supper, exclaiming that she had stayed much later than she had intended, Nikki slipped away from Harper while Charles still provided some distraction.
She fled up the stairs and into her room to collapse on her bed. What was so wrong with her that she couldn’t even behave naturally around him? So what if her imagination ran riot whenever he so much as touched her? So what if he treated her with a simple friendliness—why should that scour such an abrasive path through her? She had to get herself under some kind of control. She had to get some fresh air. Nikki thrust off her bed, and went to fumble for the catch on her balcony door.
A cool breeze puffed like a sigh on to her overheated skin as she stepped out into the night. The Oxford sky was different from London’s. There wasn’t as much light pollution, and even the air smelled cleaner. She went to the railing and leaned against it, breathing in deeply the scent of flowers and newly cut grass, and rich, fresh-tilled earth while her galloping heart began to slow. Light from the bedroom behind her fell half across her body and on to the ground below, cutting a swath through the dark evening.
She didn’t know if she could sort through the tangled mess of confusion inside her, but she did know one thing. If she didn’t get a strong hold on herself, and soon, Harper was going to remark on it, and then what would she tell him? She didn’t want to tell him the truth, and he’d know if she didn’t. With any luck, she thought, he wouldn’t comment on the strangeness of their interaction today.
As it
happened, however, Nikki was fresh out of luck.
Chapter Six
The first indication of Nikki’s luck running out was the velvet purr of a voice, coming out of the shadow from her left. “I wondered if you would be out here.”
Nikki practically leapt out of her skin, whirled and gasped, with one hand to her pulsating throat, “How did you get out here? Where are you?”
A deeper shadow detached itself from the others, so thoroughly unnerving in silence, liquid movements of solid bone, muscled awareness, intention. Harper murmured, “I came out through my bedroom door, and I am right in front of you.”
She was pressed against the railing so hard that the metal barrier bit into her back, but she never realised it. All her attention was focused on his materialisation. One more step and the reflected light from her room caught at the grey hair, the bright, dark eyes, the tough line of his cheek and the elegant curve of that stern mouth.
The next step and his sexy mouth was smiling. The next step and the bulk of his powerful body leapt into illumination. Nikki’s blue eyes were frantic. She looked everywhere fast, for she didn’t know where to look, and. finally she settled the whole idiotic dilemma by turning to lean her elbows on the railing and stare down at the shadowed grass. The silhouette of her head was in the rectangle of light thrown over the lawn, and she watched as a taller, broader silhouette joined her.
“I didn’t know the balcony was so long,” she whispered.
“You’ve never been out here before, and Charles’s guided tour of the grounds yesterday couldn’t have given you much time for proper observation. Most of the bedrooms share a balcony, except for the front ones. Nikki, why have you been avoiding me today?”
His arm brushed her shoulder as he leaned on the railing beside her, those large, strong hands loosely clasped. She turned her head to look at nothing in particular, just to hide her face. “I wasn’t aware that I had avoided you.”
“Don’t lie to me.” If the cool containment earlier in his voice was devastating, the quiet snarl that followed it was immeasurably so. “I can respect it if you honestly don’t want to answer, but I cannot respect a lie.”
“I’m not lying!” she felt goaded into exclaiming. “I never avoided you! In fact, I tried very hard all day to behave just as you were behaving towards me! I’m sorry if I didn’t manage to achieve quite the same effect—obviously I’m not as good at this as you are!”
She heard it, a tiny shocking sound, as he drew in a harsh, shaken breath. When she glanced back at him quickly, she found his face was grim and downbent. “Of course you are talking about earlier this morning, when we bumped into each other in the hall. My God,” said Harper, in which she read a curious combination of furious resignation and frustrated disgust, “do you ever miss a trick?”
“I might not miss them, but I don’t always understand them,” she replied, voice trembling in bitterness. “You were so perfectly cool and composed, I thought the whole thing was my over-active imagination, and desperately tried to cover it up. You’ve got me so mixed up, I don’t know which way to turn.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he growled, his body vibrating with violent tension. He turned his head and hard, angry eyes stabbed her. “We might as well air the whole damned mess, since this appears to be confession time—”
“Don’t throw my father back in my face!” she exploded in warning, and the brief release of tension felt wonderful.
“No, let’s talk about your inexperience instead!” he shot back with such dreadful accuracy that she flinched and almost cried. Damn him, he did know her, better than she knew herself, only this was such a private insecurity that she couldn’t bear it. As if in spite of himself, his voice gentled. “Shall I lay it out for you? We have known each other three days, and already we have established something rare. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” she whispered, but she pulled away from him when he would have reached out to grasp her hand.
If anything Harper became even more gentle, and how it hurt her. “You know I’m attracted to you. You’re too clever and perceptive for me to hide it. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” she whispered again, and she almost hated him, for she could sense what was coming.
He looked straight ahead of him with a fierce frown, and his profile was everything hard and determined, cut from stone, all spontaneity bled away. “And you. Strike at me if you must, but you are so innocent, like a child inside a woman’s unawakened body. How could you know how to interpret the signals between us, or how to react to your feelings, or even, I suspect, what it is you want? But I told you already, nothing is going to happen between us that you don’t want. I am trying, dammit, to make things easier for you, not to add to your confusion.”
If she had not invested so much of herself into the conversation, perhaps she might have been able to appreciate his effort at patience and understanding, but Nikki was not about to try to disassociate herself. The bottom line was that this hurt. He hurt her. He reached into her heart and told her what was there, and the worst, most terrible part of it was that he did so dispassionately.
“What a brilliant theorist you are!” she exclaimed, eyes flashing with blue fire. “And what a shame, but, for your information, I am a person, not a mathematical problem that can be solved by laying everything out in straight, defined rows! Weren’t you the one who said life can’t be pigeon-holed the way we would like it? Do you know what your trouble is? Not only are you too perceptive as well, but you are too accustomed to assuming responsibility. Well, I don’t care if you can outguess me, but I won’t let you take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings!”
“For God’s sake, what would you have me do?” he snapped, gripping at the railing with both hands until they were bone-white. “Every time I get near you, you’re like a panicked bird, but when I try to be gentle you go for my throat!”
Tears of sheer fury, tears of pain sprang to her eyes and spilled over, and it was such a destructive combination of emotion that she threw herself into the heart of it and cried, “Let’s take it one step further! Obviously my inexperience here is a problem! Perhaps I should just take my inexperience someplace else. Somebody ought to be kind enough to rid me of it, and then maybe I’ll be able to meet you at your own level of sophisticated expertise!”
She had pierced him right past all his armour to the quick, and touched the volcano of reaction he had hidden inside. He rounded on her, making a raw, animalistic sound at the back of his throat. His face was frightening as he grabbed her by the shoulders, and she bent backwards under his strength like a reed before a whirlwind storm. “Don’t talk like that—don’t ever talk like that!” he bit out, shaking her hard.
But once she had started she couldn’t stop, and snapped, “Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it? If only you’d stop sending me crossed signals and make up your mind, maybe I’d know how to react! But obviously you want me the way you want me, not for who I really am!”
“You haven’t the slightest clue how I want you!” He breathed the words almost soundlessly, all his anger gone into the taut shape of his mouth, the hardened clench of his jawline, the explosion spilling out of his eyes. He towered over her, pure, rampant aggression, so utterly, impossibly powerful that her head fell back. The slim, feminine curves of her throat were suddenly outlined in stark, revealing light.
“Well,” she whispered in shaky reaction, “how very interesting.”
He was faster than anyone she had ever met. Dark, hard eyes flared with incredulity and fury, but this time it was bitten back and held. “I shall give you fair warning, Nikki,” said Harper softly, almost gently, “which is more than I have ever given to anyone else. Don’t ever try to manipulate or provoke me again.”
“Not even to clear the air?” she asked, insouciantly.
“My God,” he uttered, sexy mouth shaped around bared teeth, “you need taming.�
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“Oh, I hope not,” she retorted before she could help herself. Did she mean it in taunting reply, or in fearful exclamation? “But then I hear powerful men prefer docility.”
As the insolent words resounded in the air around them, she stood petrified. That’s torn it. She’d pushed him too far this time.
He snarled and hauled her against his chest, violent and intent and never so well directed as he was then, threading both big hands through the hair at the back of her head, dragging her face up, his eyes two great, eruptive black pools as they focused on her soft, vulnerable mouth. She had just a split-second of blank astonishment, a vast suspense poised on the brink of a precipice, and then his head swooped down like a striking hawk, and she was shattered, everything was shattered, and in the next instant remade.
It was, as nothing else could be, a baptism of fire. It scorched her to the bone and seared her soul. It was the first and only kiss, a conflagration, a death indeed of innocence, and at the same time a shrieking phoenix flight, for nothing was spared or held back as he kissed her with full unbridled passion, ravenous and open-mouthed, penetrating her with his tongue and plunging her headlong into deepest adult sensuality. The last of her childhood blew away in butterfly tatters before the ravaging male, and the unawakened woman inside her stirred, and opened her eyes.
He might have drawn back at some point, were it not for the deep, reactive moan she gave into his mouth like purest wine, the shudder that swept her from head to foot, unbearably intoxicating against his body, the exquisite tremor in those slim arms she raised to drape around his neck.
He felt her fingers in his hair, clumsy with greed, the incredible softness of her mouth moving under his, the unexpected savagery that took over inside him as he bit those lush, fruitful lips, and her own gasp before she bit him back in retaliation, not as delicately as he, nowhere as experienced as he, not experienced at all but for this—and this—and this—
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