‘I’m hoping to study for some qualifications myself,’ she told Joel, ‘although I’m not sure what it will be yet. I’d thought originally of taking a degree course, but with so many young people leaving university without a job to go to I’ve begun to wonder if I wouldn’t be wiser going for something more practical, although I’m not sure what.
‘There.’ She gave Joel the piece of paper with the recipe she had written down. ‘It’s quite easy to make. Do you… does your wife have a mixer?’
‘Yes,’ Joel confirmed, leaning closer then as he studied the piece of paper she had given him. ‘What does this mean?’ he asked her. ‘Cream butter and… ?’
‘Oh, well, you have to…’
Joel listened intently to her while she explained. She was a nice woman, he decided. Warm and kind, and he would have liked her and felt drawn to her on the strength of that alone. But if it was her warmth and kindness that made him feel relaxed and reluctant to leave, that made it easy for him to talk to her and confide in her, it was her femininity, her softness, that small betraying tension he could sense within her, that made him respond to her physically and sexually—and dangerously!
‘You see? It’s really quite easy,’ he heard her telling him earnestly.
He looked across at her. Her face was slightly flushed, her colour deepening slightly as she looked away from him. She was as aware of him as he was of her, Joel recognised. Aware of him and just a tiny little bit afraid. Not in the sense that she thought he might do anything to hurt or abuse her, he recognised, just femalely and intuitively afraid of his maleness and her own response to it.
Once, a long time ago… a long, long time ago… he had seen that look in Sally’s eyes, felt her body tremble as he’d taken her in his arms, had known that when he touched her, kissed her, she would melt into eager response, wanting him… needing him.
She was behaving irrationally and ridiculously, as though she were a teenager, Philippa recognised as she tried to control her body’s responses to Joel’s proximity. She could feel herself starting to tremble, her legs threatening to buckle as she was filled by an overwhelming sensual yearning, a need to touch and be touched, to hold and be held.
Horrified that Joel might guess the effect he was having on her, she looked away, dipping her head so that her hair fell forward. Automatically she reached out to push the fair strands back behind her ear, only Joel beat her to it.
The pads of his fingers felt slightly rough but his touch was gentle and warm, stroking almost as though he was trying to soothe her. As though he recognised how she felt and was trying to comfort her, she acknowledged.
He was a very attractive, very sexy man, and no doubt he was well used to dealing with silly women who came on to him. And she was being silly… stupid, like an archetypal lonely housewife, so desperate for sex that…
‘You’re trembling…’
Philippa tensed, her mouth dry, her heart pounding; her face burned hot with embarrassment. She tried to turn away but Joel’s hand was still lying against her jaw, cupping her face, turning it gently towards his.
‘And you’re not the only one,’ he told her huskily as he took hold of her hand and lifted it towards his chest. ‘Feel.’
The powerful fast thud of his heartbeat made her feel light-headed and dizzy—or was it the intensity of her own desire that was making the room spin round her, making her feel so weak that she had to cling to him for support?
‘No…’ she protested as he bent his head and she watched his mouth come closer to her own. ‘No, we mustn’t.’
His head stopped moving, his eyes searching her face.
‘No,’ he agreed sombrely. ‘We mustn’t.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SALLY glanced nervously at her watch. Almost half-past two. Surely Kenneth still wouldn’t be waiting for her now?
He knew her shift finished at two and when she didn’t appear he would know that she had changed her mind about seeing him.
If Joel hadn’t made her so angry and upset she would never even have agreed to see him in the first place, no matter how much a part of her might have wanted to do so.
As she smoothed down the fabric of her skirt she noticed that her fingers were trembling slightly.
This was silly, she told herself firmly, sulking here like a little girl afraid of being caught out in some misdemeanour. She had done nothing wrong. Just because another man enjoyed her company and she enjoyed his, just because he made her feel protected and cosseted, just because he had told her… implied that he was falling in love with her, that did not mean…
Shakily she got up, tensing as the door to the staff rest-room opened. The nurse who walked in raised her eyebrows when she saw Sally.
‘Nice outfit,’ she commented. ‘Going somewhere special?’
‘No… No, I… I just felt like a change,’ Sally told her uncomfortably.
The outfit had originally belonged to her sister, a crunchy, soft-toned linen two-piece which Daphne had complained petulantly creased every time she wore it.
Guiltily Sally allowed her mind to escape from the admission that it was an outfit she normally only wore for very special occasions. So what if she had decided to get changed here at work before going home for once? What did that mean? It was spring, the sun was shining; wasn’t she as entitled as anyone else to wear something feminine and impractical?