What on earth had made her come downstairs like that in the first place? It wasn’t something she would normally have done. In fact there were often occasions when Katie had teased her about being over modest, informing her vehemently, ‘Honestly, Ma, you ought to be proud of your body, not always trying to hide it away. You’ve got a terrific figure. And you know what they say, don’t you? If you’ve got it, flaunt it.’
Well, she had certainly taken her daughter’s advice to heart today, she reflected shakily. What on earth must Silas think of her? Did he imagine that she was trying to be deliberately provocative, that she was…?
She gave a tiny shiver of distress, and immediately Silas said huskily, ‘I’m sorry. You’re cold. You’re nearly free.’
He was sorry! It was her fault she was in this situation, not his. She wondered what he would say if she told him that she hadn’t been shivering because she was cold, but because she was realising that no matter how much she might protest it with her conscious mind, subconsciously it had been that wanton, dangerous streak within her which was responsible for her present plight.
She shivered again, her embarrassment giving way to the beginnings of a definite erotic tension; an awareness that, despite the fact that he was fully clothed, Silas’s body was the male counterpart to her own femininity. She could feel the heat his flesh was generating and trembled violently in response to it. She heard Silas curse, and then suddenly she was free and able to step back from him.
As he bent to retrieve her towel, she saw that his hand was trembling slightly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised huskily.
He paused in the act of handing her the towel, his gaze locking with hers. His eyes burned with an unfamiliar heat that made her own pulses race.
‘What for?’ he demanded rawly. ‘For letting me see you like this?’
The way he looked at her then made her feel more conscious of herself as a woman than she had ever felt in her whole life; not self-conscious and uncomfortable with her sexuality, not ashamed and guilty about her body, but somehow proud of her femininity, aware of its power and strength, aware of herself as the focus of male desire.
In that second an avalanche of sensations and emotions came crashing down over her, the burden of years of self-repression falling away from her so that she was conscious of herself and her needs so sharply that that awareness was almost a physical pain.
She took a step towards him, ignoring the towel, impulsively wanting to share with him the wonder of what she was feeling, and then abruptly he killed that impulse by adding violently, ‘Yes, Hazel, so am I.’
She froze where she stood, all her self-doubts and fears coming crowding back, and added to them was an extra burden of humiliation and shame. Of course he didn’t want her. Of course he hadn’t been implying…
She started to shake violently, tears burning the back of her throat.
‘Hazel, what is it? What’s wrong?’
Her emotions were too strong to allow her to speak. He was still holding the towel and suddenly to her surprise he held it open and said softly, ‘Come here—let’s get you wrapped up in this before my self-control deserts me completely. Have you any idea what you’re doing to me?’ he demanded huskily, as he enveloped her in the towel, somehow or other drawing her closer to him as he did so, so that when he picked her up, lifting her completely off her feet and cradling her in his arms, she had no option but to let him do so, wrapping her arms instinctively around his neck for additional security as he headed for the stairs.
‘You and I need to talk,’ he told her quietly as he climbed the stairs.
‘I’m sorry if I gave you a shock coming back so unexpectedly like that, but I didn’t…’
Hazel wriggled uncomfortably in his arms, guessing what he had been about to say, but unable to put it into words. Of course he hadn’t expected to walk in and find her standing in the hall without a stitch on.
They were at the top of the stairs now and he was heading in the direction of her bedroom.
‘I want to talk to you, but not while you’re like this.’
Of course not. Her face burned. Did he suspect that she had done it deliberately? But how could he? She hadn’t known he would come back.
He was just about to put her down on the bed when she felt the tension in his arms. Her own muscles locked in mute response as she looked towards his downbent head.
‘Hazel.’
He said her name on a rough, long drawn out breath that brushed her skin with warmth and turned her body liquid.
As he gently unfastened the towel and kissed the hollow between her breasts, she shivered with shocked delight, the hands which she had locked behind his neck for support developing a will and an instinct of their own so that they spread across his shoulders, stroking the hard muscles, her soft murmur of pleasure breaking the thick silence of the room.
As though that sound held some special plea, some secret message, Silas sat down on the bed, still cradling her to him, his lips exploring the soft swell of one breast, while his hands gently cupped and held their roundness.
Now the silence of the room was splintered not just by the accelerated sound of her own breathing but by Silas’s as well. With hearing that was suddenly preternaturally sharp she could hear the soft sound of his mouth moving against her skin, could feel its sensual vibration deep within her body, could feel a growing urgent desire to hold him close to her, to arch her back, and wantonly invite him to stroke every inch of her exposed skin with the same wonderful sensuality with which he was caressing her breasts.
It was the most erotic sensation she had experienced in her life, and the most dangerous, but she ignored the danger, letting herself be swept away on the turbulent mill-race of sensations flooding through her.
And when Silas did slide the towel from her body, lingering, caressing her skin with the silken warmth of his mouth, it was like a dream come true, like a private secret fantasy, too magical surely to be actually happening.