‘Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?’ Honor interrupted tremulously, stunned by the image of him lying in his bed on the other side of the wall, aching for her as she had lain aching for him.
‘Is it working?’ He brushed his mouth against hers at last.
‘No,’ she sighed, her whole body going boneless as his mouth brushed again, and settled...
‘Hard-hearted witch...’ He tasted strongly of whisky, and Honor was quickly over the legal limit, struggling to remember all the reasons why she shouldn’t be making it easy for him.
‘Adam...the car—your dinner—’ she said, arching her throat under his marauding mouth.
‘Damn them all,’ he rumbled. ‘This is more important. I’d rather be doing this right now than anything in the world...’ He pushed her deeper into the cushions, aligning his body over hers, as he slid one side of her blouse down and nuzzled her bare shoulder. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere where we can be alone?’
‘We are alone.’
‘Not enough. I mean really alone. This is one aspect of my love-life where I definitely don’t need any assistance. I think I remember all the right moves...’
He certainly did, Honor thought hazily, loving the warmth and weight of him, the beat of his heart setting a new rhythm for her blood. What a pity he didn’t remember the right words to go with them.
‘What do you expect from me, Adam?’ she whispered pleadingly.
He kissed the corner of her mouth and stroked the tip of his tongue briefly into the silky crevice. ‘You have to ask?’ His amusement shimmered with masculine awareness.
‘Yes,’ she said threadily. ‘I think I do.’
His expression of heavy-lidded sensuality changed subtly as he shifted sideways, raising himself on one elbow, his hand moving with slow deliberation from her waist to just below her breasts where it spanned her ribcage. The anticipation of his touch was almost unbearable as he murmured, ‘You do?’
She nodded, barely, as his mouth lowered to graze the upper curve of her breast, exposed by the sideways slide of her black top.
‘Are you sure about that, darling?’ His breath crept under the neckline in a moist and secret caress and she shut her eyes as she felt her breasts tauten. He knew she was sensitive there. He knew all her secrets...except one.
She shivered and found that she couldn’t answer. Why did he have to ask? He must know the reassurance she needed. Why couldn’t he just lie, and allow them both the luxury of pretending to believe it?
‘Honor?’
She opened her eyes and could have wept. An expression of gritty determination was layered over the silky hot, sensual need that had been flaring out of control moments ago. For the first time she hated him for his magnificent strength of character.
‘I’m selfish,’ he said huskily. ‘And greedy. I don’t want to lose a friend to gain a lover. I want both.’ He rolled off the couch to stand up in one fluid motion, pulling her with him and holding her hard against him for a single, searing instant before thrusting her away.
‘You asked what do I expect from you? The answer is nothing but what you’re prepared to give,’ he said, safe behind the barrier of his tightly leashed control. ‘So how about giving me some honesty? For instance—why don’t you tell me how it made you feel to open a letter and find out that I was suddenly headlong in love with you? Shocked? Disgusted? Amused? And tell me how you felt when you finally realised that I thought you were somebody else. Not what you did—what you felt!’
She had put her feelings for him into words once and it had all gone horribly wrong. She had learned a bitter lesson from her mistake.
‘I felt—amused,’ she said with cracked defiance, opening her eyes as wide as possible, so that they stung with the effort, and even managing a little trill of a laugh. ‘It was so much like a French farce: turgid over-emotionalism and mislaid messages and mistaken identities, ridiculous entrances and exits. To have taken it seriously would have been plain stupid!’
‘So you find it all rather amusing?’ His voice sounded thick with uncertainty and she nearly relented. But then she remembered how little he had told her about his feelings.
She lifted her head. ‘Yes.’
His eyes were pale with a savage triumph. ‘Then why are you crying?’
Her hand flew to her cheek and she was aghast to find it was true. This fresh self-betrayal by her body was the last straw.
‘Because I hate you, that’s why!’ she screamed hysterically, vainly trying to wipe away the humiliating evidence only to find she was using the handkerchief he had given her. She flung it at his head and rushed past him to fling open the door.
Standing on the other side, her hand raised to knock timidly, was Sara, neatly dressed for dinner in one of her aunt’s sedate choices.
‘Oh!’ Honor was still trying to stem the ceaseless tide. She knew she must look red-nosed and swollen-eyed and hideous. That must be why Sara was screwing up her face. She cast an agonised look over her shoulder at Adam and in that instant Sara gave a little sobbing gasp.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Like a rocket the girl was gone, sturdy legs pumping as she pounded up the stairs. Honor was riveted in shock as Adam brushed roughly past her.