Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

‘I got back earlier than I expected, so I thought I’d make good use of the weather and make a start on the garden,’ he was saying cheerfully, adding more cautiously, ‘You did say you didn’t mind.’

Didn’t mind…what was it she wasn’t supposed to mind? she wondered dazedly. The sight of his half-naked body, clad in a pair of faded ancient jeans that seemed to cling lovingly to the lean length of his legs, outlining the powerful muscles of his thighs, the scent of his body, warm, musky…male…was so powerfully arousing that she wanted to walk blindly towards him, to breathe in that musky aphrodisiac maleness, to explore the powerful muscles of his shoulders and torso with her hands and her lips.

She started to tremble, a deep-rooted, aching physical reaction to the sight of him. She wanted to walk up to him and to slide her hands against the taut flesh above the waistband of his jeans, to unfasten them and to discover if that tormenting line of damp, dark hair…

A shocked moan of self-contempt broke the silence between them; her eyes were wild with panic as she tried to focus on the garden beyond him, to strive for some measure of normality and sanity in a world that suddenly seemed to have turned completely upside-down.

It was men who were supposed to feel this intense sexual need, wasn’t it? Not women… at least, not when nothing had been said or done to encourage it.

Beneath the thick covering of her blouse she could feel her nipples hardening, aching. And, as her breath caught in her throat, she suffered the humiliation of the unbearably erotic mental image of herself, free of the cumbersome burden of her clothes, her body pressed close to Oliver’s, so that the tormented pulse of her swollen breasts was eased by the physical contact of their bodies, so that her paler, feminine flesh was rubbed erotically by the darker, harder maleness of his.

‘Charlotte.’

An anxiety in his voice brought her sharply back to reality. As his hand reached out towards her, she stepped back from him, such a look of revulsion in her eyes that he frowned, not realising that it was directed against herself.

‘I’m sorry…I’d forgotten. I must be filthy. It’s just that for a moment you looked…’

Charlotte turned her back on him. She didn’t want him to tell her how she had looked. She felt sick and faint, stripped of her defences, struggling to come to terms with a latent sensuality she had never dreamed she possessed.

‘I expect you’ll be eating out tonight,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I…’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I had thought we might eat together.’

His words stopped her, so that she had turned round to face him again before she knew what she was doing, her face registering her shock.

‘Together? But—’

‘It’s by way of a small celebration. I’ve sold my London agency for an excellent price, and I was hoping that you might be kind enough to help me to celebrate my decision to make my home permanently down here.’

‘Me? But—’

‘Please…I’ve brought a special Fortnum’s hamper back with me so that we wouldn’t need to cook.’

Charlotte was staring at him. She couldn’t take in what he was saying. ‘You want to celebrate with me,’ she repeated jerkily. ‘But…’

‘But what?’

How on earth had he come to be standing so close to her? She blinked dizzily, wondering when he had closed the distance between them.

He was so close to her now that if she gave in to the temptation to close her eyes and sway close to him her hair would brush that bare, moist chest, and then if she turned her head her lips would touch the satin smoothness of his throat. And, if she did, he would only have to close his hands on her shoulders to bring her body into intimate contact with his and to relieve the aching tension tormenting her.

‘But what?’ he repeated softly, causing her to focus on him and then step back from him, her eyes shadowed and wary.

But why me? she wanted to ask, but dared not. Instead she said as coolly as she could,’ I should have thought you would have friends in London you could have celebrated with.’

‘Not friends,’ he corrected her. ‘Acquaintances, yes. London is that kind of place. Everyone is too busy carving a career for themselves these days to have time to establish friendships. That kind of lifestyle isn’t for me any longer. Mature, sensible relationships where two individuals agree to spend a tiny portion of their time together, sharing their bodies without sharing their dreams…that’s not for me.’

She was starting to tremble wildly, unable to allow herself to believe what she was hearing.