Conveniently His Omnibus

She managed no more than a few bites of both her first and main courses, refusing a sweet, and playing with her cup of coffee whilst Jon buttered biscuits and helped himself to the Stilton.

Why had she ever thought him clumsy? she wondered absently, watching the neat methodical movement of his hands. In moments she was totally absorbed in watching him, in wondering what it would be like to feel those long fingers against her skin...

‘Sophy.’

She looked up, confused by the sudden curling ache in the pit of her stomach, her breath catching suddenly, trapped deep in her lungs as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘Jon?’

‘Some boxes are better never opened, Pandora,’ he said quietly in answer to her unspoken question, ‘but it’s too late for going back now.’

Sophy moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, dreading what he might be going to say. She had seen in that look they had just exchanged a recognition of the desire he had stirred within her, and was ashamed of her own betrayal.

‘What do you mean?’ She was playing for time, hoping to stall whatever was to come but Jon did not want to play. She could tell that from the way his jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing faintly as he studied her face.

‘Isn’t it obvious what I mean?’ he asked quietly, carefully pushing aside his plate and looking at her. She wanted to look away but it was impossible, some power beyond her own puny strength refused to allow her to drag her gaze away from his. ‘I want you dammit, Sophy,’ she heard him saying rawly, the words falling around her, splintering through her self-control and shattering it completely, shocking her with their intensity, stunning her into silence with their totally unexpectedness. ‘I want you as a man wants a woman, in my arms...in my bed. Oh, it’s all right, I’m not going to force myself on you. I simply brought you here so that we could discuss this sensibly.’

From somewhere she managed to find her voice, the sound of it raw and husky in her own ears as she stammered helplessly, ‘But you don’t...you aren’t like that.’

His mouth twisted with unfamiliar cynicism, his voice very soft and faintly metallic as he told her, ‘You’re wrong, Sophy, I do...and I most certainly am, much as it pains me to admit it. Poor Sophy,’ his voice mocked her in its irony, ‘how shocked you look, and no wonder...but did you really think me so sexless? Oh, I know you don’t find me physically appealing but unfortunately a human being’s ability to experience desire is not in direct ratio to physical attractiveness. Or is that another truth you find hard to digest? Poor Sophy, indeed. How disconcerting all this must be for you.... You preferred to see me as more machine than man, I’m afraid but you really only have yourself to blame,’ he told her harshly. ‘I’m not blind despite these...’ He touched his glasses, his eyes and mouth hard. ‘Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you’ve been deliberately provoking me recently. Why? Because of Benson?’

Unable to listen to any more, Sophy reacted wholly instinctively and did something she’d never done before in her life. She got up and fled from the room, rushing out to the car before Jon could stop her, quickly starting it and driving off.

It wasn’t until she reached home that the full enormity of what she had done actually dawned on her. She had left Jon stranded at the Mill. All because she didn’t have the courage to be as open with him as he had been with her and tell him that her recent provocative behaviour had sprung from a mingling of pique and curiosity and had had nothing to do with Chris at all. No, not just pique and curiosity...there was desire as well; the same desire that was curling through her body now as she remembered what he had said to her about wanting her.

Suddenly galvanised into action she ran to the phone and looked up the number of the Mill, quickly dialling it. It seemed an age before anyone answered. Impatiently she asked for Jon and, after what seemed like an endless wait, was told that he had left.

He must have got a taxi, she reflected guiltily. Why had she reacted like that...like a gauche and embarrassed teenager? What on earth could she say to him when he came home?