‘What do you want me to do?’ she demanded. ‘Sit with my feet in a bowl of boiling water?’
‘Something like that.’ He was bending over her, reaching for the buttons on her blouse. She drew
back instinctively, her eyes widening.
‘Look—–’ impatience and something else lurked in the depths of his eyes, ‘I’m not about to rape you. Hot water merely on your feet isn’t enough. I’ve run a bath for you and you’ll stay in it until your hands and feet tingle and smart with returning circulation. Is that clear?’
All too clear. His words had penetrated the comfortable brandy-induced fog which had en-shrouded her, and Chelsea sat up to protest.
‘Drink this.’ Slade produced another glass of brandy. ‘Drink it, Chelsea,’ he warned her, ‘otherwise I’ll pour it down your throat.’
Unwillingly she did so, telling him huskily that she could manage without his unwanted ministrations, her face burning at the thought of his hands on her body.
‘Oh, of course you can,’ he agreed sardonically. ‘It’s a very minor task to get from here to the bathroom with one ankle out of action and both feet so numb that you can hardly stand up on them. I’ve already told you,’ he reiterated impatiently, ‘as far as I’m concerned you’re completely safe. Somehow the fact that you’d rather face a raging blizzard than my obviously unwelcome advances has had a decidedly cooling effect on my ardour.’
Her initial feeling was one of intense disappointment, but the brandy was having its effect upon her. Chelsea seldom drank more than the occasional glass of wine, and the potency of the spirit on an empty stomach was acting like a tranquiliser on her overwrought mind, forcing it into a state of hazy lethargy.
This time when Slade deftly unfastened her buttons she made not the slightest protest, allowing him to completely remove her blouse without demur. The remnants of her jeans quickly followed, and although she knew she should be embarrassed when he bent swiftly to remove her bra and briefs she was hazily conscious only of a surging pleasure engendered by the briefly accidental brush of his fingers against the smooth curve of her breast. For a second he seemed to stiffen into rigidity, but Chelsea barely had time to register the fact before he was lifting her up in his arms and carrying her towards the elegantly male bathroom decorated in dark blues and gold.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE hadn’t realised just how cold she was until she felt the blissfully warm lap of the water against her skin, Chelsea acknowledged dreamily, flinching as Slade tapped her lightly on the cheek and said curtly, ‘Don’t go to sleep on me, Chelsea. I want to know the moment you feel life coming back to your feet.’
He was more concerned with her feet than she was, Chelsea reflected, for some reason finding the knowledge amusing. She wanted to laugh so much her laughter was like a tight bubble inside her, but something warned her that Slade would be angry if she did. She also wanted to luxuriate in the delicious warmth of the water, to lie down in it and let it lap over her while she drifted off to sleep.
‘Chelsea!’
She yelped as Slade turned on the tap and hot water gushed into the dark blue depths of the bath.
‘I want to go to sleep,’ she protested childishly, smothering a yawn, and frowning a little as she heard Slade swear. He seemed very angry about something, but somehow it was just too much of an effort to work out why.
‘Your feet… can you feel them yet?’
Giggling, Chelsea reached down and touched her toes. ‘I think so—are these them?’
She thought she heard Slade mutter something uncomplimentary under his breath, coupled with something about ‘too much damned brandy’, but it didn’t really register. All of a sudden she felt gloriously free of inhibition and caution. What did she need them for? she asked recklessly, watching Slade through downcast lashes, wondering what he would say if she suggested that he join her. The bath was after all large enough for both of them.
She frowned as pain suddenly lanced through her ankle combined with red-hot darts of fire in her toes, gasping as the pain increased in severity, and all the colour left her face.
Slade was cruelly unsympathetic, his muttered ‘thank God!’ filling her with irrational resentment. Instead of comforting her as she wanted him to do he seemed to take great pleasure in increasing her discomfort by roughly massaging the flesh of her feet. To punish him she withdrew her foot from his grasp, splashing him deliberately as he reached out to recapture it. Water soaked the front of his shirt and she giggled helplessly.
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Am I?’ she smiled sweetly up at him, not really caring if it was the truth or not, her eyes rounding provocatively as she said huskily, ‘Whose fault’s that?’
‘Look…’ He grimaced suddenly, then reached down to lift her out of the water, not seeming to care that she was soaking the front of his shirt and jeans. Chelsea didn’t care either. It was blissfully satisfying to be held against him like this, the brandy obligingly releasing her hold on reality so completely that it was impossible for her to think beyond the immediate present.
She pouted when Slade wrapped her in a thick towel, but the feel of his hands on her body as he briskly rubbed her dry was so delicious that she soon forgot the disappointment of being removed from the close contact of his body.
‘Bed for you,’ he told her grittily when he had finished. ‘Something tells me you’re going to have an almighty hangover in the morning. Are you hungry?’
Chelsea shook her head, closing her eyes as he picked her up and walked into the bedroom. He had reached the door before she realised where he was taking her.
‘No!’ she protested as he reached for the handle. ‘I want to stay here.’ Dimly she realised that she was flirting with potential dynamite, but suddenly it didn’t seem at all important; other and more urgent desires clamoured for utterance.
With a faint grimace Slade walked across to his own bed, thrusting aside the covers and sliding her inside, before securing them round her as firmly as though she were a child.
In drowsy satisfaction Chelsea watched him remove his soaking shirt and jeans, her heart thudding painfully as she studied the clean lines of his body clad only in briefs which did little to disguise his masculinity. As she watched him she started to tremble feverishly with the longing to feel his hard warmth against her, her whole body shaking with the need she had dammed up for so long. Slade removed a clean shirt from a drawer and started to fasten the buttons. Chelsea’s skin felt clammy and she was dreadfully cold. He had found a clean pair of jeans and was pulling them on. She tried to tell him how terribly cold she was and how much she wished she was back in the languorous warmth of the bathroom.
Tucking his shirt into his jeans, Slade walked across to the bed to study her dispassionately, and Chelsea thought she heard him mutter under his breath, ‘This is all I need,’ but she couldn’t be absolutely sure because her mind seemed to be playing tricks on her, making the room recede, strangely out of focus and making her feel as cold as though she were still out in the snow when in reality she ought to be lovely and warm.
‘Slade.’ Her small whisper checked him. She wished he didn’t always frown when she spoke to him, Chelsea thought unhappily, watching the telltale gesture. ‘Slade, I’m dreadfully cold,’ she told him, her teeth starting to chatter. ‘I feel cold right through inside and out, even though I can feel my toes.’
‘Chelsea—–’ he began warningly, but her teeth were chattering so loudly that he had no need to touch her ice-cold skin to know she was telling the truth. ‘Slade, I’m freezing—please help me get warm,’ she pleaded huskily.
There was a long silence when she wondered hazily what she had said now to anger him. She looked hesitantly up at him, dismayed by the fixed rigidity of his expression and the small pulse beating tensely in his jaw.
‘Slade!’
‘I heard you,’ he answered grimly. ‘My God, you really believe in turning the screws, don’t you?’ he added bitterly, but Chelsea was feeling too hazy to know what he meant. All she did know was that she longed for the male warmth of his body against the icy coldness of hers, and she couldn’t seem to make him understand.
For a moment she thought he was going to walk a
way and leave her, and she started to tremble, violently overcome by another icy shivering fit, but when she opened her eyes he had already removed his shirt and his hands were on the buckle of his belt, and she felt her tension ease enough for the violence of her shudders to ease a little.
When he slid into the bed beside her she curled up against him like a small kitten seeking warmth, almost ready to purr with pleasure when his arms reached out to hold her.
Just for a moment he seemed to tense and draw away, but sleep was already claiming Chelsea, drawing her down into an embrace almost as warm and comforting as Slade’s.
At her side Slade remained awake, an expression on his face which suggested that neither Chelsea’s presence nor his own thoughts brought any surcease to whatever had drawn the tight lines of pain beside his mouth.
Chelsea was dreaming. She was lost in a whirling demoniacal snowstorm, battling against the biting intensity of a wind which seemed intent on stripping the flesh from her bones, pursuing her relentlessly no matter how she tried to escape from it. She moaned in her sleep, moving restlessly, and the hand she had raised to ward off the cold suddenly came into contact with the solid warmth of Slade’s chest.
She awoke immediately, disorientated and bewildered, unable to understand where she was or with whom, and then as her eyes searched the unfamiliar darkness of Slade’s bedroom everything came rushing back; at least up until the moment when Slade had made her drink the brandy. After that events took on a hazy quality as though they were something she had seen on a screen rather than participated in; no, not merely participated in, she acknowledged grimly, remembering how she had begged Slade to stay with her, but actively initiated.
Slade! She risked a look at him. He was lying on his side facing her, his eyes closed. In sleep he looked less austere and more vulnerable. Without thinking she reached out to brush the thick dark hair off his forehead. Beneath her fingertips his skin felt vibrantly warm and alive. She remembered how cold she had been and how it had felt to be held in his arms. She also remembered how annoyed he had been, and vividly remembered him saying that she was safe from him now. She knew she ought to be relieved; that was after all what she had wanted, but instead she found herself having to stifle a swift stab of disappointment.