A Savage Adoration

'We do have central heating, you know,' Christy pointed out as he stopped the Land Rover in front of the house. She was sliding out of her seat as she spoke, but somehow he seemed to have anticipated her, and he was there to take the back door key from her frozen fingers and unlock the door for her.

As she followed him inside, Christy's heart sank. She didn't need anyone to tell her that the heating had gone off. The air was icy enough to make her shiver.

She saw that Dominic was squatting down in front of the boiler, and realised that he was looking for the pilot light.

'You'd better come back with me,' he told her brusquely as he stood up. 'If I leave you here you'll freeze.'

If he'd put into words how little he wanted her company, he couldn't have made it plainer, and before she could stop herself Christy heard herself saying nastily, 'Won't Amanda have something to say about that?'

His eyes went cold. She'd forgotten how disapproving and quelling he could be when he looked down his nose like that.

'What could she have to say?' he asked coldly. 'You're the daughter of some old friends, whom I can hardly leave to spend the night in a freezing cold house when the temperature's already way down below freezing and still dropping, when my home is less than half a mile away.'

'Maybe your central heating isn't working either,' Christy suggested childishly. What had she been hoping? That he would deny that Amanda had any right to question his actions?

'Very likely,' he agreed coolly. Too coolly for Christy's liking. 'However, unlike you, I took the precaution of making sure that all my fires were well banked down before I came out.'

'So would I have done as well,' Christy fired up immediately, 'if you hadn't practically dragged me off before I could do so.'

Suddenly his face split in a grin she remembered from earlier and far, far happier times. Crossly she glared at him while he teased, 'You always were a cussed little brat, Christy. It must be something to do with this red hair.' He pushed back the hood of her anorak as he spoke and gently tugged one of her curls.

Heat rushed through her body and she stepped back from him instantly.

His smile faded, his face shuttered and cold.

'You've got ten minutes to collect together anything that you might need. What time do you expect your parents back?'

'I've no idea. Originally they would have come home tonight, but Dad rang and said that they would stay over in view of the weather.'

'Umm, well, if you give me the number, I'll give them a ring and tell them where you are while you collect your stuff.'

This was the old big brother Dominic she remembered from her pre-teens. She wanted to protest that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself, but as she looked up her parents' friends' telephone number, she was already starting to shiver in the chill air.

It didn't take her long to collect what she wanted, and while she was upstairs she would have liked to have changed out of her damp jeans and anorak—they had had to get out of the Land Rover twice on the way back to dig it out, and on both occasions the snow had come over the top of her Wellington boots—but she didn't want to give Dominic any more excuse than necessary to criticise her, and criticise her he would if she kept him waiting, she thought bitterly.

If she was Amanda, he wouldn't be treating her so cavalierly. If she was Amanda. She punched the old velour dressing-gown she was shoving into her rollbag with unnecessary vigour and then grimaced to herself. If she was Amanda, no doubt she wouldn't be packing serviceable woollies and dressing-gown, but sheer silk undies and the sort of nightwear that no woman in her right mind ever wore to keep warm.

He was just replacing the receiver when she went back downstairs.

'Your parents were worried about you. Apparently they tried to ring this afternoon to check that you were all right. I've explained the situation to them and your mother said you weren't to worry, and th

at they would be back tomorrow after lunch.'

So she wasn't to worry, Christy thought grimly as she allowed Dominic to take her bag and then waited impatiently while he locked the back door. How was she supposed to feel, forced to spend the night with the man she loved, knowing how little he desired her? She only hoped that he gave her a bedroom with a lock on the door, so that she wasn't tempted to sleepwalk into his bedroom and betray herself completely.

'Oh, I'm not worried at all,' she assured him nastily, refusing to allow him to help her into the Land Rover, 'but Amanda might be if she knew that the two of us were spending the night together.'

He was right, she was behaving like an absolute brat, she thought guiltily, watching the angry flush of colour seep up under his skin. She only hoped that he wouldn't realise that it was sheer jealousy that was making her so objectionable.

'Spending the night together is hardly the way I would describe our situation.' He practically gritted the words through his teeth, throwing them over his shoulder at her as he started the engine. 'And even if we were, what possible reason could Amanda or anyone else have for objecting? We are both, after all, consenting adults, even if one of us isn't behaving like one.'

She had the grace to squirm a little uncomfortably on her seat. 'It's hardly my fault if everyone round here thinks of you and Amanda as an established couple,' she muttered.

One darkly raised eyebrow informed her that he suspected the truth had been subjected to some imaginative expansion.

'Don't talk rubbish, Christy. It might suit you to believe that I sublimated my need for Amanda in making love to you in the same way you sublimated yours for David Galvin, but you won't get me to swallow such an unappetising lump of fiction simply to soothe your conscience.'

'But you were dating her.' Why on earth was she being so stubbornly persistent? Dominic had turned out into the lane now and she could see his house up ahead of them in the glare of the headlights.