Force of Feeling

He walked over and touched the pages, turning them over and starting to read, slowly at first and then more quickly, his eyes narrowing as he pulled out a chair and sat down, no longer skimming through the typed pages, but reading them properly.

A small sound behind him broke his concentration. He turned in his chair, his eyes widening as he saw Campion.

She was curled up in her sleep, almost like a little girl with her hair tousled softly round her face, but she was no child, he reminded himself.

And then she moved in her sleep, and the illusion was destroyed as the fabric of her pyjama jacket pulled across her breasts. Heat crawled slowly through his skin, and he cursed bitterly under his breath.

What the hell was the matter with him? He frowned and started to turn deliberately away, but Campion moved again, stretching slightly in her sleep as though her body was cramped. She had very long legs and, as she stretched, her pyjama jacket rode up, revealing their slender, pale-skinned length.

He had had enough of this, Guy decided tormentedly. He walked over to the chair, and with one swift movement picked her up.

Her eyes opened and she stared into his face, and said sleepily, ‘Dickon, what are you doing here?’

And then her eyes closed again and her face turned into his shoulder. He could feel the warmth of her breath against his skin, and he was breathing harshly by the time he reached her bedroom. He put her down on the bed and then started to pull the covers over her. A strand of her hair had curled round one of the buttons of his jacket, and he swore softly as he was forced to unravel it.

His hand shook, and he had to grit his teeth and force himself to concentrate. The buttons of her jacket gaped and he could see the soft swell of her breasts. At last he was free, and he straightened up tensely.

Back downstairs, he picked up the pages he hadn’t finished reading. Dickon, she had called him. Of course, she would cast him as the villain. And then he read on, and stopped, a slow smile curling his mouth.

‘So that was the way it was going to be, was it? Mmm… Very clever.’

When he had finished reading, he stacked the pages neatly together and found a piece of paper and a pen.

‘Excellent, I like it,’ he scribbled on it, and put the paper down on top of the manuscript.

When he went to bed, he took the stairs two at a time and whistled softly under his breath. Perhaps he had not made the wrong decision, after all. Perhaps…

He wondered if Campion would remember what she had said to him when she woke up. Somehow, he doubted it. He smiled again and opened his bedroom door.

CHAPTER FIVE

HOW had she got up here? Campion wondered muzzily as she opened her eyes. The last thing she remembered was crawling into the chair beside the fire.

She looked up and saw that the bedroom light was on. Well, at least the power had come back on. And then she remembered why she had worked until she was so exhausted that she could sleep.

Guy had gone.

A horrible empty feeling made her stomach cave hollowly, followed by a fierce flash of anger. She shouldn’t be feeling like that. What was the matter with her? She should be glad that he had gone. But she wasn’t. She shivered under the bedclothes and closed her eyes again, trying to fight the feeling of panic rising up inside her.

She didn’t want to feel like this; there was no room in her life for this ridiculous, adolescent sort of emotion. What had happened to her willpower, to the years she had spent teaching herself how to stop herself from wanting…

From wanting what? Guy French in her life? In her arms…in her bed?

No!

The word was a silent protest that screamed painfully inside her. What was she trying to do to herself? Guy French didn’t want her. How could he? All right, so he had passed her a couple of compliments. So what? That didn’t mean that she had to over-react…like a woman who had deliberately repressed her sexuality for years and was now unable to repress it any longer.

Just thinking about him was enough to make her body tingle. To make her breasts ache and her body contract sharply. She was trembling as she flung back the covers and got out of bed.

Suddenly, she found it all too easy to understand Lynsey’s rebellious emotions. If nothing else, Guy French was having a very definite effect on her work,

she acknowledged grimly as she showered and then dressed.

The kitchen was blissfully warm. How on earth had the boiler managed to stay in? And surely she hadn’t brought in that bucket of fuel last night?

Shaking her head at her own inability to remember, she filled the kettle. Outside, the wind seemed to have dropped and the rain had gone.

She was alone here as she had originally intended, but, instead of feeling triumph at having driven Guy away, she was intensely aware of her loneliness.