Her sob of relief when his mouth finally closed over her nipple quickly turned to choked, breathless whimpers of shocked pleasure as he suckled on her, slowly at first and then more deeply, more hungrily as he felt her response and her body began to move against his in an increasingly urgent rhythm that mirrored his erotic suckling.
Heat and delight radiated and pulsed from her breast all the way through her nervous system.
Low down in her body she had started to ache and soften, and when Daniel parted her legs and thrust one of his own between them she leaned eagerly against him, straining to get as close to him as she could.
Being able to feel his arousal through their clothes, knowing that he wanted her, that his body was pulsing as hungrily for her as that secret place within her own was for him, made her cry out his name in sharp frustration.
‘Yes, I know. I know,’ he told her thickly, releasing her breast, his face hot and damp as he leaned against her body, his hand trembling slightly as he covered the damp nakedness of her breast. ‘I promised and we’ve got to stop. I know…’
No, that isn’t what I want, Christa wanted to say, but he was already releasing her, tenderly fastening her clothes, smiling ruefully into her eyes as she lifted her head to watch him after a despairing, yearning look at the still hard tautness of his body beneath the thick covering of the jeans.
How could he do this to her, to them both when he must know how much she wanted him? Christa wondered wretchedly as he stepped back from her.
‘I don’t want this to be a casual, careless thing between us,’ he told her gently, as though he had read her thoughts. ‘Like you, I don’t carry the means to ensure safe sex around with me, and once I get inside you there’s just no way that I’m going to be able to stop, and the last thing I’d want…’ He stopped, shaking his head, but Christa didn’t need him to continue. What he meant was that the last thing he would want would be for her to conceive his child…It was, of course, the last thing she would want either, so why did hearing him say the words make her feel so much in pain?
‘Anyway,’ Daniel was saying as he moved away from her, ‘I think it’s time we moved on to less dangerous topics of conversation, don’t you?
‘Tomorrow we’ll do our first mountain walk. Nothing too difficult, I promise. But you will need to wear proper walking clothes and boots…What is it?’ he asked as Christa bit her bottom lip.
‘I don’t have any proper walking clothes, nor any boots,’ she reminded him. ‘I…The brochure…’ She stopped, not wanting to lie to him, but not really wanting to admit the truth either.
‘I see. Well, it isn’t the end of the world. As I told you before, fortunately there’s a first-rate climbing and sports equipment shop in town. We’ll drive over there first thing in the morning and get you kitted out.’
As she watched him, Christa wanted nothing more than to be back in his arms, holding him and being held by him. But he was right, their personal feelings for one another had to be put on hold until after her course was over.
Which reminded her that there was something she had to say.
‘Daniel,’ she began quietly, holding his gaze with her own. ‘This…what has happened, is happening between us won’t alter my feelings about—well, it won’t change my mind. I have to be honest with you. I still don’t believe that what you’re doing here can really…’
‘The course isn’t over yet,’ Daniel cut in firmly. ‘And don’t worry, Christa, the last thing I’d expect—or want from you—is for you to let your judgement be swayed by our personal feelings.
‘I’m not the kind of man who expects or wants a woman to echo my views—far from it.’
‘There are men who enjoy controlling a woman through sex,’ Christa pointed out quietly.
‘Yes,’ Daniel agreed, ‘but I’m not one of them. Just as you aren’t the type of woman who would want to control or manipulate a man through his desire for you.
‘You know, Christa,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘sometimes I feel almost as though you’re trying to fit me into a mould, a preconceived belief of what I am. It’s as though, without knowing me, you’d already decided what kind of man I was.
‘I’ve watched you when I’ve obviously said or done something that conflicts with that image. You’re not sure whether you like it or not, are you? It’s all right,’ he told her when she remained silent. ‘I’m not trying to probe or pry. If and when you want to tell me more about him, whoever he was, I’ll be ready to listen. But don’t judge me by him, Christa, because I’m not him.
‘Which of us is it that you find the hardest to trust? Me, or yourself?’
The way he smiled at her as he reached out and gently touched her face robbed his words of any malice or criticism, but they still hurt, Christa recognised. Not just because he had so astutely recognised her feelings, but because he had also so skilfully homed in on one of her deepest fears.
She was afraid of trusting herself; of her own judgement.
She was afraid of her own feelings…Of wanting him…Of loving him, of allowing him into her life and her heart.
But it was too late, a tiny inner voice whispered to her. He was already there. She was already vulnerable…exposed and in danger…
CHAPTER SIX
‘QUICK, look over there—isn’t that a spaceship landing?’
Jolted out of her thoughts, not so much by what Daniel was saying as by the urgent tone of his voice, Christa looked up obediently and stared through the window of the moving Land Rover, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she heard Daniel laughing.
‘Well, at least it got a response,’ he defended, as she gave him a wry look. ‘You’ve been very quiet for the last half-hour, very deep in thought. Anything I need to know about?’
The question was light enough, but the look he gave her was anything but, Christa acknowledged, and, as her heart teetered on the brink of a spectacularly high dive, her pulse-rate soared.
She had been awake half the night going over and over what had happened between them, and even when she had been asleep she had been dreaming about him. She knew how much she wanted him now, needed him, loved him, but a part of her still feared those emotions, so much so that there had been several occasions during the night when it had urged her to get up and run while she still could.
‘Not really,’ she fibbed now in response to his question. ‘Not unless you’ve got a particular interest in the designs for next season’s fabrics.’
She hadn’t deceived him, Christa recognised, but fortunately a wandering and very reckless sheep, on its way across the road, diverted his attention for long enough for her to change the subject as they turned a corner and she saw their destination in the valley below them.
‘That’s the town?’ she asked him unnecessarily.
‘Yup.’
It looked more like a large village than a town, Christa decided as she studied the haphazard arrangement of narrow streets and terraced houses, grey stone buildings set under grey slate roofs, the whole area enclosed by the mountains which surrounded it. She could see the open area of the cattle market to one side of the town and, rather unexpectedly, the tall spire of a church.
‘There was a time when a lot of the local landlords were English rather than Welsh,’ Daniel explained when she commented on this. ‘As well as the church, the town boasts a posting inn and a small spa, although that’s closed at the moment for renovation.
‘The slate covering the roofs was quarried locally. There are shale deposits all over the mountains, many of them very dangerously unstable, especially at this time of the year when the water table can be at its highest.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Christa asked him curiously.
‘A great deal when there’s a hidden underground water course beneath the shale.’
They were down in the town now, its narrow streets far more crowded than those Christa was used to. She wouldn’t have enjoyed being the one driving through them, she acknowledged as Daniel
waited good-naturedly for people to walk past before driving on.
There was a considerable difference in attitude here compared to her home town, she noticed, as people stopped to acknowledge one another and call out cheerful greetings to the drivers they made way for. At home on a busy Saturday, drivers and pedestrians were more inclined to be mutual antagonists than to exhibit friendliness towards one another.
An old woman wearing a headscarf and carrying a basket was walking towards them, her face breaking into a warm smile as she saw Daniel.
He immediately stopped the Land Rover and wound down his window, calling out warmly to her.
‘It’s good to see you off those crutches, Meg. The ankle’s mended now, has it?’
‘Indeed it has,’ she agreed.
‘Well, just remember,’ Daniel warned her, ‘no more roof-mending…’
‘Roof-mending?’ Christa queried in astonishment when they were moving again.
‘Mmm…Meg owns and runs a smallholding just outside town. Some storm damage left her without half a dozen roof-tiles and she fell and broke her ankle while she was trying to replace them.’
‘What?’ Christa exclaimed, aghast. ‘But she must be well into her sixties…’
‘She’s seventy-one,’ Daniel corrected her drily.
‘Why on earth did she try to do that kind of job herself? Why didn’t she get someone in to do it?’