Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

. No, he couldn’t know any of these things, and he wasn’t going to know. Let him think that, like him, she was simply overwhelmed by the ferocity of the sexual tension which had built up between them.

She felt his hand on her breast and instinctively moved her body to accommodate its touch. A fierce shudder of pleasure ripped through her. She moved closer towards him, shivering as he responded by deepening his kiss, his free hand burrowing under her hair, holding her against his mouth as though he was afraid that she might try to break away.

His mouth tasted of coffee and wine, caressing hers, probing hotly. Her hands curled frantically into his skin as she reacted to the need he was generating.

She had never felt like this before…never…never wanted, ached, needed, hungered for a man with this wanton, tormenting urgency.

She felt his hand slide down her neck, searching for the top of her zip, and wanted to tear herself free of her clothes, to feel his hands on her naked flesh, touching her, stroking her, caressing her.

Somewhere in the distance she heard a sound. Muzzily, she opened her eyes. It was the cat, she recognised. She had just jumped in through the window.

Dizzily she focused slowly on him. His pupils were huge and dark, his expression almost ecstatic, drugged…

Her heart missed a beat and then kicked heavily against her ribs. Looking at him, seeing him, watching him, seeing the need she could already feel in his body was so powerfully erotic that she could feel her body responding to it.

‘God, I want you.’

She heard him mutter the words and knew they were only an echo of her own need.

She looked at his mouth, watching as it formed the words, and then reached up and touched it with her fingertip, trembling as she felt his lips caress it. Soon now he would pick her up, take her upstairs, undress her and…

She froze as she heard the van driving into the yard. Instantly Richard released her, a dark flush staining his skin as he stepped back from her.

‘It’s Monsieur Dubois,’ she heard herself saying, but she could scarcely recognise her own voice, it sounded so strained and unfamiliar.

Now what on earth had she been doing? How on earth could she have let him…encouraged him…?

A wave of mortification burned through her, her body hot and then cold as the full impact of her own behaviour hit her. It gave her very little comfort to realise that Richard was as stunned and shaken by what had happened between them as she was.

It gave her no sense of triumph to know that physically he was as vulnerable to his desire for her as she had been to hers for him, not even when she could see that, far from revelling in what had happened, he actually looked visibly disturbed, his face drained now that the initial burn of colour had gone.

While he was outside dealing with the farmer, she retreated to her own room. If she had any sense, she would be packing her things now, she admitted to herself, not standing staring into space, but how could she leave when she had given Gale her promise that she would stay? And surely she owed it to her cousin at least to make some attempt to find out if Richard had told George how anxious Gale was to speak to him?

Or was it too late for that? What had happened to her cousin’s marriage, that her husband could take time to ring a casual friend and yet could not apparently find time to speak to his wife?

CHAPTER TEN

FROM her bedroom window Livvy could see down into the yard where Richard was talking to Monsieur Dubois. The farmer was talking volubly, gesticulating towards the sky and then shrugging his shoulders before going back to his truck.

Richard watched him go before turning round and walking back towards the house.

As she watched him, Livvy felt the desolation of self-knowledge wash over her.

It wasn’t just that she was sexually responsive to him. She loved him. That was why his attitude towards her sex didn’t just incite her to defensive anger, but made her ache with pain as well. That was why she wanted so desperately to hear him say something, anything which would allow her to believe that beneath his cynicism there were still emotions…feelings, needs.

How could she have fallen in love with him? She had always thought of herself as someone who had too much self-regard, too much self-esteem, too much common sense to be drawn into such a potentially destructive situation.

Even if he had returned her feelings. Returned them? Now she was being ridiculous, entering the realms of total fantasy.

He didn’t love her. He couldn’t love her. He despised her, disliked her…and desired her…

She held her breath as he stood still and looked up towards her bedroom window. Her heart turned over inside her chest.

Yes, there was no doubt at all. She loved him.

She heard him coming upstairs, his footsteps hesitating and then stopping outside her bedroom door. He knocked on it and called her name. Reluctantly, she went to open it.

‘That was Monsieur Dubois,’ he told her unnecessarily. ‘He wanted to warn us about the weather. Apparently bad storms have been forecast and there could be some flooding.’