Flynn gave the nonchalant shrug she was beginning to recognise. ‘Spares, apparently, which Bertha had in one of her cupboards,’ he said dismissively.
‘And the flowers?’
‘Wilf has a couple of greenhouses in the grounds. He keeps Bertha supplied with flowers for the house and there are always more than we can use.’
Marigold wasn’t fooled by the casual words. Flynn had organised all this and she was grateful, she really was, but she was frightened of how pleased she felt. He’d do the same for any foundling he discovered lost in the storm, she reminded herself with wry, caustic humour; this didn’t mean anything. And that was fine, just fine, because she didn’t want it to mean anything. She had just come out of one disastrous relationship—she didn’t need anymore emotional turmoil.
‘It’s so different.’ He was right behind her, standing in the bedroom doorway as she turned, and when he didn’t move she said quickly, ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble but I do appreciate it. What do I owe you for the fuel?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he said softly.
Marigold could feel her heart racing, a frantic, fast thud that made her unable to think coherently. She stared up at him, vitally aware of the broad male bulk of him and of her own fragility. ‘But I must pay you,’ she insisted faintly. ‘I couldn’t possibly—’
His head lowered as his hands gently gripped her upper arms and the kiss was everything she knew it would be. It was gentle and exploring at first, his mouth caressing and warm and firm, and when she made no effort to push him away it deepened subtly into a sensual invasion that had her making small female sounds of pleasure low in her throat.
‘Your hair feels like spun silk,’ he murmured against her soft lips, one hand entangled in the chestnut veil as he pulled her head back to allow himself greater access to her mouth. ‘And the colours in it are enchanting. I’ve never seen anyone with such beautiful hair; do you know that?’
Marigold didn’t answer him; she couldn’t answer him. She was dazed and shaking, utterly bewildered by the desire he had aroused with just a kiss. A kiss. She had never felt like this once in all her time with Dean.
He took her mouth again, biting gently and expertly at her bottom lip in between kissing her with increasing passion. He had drawn her onto the hardness of his male frame now, their bodies so close she could feel what the kiss was doing for him. One hand was warm and firm against the small of her back and the other was stroking her face, throat and shoulder, soft, sensuous, light caresses that were sending her nerve-endings into quivering delight.
He was so good at this; his mouth first languorous and then fierce, teasing and then demanding as it moved against hers with complete mastery. He was ravaging h
er inner sweetness now and dimly Marigold realised she was kissing him right back, just as passionately.
His fingers brushed against one full breast and then the other before exploring the slender width of her tiny waist, and then, with a low sound of protest deep in his throat, his mouth lifted from hers and he eased her away from him very slowly, still taking care to hold her upright.
‘You see?’ he said very softly. ‘Fire with fire.’
Marigold stared at him, her eyes slowly losing their dazed, fluid expression as reality dawned in all its chilling horror now he wasn’t kissing her any more. This man was someone she didn’t like; they had barely said more than two civil words to each other since they’d first met, and she had allowed him… She didn’t like to think what she had allowed.
He must have sensed something of what she was feeling because his voice was dry when he spoke again, carrying the hidden amusement she’d heard several times before as he said, ‘It’s all right, Marigold. It was just a kiss.’
No, it wasn’t just a kiss, she thought with blinding humiliation, at least not to her. It was easily the most mind-blowing experience of her life and had taught her more about herself in a few moments than in the last twenty-five years; the most important thing being—she didn’t have a clue who she really was. If anyone had told her she could lose her head like this she would have laughed in their face, but it had happened. It had happened. And it mustn’t happen again.
‘Please let go of me.’ Her voice was small but clear, and he complied immediately.
What must he be thinking? Marigold asked herself with silent desperation. One day she was telling him how she’d come to Emma’s cottage to nurse a broken heart—the next she’d practically eaten him alive! She made no apology for exaggerating on both counts.
‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry for kissing you because I wanted to do so even from that first moment on the road,’ Flynn said with careful flatness. ‘Neither will I pretend not to notice that you enjoyed it.’
She didn’t deny this—there would have been no point and Marigold had never been one for dodging the consequences of her actions. Instead she raised her small chin and slanted her eyes—her body language speaking volumes to the tall, dark man watching her so closely—and said tightly, ‘I would like you to leave now but first I must pay you for the logs and coal.’
‘It was a kiss, for crying out loud!’ Flynn rasped irritably, raking a hand through his dark hair in a manner that spoke of extreme frustration. ‘Between two consenting adults, I might add. Now, if we had ended up in bed I might be able to understand you feeling slightly…manoeuvred.’
‘There was absolutely no question of that,’ Marigold snapped angrily. He’d be telling her she was anybody’s next! ‘I barely know you.’
Dark eyebrows rose mockingly as he crossed powerful arms over his chest. ‘Flynn Moreau, thirty-eight, single, and of sound mind,’ he offered lazily. ‘Anything else you’d deem important?’
‘Plenty.’
‘Then we’ll have to see to that in due course,’ he said very softly, and suddenly he wasn’t smiling.
‘I don’t think so.’ She tried very hard to make her voice sound firm in spite of the fact her stomach had turned to jelly. He was interested in her? She couldn’t quite believe it. Men like him—successful, wealthy, charismatic and powerful—went for the tall, leggy blonde model types; Tamara types. Worldly women who knew all the right gossip and wore the right clothes, and who had a list of friends that ran like the current Who’s Who. She was five-feet-four with straight chestnut-brown hair and a skin that sprouted freckles in the summer, and even her mother couldn’t call her a ravishing beauty. Perhaps he thought a little dalliance over the holiday period might be entertaining? Especially as she was on the doorstep, so to speak.
‘No?’ His voice held the softest edge of irony and he didn’t seem at all put out at her refusal to play ball. It confirmed her theory more than anything else could have done. ‘Still pining after what might have been?’
For a moment she didn’t understand to what he was referring, and then she remembered Dean. Dean. Who hadn’t stirred her senses or aroused her body remotely when compared to this man, and who now seemed a very distant memory indeed. Which was frightening, scary, when taking into account that but for Tamara she would now be Mrs Dean Barker. ‘Not at…’ She stopped abruptly when the silver eyes glittered a challenge. ‘No, I am not pining for what might have been,’ she said instead, very slowly and very firmly. ‘In fact, for some time now I’ve felt I had a lucky escape.’ The time in question being since Flynn had kissed her and she’d known, for the first time, what it was like to actually meet a man passion for passion. She would never have felt like that about Dean, not in a million years.