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‘Oh, God, Claire, have you had any idea what you’re doing to me?’ she heard Brad protesting thickly, but he didn’t remove his gaze from her body, and having lifted his hand to shield her body from the stare of a passerby he didn’t immediately let it drop to his side again, and Claire knew with suffocating certainty that one deep breath, one small movement was all it would take to have the warmth of his palm pressed against her and...
‘Claire.’
She wasn’t going to move, wouldn’t have moved at all if the shock of the anguish in Brad’s voice hadn’t jolted her... unbalanced her.
And, of course, it was only natural that Brad should reach out to save her. And just as natural that his gaze should fix avidly and hungrily on her mouth as it half opened in a small, startled gasp when his palm moved with quick, half-rough and totally male intensity over the fabric-covered curve of her breast, again and again, as though he couldn’t believe that he was actually touching her, as though his skin, his hand, his body was greedily hungry for the physical feel of her.
This couldn’t possibly be happening to her, Claire decided weakly as his other arm curved round her, binding her to him, and his mouth finally covered hers.
She could not possibly be standing here, in her local park, in full view of anyone who happened to be passing, being kissed by Brad with such passionate intensity that if he hadn’t been holding her up she doubted that she would have had the strength left in her body to stay upright.
And, since it couldn’t possibly be happening, there was nothing to stop her throwing herself heartily into her small, private fantasy, was there? No reason why she shouldn’t abandon all the restraints she had once thought such an intrinsic part of her personality and respond to Brad as she had once responded to him in the privacy of his bedroom—as she responded to him every night when she dreamed that she lay naked in his arms, his body hard with longing against hers...just the way it felt now...
It took the amateurish wolf-whistle of a passing schoolboy to bring them both back to reality. Scarlet-faced, Claire looked uncertainly into Brad’s eyes as he reluctantly released her.
‘Did you walk here?’ he asked gruffly. He was still holding onto her hand and still looking at her as though... as though...
Silently Claire shook her head, not trusting her voice.
‘We’d better take our time driving back to your place,’ Brad told her. ‘Because once we are there it’s going to be one hell of a long time before we do any sensible talking...a hell of a long time before I can do anything other than make love with you. God, Claire, do you know how much I ache for you right now? If that damned bush over there was just a little bigger...’
Claire couldn’t, even though she knew she was playing with fire, just couldn’t help glancing wistfully towards the bush in question, an unremarkable rhododendron which would certainly not afford two full-grown adults enough privacy to make love.
‘Claire,’ Brad growled teasingly.
‘I’ve missed you so much...’ Claire’s voice wobbled slightly. She swallowed hard and then admitted, ‘I’ve wanted you so much...’
‘Not half as much as I’ve wanted you,’ Brad told her fiercely. ‘If you had, you’d have returned my phone call instead of letting me think—’
‘Returned your phone call?’ Claire stared at him.
‘Yes, I left a message with Tim when I couldn’t get hold of you, asking you to call me.’
‘I never got it,’ Claire told him blankly. ‘Tim just said that you’d rung. He was under an awful lot of pressure,’ she defended her brother-in-law when she saw Brad’s face. ‘I expect it just slipped his mind. After all, he didn’t know... he probably just thought you wanted to ask me to forward your things on or something.’
‘Or something,’ Brad agreed ruefully. ‘When you didn’t ring, I thought you were trying to tell me that you’d had second thoughts...that you didn’t, after all, feel as I felt...that you didn’t...There’s only so much a man can do without feeling that he’s pressuring a woman...harassing her. I told myself that if that was what you wanted then I owed it to you to keep out of your life, keep away from you...’
‘But you are here,’ Claire pointed out, holding her breath. Was he going to tell her that seeing her was accidental, that he was simply here on business...?
It wouldn’t alter anything, of course—wouldn’t change the fact that he obviously still wanted her. He had apparently never stopped wanting her, but her sore, tender heart yearned to know that she was the cause, the reason for him being here...even if she was being unrealistic and even a tiny little bit unfair...
‘Mmm...’ Brad agreed, his mouth quirking into a wry smile as he admitted, ‘OK, maybe I’m not such a good modern new man as I like to think... Maybe I did think it was worth giving it one more shot, or maybe I missed you, wanted you such a hell of a lot that I just couldn’t help myself,’ he told her sombrely.
‘Three days ago my uncle Joe told me that a man’s real home, his real family...his real life lies where his heart is...with the woman his heart is with—and I knew that he was right. I came over on the first flight I could book. I’ve been sitting in this park for close on an hour, trying to work out what I was going to say to you and what I was going to do if you rejected me.’
‘And if I didn’t...if I don’t reject you?’ Claire asked him, hardly daring to breath. ‘You are my life now, Brad,’ she continued. ‘I loved John—he was strong when I needed a father-figure—but I realise now that there are different forms of love and what I feel for you—as a man, as a lover—is difficult for me to express here, in public. My car is parked close by,’ she added breathlessly. ‘We could be home in five minutes, and—’
‘Oh, no,’ Brad told her, catching hold of her free arm and holding onto her. ‘Oh, no, ma’am, that’s not the way it’s going to be... Not this time; no way... This time there’s no way you’re going to get me into bed, not unless you promise me first that you’re going to make an honest man of me.
‘Have you any idea what it was like for me,’ he demanded mock-indignantly, ‘having to be there with my family, knowing that sexually you’d used me and then walked away from me, rejected me? How do you think I’d have felt if they’d known that? If you’d got me pregnant?’ he added outrageously, his face perfectly straight whilst Claire’s mouth fell open in feminine indignation at his taking over of what was surely her role.
‘Not that I would have minded sharing the making of our child with you,’ Brad added huskily. ‘I’ve always wanted kids of my own... Having them around kinda gets to be a habit, you know, and I kinda miss all the little ones...’
‘You told me you were going to mend your boat and sail it round the world—on your own,’ Claire reminded him severely, entering into the game, her heart suddenly so light...her whole body so light that she felt almost as though she could actually physically float through the air instead of walking.
‘Ah, yes. Well, I was, but that was before...’
‘Before what?’ Claire demanded.
‘Before you seduced me, beguiled me, stole my heart an
d my desire for independence, made me want to spend my every waking minute and all of my sleeping ones with you,’ Brad told her throatily. ‘Oh, yes, most definitely all my sleeping ones...’
‘I thought you didn’t want to go to bed with me,’ Claire said provocatively as he leaned forward and started to nibble the side of her neck. Sensations so delicious that she felt positively sure that she had lost her ability to reason filled her all the way down her body, right down to her toes, which she curled up inside her shoes as a soft tremor of exquisite pleasure shivered tantalisingly through her—a warning...a reminder of that so much more intense pleasure Brad had...
‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to,’ Brad mumbled, still nibbling at her skin. ‘I just said I wasn’t going to, not unless you had promised to marry me first.’
‘Marry you...?’ Claire looked at him in bemused shock. ‘You want to marry me? But...’
‘No buts,’ Brad told her firmly. ‘I’m not having these five children we’re going to have growing up thinking you didn’t love me enough to commit yourself to me. Besides, it would give them a bad example. I’m a firm believer in marriage. Just ask my family—’
‘Five children!’ Claire repeated, weakly protesting. ‘Brad, I’m thirty-four years old.’
‘So what? These days a modern woman can put off starting a family until she’s forty if she chooses to do so. Of course, maybe I am being a little restrictive in just saying five,’ he mused. ‘There are twins in my family and it’s a known fact that women in their thirties are more prone to producing twins, so who’s to say...? I do like round numbers, though, don’t you? So we’d have to go for six...’
‘Six,’ Claire murmured faintly, round-eyed with disbelief.
‘Six,’ Brad promised, apparently misreading her expression. ‘But only if you promise right here and now that you are going to marry me... Wait a minute,’ he told her, reaching for the case he had placed on the floor beside the bench which he had obviously been sitting on when she had walked towards the ducks.
