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It took her several seconds to register the fact that he had been drying himself when she’d walked into the bathroom, and that he was now holding the towel in front of his body.
When she recognised that the emotion she felt was not one of relief at his modesty but rather one of disappointment, she flushed vividly.
‘You’re embarrassed!’ Marsh exclaimed feelingly. ‘How do you think I feel? I always thought it was the woman who was supposed to do the timid cowering behind her towel, not the man.’
He was smiling, Debra recognised, gently teasing her as he deftly wrapped the towel around himself.
‘I...I thought you’d gone,’ she explained helplessly, her colour still high.
‘I said I wouldn’t leave you on your own,’ Marsh reminded her.
‘But you must have gone out for these.’
He smiled as he glanced at the boxes she was holding.
‘No, I rang Margaux and asked her if she could get them for me. I also told her that neither of us would be in the office today.’
‘Neither of us? But—’
‘The police will want to interview both of us again,’ Marsh told her, ‘and I thought you might want to go and see your parents. I’ll drive you over there.’
‘No. There’s really no need,’ Debra protested, but Marsh was already reaching past her to push closed the door.
‘Have you any idea how very sexy you look in my shirt?’ he asked her softly.
His words were tiny darts of pleasure, each one of them anaesthetising her to the danger of what was happening.
‘Debra?’
There was a question in his voice that made her shiver in silent acceptance of what he was asking.
She heard the door swing gently closed and then he was holding her, touching her, with such finesse and delicacy that, instead of her feeling alarmed or apprehensive, it was like being enfolded in warmth and safety.
For the first time since it had happened, she completely forgot Kevin Riley and what he had done.
Marsh was touching her, gently kneading her tense shoulders, watching her, watching her mouth, she recognised on a sudden stab of sharp longing.
‘You want me to kiss you.’
His hand touched her face, gently pushing aside her hair, his thumb rubbing her skin as though savouring its softness.
Without touching her with his body, he leaned towards her.
‘I want to kiss you, Debra,’ he told her huskily. ‘I want to hold you and taste you, to feel you open your mouth to me and want me.’
Her heart was beating so fast that she could hardly breathe. He was arousing her without even touching her, without doing anything other than talk to her. Her body ached for him already, a fierce wanton ache that pushed aside all her reservations and demanded that it be allowed this panacea for all that the last few hours had made it suffer.
She moved towards him slightly, an inch or so, no more, but it was enough. His mouth came down on hers, warm and gentle, savouring the shape of her lips, the softness of their texture with a sensuality that silenced the voice of warning struggling to remind her that this was exactly what she had not wanted to do.
His mouth left hers and skimmed her cheekbone, touching her ear.
‘Hold me, Debra,’ he whispered. ‘Put your arms round me and hold me.’
She did as he asked, marvelling at the satin smoothness of his skin, trembling as she felt her own body’s response to this intimacy with his and then tensing as she recognised how cumbersome, how intrusive, how unwanted the presence of his shirt suddenly was.
‘Would you like to take this off?’
Had he read her mind? She looked wonderingly at him, her eyes mirroring both confusion and desire.
