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'Yes, they'll be fine. Lorna's an experienced mother, don't forget, and people who live as close to nature as they do know all about protecting themselves from the elements. It's the city dwellers who can't cope. If there's a power cut they're marooned without light and heat in their multi-storey flats. The Thomsons have open fires and paraffin lanterns.'
Almost as though by some freak coincidence, as he spoke the light bulbs flickered and from outside came the sound of the wind. It flickered again twice, and then abruptly it was dark.
'That's all we need!'
'Have you got any lanterns?' Christy asked him wryly.
'There are probably some in the cellar, but I'm damned if I'm going to go down there and risk breaking my neck. We'll have to make do with candles.'
Candlelight and log fire, it was far, far too intimate, Christy acknowledged. She could almost feel her mind disintegrating and her senses taking over.
'Tell me about America?'
Dominic was sitting opposite her, and for a moment as he looked at her she thought he had guessed how his closeness affected her.
'There isn't much to tell,' he began, but nevertheless some of the stories he told her about his patients were amusing, and as she listened and laughed she forgot that shared laughter could be as dangerous as shared silence—perhaps even more so.
They ate supper—a casserole that Dominic had heated and served, refusing to let Christy do anything—and now as she sat with her fingers curled round a mug of chocolate she could feel a sleepy lethargy washing over her. She put down her mug and leaned back in her chair. She would just close her eyes for a few minutes…
Half an hour later she was still asleep. Dominic bent down to look at her and then picked her up. She stirred briefly in his arms, burying her head against him with a contented sound of pleasure. His arms tightened and he frowned.
Upstairs in the room he had prepared for her, firelight danced on the walls, highlighting the floral trellis pattern of the old-fashioned wallpaper.
He put her on the bed, and then threw more logs on the fire and walked back to her. He could hardly let her sleep in her clothes.
Christy woke up as he started to tug off her jumper, clutching it against herself protestingly.
'Christy, you can't go to bed in it. Come on. Look, I've got your night things here.'
Muzzy with sleep, she tried to remember why it was so important that Dominic didn't take off her jumper, but it was too much of an effort, and so she let him pull it off, only remembering why he shouldn't when she felt the cool rush of air against her naked breasts.
She saw him looking at her and felt the responsive quiver deep down in her stomach.
It wasn't a surprise when he moved to take her in his arms; part of her had been waiting for him to touch her all evening… had been waiting for it and wanting it.
Her lips clung softly to his, her skin delighting in the sensation of his hands moving hungrily against it.
She could feel his heart thumping and knew that her own echoed its frantic beat. There was need and hunger in the way that he kissed her, and she couldn't deny her own response to him.
'Christy, let me stay with you tonight.' The words were muffled against her skin as he tasted the creamy vulnerability of her throat. 'I want you so much.'
Ironically, if he hadn't spoken she would have gone with him to hell and back, but the raw, almost agonised sound of his voice had broken the delicate spell, and she moved away from him, shivering with too much tension and emotion.
'I can't.'
'Why not?' His voice was thick and tortured. 'Is it because of him?' His face contorted and she shuddered as she recognised the sexual jealousy glittering starkly in his eyes. 'You might love him, Christy, but you can't have him. And besides, you want me.'
His hand touched her breast to underline his meaning, the brief sensation of the pad of his thumb against the taut thrust of her nipple almost agonising.
'Be with me tonight…'
'No…' The denial was torn from her throat, making it ache. It was all too much; she couldn't go on pretending any longer. 'You don't understand, Dominic,' she told him wretchedly. 'I don't love David, I never have… Oh, he wanted me for a while, just as he's wanted a dozen or more women, and sexually he's very attractive, but I've never loved him. '
He looked at her hard, but she held his eyes until she saw that he believed her. If anything he seemed even more tense, and then he said rawly. 'If you don't love him, then why…'
She didn't let him go on. She was far too wrought up as it was.
'Can't you guess? I don't want to have sex with you, Dominic…'
