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She must look a mess, she thought helplessly as she ignored his words and concentrated on the mundane. 'Is instant all right?' she asked flatly, keeping the tremor out of her voice with superhuman resolve. 'I haven't really got time to make proper coffee; I've got to be up very early in the morning.'
'Haven't we all…?' Her remark seemed to draw him back onto safer lines. 'Barbara's skittering about like a chicken with its head cut off, Mrs Goode is having one panic attack after another, my house has been invaded by aliens who seem to speak a totally different language from me—' He sighed deeply. 'I shall be damn glad when this wedding is over.'
When it's over? His words pierced her heart like a sword and she was desperately glad that her back was to him as she spooned coffee into two mugs and added sugar in hers with a shaking hand. 'I suppose you will,' she said carefully, when she could trust her voice again. 'It's never the most relaxed of times.' When it's over I shan't see you again, she screamed silently as she added water to the coffee and stirred vigorously. But you don't care; you've never really cared. How can you want it over?
She handed him his coffee when she turned round, and as they walked through to the lounge she warned herself for the umpteenth time to be careful. She had to keep this on a purely friendly level, she mustn't let him touch her—
'Sit down by me.' He patted the sofa as he flung himself down, but she smiled carefully as she seated herself on one of the chairs, sitting on the edge with her feet neatly together and pulling the robe firmly over her legs.
'Spoilsport…' He smiled lazily and her heart flipped over again. This was a seduction technique; it had to he. Two smiles in as many minutes wasn't natural for Reece! 'Where on earth did you get those things from, by the way?' he asked idly as he gestured towards her massive monkey slippers which were quite grotesque.
'Mitch.' She smiled her first natural smile since he had arrived. 'Ridiculous, aren't they?'
'Unusual.' He fiddled with his bow-tie and then set down his coffee-cup. 'Do you mind?' he asked mildly as he gestured towards the tight collar. 'This thing's killing me.'
'Of course not.' Oh, help, she thought silently.
He undid his collar and pulled the tie loose to hang down in two black strands as he opened the top few buttons of his shirt. She couldn't handle this, she really couldn't. She could just see dark, curling body hair at the top of his shirt where his chest was revealed, and as her stomach muscles clenched and a slow, sweet throb took over her pulse she was shocked at her body's animal response to his maleness. She wanted him—she wanted him so badly that she could taste it; she licked suddenly dry lips and took a quick gulp of coffee to ease her aching throat.
'You're very transparent.' His voice was thick suddenly, and husky, with a deepness that set her senses tingling. 'You're petrified I'm going to leap on you, aren't you—force you to the floor and have my wicked way with you?'
He thought that she was nervous? She breathed a sigh of relief and forced herself to look at him. It wasn't nerves that were strangling her voice and freezing her limbs but the knowledge that if the iron hold she had over herself slipped she'd fly at him and eat him alive.
'Not at all.' She smiled shakily.
'Little liar.' He eyed her mockingly. 'I can always tell the very rare occasions that you lie because it doesn't come naturally to you, does it? That's just one of the things that has amazed me about you, Miriam; I hadn't reckoned to meet someone like you in several lifetimes.' He laughed suddenly, but the sound was harsh in the quiet room. 'Looking like you do and still a virgin at twenty-five. Do you know that you are probably unique in the whole of London?' he asked with wry, caustic humour.
'I doubt it.' She blushed scarlet.
'You can trust me, you know,' he said after a long moment. 'I know you think I'm the lowest thing on two legs but I wouldn't take you against your will; not even I would stoop to that,' he added bitterly.
Against my will? She would have laughed out loud if it had been possible. Two seconds after he touched her it sure wouldn't be against her will, she thought with painful self-contempt.
'What is it exactly that you object to so strongly?' he asked softly, after another pause that she found impossible to break. 'I know on a sexual level we would be compatible; you know it too.'
'We're so different…' She couldn't believe how near she was to blurting out the truth; it was quivering on her tongue like a live thing, and only the knowledge that he would take her love and use it against her kept her from admitting the truth. He had told her that he didn't want to love a woman and she knew him well enough by now to know that what he didn't want to do, he didn't. He was cynical and cold and cruelly honest and he just wanted to get her into bed. Remember it> she told herself fiercely.
'Sunday's child can get on with anyone,' he reminded her lightly.
'Not really.' She glanced up at him suddenly. 'What day were you born on, Reece?'
'What?' He looked at her blankly for a moment and then shook his head slowly. 'A Wednesday, I think. Yes, a Wednesday.' He eyed her wryly. 'Is that good or bad?'
' 'Wednesday's child is full of woe'.' She took another long sip of coffee. 'I don't think Sunday is ready to meet Wednesday yet,' she said flatly as she placed her mug on the table by her side.
'Sunday doesn't know what it's missing.' He moved so swiftly that she didn't have time to object as he pulled her to her feet and into his arms, kissing her passionately as he moulded her into the hard length of him.
She shuddered helplessly as his warm lips moved down over her throat, their touch tantalisingly sensuous. Quite whether the robe fell apart or he moved it apart she wasn't sure, but as his mouth burnt on the soft swell of her breasts a moment later the pleasure she felt drowned all thoughts of protest.
'I want you, Miriam; I've wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you.' His eyes were silver slits in the dark passion of his face. 'I can't think of anything else. I'm becoming obsessed with you and I hate feeling like it but I can't control it.'
She moaned deep in her throat as his mouth brushed satin-smooth skin in tiny, burning kisses as he moved the lace covering of her nightie under her breasts and explored their softness.
'I could have killed Donnie for looking at you the way he did,' he said huskily after a long moment, when he raised his head to look into her drowning violet eyes. 'Do you know that? I've never felt like that in my life.'
Because he'd never had anyone deny him what he wanted before? she asked herself painfully as she desperately tried to keep a hold on reality. It couldn't be anything more than that; he had told her so himself. And forbidden fruit was always sweeter; everyone knew that.
But then he took her mouth again, moulding her into the hard-muscled planes of his chest as he pulled her fiercely against him, and logic flew out of the window. Her eyes shut, she abandoned herself to the sweetness of the moment, his lips moving with devastating experience and hot sensuality over her eyes, her mouth and down to her throat and breasts, leaving a trail of fire and sensuous delight wherever they touched. She needed him, she wanted him, but most of all she loved him, and she knew that she would never love any man but Reece.
