AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her reactions to this man had been shocking her ever since she'd first set eyes on him and her insides churned around sickeningly as he told her, 'I offered because I wanted to be with you. We have a lot to say to each other—though you probably won't allow yourself to admit it. And Norman's quite capable of looking after himself. All he ever needs to do is sit back and put on his helpless academic look to have everyone around him rushing to make his life easy. It's a knack he has. He gets what he wants from life by being passive.'
'While you take the opposite course,' she couldn't help snapping. 'You actively go out and grab!'
'You could be right, at that.' Humour warmed his voice. He was impervious. Nothing she could say or do riled him, shook that monumental self-assurance of his. But his answer scared her; he was admitting his inborn, driving need actively to take what he wanted. And for some reason he wanted her. He had said so. And she, dammit, despite her principles, could so easily be taken. The shaming knowledge worried her, more than anything had ever worried her before; she felt she no longer really knew herself.
She turned her head sharply, forbidding herself the sight of that aggressive profile, the strong hands on the wheel, the too-close muscular thighs lovingly moulded by dark blue denim. Stoically, she clamped her eyes on the passing scenery, clamped her soft lips together lest their quivering alert him to precisely how his nearness affected her.
'You warned the Prof I'd be arriving in Norman's place?'
His voice was an intrusion, the question unwelcome because it needed an answer. She muttered, 'Yes, of course,' and stared fixedly through the window.
The mountains were higher now, more barren. The narrow, twisting ribbon of road snaked through the rugged pass but the powerful Ferrari treated the devilish gradients with contempt. Like its owner, she thought grumpily. Luke Derringer would take all life's obstacles in his effortless stride, mastering them with that damnably smooth self-confidence of his. Norman had told her, a hint of green in his voice, that Luke had made his first clear million before he was twenty-five. Astute buying in the hotel property market, transforming rundown near slums to classy five-star affairs which appealed to those who didn't know the meaning of a budget, had set him well on his way, and he'd been travelling upwards ever since. Single-mindedness and determination were gifts in his capable hands, gifts to be used. And if he chose to apply them to his terrifying pursuit of herself, then what chance did she have? She shuddered.
'So? Did he mind?' asked Luke, with a warning edge to his voice which eased off a touch as he added, 'You might like to know I've got ways of treating a sulky woman.'
'I'm shaking in my shoes!' she snapped right back. She wasn't sulking, merely allowing her instinct for self-preservation its head! The less she had to do with this man, the better, and that included normal civilised conversation! But she told him resignedly, 'He didn't mind at all. He was just thankful the interviews hadn't been cancelled. From what I could gather, he gets lonely. His home— Plas-y-draig—is pretty remote. The nearest inn's eight miles away and pretty basic, he tells me.'
'So that's why we're staying with him? I had wondered,' Luke commented, and Annie nodded.
'He suggested it when I arranged the interviews in the first place. It would save time, he said, and he'd be glad of the company.'
She didn't add that Professor Rhys had told her, when she'd phoned to explain that Luke would be taking Norman's place, that he had his young grandson staying with him at present. Let that, and her secret intention to spend as much time as possible in the company of either the lonely old man or his young grandson, come as one big surprise!
Pointing Luke and the Hasselblad right out of the way while she stuck to the Professor like a limpet would give her great satisfaction. Never, if she could help it, would she be alone with Luke. He would soon discover that, despite his avowed intention to have her to himself, she was quite capable of thwarting him at every turn.
The thought amused her and she relaxed her tense shoulders slightly, only to find her whole body virtually seize up as Luke turned the car on
to a gravelled stopping-place at the side of the lonely road.
'What are you doing?' Suspicion laced her voice, made it unnaturally sharp.
Luke's response was grim. 'Planning a major seduction scene, what else? Would you believe me if I said we'd run out of petrol?'
She could tell her edginess was beginning to really annoy him and was glad. Why should she be the only one to have her teeth regularly set on edge?
'I would expect you to show more originality than that,' she told him huffily, then wondered why she felt so relieved when his features lightened with an appreciative smile.
'You're learning!' he murmured.
He slewed round in his seat, taking the keys from the ignition, dangling them lightly between his fingers, his deep eyes following the contours of her face, her body—clad in a snug-fitting apple-green tracksuit.
Appalled, she felt her skin tingle, running with heat where his eyes touched her, and a hot stab of naked desire wreaked its havoc deep within her. She blushed, shamed by her body's treachery.
'The truth is that I had Joan fix us a picnic lunch.' His words were prosaic enough, but his eyes told her he had noted that betraying blush, knew the reason for it, too. 'I thought we might eat it here— if we can't find anything more interesting to do,' he told her, his eyes glinting wickedly.
Blushing again, and furious with herself because of it, she scrambled out of the car and stumbled over the gravel. He was a sneaky bastard, an egocentric sex maniac, and she was a fool for letting him affect her the way he did!
Her lips compressed, she stared at the view. From the stone parapet at the edge of the stopover the scenery was breathtaking—or would have been if her breath hadn't already been well and truly taken by that ravening wolf back there! But as Luke fetched the hamper she forced herself to concentrate on the view, and only on that.
Beneath the pale crisp blue of the arching autumn sky the valley below was picked out in shades of gold and silver. A stone farmhouse, as small from there as a child's toy, snuggled against a background of golden-leafed trees, the foaming stream that wound its shallow way along the valley floor a thread of silver. Above her, a hawk drifted, deceptively graceful and lazy but intrinsically predatory, and suddenly, at her side, was the man—just as predatory, his lazy grace a cloak that concealed deadly purpose.
Annie shivered convulsively and he lifted one eyebrow. 'Cold? Surely not.' He cupped an unwelcome hand beneath her elbow, making her veins run with fire. 'We'll eat over there.'
Using his own brand of velvet domination, he guided her through a narrow aperture at the side of the stone safety wall. She was going along with him because she had little choice, she told herself. She might be pliable in small things, she meted out reassurances to herself like a necessary drug, but not in the big things, the things that really mattered. Things like not allowing Luke to seduce her senses when she was engaged to his cousin! And in any case, she couldn't really be attracted to a man who would behave so dishonourably, could she?
So why did her entire body seem to melt, to dissolve into absurd insubstantiality when he slid an arm around her waist, his hand pressing into the soft, womanly swell of her hips as he pulled her close to the hard, lean length of him while they negotiated the narrow track?
At the base of the track a relatively level space of ground offered a place for a picnic. A place for whatever else he intended, she thought, shuddering. Plonking herself as far away from him as she could get without falling off the mountain, Annie cupped her chin in her hands, her big brown eyes fixed on the brooding mass of mountains on the other side of the valley.
