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'I'll give you a lift.' It was a statement, not a suggestion, and as always that deep, slightly husky voice made Annie's spine tingle.
'No, thank you.' She had been adjusting the jade silk scarf she was wearing with a collar less, slim-fitting, dark grey suit, and she turned from the small hall mirror and looked straight through him.
She could be very good at looking through people if she really put her mind to it, but, to her intense annoyance, he merely laughed. It was a rich sound, deep in his throat.
Predictably, infuriatingly, her pulses began to race. He had a terrible effect on her senses, and the worst of it was, he knew it! No, she corrected herself—not the absolute worst. She simply didn't know what to do about it, and there could be nothing worse than that. Despite knowing exactly what a shallow heel he was—that knowledge springing from her own intuition and his cousin's lips—the philandering devil still had the power to make her quake inside. He still haunted her mind, waking or sleeping!
He considered her, his head slightly on one side, half smiling.
'Why not? We're both going to the auction. Pointless to take two cars.' The smile widened, touching his eyes, making them sparkle like precious gems. 'I'll give you lunch afterwards.'
The hell you will! she screamed at him in her mind. If small doses of him affected her so strangely she couldn't bear to contemplate what an intimate lunch for two would do! And it would be intimate, she knew he'd make sure of that. He'd been seducing her with his eyes ever since he'd arrived. And as he was Norman's guest—not to mention the fact that he was also Norman's cousin—it was particularly reprehensible.
'How kind!' she snapped sarcastically, reaching for her grey suede handbag, tucking it under her arm like a weapon. 'I have far too many things to do. In any case, I would prefer to have my lunch here, with my fiancé.'
'Why so antagonistic?' He calmly removed the handbag from her clutching fingers and replaced it on the telephone-table, asking huskily, 'Do you know? Or would you like me to tell you?'
He lifted a leisurely hand to her face, his fingers lightly touching her skin. Annie flinched, her eyes widening as they winged up to meet his. The blue was startling, vivid, deep, and she felt as if she were drowning, while that husky voice was having a shamefully disastrous effect on her, hypnotic almost.
'I wanted you from the first,' he told her silkily. 'And you know it. It was an instant reaction—a chemical response—call it what you will, but it was there. And you felt it, too. But you're denying it, fighting it. And so you translate all that emotion into antagonism.'
His words appalled the part of her mind that was still capable of logical thought. She tried to speak, to deny his every shaming word, but hot sensation flooded through her, drying her mouth, clogging her throat.
He was close and coming closer, and she managed to croak, 'Don't!' but didn't manage to move. She couldn't move, despite the thumping of adrenalin through her veins. She knew he was going to kiss her.
He had leaned forward, the intention clear in his eyes, in the sensual softening of the hard, incised mouth, and there was nothing, nothing at all she could do to prevent it. Something long buried, something primitive and undeniable, had surfaced, taking her over. Hazily, her eyes focused on his mouth.
As he kissed her, her eyes closed helplessly. She had no will-power left, none at all, as her lips parted willingly beneath the searching pressure of his. Desire came in a relentless flood, sweeping her away like a mindless weakling. Norman's occasional, undemanding kisses left her feeling warm inside, comforted. This was elemental, burning her up.
Physical need, too familiar to be disguised, prope
lled her hands to slide over the width of his shoulders, curving around his neck, twining through the crisp dark hairs at the nape of his neck, and, groaning softly, he deepened the kiss, fusing them together in this single, basic need.
Then, abruptly, he released her, drawing away, his eyes glittering with some nameless emotion as he said raggedly, 'Deny what there is between us, and you're a liar.' Then he walked away, leaving her shaken and stunned.
She didn't know how she drove to Monk's Hall without wrecking the runabout she and Joan shared. She felt mangled inside with sheer, blistering rage.
He would never have dared to kiss her like that, say the things he'd said, had anyone else been in the house. But Norman, unaccountably, had elected to go with Joan into town to pick up the weekend shopping—much to Joan's unconcealed delight and her own annoyance.
She had expected him to attend the auction with her—it was their future home that was going under the hammer, when all was said and done! And he might have known she would need his moral support because that louse Luke would be there, putting his bids in!
But no—oh, no! She crunched through gears and almost stalled the engine. He had decided to accompany Joan, as if she needed all the help she could get and hadn't been doing the weekend shopping for years!
So Norman had left her alone with Luke and Luke had kissed her. That made her very angry. That his kiss had filled her, body and soul, with burning sensation made her angrier still! She disgusted herself. And what poor Norman would have to say if he ever discovered how his cousin had taken advantage of his absence didn't bear thinking about. And what he would think if she ever told him how Luke's kiss had affected her made her mind boggle.
She arrived at Monk's Hall very ruffled. Dozens of cars were parked on the main driveway, spilling out into the quiet street. She spotted the gun-metal Ferrari and clamped her teeth together, groaning as the unwelcome memory of how it had felt to be in his arms stirred stinging sensation to life in her loins.
People were already taking their seats in the long salon. Many of those occupying the folding wooden seats were obviously onlookers, peering round avidly at each newcomer. But Luke Derringer, standing, his elegantly dark-suited back to her as he looked out from one of the tall windows, was no onlooker.
He would, if he could, turn this potentially beautiful home into an expensive hotel, small but prestigious, a means of pouring yet more money into his already heavily laden pockets! He would take it from her if he could, just as he would take kisses on a whim, and, she decided, her face going hot, just as much more as she could be persuaded to 'allow'!
Some men were like that. A fleeting attraction was all it took. And the more unscrupulous among them—such as Luke Derringer—wouldn't turn a hair even if the object of the fleeting, shallow physical attraction happened to be engaged to a member of his own family!
But women were different. They allowed their emotions to become involved, and if they weren't careful could end up betrayed and hurt. But she, Annie, knew how to be careful, to rank a man's character higher than the transient lusts of the flesh. At least, she hoped she did!
She slipped into a vacant seat in the centre of the back row, murmuring her excuses as she edged past an elderly farmer and two stout women with almost identical red faces beneath garish headscarves. Her heartbeat was fast, too fast, and she knew she had to compose herself before the serious business of bidding began.
The woman on her left leaned forward and began gossiping with a faded man in a trilby on the row in front and Annie leaned back, closing her eyes, taking deep, slow breaths. Luke Derringer wouldn't take this house from her, she silently vowed. That he had already taken something more important she wasn't yet ready to admit. But, whatever happened, she wasn't going to let him emerge the victor in this battle for Monk's Hall. She would use every last penny of her father's legacy to ensure it didn't happen.
