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Her host meanwhile had signalled to Gordon he could deal with the drinks.
Sybella wondered if she could just slip out with the trolley. But the fire lured her and she turned away to deal with her wet things, surreptitiously sniffing and wiping at her eyes with her wrist. She stripped off her parka and then her cords, feeling self-conscious in her tights but not exposed. They were of a durable denier and thick enough to act as leggings. Frankly, it was a relief to be able to move her body freely again.
She laid out her jeans before the fire and had just straightened up when a towel dropped over her head.
She gave a start but with a gruff, ‘Hold still,’ her host began to vigorously but not roughly rub dry her damp hair.
After an initial protest of, ‘I can do this,’ she gave in, because really he was impossible to argue with.
But this was her role. For five years she’d been the caregiver. It was disconcerting to find herself the one being cared for. And as his strokes became more rhythmic Sybella found herself going quiescent, some of the tension of the crazy evening leaving her.
It had been so long since her needs were seen to by someone else. She’d forgotten it could be like this. Even when Simon had been alive he’d been so busy with his new veterinary practice in the few months they were married they had seemed only to bump into each other at night in bed, and Sybella could feel her skin suffusing with heat because another man’s hands were on her, if only drying her hair. But when she looked up and clashed with his grey eyes she was shocked into feelings so raw and insistent she barely recognised them as the gentle, awkward finding their way she’d had with Simon…
‘That’s enough,’ she said, her voice a little rough with the sudden upsurge of feeling beating around in her.
He paused but then continued to dry her even more vigorously.
‘If you collapse from pneumonia in a few days’ time—’ he said gruffly.
‘You don’t want it on your conscience?’
‘I don’t want a lawsuit.’
Sybella snorted, she couldn’t help it, and she felt rather than saw him smile.
‘I’m not a lawyer,’ she said, ‘and I don’t have the money for a lawyer.’
‘What do you do,’ he asked, removing the towel so that her head came back and she could see him, ‘besides haunt this house?’
She didn’t miss a beat. ‘I could give you a list?’
A slow grudging smile curled up his mouth, taking Sybella’s entire attention with it. ‘Why don’t you do that?’
As if he had all the time in the world to listen to her life story. As if like before she’d spill her guts.
Instead she asked, ‘Why don’t you visit your grandfather more often?’ It was the one thing that really bothered her, and it was more important than anything to do with the open house and how much trouble she would be in.
He reached out and gently smoothed the drying ringlets back from her face.
‘I would have visited earlier,’ he said, ‘if I’d had any idea something so beautiful was here.’
Then his gaze dropped to her mouth.
She relived that moment in the snow and realised it hadn’t been her imagination. There was a very strong attraction between them.
Only she didn’t do things like this.
Given the last man to kiss her existed now only in her memory of him.
She wasn’t even sure what she would do if he…
His mouth covered hers. He gave her no opportunity to back out, or overthink it, he just made it happen. One hand sliding around the back of her head to cradle her, the other at the small of her back. His hand was so broad he could span her waist from behind.
In a flurry of sense impressions, Sybella had never felt so delicate, so utterly aware she was a feeling, sensate woman and, as exciting and dangerous as this was, she felt completely safe in his arms.
Where he had been so rough with her out in the snow he was now showing due care and acknowledgement of her as a female, which put to bed his remark about mistaking her for a man and engendered a fluttery feeling inside her. It bloomed high in her chest and a swirling warmth gathered down below.
He brought her in close to his body and she felt the full hard, muscular strength of him and it was enough.
