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‘On the contrary,’ Jake assured her truthfully, ‘I like it very much.’ Where did it come from, he wondered ruefully, this female ability to sense and home in on any unwary male reaction with all the deadly accuracy of a heat-seeking missile?
‘But you didn’t like it on me,’ Lucianna persisted. ‘I suppose you think I’m not feminine enough, not womanly enough to wear it…’
Jake was frowning again now, she observed, his mouth hardening in that dangerous way that always made her heart start to beat just a little bit too quickly. Not that she was afraid of Jake’s disapproval—no way…no way at all, she assured herself hastily.
‘Anyway, I don’t care what you think; it doesn’t matter,’ Lucianna informed him with a shake of her head before he could reply. ‘It’s what John thinks that matters…’
‘What he thinks or what he does?’ Jake demanded harshly, his own emotions overwhelming the need for caution and good sense. ‘What kind of reaction is it you’re expecting from him, Luce? What is it you want him to do? Take one look at you and want you so much that he can’t wait to start ripping the things off you? Do you expect him to take one look at you and immediately declare his undying love? Because if you do…’
‘Because if I do, what?’ Lucianna challenged him angrily, her fingers curling tightly over the handle of the carrier bag as her face flushed with mortification. ‘Just because you don’t think I’m…that John loves me. Well, he does love me,’ she told him proudly, ‘and when he comes back…’
She paused, and Jake could see the tears she was fighting to blink away glittering in her eyes as he cursed himself inwardly for his stupidity. The last thing he’d wanted to do was to hurt her and he ached to be able to make her understand that loving someone, really loving them, had nothing to do with what they wore or how the rest of the world perceived them, and everything to do with what they were, and that a man who could only love a woman he could display on his arm like a pretty trinket wasn’t, in his opinion, much of a man at all. But how could he?
CHAPTER SIX
‘THIS way; we haven’t finished yet.’
Lucianna frowned as Jake took hold of her upper arm in a firm grip and turned her towards the shop facing them.
‘New underwear,’ he added succinctly, although no explanation had really been needed—not with Lucianna well able to see what kind of apparel the shop he was indicating sold from the items on display in its window—undies which bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the plain, sensible chain-store things she normally wore.
‘I don’t need any new underwear,’ Lucianna denied untruthfully, glowering at Jake as she saw his disbelieving expression.
‘No?’ he questioned sardonically. ‘You surely weren’t planning to wear those no doubt sensible but far from sensually appealing items of female apparel you were removing from the washing line when I called round the other week for the welcome-home seduction scene you’re planning for John’s return, are you? Because if so…’ He paused without finishing what he was saying, and added obliquely, ‘Besides, they’d show through under those silky trousers.’
Lucianna opened her mouth to argue with him and then closed it again.
She might need new underwear to complement her new clothes but there was no way she was going to buy it with Jake there.
‘I haven’t got time today,’ she told him loftily. ‘I’ve got a customer’s car booked in for a service at half past four.’
‘Really? Well, in that case we’d better make a move,’ Jake accepted. ‘It’s almost four now,’ he told her.
They were halfway back to the car when he suddenly said musingly, ‘I suppose you could always do without any underwear at all; that way the fabric would certainly hang well and of course, as you’ll no doubt have learned by now from your books, from a man’s point of view it’s a very definite ego boost to know that a woman wants you so much that she’s already prepared herself for sex with you and she wants you to know it.’
Lucianna stopped dead and gave Jake a murderous look, her face burning with angry heat as she denied furiously, ‘I would never do anything like that…How dare you suggest I might?’
The naivety of her angry indignation should have made him feel guilty instead of pleased, Jake acknowledged as they walked on with Lucianna maintaining a stormy silence, because he recognised that he had deliberately used a verbal description to conjure up an image he’d known she would find unappealing.
He could have, for instance, told her that there was nothing a man, and more specifically himself, would have found more erotic and emotional, as well as physically arousing than the knowledge that the only tantalising barrier between his hands, his mouth and her skin was the outward formality of her elegant trousers and top, and that beneath them her skin, her body, was deliciously and wantonly naked. He could have told her that nothing was guaranteed to make him ache more than to be with her in a public place knowing that…
Determinedly he shook his head, reminding himself sternly of the danger of such thoughts.
It had been a shock to see her emerging from that changing room looking both so soignée and glamorous and yet at the same time too vulnerably unsure of herself. He had been hard put to it not to snatch her up into his arms and keep her there, to tell her exactly how he felt about her, how he had always felt about her, and for a moment the temptation had been such that it had been touch and go whether he would be able to control it—and himself.
Broodingly he watched her as she stormed across the car park ahead of him, still obviously angry with him, her head held high, shoulders back. Half of him wanted to take hold of her and show her physically if necessary just why a man who really cared, really loved her, would love her, want her exactly the way she was, and the other half prayed that she would never, ever have to suffer the disillusionment and pain of discovering just how unworthy of her love precious John actually was.
Lucianna hummed softly to herself as she gave the ancient Morris Traveller she had just been servicing a little pat.
Bessie belonged to one of their neighbours, Shelagh Morrison, and Shelagh herself had inherited the car from her grandmother in Dublin, who had, in turn, been given her as a gift by her late husband, Shelagh’s grandfather, and Bessie was therefore considered to be more of a family pet than a mere car and had to be treated accordingly.
‘She’s horrendous to drive and expensive to keep and, if I’m honest, I much prefer my BMW,’ Shelagh had confided once to Lucianna. ‘And yet I just can’t bring myself to part with her. I’m just thankful that you’re able to service her for me. They told me at my BMW dealership garage that I was lucky to have found someone who could.’
Lucianna glanced at her watch now. She’d just got time to get Bessie washed and polished before Shelagh came to collect her. Her smile turned to a small frown as she saw a car come racing down the farm lane. Whoever was driving it was driving far too fast for the lane and its country environment and Lucianna’s frown deepened as the car swung into the yard and she recognised its driver.
What was Felicity doing out here? She hadn’t come to tell Lucianna that they’d had another fax from John, presumably. Lucianna wiped her hands on her dungarees and started to walk towards her.
In contrast to her own sensible mud- and farmyard-proof dungarees and boots Felicity was wearing spiky-heeled, strappy sandals and a short—very short, Lucianna noticed—white dress.
