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‘I see your grasp of slang has improved radically in the last few minutes,’ she snapped. ‘So what if they are? What makes you the guardian of my morality?’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ he growled bafflingly.
‘I wouldn’t bother to try. You’re not my type!’
‘I don’t think you know what your type is, Harriet; that’s the problem…’
‘You may see it as a problem—I see it as a challenge,’ she said with a reckless toss of her head. ‘After all, looking is half the fun of the game—’
‘But you’re not really looking for fun, you’re looking for forgetfulness,’ he said with a quiet certainty that struck her to the heart. ‘And I’m afraid you won’t find it in meaningless sexual encounters. If anything you’ll discover an even more corrosive form of loneliness—’
‘I thought you said you wanted to look around the apartment,’ she interrupted fiercely, not wanting to hear any more. ‘I’m going to get the drinks.’
She half expected him to trail her into the kitchen to continue cutting at her fragile composure, but to her unutterable relief she heard the quiet rustle of his footsteps as he prowled briefly around the lounge and then deeper into the back of the apartment.
By the time she carried the tray of drinks and dishes of olives and cheese out into the living room she felt ready to face him again, but to her surprise Marcus still hadn’t reappeared from his self-guided tour.
What was he doing? she wondered as she anxiously sipped her drink. What had he found to interest him for so long? When she could bear the tension no longer she walked cautiously towards the bedroom, ready to beat a hasty retreat if she heard him in the bathroom.
She found him sitting on the edge of her bed, engrossed in a book from the stack on top of her bedside cabinet—the result of her whirlwind unpacking.
He looked up as she hovered warily in the doorway.
‘How To Turn Your Life Around?’ His mouth curved wryly. ‘I thought you had already worked that out to your satisfaction.’ He turned his attention to the rest of the books, which still bore their price stickers, and began to sort through them. ‘Mmm, your bedtime reading is very instructive—How To Be The Woman You Are, Blondes Have More Fun—two contradictory titles there! And what’s this? How To Attract Men. I would have thought that was rather superfluous for you too, since you became a sizzling platinum blonde…’
Sizzling? Intent on preventing him from reaching the bottom of the pile, Harriet hastened forward, but she was too late. His eyebrows shot up as he studied the final cover.
‘Sexual Fulfilment: Erotic Techniques To Enhance Female Pleasure.’
‘Give me that!’ Flustered, she tried to snatch it out of his hand.
‘Give you what? Sexual fulfilment?’ he enquired with a wicked grin, easily evading her attack by catching her wrist and pulling her down onto the bed beside him. ‘Why, Harriet, I’m flattered by your eagerness but it’s rude to grab.’
‘I meant give me the book!’ she grated at him, feeling the heat of his thigh against her hip as they bounced lightly together on the edge of the bed.
‘Why? Do you think I’d be shocked?’
To her dismay he flicked the book on his lap open at random, and they both looked down at the explicit colour drawing which accompanied the test.
‘Goodness!’ he murmured, with fine restraint. The woman was blonde, the man dark-haired and lithely muscular. Harriet wondered hectically if he had blue eyes. She tore her gaze from the erotic blending of male and female on the page and looked helplessly at Marcus. His eyelids had drooped and a slightly dreamy look of fascination softened his hard face. A faint tinge of redness stole into his cheeks as the seconds ticked by, and a pulse began to throb heavily at his temple.
He slowly turned the page. The whisper of paper sounded loud in the quiet room. He turned another and she saw his nostrils flare as he inhaled sharply.
‘Goodness,’ he murmured again, and lifted his head. Their eyes clashed and his were darkly brilliant, but not, she knew, with shock.
‘You aren’t looking,’ he accused thickly.
‘Yes, I am.’ The dazed words were out before she could stop them. ‘I mean—’
His eyes flared with triumph.
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ he growled, spilling the book off his lap onto the floor as he half turned to reach for her, dragging her against his chest.
‘You’re looking with your mind,’ he said huskily against her mouth, ‘and your mind can see you and me doing to each other what that man and woman are doing…only we’re not frozen into position on the pages of a book. We can move. We’re real, warm and alive and so is this…’
He kissed her deep and hard, burying his mouth in hers, using his teeth to tease her lips apart and his tongue to thrust roughly inside. His hand slid from her upper arms to her ribcage, his fingers splaying up her slender sides, gripping her, supporting her torso while he slowly twisted from side to side, massaging her breasts with the rigid muscles of his chest. With a groan he turned her even further into the heated embrace, forcing her head back with the power of his kiss, lifting his knee to rest his thigh heavily across her sprawled legs, urging her against the hardness between his legs.
‘Kiss me; touch me the way she was touching him.’ He whispered the ragged command into the moist depths of her being, and she felt him tear at his buttons so that his shirt parted across his smooth, hot chest. Then his fingers were sliding against her T-shirt, pulling it free from the top of her jeans, the pads of his fingertips rasping like rough satin against her bare skin.
