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Her black dress looked somehow tighter, the neck lower and the hem higher, than it had at home. Her black satin hair was in tousled disorder, her mouth reddened and her eyes as dark as bruises in her flushed face. She put a hand to her throat and ran it down the front of the dress, over her taut breasts and down to the bottom of her skirt. She inched it up until the top of her stocking showed, and then a strip of bare thigh. She bent her knee and looked sideways at herself. No sign of a victim now—she was all vamp. She had never looked nor felt so brazenly sexy in her life.
She let her hem fall and wandered over to the dresser, trying not to strain her ears for noises from the bathroom. Along with the heap of items from Adam’s pocket—a scatter of small change, a set of keys, a slim crocodile-skin wallet—there was a silver-backed male brush and comb set lying next to a small black leather case, the open zip of which displayed a manicure kit. The only other item of a possibly personal nature was a long, narrow navy blue jeweller’s box.
Her reward…?
The shower was still splashing erratically.
Regan put down her bag and picked up the velvet box. The lid was stiff and her fingers sweaty with nervous guilt as she forced it back on its hinges.
She sucked in a sharp breath. The thin tennis bracelet was lying on a bed of blue velvet, the tiny diamond chips a blaze of white ice under the overhead light. God knows how much such a thing had cost!
Regan snapped the box shut and hastily replaced it exactly as she had found it. If that was what Adam planned to give his lady of the evening, she didn’t want him to know that she had been snooping. But…oh, God, how flattering to be considered worthy of such loveliness. She went soft inside at the thought of those strong, scarred hands fastening the delicate strand of diamonds around her wrist.
Except for her wedding and engagement rings Michael had never given her any jewellery. His birthday gifts to her had usually been small household appliances and her most romantic anniversary present had been a cookbook.
But there was nothing romantic about the receipt of this first gift of jewellery, either, Regan reminded herself fiercely. She mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking there was anything personal involved. Just because the bracelet was beautiful that didn’t make it in any way meaningful, to either herself or Adam. It wasn’t the gift of a lover; it was hard, cold evidence of their transaction, that was all. The bracelet hadn’t been bought with her specifically in mind—nor, probably, had Adam even selected it himself.
She picked up her evening purse and unzipped it, determined to bring herself firmly back to earth. Pushing aside the condom packet, which showed a distressing tendency to stick to her damp fingers, she drew out the little square box she was searching for and opened it. The elegant gold cufflinks inset with darkly grained New Zealand jade stared accusingly back at her. They had been extremely costly, but Regan had been frugal with the housekeeping money for a long time in order to secretly save up for something special for Michael’s twenty-eighth birthday. But he had been killed a week before she could give them to him, and in the emotional turmoil that followed the cufflinks had lain forgotten in the pocket of a rarely worn jacket until she had rediscovered them a few days ago.
She had intended to sell them, but tonight it had seemed like poetic justice to use the pathetic evidence of her wasted love to buy her way out of any pangs of conscience about her sexual fling.
‘What are you doing?’
Regan stuffed the box back into her bag and whirled around, suddenly registering the lack of sound from the bathroom behind her.
Her mouth went dry. Adam wasn’t quite naked but the towel wrapped around his lean hips rode drastically low, and the end tucked into the folds over his right hip-bone seemed tantalisingly insecure. Here and there on his skin was a faint beading of moisture, as if he had been in too much of a hurry to dry himself properly, and the hair on his chest glistened as if the strands had been individually polished. As he walked towards her the towel parted on his right thigh with every stride, showing her a lithe strip of hair-dusted muscle.
‘I—I was just getting these,’ she improvised, holding up the packet of condoms as she pushed her bag onto the dresser.
He wrapped his hand around hers and plucked the packet from her fingers, tossing it on top of her purse, not taking his eyes off her flustered face. ‘You won’t need them.’
Her eyes widened as the breath swooped from her lungs, the clean, soapy scent of him clogging her nostrils. The light gleamed on his cheek, making his freshly shaven jaw look as smooth as polished silk.
‘But you—But I—’ She couldn’t believe he would risk either a sexually transmitted disease or a pregnancy from their encounter—so what kind of sexual activity did he have in mind?
His mouth kinked in amusement at her nervous stutter. ‘I mean, I prefer to use my own,’ he explained.
‘Oh.’ Her relief was writ large in her eyes before a frown wrinkled her fringe. ‘You don’t trust me? What do you think—that I’ve been at them with a pin?’
‘It has been known to happen,’ he said mildly, and she realised that it wasn’t her he mistrusted, but women in general…perhaps even people in general.
That made the insult a little easier to take—but not much. He had no way of knowing that she was the last woman to want to trap him into any extended responsibility for their one-night stand.
‘You must have a very pessimistic outlook on life,’ she told him.
‘Well, right at this moment I’m extremely optimistic about the immediate future,’ he said, fingering the strap of her dress as he looked down into her eyes. ‘For instance…I have complete confidence in your ability to arouse me…’ He pushed the strap off her shoulder and bent to nuzzle the tender crease where her arm met the upper swell of her breast.
There was a soft rustle and she felt his towel brush against her calf as it fell to the floor. He was now stark naked, and only inches away from her electrified body. Apart from Michael, Regan had never seen a naked adult male in the flesh…let alone aroused. She let her eyes fall to the level of his chest as he toyed with her other strap. She didn’t dare look down any further, in case she completely lost her nerve.
She lifted her hands and laid them tentatively against his chest and he gave a shuddering sigh, his breath hot against her smooth shoulder.
‘Oh, yes…that’s right…touch me—show me how good you are with your hands….’ He kissed the side of her throat and put his hands over hers, stroking them up and down his chest. She could feel his heart thudding and her palms grew hot with the friction from the thick growth of hair. When he let her hands go to cup her head and angle her mouth up to his she let her fingers settle on either side of his flat waist, gripping hard as he shifted his stance, making her vividly conscious of a blunt force nudging against the front of her skirt.
He kissed her as he had before, with a deep thoroughness that made her knees turn to water. Drowning in sensation, she closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into his waist and he laughed into her mouth.
‘Little cat…’
His hands slipped down the slender line of her back and suddenly she could feel them warmly cupping her bare bottom under the rucked up skirt, stroking the downy plumpness, tracing the sensitive crease in a way that made her automatically clench her buttocks. He growled with approval, his hands tightening as he squeezed and kneaded, lifting her hips hard against him so that she couldn’t avoid the thick roll of flesh thrusting into her belly, and bending his head to string a sting of moist kisses into her plunging neckline. Her eyes flew open and she could feel the heat pulse between her legs at the sight of his dark head moving against her breasts and the feel of his teeth through the snug fabric.
