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'Frankie...' He shook his head in amused reproof, reading the feminine panic in the flickering grey eyes as an invitation to seduction. 'I considered myself pretty blasé at seventeen. I thought I knew it all... particularly where girls were concerned. You taught me differently. You taught me that sex is the greatest and most unknowable mystery of all... that it has as much to do with the mind as with the body. You can't force an attraction to someone, it's either there or it's not, and the chemistry is in the brain rather than the loins. You may see no rhyme nor reason for it, but it's there... as it is for us, as it was then, and now...'
And ever shall be the little voice echoed the prayer, for ever and ever.
'No...' She feebly denied the inevitable even as she lay there, watching his mouth approach, wanting yet afraid...
'Yes...' His teeth sank softly into her vulnerable lower lip, his certainty absorbed into the pores of her skin as he lowered himself on to the bed, pushing her back into the pillow, so that she accepted the weight of his chest against her tingling breasts, the fresh, clean scent of him in her nostrils, the taste of him in her mouth.
The intimate curl of his tongue inside her mouth set off a chain reaction in her body which recoiled even as it delighted in a trapped feeling of pleasure. You can't escape, she thought eagerly, so you may as well enjoy it.
As a hangover remedy it was without equal. The touch and taste of him sweetened every sense and sent a burst of adrenalin through her veins. It was like leaping that crevasse, all fear and a crazy sense of triumph at the challenge of the unknown... for, to Fran, this heated sexual urgency was largely unknown. It had been building inside since she had first seen Ross staring at her nakedness in the spa pool, a brooding, masculine threat...since long before that, since he had planted that dormant seed in a young girl's body, now germinating into the full flower of passion.
The kisses flowed like heady wine from mouth to mouth, and they were both breathing hard when he finally lifted his head and they stared at each other in crackling silence. He noticed with satisfaction the stormy glaze of the grey-blue eyes, the flush of arousal mantling the creamy skin of her face and throat, the provocative part of her slightly swollen mouth, while she was conscious of the full heaviness of his body as he lay on top of her, the hard, masculine pressure points imprinted on her as if he were the erotic template and she the silky bolt of cloth to be cut to fit his shape.
He kissed her again, a long, slow, thorough kiss, and then murmured against the corner of her mouth, 'If you're thinking what I'm thinking, Princess, I'm afraid we'll have to postpone. I don't think I could look my mother in the eye if she asked why we were late for lunch.'
Fran gasped. It was Sunday! She had forgotten about Jason's invitation.
'I wasn't thinking------ '
He cut her off with another quick kiss. 'Yes, you were, and this time you can't blame the brandy.' He rolled off her and stood up beside the bed, looking down at her flushed confusion. 'Some time soon we're going to be lovers, Francesca, and finish what we started thirteen years ago...'
She gazed at his retreating back with a mixture of fascination and stunned anger. He made it sound so simple, like predestination. But Fran wasn't about to be seduced by fate. She tried to shake off the odd, empty ache in her body as she armoured herself in a carefully demure skirt and blouse. So what if there was a strong physical attraction between them? They weren't animals, they didn't have to give in to it just because it was there.
To her chagrin Ross chuckled when he saw her clothes.
'Who do you think that's going to fool, Princess? I know what sinful passions lurk beneath that starchy breast.'
'If you don't behave, I'm not coming,' she told him haughtily.
'Scout's honour.' He held up a hand, a pious look on the handsome face.
'You were never a Scout, Ross Tarrant,' she accused.
'Gigolo's honour, then.' He grinned at her disapproval.
'I don't believe that, either,' she sniffed as she marched out of the cabin.
'Took you long enough,' he said lazily as he handed her into the pick-up. 'Would you like to know what I really do for a living?'
'No.'
'Sure?' he teased knowingly, reading the frustrated curiosity in her stubborn profile. Now when she put on her prim and proper act it amused rather than annoyed him, because he knew it was only an act, that underneath she was feeling vulnerable.
'I'm not in the least interested,' she lied loftily, planning to dig the information out of his family over lunch, but casually, so he wouldn't realise what she was doing.
'Still, I think you ought to be prepared--------- '
'Are you going to start this thing, or do you want me to drive?'
'But, Fran—' He was laughing at her again, over some secret joke, and she had no intention of playing the straight woman to his punchline.
'Oh, go row a boat!' she snapped childishly.
'Shrew.' He clicked his tongue in tender exasperation as he started the car. 'OK, but it's your funeral, Princess. Don't get mad at me later.'
'Of course I won't.' Managing to imply that he wasn't worth getting upset over.
His hum filled the silence between them as the car wound along the inland road. Fran looked out the window to hide her smile. She didn't want to admit it to the smug man beside her, but she enjoyed bickering with him. She had never allowed herself the luxury of arguing with a man before, flexing her will against his; she had always been too shy, too uncertain of herself as a woman. If she hadn't liked or agreed with what a man said, she had simply withdrawn and naturally, she realised with hindsight, that had set limits on every relationship she had entered. Not even Brian had known what she really thought or felt, so she couldn't really blame him for his furious reaction when the cumulation of years of frustration had exploded on his head.
