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He ignored her jeer, choosing to answer the involuntary cry that she had revealingly blurted out. 'A tease is a woman who deliberately arouses a man just for the pleasure of slapping him down.' He moved suddenly and Fran flinched, but he was only stretching out his arms to lace his fingers through the woven wire of the archway in an attitude of unthreatening openness. Fran's restless desire to escape this disturbing discussion evaporated. As long as he didn't touch her she could handle the situation. Of course, there were other ways of touching.
Having Ross's tapering masculinity spreadeagled in front of her was like a caress to the senses. It presented a tempting illusion that Ross was offering himself to her, making himself vulnerable, the male as victim.
'I think that for the most part you don't realise what the hell you're doing, it's just pure instinct. But, Fran, sometimes you make me ache...'
'Then why didn't you—?' She bit her lip, but it was too late, the question was asked.
'Last night?' He understood her so well, too well... 'Because that's not the way I want it. I don't want to just reliev
e an ache in my groin, Frankie. I think that's what makes you so scared, mmm?'
She looked away from the warm blue invitation. 'I think you're the tease, Ross Tarrant...' she said shakily.
'I would never slap you down, honey, don't ever be afraid of that. Ever since I was seventeen I've had intermittent dreams about you, sometimes so vivid that it was as if I was actually touching and tasting you, the sweet, wild scent of you perfuming my lonely sheets...'
'Lonely!' Fran had to stop that erotic imagery. 'I doubt your bed is ever empty, let alone lonely. You know too much about women for your own good.'
He laughed. 'That's your fault, Princess.'
'Mine?'
'I have you to thank for what I am today.' His laughter faded into a wry seriousness at her puzzlement. 'What you said to that arrogant young punk took, Frankie. Initially it was my pride that drove me to try and prove you wrong about me, to take the hardest option there was. I didn't have bursary, but I went to university the next year. I was going for Bachelor of Science, but I did so well the first year that I switched to Medicine. It wasn't easy. As you so succinctly told me, I'd been lazy; I had to learn to discipline myself all over again—' he grinned at the memory. 'I didn't even have time to play sport. And then, when it came to specialising, I again used you for inspiration.'
'Oh?' Fran could tell by the glint in his eye that she needed to brace herself.
'Mmm... my natural talent, remember? My skill with women? I didn't lie to you about that, Frankie, they do pay to come and see me. I'm in great demand...as an obstetrician. Do you know, darling, that you look like a fish?'
Fran snapped her mouth shut. Suddenly it all made sense... the wicked way he had misled her by telling her almost the truth. She closed her eyes against that teasing grin. 'You...wretch!' Against her will she was laughing, and he was watching with a peculiar smile of satisfaction.
'I must say I was slightly miffed that you hadn't known, perhaps that's why I let you wander so far up the garden path,' he admitted when her laughter faded to adorable giggles that made her look like that shy teenager again. 'I had flattered myself that I was fairly well known in the medical fraternity... I'm in private practice, but I'm a consultant at National Women's, too.'
'Well, hospitals do tend to be rather insular,' Fran offered with a trace of apology. 'We get absorbed in our own little microcosm of wards and shifts, and I haven't been on an obstetric ward for years. I...can't believe it...' She stared at him and he could see from her face that she was threatening to go off into giggles again.
'Don't apologise, Fran,' he said drily. 'You don't want to break your record of consistently deflating my ego... although, thank God, there's one area in which you never fail to respond but flatteringly.'
The giggle froze in her throat, as he had meant it to. They stared at each other. Vine shadows laced the handsome face, sending ripples of darkness across the unruffled blue calm of his eyes. He hadn't moved, arms still outstretched, only the white tension-lines where his fingers gripped the wire revealing the control he was exercising. It would have been easy to take her into his arms and convince her that what he wanted she wanted also... but with Fran the easy option wasn't an option at all. Her submission had to be voluntary or it was valueless to both of them. The tightly wrapped petals protecting the feminine core of her personality couldn't be forced open... they would respond only to warmth and light and the promise of life-giving nourishment. Surely the Fran that he had learned about this afternoon could be coaxed to take the inevitable gamble that was involved in any human relationship...
'Why didn't you tell me what you wanted to do with the money, Fran?' He chose to take the oblique route.
The soft lilt in his voice as much as the abrupt change of subject disconcerted her. 'I...it was none of your business,' she said huskily.
'And now it is?' He deftly manipulated her answer. 'Have you decided that you don't need excuses any more?'
'Excuses?'
'To stay. You can't still believe that I'm after your inheritance any more... I never put in a formal claim anyway. So if you stay now, it's for one reason. You want to.'
Predictably, when cornered, Francesca panicked,
looking for the exits. 'You think, just because I know
you're a doctor and not some... layabout—'
'Oh, no, we've already dealt with that one, Princess,' he told her with quiet, inexorable reason. 'The attraction we share has nothing to do with what we are. Your status or mine has nothing to do with it. And don't make the mistake of thinking that just because I'm a professional that I'm suddenly invested with emotional respectability. Part of me will always be a hell-raiser, always open to a challenge... I've learned to reconcile the conflictions of my character... I think you're just starting to. You can be a woman and run a business, Francesca. They aren't mutually exclusive.'
'I don't know yet that I can run a business.' Under
stress she admitted something that previously she would never have dreamed of admitting. 'I... I'll need all my time and energy to find out. I'm so close now, I can't afford—'
