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'What in the hell did you think I was going to do?' he growled irritably, and Fran flushed. His face took on a sudden, mocking derision. 'Surely you don't imagine that I'm so hard up for a woman that I'll leap on anything remotely female?' He grinned at her reaction to his subtle insult. 'Look, Princess, I may have been a bit raw in the old days, but I've acquired a bit of polish since then. In fact, to set the record straight, my life is overcrowded with willing women.' His grin widened and Fran had the inescapable feeling that she had overlooked some vital point. Why did he look so thoroughly amused? 'Women are always ringing me up at all times of the day and night, begging me for attention, taking off their clothes for me at the slightest suggestion. It's one of the reasons I came back to Whaler's Bay, to get away from the insatiable women in my life...'
He was exaggerating purely for effect, but the trouble was that Fran's overheated imagination could well believe it. He was too handsome for his own good... and for hers. He shifted his weight in preparation to pick up the blankets at their feet and Fran jumped. He sighed.
'I can see, Princess, that you're not going to rest until I've made the obligatory attack on your virtue, so...' He reached over and swept her across the jumbled pile and into his arms.
His mouth was a shock of warmth against hers, his large hands spreading across her shoulderblades to ensure that any resistance on her part merely rubbed their bodies suggestively together.
Thinking that it would be fruitless and undignified to struggle against his superior strength, Fran suffered the tiny, stinging burn of his tongue against the corner of her clamped mouth. His hands moved with a slow, sliding pressure all the way down her long, slender back to ride the upper curve of her buttocks, his thumbs curling around to press against her hipbones. As she tried to protest at the liberty, his tongue plunged into her mouth, filling it, whipping back and forth, stroking the sensitive upper palate, burrowing into the slick moistness under her tongue, smothering her senses with male taste and smell.
Fran felt as if she had inadvertently touched an electric fence. A warning hum vibrated through her body, setting up a sharp tingling in her breasts and shivering up the insides of her thighs until she dug her fingers into his shoulders and tried to arch away from the treacherous current.
He took the opportunity to test the resilience of her hips with his own, his hands beginning to circle in slow, kneading motions as they sank to cup her closer to the centre of his heated hardness. The scrape of his whiskers against her tender chin provided an erotic sensual contrast to the soft, moist pulse of his tongue in her mouth and Fran suddenly found herself clinging where she had pushed. The man could kiss up a storm!
When he took his mouth away, Fran found that breathing required a voluntary command from her stunned brain.
'Satisfied?' he murmured huskily, his hands moving back to the neutral territory at her waist, blue eyes alight with a surprised speculation that flustered her. 'I hope I've managed to prove that I don't necessarily take up every invitation I'm issued.'
'I wasn't issuing any invitations!' Fran shook herself free, finding it hard to articulate with a tongue that felt twice its size after the sensual battering it had received.
'No?' He cocked his head with a wicked smile as he touched a finger to the smooth skin just behind her ear. 'You're flushed...' His finger ran down to the pulse in the soft hollow of her throat. '...Your skin is damp, your temperature and pulse rate have increased... An invitation doesn't have to be verbal to be explicit.' His lids drooped, masking the intention in his eyes. 'And if you're so hot...' he pulled the front of her robe apart with a single, swift movement, his hands crowding in to capture her breasts, encircling the little, stiff peaks that thrust against the soft bodice of her modest nightdress '.. .why aren't these still swe
etly soft?'
He bent his head and kissed the objects of his taunt with maddening precision before scooping up his blankets and backing out the door with a final salute of laughter at her furious confusion.
'Night-night, Princess. Safe dreams...'
CHAPTER TWO
'As you can see, Miss Lewis, the lease agreement is pretty watertight and still has several weeks to run. The death of your grandfather doesn't invalidate the document; the lease will merely be paid to his estate until such time as it is settled.'
Frustration seethed in Fran's breast as she listened to the dry, precise, ponderous tones of the elderly lawyer.
Damn! She had bounced out of bed this morning, refreshed by her first solid sleep in weeks. She was a woman with a purpose, and to achieve that purpose she was willing to talk things over in a calm and reasonable manner. She was even willing to overlook Ross's arrogant, macho attempt at intimidating her last night.
She had marched confidently out to battle, only to find her opponent missing. A note was taped to the fridge, an almost incomprehensible scrawl. Typical! she thought as she squinted at the message: 'Gone fishing. PS What's with the jungle on the porch?'
Fran had shrieked and run outside. Her precious plants, how could she have let herself forget them? Fortunately the porch was fairly sheltered and none of them seemed to have suffered from their night out on the tiles, but her carelessness was most unnerving. She couldn't afford to forget such things, not now...
'What about this option to buy?' Fran jabbed her finger at the offending clause.
'It is only an option, Miss Lewis,' the lawyer said cautiously, seeing something of the old man in the stubborn set of her jaw. A most... determined lady. It was evident that she and Ross Tarrant had already clashed over the matter, and out of duty to his late client he felt obliged to try and smooth things over. 'All it means is that if your grandfather decided to sell within the next year, Tarrant would have first refusal.'
'It gives strength to his claim about the cabin, too, doesn't it?' Fran said gloomily. 'Here it is in writing that Grandfather approved of him as a buyer. So even if I do get the entire estate, if I want to sell straight away I have to offer that part of the property to him first.' Why it disturbed her to think of Ross living in that cabin she couldn't quite fathom. But it did.
'True, but his offer would have to be acceptable to you,' Simpson pointed out.
'You mean I could ask some outrageous price that he couldn't afford?' said Fran thoughtfully. Actually, she doubted that there was much he could afford, if he wasn't working. But perhaps he was banking on the generosity of his family?
'If he could prove that you were demanding more than the market price simply as a device to deny him purchase he could take you to court.' Simpson didn't try to hide his disapproval.
Francesca sighed. 'So there's no way I can get him out?'
'Not until the lease expires.'
'And what about the claim of his that Grandfather left him the cabin?' Fran abandoned the hopeless for the merely hopeful. 'How much legal weight does that carry?'
'He does have a case, although as sole surviving blood relative you have a stronger one,' Simpson hastened to add as he saw the grey eyes simmer. 'However, there is the question of estrangement. It's fairly common knowledge locally that Tarrant and your grandfather were fairly good friends, whereas you and he...' He shifted uncomfortably in his swivel chair under her cool regard, as if the spare, roomy office was suddenly too small for him '... well, it had been some time since you saw each other. And, of course, Tarrant is the sitting tenant...'
