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The pressure of his lips on hers caught the words in her throat and his mouth was immediately possessive, the kiss a deliberate, experienced assault on her senses. She was painfully conscious of her breasts caught against his hard hair-roughened chest, the thin layer of silk separating them more erotic than any nakedness, and as his tongue sent a river of desire coursing through her body she felt her mouth become pliant and eager beneath his.
‘Mrs Cox …’ she muttered desperately, her head spinning.
He growled, deep in his throat, at the protestation. ‘Would be only too pleased to see a husband kissing his wife good morning.’ He had raised his head just long enough to speak and she saw his eyes were hot and glittering, their black depths brilliant. ‘Now be quiet and let me finish the greeting.’
She tried, momentarily, to stop him but then his hands and lips were caressing her again and she sank dizzily into the sensual warmth, her senses whirling. He was just too good at this, he always had been.
‘Now, then.’ As he raised his head a minute or two later Amy knew it had been just in time. Another few seconds and her legs would have given way completely. ‘Tell me you didn’t enjoy that.’ His gaze stroked mockingly over the taut outline of her breasts displayed in evocative detail under the clinging silk.
‘I didn’t want you to kiss me.’ She stared at him, her face scarlet. ‘I’ve told you—’
‘That you don’t love me. Yes, I know.’ His eyes were hard now, hard and cool. ‘But that isn’t what I said. Tell me you didn’t enjoy it.’ He moved back a pace, crossing powerful arms over his bare chest. ‘And that will confirm you’ve turned into a duplicitous little liar, my love. Because that was your body giving the go signals there, and if it weren’t for the fact that our esteemed Mrs Cox might be a little put out to find us in flagrante delicto on her kitchen floor I would be very tempted to give you exactly what you were asking for.’
‘You arrogant, overbearing …supercilious …’ Her rage was making her flounder for appropriate descriptive words, especially in view of the laconic relaxed mockery evident in every line of his face and body.
‘I plead guilty to the first two, but the third …’ He eyed her tauntingly. ‘No, not the third. I know the things I’m good at, Amy, and making love is one of them, it’s as simple as that. If you don’t like it, then tough.’ Suddenly the lazy mockery was infinitely more chilling. ‘And when I’m ready I will have you and you won’t be able to do a thing about it. And do you know why?’ She stared at him without speaking, her blood running cold at the biting contempt and anger in his face. ‘Because you’ll want it as badly as me if not more.’
‘Never.’ Low as her voice was, it caused his face to darken into lines of pure steel.
‘I’ve never accepted that word from anyone in my life and I sure as hell don’t intend to start with you.’ He gave her one last scathing look that caused her flesh to burn from the top of her head to the soles of her feet before stalking out into the garden angrily, his head held high and his back straight.
She watched him, her nerves shot to pieces, as he exchanged some passing comment with Mrs Cox, who was still hanging her washing out in the fresh summer air, before he picked up the old garden spade and began digging in one of the overgrown flower beds. The sunlight turned his bare torso into rippling bronze as he applied himself to the task in hand, and as she stared it came to her, on a flood of something approaching hysteria, that no one in the world would believe that the big muscled giant working in the garden of a little Yorkshire landlady was the multi-millionaire Blade Forbes who had the business world at his beck and call. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so she did neither, turning to automatic as she made herself tea and toast and escaping to her room before Mrs Cox came back into the house.
‘I hate him.’ She found she was talking to herself as she paced the bedroom agitatedly. ‘He’s doing this on purpose, working here on purpose.’ She stopped for a moment and pressed close fists against her temples. ‘Why is he doing this, why can’t he let go?’ The answer was there the instant her mind voiced the question. Because nothing and no one had ever got away from him before; she doubted if anyone had ever wanted to try, anyway. She had seen at first hand the effect he had on women. ‘Lethal,’ she muttered to herself irritably. And he had told her he didn’t want her back, that he didn’t love her any more, but … She opened her eyes to gaze unseeingly across the small room. He needed to know he could still have her physically if he wanted to. Was that all their marriage had meant to him in the final analysis? Was it? She rubbed her hand over her eyes wearily. No, she didn’t believe that, but just what she did believe she wasn’t sure any more. He was different, very different, but then he could say exactly the same about her.
