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‘Did you know you never close your eyes when you have an orgasm, Nina? Not until you’ve seen me climax, too. Are you remembering how incredibly arousing it is to watch each other in the throes of an orgasm? And when we made love in front of the fire, you always wanted it to be slow and easy so that it would last a long, long time. Sometimes we even used to have fires in the middle of summer just for the sake of pleasuring ourselves with prolonged bouts of hot, sweaty sex interspersed with refreshing romps in the pool….’
He trailed off and a furious blush engulfed her, breaking the mesmerising spell of his evocative words. ‘I’m tired. I want to go to bed,’ she blurted.
‘It’s too early. You’ve just eaten. Come and sit by the fire where it’s warm,’ he murmured enticingly, patting the rug. ‘You know you want to.’
That was the problem. ‘I have to do the dishes—’
‘I’ll do them later. I created the mess. Let me clean it up. What’s the matter, Nina? Afraid you won’t be able to resist me? Why don’t you come here and prove that you can?’
She was not fool enough to fall for that childish challenge, not when her feelings for him were anything but childish.
‘I—I have some work to do.’ She lifted her chin at his mocking expression of disbelief. ‘I have someone picking up some commissions tomorrow. I’m sure you can keep yourself entertained—you seem to be doing pretty well at it so far,’ she said tartly.
‘Well, I was never one for solitary pleasures, but I’ll give it a try,’ he said blandly. ‘If I have a problem, I’ll be sure to use you as my inspiration.’
After another restless night of broken dreams, Nina was chagrined to wake up in a shaft of unruly sunlight and realise that she had overslept. She bounced out of bed and was surprised to find that, for once, she was up before Ryan.
She was sitting at the table eating her breakfast when he sleepily emerged, looking impossibly sexy in his rumpled work clothes, his hair frankly mussed, rasping his hand over his unshaven chin and generally acting like the man of the house.
‘Morning, darling,’ he greeted her, stooping to plant a leisurely kiss on her startled mouth before moving smartly out of striking distance to shake cereal into his bowl. ‘What are we doing today?’ he said, sliding into the chair opposite and raising amused eyebrows at her fulminating glare.
‘We? I know what I’m doing,’ she said through tingling lips. ‘I have no idea what your plans might be.’
He grinned. ‘Oh, I think you do. That’s why you’re looking at me like a scared rabbit.’
She refused to dignify that with an answer. ‘You have work to do at Ray’s—’
‘He knows that my first priority is looking after you.’
‘I don’t need any looking after,’ she gritted.
‘That’s a matter of opinion. It’s going to be another lovely day,’ he said, looking out the window, ‘although that wind looks as if it might have a razor’s edge. Do you have any more blankets, by the way? I was quite cold during the night.’
Had he been as restless as she was, and for the same reason? He couldn’t have been—otherwise he would have wanted cold showers, not more blankets!
‘In the other spare room. Help yourself,’ Nina replied shortly. How could he talk about mundane things like the weather and blankets when there was so much unresolved between them? Every time they looked at each other, the air sizzled.
He kept up the innocuous patter over coffee and toast, and by the time there was a knock on the back door, Nina was on the verge of screaming.
Ryan paused, looking at her quizzically over his coffee cup. ‘Are we expecting someone?’
That irritating ‘we’ again. ‘That’ll probably be George,’ she said, dabbing the toast crumbs from her mouth as she got to her feet. ‘He said he was coming over sometime today to collect the latest paintings for his book.’
Ryan put his cup down, pushing his chair back from the table to give himself a good view of the door. ‘Ah, yes, the botanist you’re doing those plant studies for. Ray says you’ve been working more closely with him recently.’
