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‘What difference does that make?’ He sounded amused. ‘We’re not talking about a lifetime’s commitment, but a brief interlude of what used to be called dalliance, I think. Quite permissible, even between .’
He rose to his feet, putting down his coffee and, before Amanda could resist, had sat down beside her, lifting her on to his lap with one smooth, forceful movement which totally circumvented any avoiding action on her part.
She said in a small, breathless voice, ‘Let go of me.’
‘In my own good time.’ Malory lifted a finger and stroked an errant tress of hair back from her temple. ‘When you’ve thanked me politely for your pleasant evening.’
‘Not like this.’ Even when they’d danced earlier, they hadn’t been as intimately close as they were now, Amanda realised, her heart jerking at her ribcage. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek—knew that she would only have to turn her head a fraction to taste his mouth against hers.
‘Stop panicking, darling,’ he advised coolly. ‘I’ve never belonged to the school of thought which considers a girl’s body an appropriate repayment for dinner and a bottle of wine.’
‘No?’ She’d never sounded so gauche and unsure of herself in her life, especially now that his thumb was tracing the curve of her averted cheek, the line of her jaw, sending odd little shivers through her body. ‘You—you must be very unusual.’
‘Why? Because I prefer the pleasure of a woman’s company—and the possibility of future delight— to immediate gratification?’ Malory shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not that eccentric. And I don’t believe in instant bliss, either,’ he added drily.
Amanda swallowed. This was the last kind of conversation she’d ever expected to have—wanted to have—with Malory. Oh, why in the world hadn’t she simply said goodnight to him on the doorstep? she wailed silently.
‘No comment?’ he asked, as the silence lengthened.
Amanda rallied her forces. ‘It’s really none of my business,’ she said, trying to sound dismissive. ‘And it’s getting awfully late…’
‘So it is,’ he said. Then I’ll waste no more time.‘ His fingers closed on her chin, turning her face inexorably to his. He was smiling as he kissed her.
His mouth was warm and gentle, but also very determined as it moved on hers. She couldn’t struggle—he was holding her too closely in the circle of his arms for that—but she protested silently by keeping her lips firmly closed against his insistence.
In spite of his apparent assurances, his remark about ‘future delight’ disturbed her, and she wanted in no way to encourage him to think that she might ever be even remotely willing…
Nevertheless, she could not deny that the intimate proximity of their bodies, not to mention the lingering sensuousness of his kiss, was having an inevitable effect on her senses. Her entire body seemed to be tingling, coming to life, no matter how much mental resistance she could summon up, and she was shocked by her own reaction.
When he’d made her put her arms round him on the dance-floor earlier, her fingers had accidentally brushed the hair at the nape of his neck, and the contact with its crisp thickness had shocked her like an electric current. Now, she knew an impulse to touch his hair again, to lift her hands to his head, and hold him, and the strength of this response alarmed her.
Even as she tensed against it, Malory’s own hand moved from its gentle stroking of her throat, down the bare curve of her shoulder and arm to her waist. His fingers splayed across her ribcage, moving in small rhythmic circles on the golden silk which veiled her skin.
He lifted his head, and looked down into her eyes. ‘Was that so terrifying?’ he whispered with faint mockery.
She was lost for an answer. On the face of it, she wasn’t threatened at all. Even the way he was touching her now was perfectly circumspect, his hand remaining at a discreet, if narrow, distance from the curve of her breast.
At the same time, she was beginning to realise that those gentle circling movements had an eroticism all their own, because they pulled delicately at the silken fabric which covered her breasts, setting up a sweet and subtle friction against the sensitive peaks.
Suddenly, it was becoming difficult to breathe. A languour had invaded her limbs, and there was an odd drumming in her ears, as if she’d tuned in to the inward pulse of her own blood. She could feel her nipples hardening involuntarily against the thin bodice.
She wanted to say, ‘Don’t’ but no words would come. Not even when she felt Malory’s other hand lightly stroking her stockinged leg from ankle to knee, brushing aside the myriad pleats of the culotte skirt as he did so.
