‘You and Rory were what?’ Frazer demanded savagely. ‘All washed up years ago? He doesn’t seem to think so. He still wants you, Rebecca, and you know that as well as I do. If you have any compassion at all for his wife and children, you’ll…’
He frowned suddenly, glancing towards the door, and then before she could stop him, he picked her up and dropped her on to his bed, following her there as she struggled to sit up, furious with indignation.
‘Quiet!’ he told her as she opened her mouth to give voice to her indignation. ‘I think that’s Rory outside.’
‘Rory?’ Her heart started to thump uncomfortably as she remembered how Rory had interrupted them this morning; she shivered a little, her eyes darkening with apprehension as she stared fixedly at the door.
She could hear Rory whistling, and held her breath, her stomach muscles tensing, expecting him to come walking in.
‘Rebecca.’
She turned her head automatically at the sound of Frazer’s voice, her eyes widening as she realised how close to her he was. Close enough for her to see the rough graining of his skin; close enough for her to reach out and touch him if she wished, to run her fingertips along the line of shaved skin that was already beginning to darken slightly.
Her throat had gone dry; a tiny quivering sensation trembled in her stomach. She wanted to look away, to break the spell that seemed to have bound her in silent stillness.
‘Rebecca.’
Only the frantic flutter of eyelashes suddenly oddly heavy and anxious to close over eyes gone slumbrous with emotion and desire betrayed her awareness of the intent beneath the way Frazer said her name.
She knew he was going to kiss her. Knew it and did nothing to escape from it, only trembling violently when his mouth touched hers.
Her hands lifted automatically to clutch him, then dropped as caution sent warning messages to her brain, but Frazer had seen the small movement and his hands came down, hard fingers circling her wrists, slowly stroking the thudding pulse points that pounded so erratically beneath her skin, before lifting her arms and guiding them around his neck. His lips moved on hers and she realised that he was speaking to her.
‘Help me, Rebecca,’ he demanded. ‘If you really don’t love him any more, if you really want to save his marriage, then help me make this look so real that he won’t be in any doubt about how much you want me.’
Somewhere in the distance, she could still hear Rory whistling…just. But it wasn’t that to which she listened. It was the sound of Frazer’s voice, the plea he was making to her. His body was pressing hers down into the mattress. Her fingers were brushing against the thick dark hair that grew into his nape. Beneath her clothes, she could feel the mindless surge of need taking over her body, the aching, tormenting thrill of pleasure that coiled through her at being here with him like this.
She made a soft sound beneath her breath which he obviously mistook for assent, because suddenly he was kissing her, really kissing her as she had once, long ago, dreamed of him doing.
She had no defences against what he was doing to her, either physically or emotionally. It was like falling off the top of a very high cliff, in that once the fall had begun there was no way of stopping it.
Her fingers burrowed into his hair, exploring the hard bones that shaped his head and then dropped to his throat, tracing its curve into his shoulder. Wholly absorbed in the pleasure of touching him, of feeling the hard, hot reality of his flesh, she pushed aside the cotton of his shirt and spread her hand flat against his collarbone, parting her lips to the fierce invasion of his tongue, listening only to what her heart was telling her, and ignoring the frantic warnings of her head.
Her lips clung eagerly to Frazer’s, absorbing the fierce pressure of his kiss, her fingers curling into the muscle of his shoulder and feeling it clench, knowing that it was the sensation of her touch that was responsible for his tension.
When she felt his hand on the buttons of her blouse, it was her turn to tense, her fingers locking round his wrist as she tried to tug his hand away, the sounds of protest she was making beneath his mouth inarticulate murmurs, until he lifted his head and breathed softly against her ear, ‘It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want…’
What he just wanted was never said, because he had used his free hand to slip her buttons from their anchoring buttonholes and had exposed the pale delicacy of her body to his gaze. A gaze which he seemed in no hurry to remove from the soft thrust of her breasts, imperfectly concealed by the fragility of her lace bra.
‘Frazer!’ she protested, but he wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy removing her bra.
‘Frazer!’ she protested more strongly this time, shivering in a mixture of reaction and tension, all too appallingly conscious that if her body kept on reacting to the pleasure of his touch and gaze the way it was doing right now, it wouldn’t be much longer before he realised exactly how she felt about him.
In an effort to deflect his attention, she tugged on his wrist, but he ignored her.
An unfamiliar dark surge of colour burned his skin. His eyes, when he slowly focused on her face, glittered with an unfamiliar intensity of emotion.
Rory was forgotten. Everything was forgotten as Frazer shifted his weight slightly against her and then reached out and brushed the erect tip of one breast with the pad of his thumb.
‘When I saw you like this, this morning…’
The words were slow and husky, as though they had been dragged from somewhere deep inside him and given voice reluctantly. He moved again, tensing his body, and Rebecca realised shockingly that he was fully aroused.
‘Rebecca…’ She shuddered as his arms went round her, sliding inside her shirt and across her bare back. ‘I want to feel you against me…all of you,’ she heard him groan into her ear. ‘I want to touch you and taste you.’ He shuddered now, much more deeply than she had done, crushing her against his body, so that the roughness of his shirt rubbed against her exposed breasts, the sensation of his body moving erotically against her, stimulating them so that she wanted to claw at his shirt, and remove the barrier that denied her the intimate physical contact her flesh now craved.
‘What is it about you, Rebecca, that makes both Rory and me…’
Rebecca froze instantly, desire cooling so rapidly that she shivered in the icy shock of reality.
‘Rory,’ she managed to whisper unevenly as Frazer raised his head and looked at her, trying to remind him that Rory must have gone, but to her shock his grip on her tightened and he said harshly,
‘No, not Rory, damn you! Frazer…I’m Frazer, Rebecca!’ then as she protested, he too suddenly froze as the meaning of what she had been trying to say sank in.
He released her immediately, turning away from her and sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he apologised abruptly as she struggled to fasten her blouse, with fingers that suddenly seemed unable to perform this simple task.
Frazer wasn’t looking at her, but that didn’t make any difference. She was humiliatingly conscious of all that she had come so dangerously close to revealing.
It was different for him; he was a man…a man could betray physical arousal without feeling the slightest degree of emotional involvement.
‘I think we’d better go back downstairs,’ Rebecca suggested, ignoring both his apology and the hand he stretched out to help her off the bed, cautiously moving to its other side and standing up there. She had to lean against the mattress to support herself, she felt so weak and shaky.
Frazer turned to look at her, a
n expression in his eyes she couldn’t read, other than that it held a weariness of spirit that made her ache with understanding and compassion.
He was, after all, doing what he thought was right, protecting the twins from their father’s weakness, trying to preserve Rory’s marriage from that same weakness.
In a totally different way, it must have been as much of a shock to him as it had been to her that he could be aroused physically by her proximity.
‘I am sorry,’ he reiterated quietly. ‘Believe me, I had no intention of…’
‘Please!’ She had to stop him before he said the words that would destroy her already vulnerable defences. It was one thing to know that she was the last woman on earth he would really want to make love to; it was entirely another to hear him saying so.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him quickly. ‘I…I do understand.’
‘Do you?’ The harsh bitterness of the question shocked her. ‘Something else I have my brother to thank for, no doubt. You’re right,’ he added curtly. ‘We’d better get downstairs before they send out a search party. Aunt Maud has old-fashioned ideas about the behaviour of engaged couples.’
Rebecca frowned.
‘But you said you were going to tell her that we aren’t really engaged.’
‘I had second thoughts. I decided it wasn’t fair to burden her with the responsibility of keeping the truth from Rory. She’s already got enough to cope with. She isn’t a young woman, Rebecca,’ he reminded her harshly, ‘and although she’d kill me for saying so, her memory isn’t what it used to be. She could quite easily forget and come out with the truth.’
Rebecca wanted to rail against him for his high-handedness in making his decision without consulting her, but fair-mindedly she had to acknowledge that what he had said about Aunt Maud was quite true.