He paused mid-stride towards the door and turned to look queryingly at her. Her heart was thumping heavily, a fine film of perspiration dampening her skin. What was she doing? Panic clawed wildly inside her as she recognised her own insane desire to keep him with her just a little longer.
‘I’m just making Ricky a cup of tea. Would you like me to bring you one up as well?’
‘Thanks.’
The door opened and he was gone. Kate leaned limply against the units, completely wrung-out emotionally and physically. What was happening to her? You know what’s happening, a wry inner voice mocked. You’re a sex-starved wife who’s suddenly found a man who can turn you on.
She had got used to the sharply acid comments of this inner voice lately, and what it was saying to her now came uncomfortably close to the truth.
A surge of inner restlessness took over her, possessing her even though she tried to shake it off. Why shouldn’t she be attracted to another man? After all, Ricky had no interest in her; he constantly humiliated her with his other women… She was twenty years old and, as far as she could see, condemned to a life of complete celibacy. Unless of course she took a lover…
Hard on the heels of this shocking thought came the cynical knowledge that there must be more of her mother in her than she had ever thought. And yet why should it be so shocking for her to want to be made love to? She was a completely normally functioning female, wasn’t she? She closed her eyes, trying to stem her turbulent, dangerous thoughts, but instead all she could see was Dominic Harland’s dark, taut face, his hands reaching out to touch her body. Panting for breath she opened her eyes. This was ridiculous. But was it? Was it so unexpected that she should be attracted to him? Even with her inexperience she could see that very few women would be immune to such a man. The very cool hauteur with which he looked at her ignited a reckless need to see the coolness in his eyes change to hot passion. She wanted him, she acknowledged on a wave of very painful self-knowledge, she wanted him as mindlessly and needlessly as any female creature driven compulsively by an overriding inner urge to find a mate. But did he want her?
Telling herself that she was being a complete fool, she started to make the tea. How could a man like. Dominic Harland want her when her own husband didn’t? Strangely enough, the ache of Ricky’s not wanting her, which she had long ago seemed to come to terms with, flared up anew, and refused to subside.
She made the tea and poured two cups, putting them on trays, and adding a couple of biscuits to each. She took Ricky’s tray up first. Her husband was still deeply asleep, in the morning sunshine his face had an unhealthy pallor. Drained of the frenetic energy that seemed to possess him when he was awake, he looked almost lifeless.
Kate went downstairs for the other tray and carried it up to the guest suite, pausing to knock on the door outside. When there was no reply, she turned the handle and walked in.
She was just putting the tray down on the bedside table when the bathroom door opened. She turned automatically, colour seeping up under her skin as Dominic wandered into the bedroom, towelling his hair, the rest of his body completely nude.
Head bent, it was several seconds before he saw her. Seconds during which she could do nothing to alert him to her presence, seconds during which she simply stood and greedily and shamingly drank in the physical perfection of his body.
When he saw her, he didn’t react at all as she had expected. Calmly wrapping the damp towel round his hips, he came towards her and said evenly, ‘Tell me, Kate, how long have you and Rick been married?’
The question startled her, making her touch her tongue to suddenly dry lips and respond huskily in a cracked voice:
‘Two years…’
‘He must have married you almost out of the schoolroom.’
‘I… Yes, I was eighteen…’
He was standing so close to her now that she could hardly breathe. He had showered and she could smell the fresh lemony scent of his soap on his skin, see the tiny beads of moisture slicking down the hair on his chest. Fine dark hair which, as she knew, ran in a narrow line over the hard flatness of his stomach, and then… But no…her body trembled as she tried to shut away the memory of how his naked body had looked.
Amazingly, suddenly he smiled at her, his eyes golden and amused as he said teasingly, ‘I’m the one who should be embarrassed, you know, not you. After all, it isn’t as though I was the first nude male you’ve ever seen, is it?’
When he smiled at her, really smiled properly, the creases alongside his mouth held just a suggestion of a dimple, and the look in his eyes seemed to bathe her in a golden heat.
Suddenly it all overwhelmed her, and she was embarrassed. Not by what she had seen, but that she had looked and gone on looking, and was even now feeling the thunderous reactions to the sight of him thudding through her veins. She turned to flee, an automatic, unthinking reaction, but he reacted just as automatically and far faster, blocking her exit, gripping her wrist and pulling her towards him, laughter glinting in his eyes as he shook his head.
‘Running away?’ He shook his head. ‘You should never do that, you know.’
‘Why not?’ Kate asked the question without thinking, using the words to hold at bay her tumultuous reaction at being so close to him. She felt almost too weak to stand up, and had to fight to stop herself from swaying into his body.
‘Because running away makes a man want to chase, and then do this.’ His voice had dropped to a throaty whisper, as soothing and hypnotic as the purr of a jungle cat, but like the jungle cat he was most dangerous when he seemed to be most gentle, and Kate gasped her shock, as her girlish daydreams were suddenly transformed into reality, and his grip on her tightened, his head bending so that his mouth could taste hers.
Ricky had kissed her before they were married, but never like this, never using his tongue to tease and prise apart the softness of her lips; never in a way that made all her insides melt and then burn liquid pleasure so that she wanted the kiss to go on and on.
When his mouth left hers, Kate could only stare up at him in bemused delight, her mouth slightly parted, innocently begging for more, but the humour had gone from his eyes, and now they glowed dark amber. Even her innocence could not
protect her from the anger and contempt she could see bracketing his mouth, and a terrible sense of somehow having disappointed him flooded through her. She disengaged herself from his embrace and stepped back, unaware of the damp patches on her blouse where she had been pressed against him, too conscious of the intense constraint in the air around them to consider anything else.
Dominic didn’t look at her as she fled for the door, simply standing with his back to her and his head slightly bowed.
Why had he kissed her? It was a question she asked herself ceaselessly through the day. Ricky had taken Dominic out, ostensibly to look round the estate, and she had been surprised to learn that Dominic had spent the odd holiday at the house during his schooldays.
‘Your grandfather was a very rare man,’ he had commented to Ricky over the late breakfast she had prepared for them. ‘You were lucky to have him, Rick.’