A Stormy Spanish Summer(14)

In another heartbeat he would kiss her, and she would feel the cold, unforgiving dominance of those sharply cut lips. Her own parted—on a protest against what he was doing, not a sign of her docile acceptance of it, and certainly not in eager anticipation of it.

And yet …

And yet beneath her clothes, beneath her top and her plain, practical neutral-coloured bra, her breasts had begun to ache with a sensation that seemed to have spread down from where his hand was covering the pulse in her throat to the tightening peaks of her nipples. Fliss trembled in its grip, shockingly forced to admit to herself that what her body and that ache within it was signalling was not angry rejection. Instead a burgeoning female desire was running through her veins like heavy, melting liquid pleasure—a pleasure that lapped at her senses and undermined her self-control, replacing it with a growing sensual longing.

Vidal’s breath grazed her skin, clean and slightly minty. Beneath the newly cleansed scent of his skin her senses picked up something else—something primitive and dangerous to a woman whose own sensuality had broken past the barriers of her self-control. The scent of alluring raw maleness, which called out to that sensuality and somehow had her moving closer to him, her lips parting just a little bit more.

Their gazes clung and fought hotly for supremacy, and then his mouth was on hers. The pressure of those male lips was sending her senses into overdrive, causing a heat explosion of pleasure to melt liquid desire into her lower body.

Fliss tried to fight what she was feeling. She made a helpless sound—she could feel it reverberating in her own throat—a sound of protest, Fliss was sure. Although her ears translated it more as a shockingly keening moan of need. A need that was instantly increased by the insistent grind of Vidal’s body into her own, and a tightening of his hold on her whilst his tongue took possession of the intimate softness of her mouth, thrusting against her own tongue, taking her to a place of dark velvet sensuality and danger. Her whole body was on fire, pulsing with a reaction to him which seemed to have exploded inside her. Her eyes closed …

Vidal felt the force of his own angry desire surging through him, sweeping aside barriers within himself he had thought impenetrable. The more he tried to regain control, the more savage his reaction became. Anger and out-of-control male desire. Each of them was dangerous enough alone, but incite them both, as this woman he was holding now had done, and the alchemic reaction between them had the power to rip a man’s self-respect to shreds—and with it his belief in himself.

Behind his own closed eyelids Vidal saw her as his body most wanted her: naked, eager to appease the male passion she had induced and unleashed, offering herself. Her white skin would be pearlescent with the dew of her own arousal, the dark pink crests of her breasts flowering into hard nubs of pleasure that sought the caress of his fingertips and his lips.

Outside in the garden below them the gathering dusk activated the system that brought on the garden lighting. Sudden illumination burst into life, causing Vidal to open his eyes and recognise what he was doing.

Cursing himself mentally, he released Fliss abruptly.

The shock of transition from a kiss so intimate that she felt it had seared her senses for ever to the reality of who exactly had been delivering that kiss had Fliss shuddering with self-revulsion. But before she could gather her scattered senses—before she could do anything, before she could tell Vidal what she thought of him—he was speaking to her. As though what he had done had never happened.

‘What I came to tell you is that it will be an early start in the morning, since we have a ten-o’clock appointment with your father’s lawyer. Rosa will send someone up with your breakfast, since my mother isn’t expected back until tomorrow. I also have to tell you that any future attempt by you to … to persuade me to satisfy your promiscuously carnal desires will be as doomed to failure as this one.’ His mouth twisted cynically and he gave her a coldly insulting look. ‘Over-used goods have never held any appeal for me.’

Over-used goods.

Trembling with rage at his insult, Fliss lost her head. ‘You were the one who started this, not me. And … and you’re wrong about me. You always have been. What you saw—’

‘What I saw was a sixteen-year-old tramp, lying on her mother’s bed, allowing a young lout to paw her and boast that he intended to have her because the rest of his football team already had.’

‘Get out!’ Fliss demanded, her voice rising in anger. ‘Get out!’

He strode away from her and through the bedroom door.

As soon as she could trust herself to move she half ran and half stumbled to the door, turning the key in the lock, tears of rage and shame spilling from her hot eyes.