An Exception to His Rule(58)

                ‘Good. I mean that makes me feel good. I was beginning to develop an inferiority complex. Not that I’ll ever be able to even up the ledger.’ He took a very deep breath. ‘I’m talking nonsense but—what will I do without Charlie if it goes that way?’

                Harriet slipped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. ‘Don’t think like that. It hasn’t happened yet, it may not happen.’

                ‘It’s so vast up there and if it’s not dry and desolate, the shores and the creeks have crocodiles—I know, I’ve been fishing up there.’ His arms tightened around her.

                ‘But they must have very sophisticated tracking and search and rescue equipment. Don’t give up hope.’

                ‘You sound so sensible and sane. And you feel so good,’ he added barely audibly.

                ‘So...so do you,’ she murmured back and raised her mouth for his kiss.

                * * *

                ‘This is getting out of hand,’ he said some time later as they drew apart to take deep breaths and steady themselves. ‘I hope you don’t mind me doing this.’

                Harriet regarded him gravely. ‘It did annoy me, the last time.’

                His eyebrows shot up? ‘How come?’

                She chuckled. ‘You never asked me for my preferences in the matter. You just went ahead and did it.’

                ‘Miss Livingstone,’ he said formally, ‘please tell me what your preferences are in the matter—this matter. So as not to be misunderstood.’ He pulled her closer and cradled her hips to him.

                Harriet took an unsteady breath. ‘They appear to be very similar to yours in this instance.’ And she linked her arms around his neck and stared into his eyes.

                It was a long, compelling look they shared and Harriet strove to convey the sense that she understood his need and the starkness of his emotions and that she wanted to offer him some comfort.

                He breathed urgently and said one word. ‘Sure?’

                ‘Sure,’ she answered.

                He looked around and gestured at the large comfortable settee. ‘Here?’

                ‘If you don’t have a haystack or a loft?’ she queried with laughter glinting in her eyes.

                ‘I...’ He hesitated then he saw that glint of laughter and for a moment his arms around her nearly crushed her.

                ‘All right,’ he said into her hair, and that was the last word spoken for a while.

                But what followed didn’t stop Harriet from thinking along the lines of, I was right. I sensed that he’d know how to make love to a woman in a way that would thrill her and drive her to excesses she didn’t know she could reach...

                Because that was exactly what happened to her. From a fairly timid lover—she suddenly realised this with a pang of embarrassment—she became a different creature.

                She craved his hands on her body. She helped him to take her clothes off and she gloried in the way he touched and stroked her. She became impatient to help him shed his clothes.

                She made no effort to hide her excitement as they lay together on the settee and he cupped her breasts and plucked her nipples, as he drew his fingers ever lower down her body.