The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(153)

Until today. Today she’d passed a boundary he hadn’t even realised existed. In some ways it was as if by actually letting Andrea go, in saying goodbye, she’d allowed herself to move forward, albeit with unrelenting encouragement from him.

He stepped into the shower, hissing through clenched teeth as the stinging cold spray assaulted his body, chilling his ardour, and tried to focus his mind instead on the files he’d brought home. He needed to toughen up. To put her back into that corner of his mind where reason mastered sensation and where logic beat attraction. Connor snapped off the stream of cold water with a determined twist of his hand. He had to get back to work.

And yet he still craved her like an addict needed a fix.





Eleven


Holly heard the chopper blades agitating the air. Connor was home. She hadn’t even heard him leave for work. After their lovemaking yesterday she’d slept soundly in their bed, right through until morning. The rest had done her good and she didn’t feel anywhere near as unwell when she’d risen, although the flask of hot weak tea and the dry crackers she’d found on the bedside table this morning had probably helped, too.

She’d spent the day sorting through the pictures Connor had brought, reliving happier days when she and Andrea could laugh together. Most of the frames she’d wrapped in tissue and put away, until later. Until a time when she’d have her own place again. Only one picture stood on her bedside cabinet under the lamp—a joyful remembrance of Andrea and her at the beach before the symptoms of the disease had begun to show, both of them smiling and full of good health and dreams of the future. It suited Holly that it would be the last thing she saw at bedtime and the first thing she saw when she awoke.

For the rest of the day Holly had wandered around the gardens and taken a swim in the pool. It had been so long since she’d taken some exercise, the swim had left her feeling enervated and she’d drifted off to sleep in a deck chair on the patio. On waking, a couple of hours later, she found that Thompson had positioned a sun umbrella to protect her from the sun’s biting force, and a light cotton throw rug now protected her from the gentle sea breeze that blew in from the ocean.

She’d woken feeling deliciously decadent. Never in her life had she ever had the luxury of doing simply nothing. Although it certainly had its appeal, and was allowing her to catch up on much needed rest, she knew she’d be driven crazy with boredom before long. As far as the house was concerned that was entirely Thompson’s domain. He saw to the cleaning and the cooking. She hadn’t even done so much as her own laundry since she’d been here. She had to talk to Connor about being allowed to do something, anything, to keep her mind active and alert.

He looked tired, she thought as she watched him alight from the Agusta and walk towards the house, his briefcase buffeting against his legs from the wash of air from the rotors. Even looking as tired as he did, he still made her heart race. Their lovemaking last night had sated her senses, yet just one look at him now and she wanted to press herself against him and peel away the corporate layers that turned her lover into the aloof and sophisticated lawyer he was.

She forced herself to ignore the tingling in her breasts and the heat that uncoiled slowly between her thighs and stepped forward to welcome him home.

“Bad day?” she asked, handing him a glass of chilled water with a twist of lime juice.

He looked hot and bothered and downed the drink at once. There was something very sensual about watching a man drink with such thirst, Holly realised, her own throat growing dry in response. The muscles in his strong brown throat drew her gaze, working in a steady rhythm as he pulled at the liquid and drew it down deep into his body. He took the glass away from his mouth, leaving a shining film of water slicked across his lips. She accepted the glass back from him, trying desperately not to stare at his lips or to wonder what they would taste like right now, this minute.

“Thanks, yeah, you could say that. I have a lot of work to get through before tomorrow. Can you ask Thompson to serve my dinner in my office?”

His dismissive rejection of her presence couldn’t have been more emphatic. Hadn’t last night meant anything to him?

“Surely you can stop to eat. You’ll need to take a break to stay fresh.”

“Can’t afford to.” He walked across the patio towards the house.

“Connor!”

He stopped in his tracks and turned slowly, his black eyebrows pulled together in a forbidding frown. “What is it, Holly? I told you I have a lot of work to do. Can’t this wait?”

She baulked for a moment; very few people dared press him when he wore that particular look. But she dared. She had to or she’d go mad with boredom. “Maybe I could help you?”