"Am I hurting you?" she asked, dabbing the grazed knuckles with the antiseptic ointment.
"No, but you probably could."
"Sorry?" She looked up and he flushed darkly, quite startled at what had emerged from his mouth.
"What I meant was that you probably could hurt me if this ointment wasn't completely ineffective because it's probably been in the cupboard for ten years," he improvised.
"It does look a bit dodgy, doesn't it? Why have you brought talcum powder?"
"Just in case."
"In case of what?"
"Just in case you wanted to mop things up."
"Oh. Well, I don't think it'll be necessary."
"You've missed a bit...there." He pointed to a scratch that was almost invisible to the naked eye, and as she bent to squint at it, braiding her hair in a make. shift plait to keep it away from her face, he was afforded the sweetest sight he could have imagined possible.
The tempting indentation of cleavage, separating the full swell of breasts
She held his hand between hers, her fingers soft and gentle, and stroked the spot he had pointed out. "I don't see anything."
"Are you sure?" His voice was rough and unsteady.
Rough and unsteady enough for her to look at him, her hand stilling as she read the flaring attraction in his eyes.
"I think it's time I left," she said. A similar flush was spreading over her, and her voice sounded wobbly and high pitched.
"Of course," he said gruffly. "You need to get to bed." Neither of them moved a muscle. The silence in the room was now resounding. In her own ears, she seemed to hear the booming of her heart. She had never felt anything as powerful as this. The heat in his eyes scorched her. She felt, literally, as though she was burning up.
"I...I..." she began, unable to rip her gaze away from his.
"You have the most exquisite skin." He lifted one hand and stroked it. It felt like satin beneath the sensitive pads of his fingers. He watched her pupils dilate, saw the very slight flaring of her nostrils, the fleeting drop of her eyelashes as his finger touched her face, and the impact those physical responses had on him was the equivalent of a powerful electric charge. She tilted her head back a millimeter and her breathing became more ragged.
Looking at her, Franco felt as though he had never before experienced the pull of the passion. It was like being hit, full-on, by a freight train.
Her lips parted, and he leant forward and gently touched her mouth with his, tracing the contours of her pink lips with his tongue, and Ruth gave a moan of desire.
The force of wanting him was so tremendous that she abandoned herself to it. She pulled his head towards her, melting exquisitely as his gentle mouth became hard and hungry and the kiss deepened into a wild, mutual exploration with tongues. She was gasping as his hands found her shoulders and tugged down the lightweight shirt.
Pure sensation seemed to have taken her over, like an alien force, rendering her power to reason completely useless. It was as though her brain had been temporarily switched off at the mains.
She closed her eyes and arched back, supporting herself on her hands. Her legs couldn't be still. They fidgeted of their own accord, lubricated with the feminine moisture oozing like honey from between her thighs.
He leaned to kiss the slim column of her neck and her head fell backwards, her braid coming undone.
With his hand, he roughly unraveled what remained tied back and pushed her up the bed, moving with her so that their bodies remained no more than an inch or two apart.
As the palm of his hand pressed between her legs, a firm, moving, rousing pressure through the thick fabric of her...denim jeans, she released a long, shaky moan. He undid the button, tugged down the zip and then slid his hand down beneath the tiny underwear, pushing his finger against the pulsating bud of desire and inducing a sharp, sweet feeling of satisfaction.
His finger moved and rotated and she fumbled eyes still closed, with her tight, cropped top, finally pushing it up and over her breasts in sheer frustration. Her nipples were large and swollen with excitement, and as his finger kept moving against that magical place and his mouth covered the throbbing tips of her breasts, she could no longer contain her mounting need for fulfillment. The thrill of orgasm ripped through her body and she felt herself tense as the waves of pleasure rolled over her.
As she turned to him, appalled at the wanton abandon of her response, wanting only to touch him as he had touched her, the telephone rang.
One loud, shrill summons, followed by another, and another.
"Answer it," she said, her face stamped with mounting horror as she contemplated what had just taken place between them.
"No way." He pulled her towards him, but she pushed herself away.
"No!" she cried wildly. She scuttled away from him, rapidly trying to put herself in order and avoid his eyes. "I shouldn't have... Oh, dear Lord...what have I done?"
"Ruth!"
"Please!" She was almost weeping with shame. "I'm sorry. Please!"
The phone had stopped and she ran, as fast as she could, past a bewildered George as if the devil was after her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Franco had been utterly sure that Ruth would stop working alongside him. The certainty, as he had lain on the bed, cursing himself volubly and aloud for his inept, stupid, thoughtless and downright juvenile handling of this shy ...woman-child, had twisted in his gut like a blunt knife.
Eight days later and here she was. She hadn't jacked in the assignment, as he had feared, and he could only assume that some little voice in her head had preached to her the values of maturity which would be exemplified if she refused to allow their all too brief moment of exquisite carnal pleasure to come between her and her job.
Now, with their last evening together drawing to a close at a little after midnight, he could feel a disturbing sense of panic that when they parted company now, it would be for good.
He stared at her broodingly, watching how she handled the woman sitting next to her, asking questions without stammering, nodding, murmuring sympathetically now and again, leaning forward to say something so that her hair brushed the sides of her face.
She had grown in confidence with every passing day, but far from diminishing her appeal it had added to it.
When the woman finally stood up and took one last long drag on her cigarette, he went through the motions of shaking her hand and thanking her for her time, but he could barely keep the agitation out of his body.
"Do you think we've managed to get enough for the article?" Ruth asked, slipping on her denim jacket.
"I should think so."
She yawned, and he tried to suppress a childish desire to insist that she give him her full attention. She wasn't even looking at him when she spoke. In fact, she hadn't looked at him since the little incident in his apartment. Not once had she mentioned it, but he knew that she hadn't put it to the back of her mind.
The awareness was there all too powerfully in those carefully averted eyes, the surreptitious sidelong glances when she thought he was looking elsewhere, the way she shifted her body away from him whenever he got too close to her, as though she thought that proximity might lead to combustion.
He was experienced enough to recognize all those little give-away signals that told him just how much he still excited her. Unfortunately, he was powerless to do anything about it. His attempts to tease her into relaxing were met with a blank politeness that had driven him crazy.
Now, she was getting ready to go, sticking her little notepad into her bag, checking her jacket pockets, the way she did every night, to make sure that her house keys were tucked away safely in the inner pocket on the inside. In a minute she would get irritated with her hair and shove it into the back of the jacket.
He felt as though he knew her intimately and, worse, still wanted to find out more. Everything, in fact.
Panic was burgeoning into desperation. It was an emotion so alien to him that he could hardly cope with it.
When had he ever been desperate about any woman? His repertoire of emotions when it came to the opposite sex ranged widely from desire to mild curiosity, but certainly never desperation.