"How could you?" Ruth watched stormily as Franco strolled towards the ridiculously huge double bed and proceeded to test the mattress. He kicked off his shoes, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and, after bouncing on the bed a few times, lay down with his legs crossed and his arms folded behind his head.
Incredibly comfortable," he informed her, ignoring the look of outrage on her face and allowing his eyes to roam lazily over her. "Not too hard, not too soft. Goldilocks would have a field-day on this one. Even with the three bears towering over her, she'd still be inclined to stay put."
She was, he thought delightedly, positively vibrat¬ing with dismay at the way he had grabbed her mother's idea and gone along with the concept, lock, stock and barrel. She obviously had not the slightest idea how delicious she looked, standing there in the doorway, hands on hips, body thrust belligerently for¬ward, her blonde hair swinging across her face and her perfect mouth down-turned. How could any sane man be expected to hold a normal conversation with a woman who was so immensely provocative without even realizing it?
The pair of jeans, which fitted snugly on her frame, were too long, and had been roughly cuffed at the bottom where there was just a sliver of teasing, slender ankle peeping out before a pair of inappropriately fluffy bedroom slippers took over. The checked shirt, which might have looked unappealing on any other women, radiated sexuality on this one, and Franco indulged himself by staring at her, taking it all in, en-joying every minute of his inspection.
He could well imagine her breasts underneath, clad in one of those functional stretchy Lycra bras she seemed to prefer wearing, the kind that were designed to do nothing for a man's imagination except perhaps squash it. But gazing at her breasts contoured beneath the sporty elasticized fabric had brought him a thrill that no lacy bra on any woman had ever succeeded in doing in his life before. One very short meander down memory lane and he could conjure up the image with¬out any difficulty at all.
"Are you going to say anything or are you just going to lie there?" Ruth spluttered, pink-faced.
"I'm just going to lie here," he replied seriously, watching as her face went a shade brighter.
When he had first arrived at the vicarage, unan¬nounced and seething with what he considered well ¬justified rage, he had expected no more than a brief but explosive showdown at the end of which he had planned on leaving with his mind well and truly sat¬isfied. He had reluctantly but eventually given in to his insane desire to see her one last time and find out why she had run out on him, but he had had every intention of making sure that he left with the last word.
It still mystified him that she had managed to be¬witch him right back into feeling those old, inconven¬ient feelings which he had spent weeks stuffing away in a cupboard labeled soft.
He couldn't look at her without feeling desire, and he couldn't listen to a word she said without being utterly captivated by her contradictions.
"You could always come and lie next to me," he suggested helpfully. He flicked an invisible speck of dust from his trousers and said casually. "You can't avoid the bed, you know." He patted the space next to him. "I'll talk to you about it if you'd just relax a little."
With a fuming, strangled sound, Ruth shut the bed¬room door and then leant heavily against it.
You can't avoid the bed. Did he think that she imag¬ined, for one minute, that she could? When it engulfed the entire room and made looking at anything else within those four small walls an impossibility?
"I am very relaxed," Ruth informed him stiffly, and he grinned at her.
"If your fingers dig any harder into your sides, you'll rip your clothing."
Ruth refused to see anything funny in his remark. She didn't know what game he was playing, whether he was inspired by some sick desire for revenge just because she had had the temerity to walk out on him, but she wasn't going to stand for it. Her hands might be tied, but that didn't mean that she was going to let him get away with murder.
"Just answer me," she said through gritted teeth. "When you calm down." He swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stood up, stretching. Then he began to undo the buttons of his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
Ruth gulped. In many ways it would have been eas¬ier if she had never seen him naked before. As it was, her mind could provide her with all the tantalizing and accurate details about his body, well muscled, hard and lithe. She had traced its contours with her fingers often enough to know how helpless the sight of it would make her feel. She shifted her eyes away and maintained a lofty silence.
"I'm going to have a bath," he said mildly. The drive from London was a nightmare." He stripped off his shirt, rummaged in one of the two suitcases he had lugged up with him, and extracted a white dressing gown of the expensive hotel variety.
She had never seen him in a dressing gown before. Nudity was something he was not uncomfortable with, and when they had been lovers he had enjoyed her watching his nakedness as much as she had enjoyed doing it.
"Care to come? I could soap you." He threw her a long, slow smile. "You've always enjoyed that." His voice was low and husky, and in spite of herself she felt her body begin to stir at the memory.
Another fractional tilt of the head gave him the an¬swer to that one, but, although she looked away, she could still see him out of the comer of her eye as he shrugged off the work shirt and then the trousers and finally his boxer shorts.
Oh, God. Ruth licked her lips. Every muscle in her body, every pore and vein and blood vessel seemed to be stretched to breaking point, and a fine film of per¬spiration had broken out over her entire body.
"Do you remember?" He took a couple of steps in her direction, and, with alarm, she realised that the dressing gown had still not been donned. He had it hooked over one shoulder.
"No!" Her head was now at a right angle, but the bedroom was so small that she couldn't help but see his magnificent body. Nor could she fail to notice his flagrant arousal.
"Of course you do," he said in a silky persuasive voice. He was now standing close enough to her that if she reached out a couple of inches she would bump ínto him. "You'd climb into the bath, luxuriate in the water and I would..."
"Ruth promptly covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"I would..."
She felt his hands cover hers and gently prise them away from her ears.
"I would soap you all over, starting with your feet, massaging the soles so that you'd sink a little deeper into the water, and then..."
"I'm not interested!" Ruth said breathlessly. She couldn't help but hear him, but she refused to open her eyes and see him as well.
"Oh, yes, you are. I know you a damn sight better than you think and I know when your mouth is saying one thing and everything else is screaming something entirely different." He leaned a little closer and spoke into her ear. "You used to laugh because your legs would be unsteady when you finally stood up so that I could finish my job, so that I could work the soap into a foaming, warm lather and then I'd..."
"Shut up!"
"Are you getting turned on?"
"No, I'm not."
Then I'd soap your breasts, full, slippery breasts...your nipples would be hard and you'd have your head thrown back as if you were offering them to my mouth, holding them out to be suckled."
He took one crucial step closer and his hard arousal pressed against her thighs.
Ruth was finding it remarkably easy to remember just how wobbly her legs had used to feel when she'd tried to stand up in that bath. Much the same as they were feeling right now. She pressed herself back against the door, breathing rapidly.