The Billionaire Bodyguard(16)

And  there was no point in parting on bad terms. It had, after all, been   pretty … well …  He shook his head in slight disbelief. 'Come here,' he  said  softly, and held out his hand.

A stronger woman might not have  taken it, but Keri was not feeling  particularly strong right then. Was  this the price that you paid for  the beauty and the closeness which went  with the kind of sex she had  shared with Jay? The feeling that he was  now somehow part of her? As  though he had captured something of her and  now she belonged to him,  unable to shake free the invisible chains which  bound them?

You're being fanciful, she told herself. But his  mouth was in her hair,  and on her neck, his breath hot and warm and  rapid, and she felt an  instant response, threading her fingers greedily  into the tangled  thickness of his dark hair.

In an instant he was  aroused, but he forced reason to take over from  sheer physical desire.  He lifted his head and stared down at her, a  diamond-hard smile angling  his mouth. 'The sooner we get moving, the  less chance there is of the  police being alerted. Could waste a lot of  money if they mount an  abortive rescue campaign. Unless, of course, you  have a secret fantasy  about being winched to safety by a helicopter?'

Keri blinked  rapidly. How could he remain so calm and so reasonable, be  able to  switch off so thoroughly while she was at the mercy of a swirl  of  emotions which left her reeling?                       
       
           



       

All she could hear was the  pounding of her heart and the swishing rush  of her blood. She didn't  want to go, or move from this place, and yet  clearly he did. And he was  right. There were people waiting for them  back home who would be  beginning to worry-she couldn't just turn her  back and pretend they  didn't exist.

Yet surely a man of his calibre was wasted, just  driving round the  country like this? Couldn't his undoubted gifts of  strength and  resourcefulness be put to some better use? And couldn't she  be the one  to point him in the right direction? Broach it gently,  carefully, she  thought. Don't offend his pride or his masculinity.

'Jay?'

Something was coming, and she wasn't about to ask him what he thought the road conditions would be like.

He kept his voice neutral. 'Yes, Keri?'

'It's been … well … '

'Wonderful-yes, it has.' He kissed the tip of her nose.

'And … well, haven't you ever thought that you're-well, wasted doing this kind of thing?'

He raised his eyebrows. 'In what way, exactly?'

His face looked so forbidding that she regretted having started, but she couldn't really stop now. 'Well, driving for a living.'

'There's something wrong with driving?'

There was some undercurrent to his voice that she didn't quite understand. 'Oh, there's nothing actually wrong with it-'

'Well, thank heavens for that,' he murmured sardonically.

'It's  just that you seem to have so much else to offer … ' She saw the  slight  twist of his mouth and rushed on, terrified that he might think  she was  alluding to his prowess in the lovemaking department. 'I mean  your SEAL  background, your resourcefulness. The way you got us out of a  jam and  made the best of it-not a lot of men could do that.'

Which, translated, meant I want to go to bed with you again. He kept his gaze steady. 'Well, thanks,' he murmured.

'Someone like you could make a fortune,' she continued softly, 'if you really set your mind to it.'

As  in-house stud to beautiful but unfulfilled women like you? he  wondered.  But he couldn't admit he wasn't tempted-what man wouldn't be?  He looked  down into the wide dark eyes and thought fleetingly of  telling her, and  seeing her reaction then. But it wouldn't work-it  couldn't work.

Would  he call her up and ask her to dinner? To talk about what,  exactly? The  fact that her mascara had run? That she'd gained a pound?  In other words  ruin it-and ruin the memory into the bargain. He had  told her more than  he had intended to, but he could blame the weather  and the isolation on  that false intimacy.

But women always misinterpreted  confidences-which was why he didn't  usually fall into the trap of  allowing any. They read more into them  than they ought to, started  thinking things which made him want to run a  mile.

He hadn't been  lying when he'd told her that it had been wonderful, but  it was nothing  to do with her world. Or his. And he was pragmatic  enough to walk away  from something before reality ruined even the  memory of it.

'Well, I'll bear that in mind,' he said evenly, and his eyes glittered. 'Any time I'm thinking about a career change.'

Her  face had gone very pale, and he was reminded of that look of trust  and  fear when he had lifted her onto his lap in the middle of the  night, and  he relented, sliding his fingertips down over the silken  skin of her  cheek.

'Listen, Keri,' he said. 'What happened last night was  great.' His  voice became a silken caress. 'You've proved to yourself  that you can  have satisfying sex-you just have to find the right man.'

The words hung on the air as clearly as if he had painted them on a banner in letters six feet high. But that man isn't me.

She knew that anyway.

A  shudder of distaste ran through her. He thought all she was talking   about was physical satisfaction. She had wanted not to hurt his pride   and now it seemed that it was going to take a monumental effort to   salvage her own. She pretended that there was a camera trained close up   on her face, and smiled as coldly as the air outside.

'Didn't you say something about dropping me at the nearest train station?' she questioned.

He  nodded. So she wasn't going to cling. Predictably, he found himself a   little disappointed-but wasn't that just human nature for you?  Contrary  as hell-just like he was.

He looked down at her, drinking in the  perfection of her one last time.  She looked, he realised, the very  antithesis of the ice queen he had  first met-warm and sensual and alive.  Had he done that to her? Brought  life to her sexual desert? He  remembered the eagerness with which she  had opened her body to him  during that long, exquisite night and some  primitive emotion flitted  across his soul. He wondered why he was  feeling some kind of misplaced  loyalty to this guy David she had been  due to meet. If a man couldn't  bother to learn how to give a woman  pleasure, then surely he got what he  deserved.                       
       
           



       

And why not complete this assignment himself? 'I guess I'll catch up with you at the launch,' he said casually.

She  had been mentally resigning herself to the fact that this was the  last  time she would see him, and his words startled her. 'The  l-launch?' she  stumbled.

'Sure. For the diamond campaign,' he elaborated. 'If  you're the face  which is about to sell a thousand gems, then won't they  expect you to  be there?'


Yes, of course they would. A lavish  party at one of London's top  hotels, which normally she would have  considered a necessary duty in  the line of work. But now … Keri's heart  leapt with excitement and there  was nothing she could do to stop  it-because she wanted to see this man  again more than she could ever  remember wanting anything in her life.  'You mean that you've been  invited too?' she questioned, equally  casually.

'Hardly,  sweetheart.' His mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile as he  heard the  note of surprise in her voice. 'I'll be there guarding the  jewellery.'





CHAPTER EIGHT




ARRIVING  back in London was like being on a different planet; there had  been no  snow in the capital other than a brief flurry of flakes which  had melted  before they touched the pavements. And Keri felt like a  different woman  from the one who had left there the day before.

She let herself  into her apartment to find the Ansaphone flashing. Five  messages. But  she didn't play them straight away-for once having other  things on her  mind. She wandered from room to room feeling displaced,  as if she were  seeing the gleaming apartment for the first time and  comparing it to the  very basic standard of the house where she had  experienced such intense  physical love.

Keri shivered.

It was as if Jay had  pervaded her senses with a power which seemed to  throw everything else  into the shadows. Acutely, she could remember the  magic of his touch,  the hard brilliance of his eyes and the fleeting  softness of his  features relaxed in the act of love. And she knew she  couldn't even  think straight until she had washed every trace of him  from her body.