The Billionaire Bodyguard(5)

'I've never been particularly fond of porridge,' he murmured. 'Come on, there's no point hanging around here.'

There was an archaic-looking bathroom, with a huge free standing bath.

Jay went over to the cistern and flushed the lavatory, and a great whooshing sound made Keri start.

'Well, that's something,' he said drily.

Thank  God it was dark or he might have seen her blush-but Keri had  never  lived with anyone except for her family, and this was one more  thing  which felt too uncomfortably intimate.

They went back downstairs  and moved in the opposite direction from the  kitchen. Jay opened a door  and looked down into pitch blackness.

'Cellar,' he said succinctly. 'Want to explore?'

'I think I'll pass on that.'

On  the other side of the hall was a heavy oak, door and Jay pushed it   open, waiting for a moment while the candle flame stopped guttering.

'Come over here, Keri,' he said softly, his words edged with an odd, almost excited note. 'And look at this.'

Keri went down the step and followed the direction of his gaze. 'Oh, my word,' she breathed. 'I feel like Aladdin.'

'Yeah.' His voice was thoughtful. 'I know what you mean.'

It  was like stumbling unawares upon a treasure trove-a gloriously old  and  elegant room which looked as though it belonged to another age. Jay  held  the candle aloft and Keri could see that it was as high as four   men-with a pointed raftered ceiling made out of dark, wooden beams-and   the room itself was so big that she could not see the edges.

'Where are we?' she said. 'What is this place?'


He  was busy taking more candles from his pocket and lighting them,  placing  one on the mantelpiece and one on a low table in front of the  empty  grate. 'I don't know, and right at this moment I really don't  care.'

It  was amazing what a little light did, and as more of it appeared so  did  the room, and the dark, threatening shadows were banished and  forgotten  as she looked around. It was beautiful.

There were high, arched  windows and a mighty fireplace, with two  enormously long sofas sprawled  at right-angles beside it. In one corner  stood a piano, and there were  books crammed into shelves on one wall  and pictures on the walls.

'It looks almost like a church,' she whispered.

'Why are you whispering?' he asked, in a normal voice, and the sound seemed to shatter through the air.

'I  don't know. Anyway, you were whispering too!' Keri's teeth began to   chatter as the icy temperature began to register on her already chilled   skin. 'B-but wh-wherever or whatever this place is, it's even c-colder   here than it is outside.'

'Yeah.' He crouched down beside the  fireplace, an old-fashioned type he  had never seen before and big enough  to roast an ox in. 'So why don't I  light this, and you go and have a  scout about-see what kind of  supplies there are?' She was looking at him  blankly, and he let out an  impatient sigh as he began to pull some  kindling towards him.  'Sustenance,' he explained. 'Food, drink, coffee, a  spare suckling  pig-anything.'                       
       
           



       

Keri eyed the darkness warily. 'On my own?'

He  glanced up. Clearly she was a woman to whom the word 'initiative'  was a  stranger. 'You mean you want me to come and hold your hand for  you?'

'No, of course not,' she said stiffly.

'There's nothing to be afraid of.' His voice softened by a fraction. 'Here, take a candle with you.'

'Well,  I'm hardly going to feel my way out there in the dark!' She  lifted her  hand to her head. 'But before I do anything, I'm getting rid  of this  hat.'

His eyes narrowed as she pulled the snow-damp beanie off,  shaking her  hair out so that it fell and splayed in night-dark glossy  tendrils  before falling down over the soft curves of her breasts. It was  a  captivating movement, as elegant as a dancer, and he wondered whether   it just came naturally or if she'd learnt it from her modelling career.   Keep your mind on the job, he told himself.

Except that the job  he had set out to do was turning into something  quite different. He sat  back on his haunches and his eyes travelled up  the endless length of her  legs. He felt a pulse beat deep in his  groin-an instinctive reaction to  a beautiful woman. God, it had been a  long time. 'Run along now,' he  said softly. 'My throat is parched.'

Run along? Run along? 'Don't talk to me that way,' she said in a low voice.

He looked up. 'What way is that?'

As  though he were some kind of caveman and she was the little woman,   scurrying away with whatever he'd successfully hunted that day. Though   when she stopped to think about it there was something pretty primitive   about the deft way he seemed to be constructing the fire.

'You know exactly what way I'm talking about!'

'You mean you just can't cope with a man unless he's paying homage to you, is that it?'

'Don't put words into my mouth!'

If  her feet hadn't been hurting so much, and if she hadn't been afraid   that the candle might go out, then Keri might have flounced out of the   room. But Jay Linur didn't seem like the kind of man who would be   impressed by any kind of flouncing, and so she made do with walking, her   back perfectly straight, her head held very high.

She made her  way back to the kitchen and looked around. It didn't look  very hopeful.  An ancient old oven which looked as though it had seen  better days. A  big, scrubbed wooden table. And that was about it. A  cupboard yielded  little more than a couple of tins, and a box of dusty  old teabags which  had clearly seen better days.

She filled the kettle with water,  but the kettle wouldn't work, and she  remembered why and went back into  the huge room, where he had managed  to coax a tiny flame from the fire.

He looked up. 'What is it?'

'The kettle won't work! There's no electricity-remember?'

He  stared at her consideringly. 'How about gas?' He raised his eyebrows   questioningly and then shook his head. 'I don't believe it-you haven't   even bothered to check, have you?'

She felt like telling him that  she was a model, not a girl guide. And  that she didn't even want a hot  drink, and that if he did then he could  jolly well go and make it  himself. But there was something so  forbidding about the expression on  his face that she decided against  it. Being stuck here with him was like  a nightmare come true, but Keri  suspected that it would be even more of  a nightmare if he wasn't here.

'No,' she admitted reluctantly.

'Then I suggest you go and try again.'

He  was doing it again-dismissing her as if she was a schoolgirl. This  had  to be addressed some time, and maybe it was best she did it now.  'Did  anyone ever tell you that you are distinctly lacking in the charm   department?'

'Oh.' There was a pause. 'Is it charm you want you want from me, then, Keri?'

The  question threw her as much as the smoky look of challenge in his  eyes  and the silky note of caress in his voice, and suddenly she became  aware  of a whispering of unwelcome sensation, too nebulous to define.  Almost  as if …  She shook her head to deny it and gave him her coolest  smile, the  kind which could intimidate most men-a frosty and distancing  kind of  smile. 'Not at all-but if you could hold back on the arrogant,  macho,  bossing-me-around kind of behaviour, I'd be very grateful.'

He raised his eyebrows laconically. 'You don't like it?'

'Show me a woman who does!'

'I could show you legions,' he observed softly, thinking of two in particular.

'Not this woman!'                       
       
           



       

He watched her wiggle out of the room in that sinful leather skirt, imagining its softness as it swished against her thighs.

In  the kitchen, Keri gingerly scouted around, trying to rid herself of   that strange, tingly sensation which was making her feel almost   light-headed-as if her blood had suddenly come to life in her veins,   making her acutely aware of the way it pulsed around her body. Here to   her temple. There to her wrist. And there. There.

Her cheeks  burned uncomfortably. Somehow he had done this to  her-brought to life in  her something unknown and unwanted, with his  silky taunts and that lazy  way he had of looking at her. And he was so  damned blatant about it,  too!

Had she perhaps imagined that he would feel almost shy in  her company,  the way men so often did? Dazzled and slightly bemused by  the impact of  her looks and the status of her job? Especially someone  who drove cars  for a living, no matter how blessed he had been in the  looks and body  department.