The Final Seduction(31)

'Shocked?' He gave a slow, easy smile. 'Shocked? Kitten, I'm ecstatic,  if you want the truth.' He turned onto his back and looked up at the  bare ceiling with the wonder of a man who was gazing on the interior of  the Sistine Chapel. 'Ecstatic! More than ecstatic! Good old Marco!'

He turned over to face her again and placed a possessive hand on her hip and frowned. 'So what was in it for him?'

Shelley smiled. 'He was a gorgeous, attractive, eligible and fabulously  rich man and he used to get so many come-ons, you wouldn't believe it.  Well, maybe you would! But he was adamantly opposed to sex without love.  I scared people away for him, if you like. Men and women. He always  said he would find true love one day, and now he has.'

'And if he hadn't-how much longer would you have stayed there?'

Shelley shrugged, realising now the danger in her apathy. 'I kept  putting off having to make a decision. This was the only place I wanted  to come back to, but I knew how impossible it would be if you'd found  someone else.'

'Well, I hadn't.' He sighed. 'A virgin! Shelley, sweetest-you still  could have told me first-I would have been a damn sight more gentle with  you.'

'But I didn't want you to be gentle with me,' she said demurely. 'And  neither did I want you to know I was a virgin before we made love. I  needed to know that you would still want me even if I had had a lover  before. As you've had lovers-'

'Not as many as you seem to imagine. In fact, the actual number-'

But she shook her head. 'The number isn't important, Drew. What is  important is that you treat me as your equal. If you'd known I was a  virgin, I'd have been back up there on that pedestal-and it got kind of  lonely up there.'

'And did I? Treat you equally?'

'You know you did,' she said softly.

'Well, then, now it's your turn to hear me out. And on the question of lovers-'

'Drew!' she warned. 'I don't want to hear!'

'Well, you're going to! I may have had affairs in my life, but there has  been no one-' he saw her incredulous face as she anticipated his words  '-I repeat, no one-not since you went away to Italy.'                       
       
           



       

'What?'

'It's true.' He gave a long, lazy smile as he stroked a fingertip along  the curve of her waist. 'I was so busy building up the business that I  used to just fall into bed every night-alone! But more than that-' he  smiled at the question in her eyes '-the simple truth is that there was  no one I fancied as much as you, kitten. Not before and certainly not  since.'

But despite the wonder of his words a sudden rush of melancholy swamped  her. 'Oh, Drew-when I think of how much time we've wasted.'

'No.' His blue gaze was very intense as he smoothed the damp hair back  from her face. 'We mustn't look on it as time spent wasted, but time  spent growing. Neither of us was ready. I shouldn't have teased you and  tried to control you, not when you were ripe with need and in love with  me. I shouldn't have tried to control the inevitable. To fight fate.  Even though I told myself that my intentions were purely honourable.'

'And I shouldn't have been so impatient!'

The gaze which flickered over her moon-washed body was rueful. 'You were  an awesome responsibility when you were younger, you know, Miss Turner.  Your mother was terrified of history repeating itself.'

'Was that why you … why we … ?'

He sighed. 'She trusted me to take care of you, and I didn't want to  abuse that trust. She once asked me not to take advantage of the crush  you had on me, you know.'

'Did she?'

'Uh-huh. It was just after I'd caught you topless on the beach and I  think she suspected that my feelings might have changed. And she was  right of course. I wanted you so badly that it hurt. But I was going  away, so I thought I'd forget all about you. You were almost eighteen  and I was twenty-five, and so I rather arrogantly gave her my word that I  wouldn't compromise you. And having given my word, kitten, how could I  then break it?'

'Thank you,' she said simply, recognising only now the debt she owed him for his decency and his dependability.

'Then, when the whole understandable Marco thing happened, I was too  arrogant and too proud to listen to reason. Arrogant for letting you go  in the first place, and too proud to ask you to come back. Your mother  always said you would, you know.'

'But you didn't believe her?'

'A part of me wanted to,' he sighed. 'But my pride stood in the way. I  convinced myself that I couldn't care less. How about that for  self-delusion?' He leaned across and brushed his lips against hers and  she shivered with pleasure, trickling her fingers down the  hair-roughened torso-from neck to belly button. 'We've waited one hell  of a long time for this!' he growled.

'I know. But what we just shared was-' She couldn't think of a word  which would say it all. 'For years we've had this slow, drugging  build-up of the senses, and today … ' She sighed with memory. 'Oh,  Drew-wasn't it worth waiting for?'

'It was more than that, kitten.' He moved closer. 'It was the best thing  that's ever happened to me,' he told her simply. 'Want to make it  happen again? Right now?'

She wrapped her arms around his neck. 'Oh, yes, please,' she whispered.  'And now there are no secrets left between us, no barriers left to  fall-'

'It's the final seduction?' He smiled with delight as he slowly lowered his head. 'Heart, body and soul … '

'You've got it,' she murmured, opening her lips to greet his. 'You've  got it in one!' But her words were muffled against the sweetness of his  kiss.



They spent the next twenty-four hours in bed and Shelley guessed that  they must have slept at some point, only she wasn't exactly sure when.

They were sitting facing one another in the bathtub and Drew was showing  her how very erotic a toe could be when she plucked up the courage to  ask, 'What's going to happen with Jamie and Jennie?'

He scowled. 'I told Jamie that if he ever hurt my sister he would live  to regret it. And that I was giving him a chance to make good.' He saw  the look of bewilderment on Shelley's face. 'I've loaned him the money  myself to buy the boat. The rest is up to him.' His eyes glittered  dangerously. 'He'd just better not blow it. That's all.'

She leaned across the bubbles and kissed his nose tenderly. 'You're a  bit of a pussy-cat when it boils down to it, aren't you, Drew Glover?  Lending him all that … all that … ' Her eyes widened in horror as she  remembered. 'Drew! All that money! We've left all that money lying on  the table in the sitting room! Anyone could have broken in and stolen  it!'                       
       
           



       

'Come on!' He climbed out of the bath and lifted her out. Then he threw  over her discarded jeans and a thick navy sweater of his. 'Put this on!'

Despite the fact that she might have lost a great deal of money, she  couldn't help smiling as she wriggled it over her head. Because it smelt  of him-and now she felt as though he had filled every one of her  senses. They jumped into his car and drove as fast as was safe and when  they let themselves breathlessly into Shelley's house they discovered  that the money had indeed disappeared from the coffee table.

'It's gone!' said Shelley dully.

'Well, it would be, wouldn't it? We might as well have posted a bloody  great notice on the outside of the house. Of all the stupid things to  do!' But his eyes were soft. 'I guess the only defence we can offer is  that we had other things on our mind.'

'Mmm.' She reached up on tiptoe to kiss him, because-rightly or  wrongly-the money didn't seem to matter a bit right then. She had far  more important things to think about. Like love. 'We certainly did!'

'We'll have to report it,' he sighed.

'Maybe there are fingerprints,' said Shelley hopefully.

'Better not touch anything!' He looked around and frowned. 'I wonder how  the hell they got in? There's no sign of a break-in. You'd better see  if they've taken anything else, kitten.'

Just then the front doorbell chimed and when Shelley went to answer it  she found Jennie and Jamie standing on the doorstep. Jamie was holding  Ellie and looking terribly pleased with himself while Jennie looked as  though she was just bursting to tell them something.

'What are you doing here?' Drew asked suspiciously.

'Have you lost something?' asked Jamie airily.

'Like … ?'

'Like this stash of cash?' questioned Jamie triumphantly, bringing his  spare hand from behind his back and waving the wad of cash in the air.

'Where the hell did you get that?'

'Jamie saw it sitting on your table!' said Jennie, taking it from Jamie  and handing it over to Shelley. 'And came and told me. We decided that  it was too risky to leave it there. So we let ourselves in with the  spare key you gave me, and took it home to keep it safe for you.'

Drew looked at Jamie for a long moment. 'Thanks, mate,' he said simply, and held his hand out.