Читать книгу High Heels & Bicycle Wheels - Jane Linfoot - Страница 12

‘Is my head too heavy?’

Bryony was lying on the ragged grass on the cliff top, limbs in a heap, staring at the sky, which, incidentally, was broad as any she’d seen lately. The heat of Jackson’s chest was solid against her skull as she watched the cloud wisps and waited to get her wild jiving heartbeats back into line.

‘Your hair’s tangling in my stubble again. Does it hurt?’ His gruff tones reverberated through his ribs.

Hair caught in a guy’s stubble? OMG. How far off-limits was she?

‘Nope’

And how darned okay it was. It was almost as if neither of them had wanted to break the moment by speaking, and then it had slipped into minutes and then a whole lot longer. The wind rushed over her ears, pushing the smell of damp ground up her nose and coating her lips with salt. She tried not to think how easy this felt, how she didn’t want to move ever again.

‘Here, have this, I picked it up on the beach before.’ He shifted under her, pushed a small stone into the palm of her hand. ‘It’s a fossil, an ammonite. So you remember today. ’

As if she’d ever forget it.

‘Thanks.’ She ran her index finger around the curl of the spiral. Still warm from the ride in his pocket. ‘How old is it?’

‘Possibly two hundred million years. Sorry, they don’t make them any newer.’

A fossil from womanising Jackson Gale. Who’d have thought?

‘It’s perfect. Thanks.’

And then there was the tiny matter of that major snog down on the beach. Talking of perfect. Was that really her back there? Diving down his throat and loving it?

She shuddered at the thought of what he’d been doing to her nipples, shut her eyes and shook her head, just to check she was here. In person. Five minutes of ecstasy, then Jackson went on to save her life. Maybe the biography hadn’t been exaggerating about his multi-faceted talents in all areas. Let’s face it; some guys had it all.

Beneath her head his chest heaved in a comfortable sigh. ‘Almost drowning kind of cements you together. Like we’re lying under this sun as it slides down and, not wanting to be melodramatic, but it could have been the last sunset we saw.’ His voice was gravelly, as one thumb grazed across the back of her hand and brought out the goosebumps in places she couldn’t imagine. ‘We might just have become a lost-at-sea statistic. When you get your breath back, we need to go and do something spectacular to celebrate.’

Interesting… what might that be exactly. This guy had charm by the shedload, and it was mighty hard to resist. You only have to say ‘no’. One tiny word. Wasn’t that what she’d told him? Whatever, she needed to make herself clear here.

‘Back on the beach, the last thing I remember talking about was your one-track mind. I’m hoping we haven’t gone there again.’ She dragged in a breath, hating her sensible-self just for a moment. ‘But, on the upside, a man who saves you from getting swept out to sea and then gives you a fossil has to be worth getting to know a little bit more. Possibly.’ Grinning upwards, catching a glimpse of his chin. Capitulating, slightly. ‘Dinner might be nice.’

‘Dinner’s a possibility.’ He grinned back down at her, his teeth up close just as even and spectacular as her tongue already told her. ‘Why don’t we take it as it comes?’ Bringing out those to-die-for wrinkles in his cheeks, he sent her on-the-ground stomach down to the basement.

‘And to think, back there I was taking the flak for making people do what I want.’ Laughing now, she gave him a soft poke in the ribs. ‘It takes a manipulator to know a manipulator, wouldn’t you agree?’

Easing her upwards, he got to his feet. ‘I prefer to think of it as my incurable desire to win.’

Letting her gaze meander up the whole of his beautiful body, she locked him in a dead-eye gaze, lifting an eyebrow. Important to keep the man who knew he was best at everything in line, despite the fact that her head was whirling. Especially because her head was whirling.

He offered her a hand, ‘C’mon then, Cherry Bomb, let’s go.’ One yank, and she flew to her feet. ‘We’ll get you into some dry clothes.’

More crazy talking that flipped her stomach into a triple somersault. Where the hell had her ‘professional’ gone when she needed it? And definitely not reacting to the clothes comment. Apart from with her racing pulse, obviously. Winning? Manipulating? Hot sex?

Whatever.

After a near-death experience anything was excusable.

She only had to say ‘No’.