Читать книгу Australian Affairs: Claimed - Margaret Way - Страница 19

‘STUPID, stupid, stupid,’ Kitty berated herself as she cleansed her face in her bathroom a few minutes later. ‘What were you thinking?’ She grabbed a bunch of tissues and savagely wiped off her cleanser. ‘Miss Nineteenth Century. What a jerk!’

The doorbell sounded.

Kitty tossed the tissues in the bin and went down to open the door—to find Jake standing there with her violin case.

‘You forgot something,’ he said, holding the case out to her.

‘Oh…’ She took it from him with a sheepish look. ‘Thanks.’

‘I called my mate about your car,’ he said. ‘I told him I’d drop it off at his workshop once I get the battery charged.’

‘Thank you, but I don’t want to put you to any more trouble.’

‘No problem,’ he said.

Kitty went to close the door but he put a foot out to stop it from closing. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in for a coffee or something?’ he asked.

‘I’m sure you’ve had much better offers this evening,’ she said with a speaking look.

‘Phone’s been running hot, but I thought I’d have a quiet one tonight.’

‘Good for you.’ She pushed against the door again. ‘Do you mind?’

His gaze ran over her teddy bear pyjamas. ‘Am I keeping you out of bed?’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘It’s not even eleven o’clock.’

‘Then let’s have a nightcap,’ he said. ‘You owe me one for driving you all that way tonight.’

She stepped back from the door. ‘You said it wasn’t a problem.’

‘It wasn’t. But then I found your violin case. The least you could do is offer me a drink for delivering it to your door.’

She blew out a breath of resignation. ‘What would you like?’ she asked.

‘What are you having?’

Kitty hoped he couldn’t see the milk and choc-chip cookies she had laid out on the table for her supper. ‘I was thinking about a glass of wine,’ she said, surreptitiously blocking his view of the kitchen. ‘Do you like red or white?’

‘What have you got open?’

‘Nothing as yet,’ she said. ‘I’m not a big drinker.’

‘Then don’t open anything on my account.’

‘I have a bottle of red one of the patients gave me,’ she said. ‘They dropped it off the other day.’

‘It’s nice when they do that,’ he said. ‘We patch them up and move them on, but now and again someone recognises what we actually do.’

Kitty handed him a glass of the wine. ‘It’s one of the downsides of working in A&E,’ she said. ‘We only see them the once and they move on.’

‘I think it’s one of the good sides,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to get too involved.’

She studied him for a moment as he took a sip of his wine. ‘Your professional life has a lot in common with your private one,’ she said. ‘Both are full of brief encounters where no feelings get involved.’

‘Works for me.’

‘Don’t you get tired of that sea of nameless faces coming and going in your life?’

He took another measured sip of his wine. ‘Nope.’

‘But it’s so selfish and…and so pointless,’ she said. ‘How can you not feel something for the women you sleep with?’

One of his shoulders rose and fell in an offhand shrug. ‘Guess I’m not built that way.’

‘So it’s just sex,’ she said with a disparaging look. ‘Nothing more than inserting Item A in Slot B.’

His mouth tilted. ‘I have a little more finesse than your charming description allows,’ he said. ‘But then, perhaps your own experience has somewhat limited your outlook.’

Kitty felt a blush steal over her face and neck. ‘I have enough experience to know that sex is not just a physical connection,’ she said. ‘It’s a deeply emotional experience.’

‘Clearly your boyfriend didn’t find it so emotionally satisfying, otherwise why did he find someone else?’

She threw him an arctic glare. ‘I think it might be time for you to leave.’

He held her look with a cynical glitter in his eye. ‘You need to grow up, Kitty,’ he said. ‘You’re a young, fanciful girl in a woman’s body. Life isn’t a fairytale. There are no handsome princes out there who’ll declare undying love for you and carry you off into the sunset. There are no fairy godmothers to make everything turn out right in the end. There are no genies in bottles, no magic spells, and sure as hell there are precious few happy ever afters.’

Kitty folded her arms imperiously. ‘Are you done?’

The air crackled with electric tension as dark blue eyes warred with grey.

‘No,’ he said, eyes glittering as he closed the distance between them in one stride. ‘Not quite.’

She took a step backwards as he came towards her but the sofa was in the way. She gave a little startled gasp as his strong hands gripped her by the upper arms, pulling her to him. Her body jolted with sensual energy when it came into contact with his. It was like a dead battery being plugged into a power source. Currents of energy flowed through her, kick-starting her senses into throbbing, pulsing life. His mouth came down and blazed with furnace-hot heat against hers. As the kiss progressed in intensity raw need licked along her flesh like trails of runaway fire. Desire pooled in her belly, hot and liquid, melting her to the backbone. His tongue thrust boldly into her mouth, commanding and conquering, demanding and deliciously, dangerously male.

For a moment, a mere nanosecond, she thought about resisting. But the feel of his tongue weaving seductively around hers was her undoing. She wound her arms around his neck, leaning into his kiss, giving back, responding in an unabashed way she wouldn’t have believed possible just a few days ago. Red-hot need rose in her like a hungry beast waking after a long hibernation. It roared from deep within her, great primal bellows of unmet wants that refused to be ignored and denied or suppressed any longer.

Her fingers delved deep into the thick pelt of his hair. His hard chest wall abraded her breasts as she pressed herself closer and closer. She felt the swelling ridge of his erection against her feminine mound, a tantalising reminder of his power and strength and her primitive need to yield to it.

One of his hands pressed against the small of her back and the other went to her hair, his fingers splaying against her scalp as he kissed her deeply and urgently.

Her tongue played cat and mouse with his. She brazenly teased and tantalised him with darting, flicking movements of her own. He took control back from her with another shift in position. His hand went from her hair to her breast, cupping it possessively, his palm moulding its contour with sensual expertise.

Kitty was breathless with escalating need. She hadn’t realised her breasts could feel quite so sensitive. The nipples were tight, and aching for more of his touch. As if he read her mind, or indeed her body, he glided his hand up under her pyjama top and captured her naked breast. Lightning bolts of desire zapped through her body at that shamelessly intimate contact. Her nipple budded into his palm; she felt the delicious pressure and wanted more. His thumb moved over the tight nub, back and forth in a mesmerising motion that set every nerve singing.

And then, most shocking of all, he bent his head and took her nipple and its areola into his hot, moist mouth. She clung to him as the world spun, soft little whimpers coming from deep inside her throat as his tongue stroked her into mindlessness.

He moved to her other breast, taking his time over exploring it, teasing it with his teeth and tongue. A shiver scuttled over her flesh—how could her body not have known such exquisite pleasure existed? How could she not have felt such earth-shattering sensations before?

He worked his way back to her mouth, lingering over the sensitive skin of her neck until he claimed her lips once more. This kiss had an undercurrent of desperation to it. She felt his need building, a rampage of want that thundered through his blood. She felt the potent power of him surging against her body. It awoke a primal need inside her to open to him. Her body pulsed and vibrated with a longing so intense it made a mockery of anything she had experienced before. She had never felt such powerful, all-consuming desire. It took over every thought. It blocked out every resistance. It was as if he had unlocked a part of her being she hadn’t known existed.

How could it be her hands greedily seeking his naked chest underneath his T-shirt?

How could it be her mouth responding to his with such reckless abandon?

How could her body be rubbing up against his like a shameless wanton?

Suddenly it was over.

He put her from him almost roughly. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Kitty took umbrage at his attitude. ‘Me?’ she asked. ‘You started it!’

He raked a hand through his disordered hair, his breathing still heavy and uneven. ‘I know, and now I’ve stopped it,’ he said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I would have stopped it before it went too much further.’

His eyes were like a laser as they held hers. ‘You were taking your merry time about it, sweetheart.’

Kitty shot him an icy glare. ‘You caught me off guard. It’s late and I’m tired and not thinking straight.’

His lip curled mockingly. ‘Still think sex is all about emotion?’

She felt her cheeks radiate with colour. ‘We didn’t have sex.’

‘We weren’t far off it.’

‘I would never have let you make love to me.’

He came up close again, capturing her chin between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes holding hers in a hot, tense little lockdown that sent a shudder of reaction all the way down her spine. ‘I could’ve had you flat on your back and screaming all the way to heaven and back and you damn well know it,’ he said.

Kitty felt the echo of his incendiary statement deep in the pit of her belly. She wanted to make him take those shamelessly coarse words back. God help her, she wanted those shamelessly coarse words not to have a grain of truth in them.

She wrenched out of his hold, rubbing at her chin as if it had been stung. ‘You are a loathsome, diabolical, arrogant man,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I detest men like you. You think you can have any woman you want, any time you want, but you can’t. You can’t have me.’

His mouth still had that slant of mockery in place. ‘You really shouldn’t have thrown down such a delightful little gauntlet,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll have to prove you wrong.’

She held herself stiffly: arms folded, back straight, mouth tight. ‘You’d be wasting your time.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said as his gaze ran over her indolently. ‘It’d sure be fun trying.’

Kitty glowered at him. ‘What about your bet?’

‘Some rules are made to be broken,’ he said. ‘Anyway, everyone already thinks we’re doing it. Why not do it for real?’

‘I’d rather die.’

‘You’re afraid, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘You’re afraid of being out of your depth in a relationship. That’s why you chose a boyfriend you’d known for ages. He was safe and predictable. You could control things with him. But that’s not what you need.’

‘I hardly think you’re the person to tell me what I need,’ she tossed back. ‘You barely know me.’

‘I know you well enough to know that behind that starchy schoolmistress thing you’ve got going on is a young woman who longs to let her hair down,’ he said.

Kitty gave a scathing little laugh. ‘And I suppose you think you’re exactly the person I should let it down with? Thanks, but no thanks.’

He strode across to the door. ‘Let me know if you change your mind,’ he said. ‘You know where to find me.’