She could feel herself starting to moan as the force of it possessed her body; a reciprocal shudder racked Alex’s body, and the sound he made, a low, raw groan, reverberated through her as their mouths fused hotly together. And then, abruptly and shockingly, Mollie felt Alex lift his mouth from hers and firmly push her away from him.
Instinctively she resisted, her senses so thoroughly aroused and aching for him that she couldn’t bear to let him go. And then, thankfully, before she could make a complete fool of herself, sanity and common sense came to her rescue, allowing her to shrug off the hands still clasping her forearms and to assume an expression of furious anger as she demanded huskily, ‘How dare you...? How dare you—?’
She broke off as she caught sight of the basket of peaches Alex had brought in with him, thankful to have something other than him on which to focus her attention and her chaotic emotions. ‘And just where did those come from?’ she asked aggressively.
‘I brought them with me,’ Alex told her curtly. ‘They’re home-grown—from the orangery.’
He was still trying to understand just what had prompted him to behave in such an uncharacteristic fashion. He was sexually experienced enough to recognise the potential destruction that could be caused by emotions, sensations as explosive as those he had just experienced, but there had been a feeling, a need within him when he had held Mollie in his arms which had gone far, far beyond any mere desire for sex.
He could tell, too, that even though she was trying valiantly to hide it from him she had been as caught off guard, as unable to control what had happened as he had been himself.
The last thing he needed right now was to get involved with a woman, a situation like this one. He had enough problems in his life already. More than enough.
‘The orangery,’ Mollie repeated bitingly. ‘And how many poor souls have you had to evict from their homes to pay for that kind of luxury, I should like to know?’
‘I’m sure you would,’ Alex agreed.
‘These peaches are rotten—rotten because they’ve been grown and fed on human misery,’ Mollie told him dramatically, tilting her head proudly as she added, ‘It’s all there in my article—the way that people, men like you—’
‘You can’t publish what you’ve written...’ Alex began to tell her, intending to warn her that she had got her facts totally wrong, but before he could finish Mollie immediately interrupted.
‘You can’t intimidate me,’ she told him passionately.
Alex opened his mouth to tell her that intimidating her or anyone else had never entered his mind, nor was it ever likely to do so, and that essentially at heart he was a pacifist, a man who applauded and worked for harmony, a man who respected the views and feelings of others. But instead, to his own bemusement, he heard himself saying in a passably threatening male growl, ‘Don’t be so sure.’
The tiny quiver of sensation that shivered through Mollie’s body as she heard him wasn’t entirely based on fear, but, wisely, she had no intention of investigating just why the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice should generate within her a feeling not unlike the delicious excitement she had experienced as a child when engaging in some activity which she had known to be forbidden.
‘Typical,’ she responded contemptuously to Alex instead, with a provocative toss of her head. ‘But you don’t frighten me.’
Grimacing to himself, Alex turned away from her and headed for the front door.
‘Maybe not,’ he muttered to himself under his breath as he angrily yanked the door open and strode through it. ‘But you sure as hell frighten me.’
No wonder he had stormed off like that, Mollie crowed in mental triumph as she firmly slammed the door after him. He had known she had him routed, that she couldn’t be bullied or pushed or cowed, as he had no doubt expected.
Walking back into her living room, she absentmindedly picked up one of the peaches and bit deeply into it. The fruit was luscious and sweet, with a taste that made her close her eyes in momentary sensual bliss.
‘Mmm...yummy...’
She had virtually finished the peach before she remembered what she had said to its donor. Well, never mind, she wasn’t one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, she told herself stoutly. How many peaches were there exactly in that basket? Three more... Well, it would be wasteful not to eat them, an insult to whoever had taken such care in growing and nurturing them...
The next day, standing in Bob’s office whilst she waited for him to finish reading her article, Mollie was still seething over her run-in with Alex. How dare he threaten her? He was typical of his type: rich, arrogant, completely oblivious to the thoughts and feelings of others.
But it was his threat to her article that concerned her the most and possessed her thoughts, not what had gone before it. In fact that kiss they had shared, and her own regrettably insane and inadmissibly intense response to it, was something she simply wasn’t prepared to dwell on or give any kind of credence to by thinking about it. Everyone was permitted the odd small aberration.
She had been under stress, caught off guard. He had no doubt expected her to reject him, and would have enjoyed having her behave in what to him would have been a predictably female and victimish way. By kissing him back, by showing no fear, she had shown him that she was not so predictable, so easily readable, that she was not the kind of woman who was going to be overawed or daunted by him.
She was no fool. Of course there would be members of her sex who would be silly enough to be taken in by his good looks and by the aura of success and maleness that clung to him, but she was most certainly not one of them.
Bob had reached the end of her article. He put it down and removed his spectacles, and then frowned as he told her baldly, ‘We can’t print this. You do realise that people locally will assume that this landlord you refer to is Alex, and—?’
‘And because he happens to own half the county no one is allowed to say or write anything that might show him up in his true colours? Is that it?’ Mollie interrupted him hotly.
Bob Fleury’s frown deepened as he looked at her.
His grandfather on his mother’s side had been a Scot, and Bob had inherited some of his dourness and his cautious carefulness, which balanced his more unpredictable French trait. Now, as he placed both his hands on his desk and studied Mollie, he chose his words very carefully.
She was such a fiery young thing, with so much still to learn, but he liked her. She had spirit and, just as important, she genuinely cared about her fellow human beings. He had no time for these cynical and worldly young people who seemed bored with their lives before they had really begun.
‘Is that what you think—that Alex is the kind of landlord you’ve written about in this article?’
‘Well, isn’t he?’ Mollie challenged him.
‘No,’ Bob told her promptly and firmly. ‘I’ve known Alex all his life and there is no way he would ever treat his tenants badly. In fact, one of the first things he did after his father’s death was set about raising enough money to ensure that those who had worked for his father and were close to retirement could be securely housed when they reached retirement age.
‘He had to fight like the devil to get his plans past the local planning committee as well. Simply allowing people to stay on in the often remote cottages they had occupied during their working lives wasn’t enough for Alex. No. What he did was bring in an architect and instruct him to design purpose-built units suitable for independent elderly people to live in.’
Now it was Mollie’s turn to frown.
‘Anyone can make plans...promises...’ she began, but Bob shook his head, forestalling her.
‘Alex did more than that,’ he told her firmly.