Rebecca hadn’t answered her when Cyn had asked if she was doing this thinking she needed to be alone, had just repeated the message she wanted Cyn to give her father. But Cyn would be very interested to know if the young golden god of a gardener arrived for work on Monday morning...
‘Everything,’ Cyn repeated firmly. ‘There’s really nothing more I can tell you, Wolf, so if you wouldn’t mind, I—’
‘But I do mind, Cyn,’ he told her evenly as he once again stood up—and instantly cursed the low ceiling once again as he ducked to avoid hitting his head. ‘I wanted to talk to you about last night.’
She was discovering that the tiny rooms in the cottage had another disadvantage besides the obvious ones; the small proportions made Wolf seem very close, very dominating with his superior height—and more than a little dangerous! What was it they said, the best form of defence was attack? Well then, she had better attack, and quickly, because her defences were starting to crumble!
‘Your fiancée has just called off your wedding, and you want to talk to me?’ she scorned incredulously. ‘I think it’s Rebecca you should be trying to talk to!’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t happen to know where she is, do I? But I do know where you are,’ he added with satisfaction.
Cyn swallowed hard. ‘I have nothing more to say about last night. In fact, now that the wedding appears to have been cancelled,’ she continued more confidently—she would not talk about Barbara, would not put herself through that emotional torture a second time! ‘I can’t see any reason for us to have any further contact at all. Unless, of course, Rebecca changes her mind about the wedding, in which case I’ll be more than happy to talk to both of you concerning the—Wolf!’ she croaked as he reached out suddenly and pulled her up hard against his chest, the expression on his face grimly determined, to say the least.
‘Shut up, woman!’ he rasped. ‘Just shut up,’ he groaned before his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers.
Cyn wished he would stop doing this, because there was no way she could resist him. She had once loved this man— Once? God, she still loved him, she realised with a sickening jolt in her stomach. How could that be? How could she still love this man, a man who had not only betrayed her, but also the girl he had been about to marry in a few months’ time?
She didn’t know how she did, she just knew, as her body and senses responded to his caresses, that she had never stopped loving him. In spite of it all, she loved him! He was the reason she had never been able to feel any emotion stronger than liking for any other man.
She pulled away from him with a choked sob. ‘Stop it, Wolf,’ she told him shakily, pushing at his chest. ‘I don’t want this.’
‘I need this!’ he claimed determinedly, his head lowering to hers once again.
She was too weakened by his closeness to protest this time when his mouth claimed hers, his lips sipping and tasting, his tongue dipping and caressing, and her arms moved up about his neck as she pulled him down to her.
It had always been like this between them, this wild racing of pulses, this wild cry of every nerve-ending for the caresses that would drive them towards the edge of fulfilment.
Wolf was filled with the same sense of urgency as his hands roamed restlessly over her body and the kiss deepened and lengthened, the pulsing of his thighs telling her of that need he had claimed only minutes earlier.
God, how she loved the feel of his hair beneath her fingertips, those fingers becoming entwined in the long silky blondness as she held him against her, the tip of her tongue meeting the quest of his in answering longing.
What was she doing? What was Wolf doing? This was wrong, so very wrong, for both of them! It hadn’t worked out between them seven years ago, wouldn’t work out now either, and Cyn knew she had no intention of becoming just another conquest to Wolf. And she could never be anything else. Had never been anything else, not really— Was that why he was doing this, because she had been the one to end things between them all those years ago? God, she was so stupid...!
She wrenched away from him, his fingers biting painfully into her arms preventing her from moving away from him completely, his expression slightly dazed as he looked down at her questioningly; and no wonder, for seconds ago she had been pliantly aroused in his arms!
‘What’s the matter, Wolf?’ she said scornfully. ‘Can’t you be without a woman in your life for more than a couple of hours?’
He blinked, his brain still slightly fogged by the passion they had shared only seconds ago. ‘What—?’
‘Your fiancée had gone away for the weekend last night, so you invited not one woman but two to join you for dinner!’ Cyn accused disgustedly. ‘Now today, when it seems Rebecca’s panicked completely and called off the wedding, you don’t go chasing after her claiming your undying love for her and trying to convince her the two of you do have a future together—oh, no, you come to my cottage and try to make love to me. It seems to me Rebecca’s had a lucky escape!’ As she had, she told herself angrily.
Wolf’s hands dropped away from her arms as if he had been burned, the dazed expression replaced by chilling anger as he listened to her scathing words.
But Cyn was beyond caring about how he felt about what she was saying. This anger wasn’t only for Rebecca, but for herself too, for all the past pain Wolf had given her, and all the heartache she knew was yet to come; getting over Wolf this time was going to be much harder than it had been the first time!
‘Now get out of here, Wolf,’ she told him with steady dignity. ‘Get out, and stay out!’
‘You’re twisting things round to suit what you want to believe,’ he rasped harshly, his mouth a taut line, his jaw tightly clenched.
‘I want to believe you’re going out of that door!’ Her eyes flashed deeply violet.
‘Cyn—’
‘Why don’t you ask yourself why I want to believe those things, Wolf?’ she challenged, her eyes over-bright with unshed tears; she would not cry in front of him, she wouldn’t! ‘It’s because I don’t want you here. I’ll never want you here. I don’t want you!’ The last came out slightly shrill as she willed him to go away, knowing she didn’t have the physical strength or ability to actually make him go if he chose not to. But why should he want to stay somewhere he so obviously wasn’t wanted?
His eyes glittered ominously, his face looking as if it were etched from granite at that moment. ‘We have to talk—’
‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ she snapped tautly. ‘Go and cry on some other woman’s shoulder!’ Barbara’s. She had always been more than willing to listen to his problems. And anything else he chose to tell her.
Wolf’s mouth tightened. ‘As you’ve already pointed out, I’m hardly in a desperate state about the wedding being called off,’ he rasped grimly. ‘And that’s because—’
‘You didn’t love her!’ Cyn finished accusingly. ‘I already knew that. You’re incapable of loving anyone! That’s why I—’ She broke off as she realised she had been about to admit to having encouraged Rebecca to think very seriously before she committed herself to a marriage she wasn’t sure of; that would be all the ammunition Wolf needed to rip her to pieces!
‘Yes?’ Wolf prompted, silkily soft.
Her cheeks were no longer pale now but darkly flushed. ‘Why I didn’t marry you myself seven years ago!’ she substituted defiantly, knowing by the icy glitter to his eyes now that he was absolutely furious. Well, so was she, dammit, furious at the way he had thought he could just walk back into her life—and her bed!
‘All right, Cyn,’ he ground out harshly, a nerve pulsing in his rigidly clenched jaw, ‘I’ll go. But if I ever find out you were instrumental