“How do you continue to love him when he leaves you out in the emotional cold?” he asked with a rush of impatience.
She stiffened slightly.
“Don’t go away.” His hand soothed her.
“My parents continue to suffer, Brock,” she pointed out, her body relaxing. “They don’t need me to hate them.”
“Which makes you a little saint?” His tone was dry.
“I didn’t say I don’t have my bad days when I’m faced with the question: What am I doing staying around, working so hard?” she retorted. “It’s such a struggle, yet no one seems to care. Far from being a saint—and I know you’re having a go at me—I have an underlying anger at the way I’m treated. But I guess the bottom line is I’ll never abandon my family.”
“Surely you’ll marry?” he asked crisply. “One wonders why some enterprising guy—which automatically excludes my cousin—hasn’t swept you off your feet already?”
“Perhaps he’d recognise I come with too much baggage to allow for any real development,” she suggested, straightening before she found herself lying against his chest.
“I saw Philip’s face tonight. I’d say he was very much in love with you. Just seeing you with me blew him apart.”
She was desperately aware of his closeness, his arm lying along the park bench just behind her shoulders, the glimmer of his pale shirt, the male scent of him. “I can’t help the fact Philip has formed an attachment. Ours is a relatively small community and he’s partnered me at dances. We see one another at every social occasion. We talk a lot. But, I repeat, there’s no love affair that I’m aware of.”
“You’d better tell him that,” he said bluntly.
“Anyway, his mother thinks he should drop me. I’m not good enough.” She said it with a trace of black humour.
“Then she’s got very poor judgement. Say, you’re shivering. Are you cold?”
She rubbed her bare arms. They were faintly chilled by the desert breeze. “When we start walking I’ll warm up. This blouse is quite sheer.”
“Just the sort of blouse I like.” His voice was a deep purr. “Listen, I’m sorry I don’t have anything to put around your shoulders. Except my arm, of course. So come along, Shelley.” He stood up, extended his hand. “We’ll make our way back to the pub.”
The friendly gallantry should have worked. They should have gone on their way with nothing sexual to complicate the evening. Only that never happened. Brock was a man on the edge, his hard desire for this spirited little redhead spiralling.
Even the wind was his co-conspirator. Gradually it had increased in strength, becoming a whirling force. It began to tug at her hair. Though she immediately put up her hand it had no difficulty loosening the pins that held the glittery loops in place. It slid and uncoiled through her fingers.
He hadn’t reckoned on this, so he wasn’t really to blame, was he? Her ability to move him, to capture his attention when he knew he should disengage, quite simply overrode his best intentions. He didn’t need or want involvement, but the sight of her with her arms behind her head, tussling with her beautiful long windblown hair, her slender body in a spin in an effort to throw off curling skeins that lashed her face with silk, played on his erotic imagination, giving him immense pleasure.
Her laughter was so young, so carefree, like ripples of silver. Surely it summoned any red-blooded man to pull her into his arms?
A tremble ran down his strong forearms. He imagined her in his embrace even before she was there. There was no question of pausing, of caution, or even catching his breath. He gave his passionate nature full rein, taking small comfort in the fact that he hadn’t planned any of it. This was a means to assuage his sick hunger, the griefs that could destroy him.
Heart torn, he hauled her to him so it was impossible for her to escape, stopping her laughing mouth with his own, feeling the impact run through his body like flame. For an instant her soft lips didn’t move beneath his—he’d shocked her—but he parted them with his tongue, whispering her name into her open mouth.
“Shelley!” It was a marvellous feeling. The child he had known the whole of her life had turned into a beguiling woman. A woman with enough power to bewitch him.
“What are you doing, Brock?” Shelley gasped, overcome by sensation. Even the moon and stars faded to nothing. There was only his body, his hands, his mouth. His physical presence so familiar to her, yet totally foreign.
“Kissing you,” he muttered, struggling with the torment to go further. He should stop, but he couldn’t. Not from the moment he found her lips.
Only she was so unprepared for it. “Wait.” She put a hand to his chest.
“Wait what? Am I going too fast for you?”
She ought to say, yes, but the mounting forces seemed colossal.
He pulled her back to him, drinking her in like a draught of wine.
She sounded a tiny bit frightened. A man could never assume anything and he was carrying her along too fast. But the male drive to know the female was vibrating through him, subduing her to the extent she seemed at a loss to stop him.
He held her face up to his, his tongue plunging deeper, drinking her in like a draught of wine. Heat sizzled along his veins like a fever, but it was a fever he was eager to suffer.
She was so beautiful. So sensitive. So right. He wanted to lift her. Carry her away. Show her what lovemaking was all about.
His hand moved to the porcelain skin of her throat, where a pulse beat so full and fast it betrayed her. Her delicate neck was flushed with agitation and excitement. His hands were frantic to move lower, to take full possession of her breasts, to find the rosebud nipples swollen in arousal. He forced them to stay where they were, when they wanted to range over her body, stroke naked skin. In a moment he would go too dangerously far when all he’d meant to do was walk her back to the hotel and the safety of her own bed.
This was Shelley Logan he was plying with fierce, insistent kisses and caresses. Had he forgotten? Her body was rippling now, at his every stroke. She was panting a little, leaning into him, her beautiful hair all over her face, his face. He could inhale its clean scent. He knew he had only to apply a little more pressure, but a kind of purity attended her.
He released her so abruptly Shelley was obliged to make a grab for his shirt.
“Brock!” She held tight to him, disoriented, genuinely worried for a moment that she might faint. She didn’t feel solid at all, but floating. Every part of her he had touched was scintillating, aglow.
“I didn’t mean that to happen.” His own speech was rough with emotion.
“I never dreamed you did.” This was far beyond anything she had experienced before.
“But you wanted me to.”
“Did I?” She pressed a hand to her breast. Her heart was beating crazily. “I thought you were going to kiss me until morning.”
“Believe me, I want to,” he said edgily. “But I had to decide against it.”
She tried hard to adjust to his abrupt change of mood. “Would it be too much to ask why?”
“You want the truth?” He stared down at her with intensity. “You’re simply too sweet, too soft, too succulent. And I’m too hungry. I couldn’t have it ending in tears.”
In brief seconds Shelley found the strength to stand clear of his lean, powerful body. “You won’t be getting any tears from me, Brock,” she said, putting a lot of fire into it. “Your innumerable conquests