‘Did she tell you where I was?’
His disconcerting glance at her took in what she knew was her thoroughly dishevelled appearance, and a lazy smile curved his mouth, instantly transforming his features.
‘Are you suggesting I asked her?’
Mortified that he would even think she might have wanted him to, Kayla tried to tug her hand out of his, and sucked in a breath when he refused to let it go.
‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted easily, without any of the embarrassment that was burning Kayla’s cheeks. ‘I came down to Philomena’s to check on you. You’ve had a bad experience. I didn’t like to think of it ruining your holiday.’
He actually cared?
Well, of course he was concerned for her, she thought, mindful of the lengths he had gone to in rescuing her the other night, and then not only helping her to clean up the villa afterwards but also bringing her to Philomena’s as well.
‘It hasn’t. Thanks,’ she offered, grateful to him, and was warmed by a flash of something closely resembling admiration in his eyes.
She wondered if he had a girlfriend or a partner. It certainly seemed he’d had a stormy affair, judging by the way he had referred to her when he had been generalising about her sex the other day.
‘Why were you so unfriendly to me when we met those first couple of times?’ she queried, suddenly needing to know. ‘You still haven’t told me.’
She started as he suddenly stopped dead, pulling her round to face him on the path.
‘Do you never stop asking questions?’ he demanded, his face a curious blend of impatience and amusement.
‘No.’ She gave him a sheepish little look and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m afraid it’s a fault of mine. Apparently, according to my star sign, I was born on “the Day of Curiosity”,’ she quoted with a little giggle.
‘And do you really believe all that stuff?’
Seeing the scepticism marking the strong and perfectly sculpted features, she laughed and said, ‘No. But they’ve got that part of me right!’
‘You can say that again,’ he remarked dryly. ‘And as a matter of interest exactly when is this illustrious day?’ He made a half-amused sound down his nostrils when she told him. ‘So you’ve just had a birthday?’ he observed. ‘And how old are you, Kayla?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Old enough to know when a man doesn’t welcome any more probing into his private life.’
And that told her, Kayla thought, feeling suitably chastised. This time when she tried to pull her hand away she was even more disconcerted when he allowed her to do so.
They had reached the top of the path that ran up alongside Philomena’s cottage. There was an area at the back, with a lime tree and a couple of orange trees, where Philomena also grew aubergines and sweet peppers, and where chickens foraged freely in the open scrub.
‘How’s the car going?’ Leon asked, noticing it parked against the side wall of the cottage.
Still feeling put down, but relieved to be speaking on a much less personal level with him, Kayla murmured, ‘Fine.’ And suddenly, with tension causing a little bubble of laughter to burst from her, she proclaimed, ‘Which is more than can be said for yours!’
His truck was parked on the edge of the dirt road just behind the little hatchback, and she could see that one of its tyres was completely flat.
‘Oh, dear!’ She tried not to giggle again as he thrust the camera at her and, swearing quietly under his breath in his own language, went to deal with changing the wheel.
Leaving him to it, Kayla wandered into the garden, where Philomena was pegging out some washing, sending a couple of chickens scrambling, clucking noisily.
‘A flat tyre.’ Kayla made a gesture to indicate what she meant and Philomena nodded, rolling her eyes.
Which meant what? Kayla wondered, curious. Had Philomena hoped that the boy she had brought into the world thirty-odd years ago might be doing better for himself by now? Was that what Leon had meant when he’d said she wasn’t happy with the way he had turned out?
Dismissing it from her mind, she moved to help Philomena, but her hostess waved her aside with a warm but incomprehensible protest, pointing to the reclining seats in the welcoming shade of a sun umbrella. Not wishing to offend, Kayla went inside and donned a bikini with matching red and white wrap, which she tied, sarong-style, just above her breasts, before coming back outside into the now deserted garden.
A short time later Philomena emerged from the house with two glasses of something cool and refreshing—juice for her, Kayla realised gratefully, and something a little stronger for Leon.
‘I’ll take it out to him,’ she volunteered, putting her glass down on a nearby table and leaving a thankful Philomena hurrying back inside, because the telephone had started ringing inside the house.
Her discarded wrap had fallen down behind the chair, and wasn’t very easy to reach, so with a little sliver of excitement Kayla left it where it was and proceeded to take the glass to Leon as she was.
For the last twenty-minutes or so her ears had been tuned to every sound coming from the dirt road—from the slamming down of a boot to the chink of metal being laid down on sun-baked stones. Now, as she rounded the corner of the house, Kayla’s heart kicked into overdrive.
With his shirt removed, and faded blue jeans having replaced his linen trousers, Leon was crouched down, securing a nut on the spare wheel, and for a few moments Kayla could only stand there, watching him unobserved.
His body was beautiful. The bronzed skin sheathed muscles that were flexing as he worked, revealing the tension in his straining biceps and across his wide shoulders, in the tapering structure of his strong and sinewy back.
‘Philomena thought you’d like something to drink,’ Kayla told him, dry-mouthed, noticing before he turned around how his hair waved below the nape of his neck like jet against burnished bronze.
He dropped the spanner he was using and stood up, his movements cool and easy. That knowing curve to his mouth suggested that he was well aware of her reluctance to let him think that it was entirely her idea.
‘That’s very good of her.’ His answer and his lopsided smile assured her that two could play at that game. His eyes, however, were tugging over her scantily clothed body in a way that was making her feel naked.
‘You’ve been a long time. You should have let me help you,’ Kayla remarked, handing him the glass. The accidental touch of his fingers against hers sent a sharp little frisson through her.
‘And do you think I would have achieved much with you looking like that?’
Kayla swallowed, watching him drink, trying not to make it too obvious that she was having difficulty staying unaffected by his state of undress.
In fact she was finding it impossible not to allow her gaze free rein over his superb body—from the contoured strength of his smooth chest, with its taut muscles and flat dark nipples, to the black line of hair that started just above his navel and ran down inside the waistband of the denim that encased his flat stomach and narrow hips.
He was like a beautiful sleek stallion. All leanness and rippling muscle, with the power to dominate and excite, to control and to conquer using the pulsing energies and surging potency of his body.
‘Do you see what I mean?’ he taunted softly.
Yes, she did, and she could feel those energies transmitting their sensual messages along her nerve-endings, tugging shameless responses from every erogenous zone in her body.
Beneath the satiny white cups of her bikini her burgeoning