Her story was so bizarre it was probably true, but there was too much at stake for him to risk giving her the benefit of the doubt. The fact that she had been pathetically easy to manipulate into assisting in her own abduction didn’t automatically make her innocent of all charges. Unfortunately, at this point, wilful naivety could be just as damaging as malicious intent. Guilty or innocent, Nora was the equivalent of an unexploded bomb—one that it was going to be his very great pleasure to defuse…
A kick of anticipation tensed his muscles and his foot sank sharply on the accelerator. He had no doubt that once Nora recovered from her hangover her natural intelligence would reassert itself, turning her into a potentially dangerous opponent. But a fascinating one.
He glanced sideways at his dishevelled guest, deep in a trusting sleep. Far from disarming him, her vulnerability was unexpectedly arousing. Her shirt had slipped a strategic button and he could see a glimpse of smooth freckled skin above a white cotton bra, very different from the sheer black number she had flaunted last night. Perversely, he found the faux innocence of the opaque cotton even more of a turn-on.
A carnal image of Nora’s pale body splayed out against the dark leather, her restless hands restrained by the tangled black webbing of her seatbelt suddenly flashed into his mind. It was so diverting that Blake over-steered a corner and almost clipped the crumbling clay bank.
Sweating and swearing, he spun the wheel to correct his mistake, shifting in his seat to relieve the sudden constriction in his loins. He was startled by the unruly reaction of his body to his erotic flight of imagination, and distinctly unnerved. He didn’t usually indulge in fantasies of bondage and submission. His tastes were straightforward and earthy, and he had never felt possessive enough about any one woman to daydream about dominating her body and mind to the exclusion of all others.
This one was different. Unique in his experience. She had slipped under his guard with annoying ease: intrigued, amused, seduced, insulted and enraged him in swift succession. She had kicked him squarely in the ego and then had the nerve to appeal to his sympathies. As far as he and the rest of the world was concerned, Blake MacLeod had an ice-cool head and a heart to match, but all it had taken to explode that myth in his face was one ruffled brown sparrow on an emotional bender. This morning she had caused him to act on an impulse that was guaranteed to create havoc in his smoothly run life…and, to top it off, she had almost made him crash his cherished car!
Chapter Seven
NORA OPENED her eyes to see a wall of green rushing towards her.
She let out a little scream before she realised that it wasn’t the wall that was moving at breakneck speed. It wasn’t even a wall…Where there should have been the familiar concrete canyons of the city there was nothing but a blur of trees!
‘What’s happened? Where are we?’ She winced at the painful crick in her neck as she turned a bewildered face to search out Blake MacLeod’s fierce profile.
‘Nearly there.’
His thick brows were lowered in their characteristic frown, but his hard mouth was chiselled into a self-satisfied smile which rang alarm bells.
‘Nearly where?’
Nora gave another smothered shriek as Blake hit the brakes and spun the car down a roughly sealed side road cut into the side of the hill—a road so steep that it was almost vertical, and so narrow there seemed barely room for the car.
‘Karekare Beach is just over to your right.’ He nodded towards the flash of glittering sea that revealed itself between the bisecting hills.
‘How can it be? You were supposed to be dropping me off at work!’ she squeaked, instinctively bracing her feet against the floor in the vain hope of stopping their plunging descent.
‘I changed my mind.’
‘You can’t do that!’ she spluttered, clutching the edge of her seat as he rounded another tight corner.
His eyebrow shot up in an ironic slant that said he already had.
Outside her window, the forest fell away into a steep-sided valley and Nora blanched, her heart leaping into her mouth at the sight of the flimsy wooden crash barrier that marked the edge of the drop.
‘Oh, God!’ she groaned weakly. The music which had earlier soothed her now seemed to mock her fear. ‘You lying rat!’
‘A pity you had to wake up during this bit,’ Blake murmured with abrasive sympathy. ‘But once we get down under the bush canopy again you won’t notice the elevation.’
‘Don’t bank on it!’ She sucked in a nervous breath that did nothing to reassure her. ‘Is it my imagination or is the air thinner up here?’
‘We’re not that high,’ he replied with an admirably straight face. ‘You needn’t worry about me passing out at the wheel from hypoxia.’
She shuddered. ‘What happens if we meet someone coming the other way?’ she fretted.
‘One of us has to back up until there’s room to pass,’ he said, with a calmness that told her he had done this many times before.
Suspicion congealed into full-blown certainty: this was no random drive to blow away the mental cobwebs. ‘Where exactly are we going, MacLeod?’
‘Somewhere nice and secluded—’
‘—where no one will hear me scream?’ she concluded with acid sarcasm.
‘Where you can take time out—relax and unwind in the peace and quiet of tranquil surroundings.’ His deep voice mingled with the sexy growl of the car. ‘No stress, no pressure, no prying friends…You can catch some sun and laze about in luxury while you consider all your options…’
It sounded achingly like heaven to Nora’s bruised soul.
‘One of them being to have you arrested for kidnapping!’
‘What kidnapping?’ he countered blandly. ‘I suggested we spend the long weekend at my beach house. I didn’t hear you object, so naturally I assumed that you were willing…’
‘How could I have objected? I was asleep!’ she blustered, her outrage at his blatant manipulation of the facts ambushed by a treacherous thrill of excitement.
His beach house? The long weekend? She had forgotten it was a public holiday on Monday. She was on the brink of being stranded for days in Blake MacLeod’s sole company!
She didn’t flatter herself that Blake was whisking her away to his private hideaway because he was crazed by love, but there was a certain provocative undercurrent to his threats that charged them with erotic meaning. Even knowing that he had some devious ulterior motive for wanting to keep her isolated for the next few days didn’t stop her from feeling a rush of feminine triumph. Boring women didn’t drive sexy bachelors to reckless acts of piracy…
‘You’re taking a serious risk, you know,’ she told him. ‘I could cause you a heap of trouble.’
‘More than you have already, you mean?’ he asked, unruffled by the threat. ‘Perhaps I believe that the potential rewards far outweigh the risk.’
She wondered what kind of rewards he was talking about. They hit a pothole and the car momentarily swerved, jolting her out of her abstraction. ‘Why doesn’t the council do something to fix this road?’ she gasped.
‘Because it dead-ends at a beach with no public facilities and there are only a few private homes along the way. The road doesn’t generate enough traffic to justify the expense of regular upgrades.’
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ she gulped as an overhanging fern