‘We aren’t back together,’ she reminded him swiftly. She had made no such agreement, nor was she ready to.
‘Of course not.’ He flashed her a smile that didn’t quite warm his eyes. ‘I was speaking figuratively.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, don’t presume, Jared. I haven’t said I’m coming back to you.’
‘Taylor,’ he exhaled, the way he addressed her alone assuring her he wasn’t exactly very pleased. ‘The last thing I would ever do with you is presume.’
Feeling strangely chastised, Taylor looked down at her greasy fingers. A small trail of honey clung to the third finger of her left hand, she noticed, with her little finger splayed.
‘No,’ she uttered, her breath coming rapidly when Jared grabbed her hand and she saw the purpose in his face, realised his intention.
‘Stop me,’ he whispered, and it was a deeply sensual challenge.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIKE a rabbit mesmerised by a fox, Taylor watched him watching her even as he dipped his head and his mouth closed over her honeyed finger.
There was desire in his eyes, more potent and deadly than that which she had seen burning in them earlier.
‘Jared…’ She closed her eyes against the raw need she saw in him, against the ache of a new kind of hunger in herself that only this man could assuage. The suckling warmth of his mouth brought with it images of the pleasurable nights she had shared in his bed, the provocative action of his tongue encircling her finger calling forth more erotic imagery, of pleasing him, of his pleasuring her in the most intimate and earth-shattering ways so that remembering produced a deep sensual throb in her lower body.
She opened her eyes. He was still watching her, his proud dark face flushed now from more than the heat of the fire.
‘You used to taste like this all over. Remember, Taylor? You gave me honey every time I took you to bed. Like a queen bee paralysing me with her sweetness until I could do nothing but surrender to your hold over me—and still I could never get enough of you.’
His voice trembled with the depth of his desire. If he had been trying to turn her on, he had succeeded, but only at the expense of his own self-possession. Without even looking at him she could tell he was aroused, and she found herself craving the demands of his rock-hard body. He would be big and ready to take her. Helplessly, she realised, she wanted him to do just that. Push her back against the rug and come down heavily on top of her, give her no choice but to submit to him so that she could drown in the ecstasy of his driving passion, sate this unbelievable need of him and not feel afterwards that she had relinquished her pride or determination to be free.
With every gram of her will, she dragged herself back from the brink of stupidity to say shakily, ‘But you didn’t love me.’
For a moment his fingers tightened around her slim hand.
‘Didn’t I?’ His lips had moved to play erotically over the perfumed flesh of her wrist, and yet the eyes that continued to hold hers were intensely probing, assessing, and as unfathomable as the darkest night.
‘Let me go.’
Surprisingly, he complied at once.
‘I’d better get some more logs in,’ he said heavily, getting to his feet, as though he were totally unaffected by what had just happened between them.
But he had been. And severely, Taylor thought, watching him scoop up the wicker basket and carry it back across the room.
Even so, it felt like another put-down. Like he had been testing her, she decided bitterly, her spirits lowering like the sudden drop in the room temperature as he went through the kitchen and opened the back door, letting in the biting air from outside.
They spent the rest of the day treading carefully around each other, treating each other with polite caution as though each was reluctant to delve too deeply into what the other might be thinking or feeling.
The first thing they did after Taylor had found enough scraps to feed the birds was to search the house for candles, finding the half-burned remains of one, still in its holder, in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
‘That isn’t going to last an evening!’ Taylor groaned despairingly, then found a whole boxful while she was looking in the electricity meter cupboard under the stairs.
‘So you won’t have to worry about being left in the dark with me after all,’ Jared commented dryly when she rushed eagerly back to the kitchen to acquaint him with her find.
Taylor didn’t respond, sensing that there was more than one meaning behind that outwardly innocuous remark but, apart from that, the day continued on an otherwise even course.
Wrapped up in warm layers, scarves and gloves, together they scraped the snow from the drive that sloped upwards alongside the house, making a clear path to the lane. Then Taylor beat the soft snow from the bonnet and roof of her car, opened the electrically operated door to the adjoining garage that was a later addition to the house, and climbed into her car with the intention of putting it away.
Unfortunately the little hatchback refused to comply immediately; coughing and spluttering each time she turned the ignition key.
‘Problems?’
Jared was beside her open door, big and capable, ready to lend a hand.
‘It’s just cold,’ she said, silently urging it to start, which, fortunately, it did after a bit of gentle coaxing with the ignition.
‘The drive’s treacherous. I’d leave it right where it is,’ he advised grimly.
‘No, I’d prefer to put it away.’ She didn’t like the thought of her car—her key to self-sufficiency—being left out in such extreme conditions.
‘Then perhaps you’d better let me do it,’ he suggested, looking every bit like taking over. ‘I intended to put it away last night but I’m afraid seeing you swept all my good intentions out of the window.’
‘I can manage,’ Taylor assured him firmly, deciding to ignore his comment as she pulled the door closed, shutting him out.
If he could do it, why couldn’t she? she thought, conscientiously steering the car towards the open garage.
Having never negotiated the drive before, however, she hadn’t reckoned on the unexpected swing to the left at the top of the incline, or the sheet of ice just outside the garage door.
Pressing her foot down on the accelerator, needing a few more revs to accommodate the slope, she had almost levelled up when the back wheels started to spin alarmingly.
Feeling the car starting to slide, she braked instinctively, but too hard, she realised too late, and with a sinking heart felt the back wheels pull away from her as the car skidded with an ominous scraping into the steel frame of the garage door.
‘Oh…!’ She swallowed the small invective, uncertain as to what hurt most as Jared rushed up to survey the damage, her loss of face or what she might have done to her car.
‘I’m afraid you’ve put a hell of a crease in the front wing,’ he called over his shoulder before moving back to open her door. ‘Good try,’ he breathed in a way that left her unsure as to whether he was praising her efforts or being sarcastic. ‘But you’d better let me take it from here.’
This time Taylor didn’t argue. If she had she could only have wound up making an even bigger fool of herself, she decided, and she was feeling bad enough as it was.
With banked resentment that she knew was totally unjustified, she watched him put the car into reverse gear, pull back and set it easily on a straight course into the garage, bringing it to a halt beside the dark gleaming lines of his own saloon.
Shoulders hunched, she was waiting on the drive as he used the remote