She moved slightly closer to him on the bench-seat. ‘If you really want to give me a present…’ she prompted breathlessly.
‘Yes?’ The slightly up-and-down movement of his chest as he breathed almost brought him into contact with her breasts.
She blinked once, closer still. ‘You could kiss me,’ she encouraged huskily.
He moved back slightly. ‘No, Lise, I—–’ He couldn’t protest any more because she had launched herself into his arms, her arms about his neck as she kissed him with all the love inside her she had just discovered for him.
It was wonderful, his lips warm and firm beneath her own. She clung to him mindlessly, totally unprepared for the way his hand dug into her nape as he threaded his fingers into her plait there and dragged her painfully away from him.
His eyes glittered down into hers, his mouth a taut line. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he rasped.
Consternation washed over her as she became completely aware of exactly what she had done. This man was here as Fergus’s guest, had shown her politeness but nothing else, and she had just thrown herself at him!
His expression softened as he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. ‘You should have waited for the invitation, little one,’ he told her softly. ‘This is the way I like to kiss.’ He gently parted her lips before lowering his head to hers, the way he kissed so much more than the tight-lipped caress she had given him.
As his lips continued to move against hers she felt as if she had become a part of him, melded to him, following his lead, realising that until this moment she had known nothing about a kiss at all. She felt as if she were being consumed!
He moved back abruptly as Fergus and Terri could be heard returning up the stairs. ‘Happy birthday,’ he murmured gruffly, standing up to move away from her, his hands thrust into his denims pockets as he stared out across the countryside.
‘Think you’ll be able to stand the quiet for another couple of weeks?’ Terri drawled, moving to stand next to him, handing him an open can of beer.
He turned to her slightly. ‘I was brought up in Alberta, on a wheat farm my parents refuse to leave. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being a country boy,’ he added a little wistfully.
Lise just sat and watched him, his profile firm and dominant in the last of dusk’s shadows. Her heart was pounding, her hands trembling. Quinn Taylor had just kissed her. Oh, she had asked him to, and the first time she had taken the initiative, but that last kiss Quinn had controlled completely. If Fergus and Terri hadn’t returned when they had…
‘Here you are, Squirt.’ Fergus handed her a can of Coke, sitting beside her on the piano bench. ‘Mum says you ought to be going in,’ he added regretfully. ‘You have an early start in the morning.’
She looked uncomfortably at Quinn, but he was still staring out into the rapidly darkening night. Maybe he hadn’t heard her being ordered to bed as if she were still a little girl; she certainly hoped so!
But her aunt was right about the early start. She had been helping her uncle with his summer crops during her break between finishing school and starting college when the new term began. Farm work was long and hard, but her uncle needed the help, and the money he was able to pay her was more than welcome. Just last week she had bought another Quinn Taylor album with some of her wages.
‘I’ll go in now,’ she nodded, smoothing down her dress as she stood up. ‘Goodnight, Terri,’ she called to the other girl. ‘Goodnight—Quinn.’ She refused to call him Mr Taylor after he had kissed her so thoroughly.
The bleakness left his eyes as he turned to her. ‘Goodnight, Lise,’ he returned gruffly.
She smiled at him shyly. ‘I—I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He nodded abruptly, his expression giving away none of his thoughts.
‘How about a kiss goodnight, Squirt?’ Fergus teased as she would have turned to leave.
For a moment she looked at Quinn blankly, and then she realised Fergus wanted her to kiss him goodnight, not the other man.
‘Of course.’ Embarrassed colour darkened her cheeks as she bent to kiss her cousin on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, Fergus.’ She smiled at him shakily.
‘’Night, button.’ He returned the smile.
She and Fergus had always been the best of friends, her cousin feeling none of the resentment towards her that so many other children might have done when a new baby suddenly invades their home, especially as that baby wasn’t actually a brother or sister. Or maybe it was because of that, because he had always realised she would never usurp his place with his parents. Whatever the reason Fergus had always loved her, always protected her. He couldn’t possibly realise that he had just introduced her to the biggest danger she had ever known in her young life!
She was in love, irrevocably, and Quinn hadn’t kissed her as if he hated her either.
Her aunt and uncle were still in the lounge, and she bade them a dreamy goodnight, making her way slowly up to bed, glancing longingly towards the closed door of the guest bedroom that she knew Quinn would be occupying later tonight. Only a wall would separate them, her room next to his. Would he think of her, and that kiss they had shared, as she thought of him?
Quinn Taylor, the man she had fantasised about for years, had kissed her, actually kissed her, Lise Morrison.
No one would ever believe it. She didn’t believe it!
She danced around her bedroom in delight, as light as a butterfly, for once not minding that she was so tiny, and not quite as slim as she might have been. Quinn hadn’t seemed to mind, so why should she?
Of course, if he wanted her to slim, she would. She would do anything he wanted her to, anything. She belonged to him now, wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. And he wanted her too, she was sure of it.
She danced around the bedroom again, singing to herself, feeling as light as air, discarding one nightdress after another as she realised each was too childish for her to wear. She wasn’t a child any longer, she was a woman, and in future she was going to act and dress like one.
The first thing she was going to do was throw out all her old clothes, she couldn’t go around looking like a child when a man like Quinn Taylor wanted her.
As a first step towards changing the clothes she wore she wasn’t going to wear anything to sleep in in future; sleeping nude certainly ought to be mature enough!
She came to an abrupt halt as she wondered if Quinn slept nude too, her heart pounding in her chest as she envisaged him lying beneath a sheet, his nakedness clearly defined beneath the flimsy covering. His skin would be dark; the little she had seen of it had been. He would be tanned all over, firm flesh, taut muscles, with a feline beauty. She had goose-bumps just thinking about Quinn lying in bed!
She moved to the window, her bedroom overlooking the yard, staring across at the music-room, able to see Quinn as he laughed and talked with Fergus and Terri. He would be coming to bed soon himself, for the three of them were even now clearing up the debris from the evening.
Lise was filled with such a longing to be with Quinn tonight, wanted him so badly she trembled at the thought of lying in his arms. But Terri would be sharing her room for the night, and she dared not risk the other woman realising she had gone to Quinn. Perhaps after Terri had gone to Fergus…
She deliberately pretended to already be asleep when the other girl came to bed, keeping her back firmly turned towards the room, knowing that once Terri was sure no one would hear her she would creep across the hallway to Fergus’s room for the night. Her aunt and uncle wouldn’t hear of Fergus sleeping with his girlfriend under their roof, but Lise had known for some time that Terri crept out of their bedroom as soon as she was sure the rest of