Determinedly Melissa asked questions about the country’s northernmost area, slowly relaxing while they picked up the strands of conversation.
By the end of the evening those oddly tense moments had been smoothed over, although Melissa knew she wasn’t ever going to forget them. He fascinated her, his incisive intelligence stimulating her into a conversation that almost—but not quite—blotted out her overwhelming physical response to his formidable, almost arrogant male authority.
But she took the first chance to get away, saying with what she feared was a too obviously regretful note in her voice, ‘I’ve had a lovely evening, but I should be going.’
He didn’t try to dissuade her, rising to his feet in a swift, lithe movement. ‘I’ll see you to your room.’
‘Oh, no,’ she protested. ‘There’s no need. It’s not far away—just in the staff quarters on the other side of the building, and I can walk through the lodge to get there.’
‘So?’ he said, and smiled at her, and the urgent, driving beat of sexual attraction blazed bright and hungry through her body.
Because she didn’t trust her voice, she contented herself with a half-shrug and a nod of acceptance.
The summons of the telephone startled both of them. He frowned. ‘Excuse me. That will be an emergency.’
‘I’ll wait outside.’
‘Nonsense.’
But she walked through the door into the wide corridor that joined the suite to the rest of the lodge. The lighting was muted to showcase the immeasurable splendour of the scenery, so she pretended to study the mountains while she waited.
Hawke joined her less than a minute later, carrying her jacket. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, dark eyes unreadable.
‘I hope it wasn’t a real emergency.’
He shrugged and said obliquely, ‘Time will tell.’
Instead of handing her the jacket, he held it out for her to put on. Swift blood scorched her skin and she felt profoundly grateful for the dim lights. How many other women had shivered with pleasure and heady anticipation at the closeness the small, intimate courtesy allowed?
Plenty, she thought scornfully.
He said, ‘Are you cold? I’d rather walk outside than through the lodge.’
So they wouldn’t be seen?
Stop this right now, she commanded that cynical little voice inside her. He’s been perfectly polite the whole evening and now he’s going to make sure you get back to your lonely bed because he’s a protective alpha male. That’s all.
‘I’m not in the least cold,’ she told him brightly.
Together they walked out into the night, its spring crispness tempered by a hint of the summer to come. Melissa glanced up, startled to see Hawke scan the grounds with the swift, far-from-cursory survey of a warrior.
‘It’s perfectly safe here,’ she protested.
‘Nowhere is perfectly safe,’ he told her as he took her arm. ‘The world is full of predators.’
She shivered, partly because his touch fired every nerve cell in her body, but also because she knew he was right. Although she’d never been forced to endure a bodyguard’s constant presence, after Gabe and Sara cancelled their engagement her life had been made hideous by importunate reporters and photographers whenever she’d set foot outside the campus.
She loved the feeling of anonymity in this distant corner of the world.
‘The security is excellent,’ she reassured him.
‘It had better be,’ he said uncompromisingly.
Silently they walked beside the lake until she indicated the screen of trees that hid the staff quarters from the main lodge. ‘My temporary home. Thank you for a very pleasant evening.’
In spite of the prosaic subject, her voice sounded too low and breathy.
A breeze swept over the lake, bearing the scent of this uplifted land with it—the cool savour of green rainforest, of ancient rocks and snow, of distance and isolation. Illyrian mountains had been traversed by men for untold thousands of years; humankind had left their stamp on their flanks, wearing tracks, cutting forests, making farms. Until less than a thousand years previously these southern mountains had known only the call of birds and the sounds of wind and water.
Melissa shivered, awed by the sublime indifference of the natural world to the small creatures who thought they ruled it.
‘You’re cold,’ Hawke said, and released her so he could shrug out of his jacket. Before she realised what he intended to do he dropped it around her shoulders.
‘No, no,’ she said, confused and charmed, trying to struggle free of its warmth and that sexy, purely male scent that set her pulse skipping. ‘It’s only a short distance—I’ll be fine.’
Hard hands clamped onto her shoulders. He didn’t hurt her, just showed her his strength. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said as though speaking to a child.
‘But you’ll get cold,’ she protested, adding foolishly, ‘And you’re a guest here!’
He laughed softly, the reflected starshine from the lake highlighting the forceful contours of his face.
‘Under this sky that doesn’t matter at all,’ he said, uncannily echoing her thoughts of a few minutes previously.
Something in his tone stopped the breath in her throat. With a stripped, ruthless smile that set her heart pounding, he finished, ‘To the mountains I’m just a man. And you’re a woman.’
Astonishment and a keen, fierce anticipation froze Melissa. Wide-eyed and incredulous, she watched him bend his head, only closing her eyes when she was certain that he was going to kiss her.
His mouth was warm and seducing. Unable to think, she held her breath, her lips softening without volition under the light pressure of his.
Later she thought that neither of them moved during those first seconds. She was aware of a turmoil of sensation—the comfort of his jacket around her shoulders, the heat of his mouth on hers contrasting with the freshness of the air, the subtle clamour of desire in her blood.
And then everything was consumed in a surge of frantic, almost agonised need.
Hawke lifted his mouth, but only for a fraction of a second. Before she had time to anticipate rejection he gathered her close against his big, athletic body and his mouth came down on hers again.
He took the kiss with an intensity of hunger that plunged her into a world she’d never experienced—a place of stark, raw passion that shut down everything but the primal urge to lose herself in it. For the first time in her life Melissa understood desperation.
Everything dwindled, narrowing to focus on this man and the heated, dangerous sensations his kisses summoned from her eager body. She couldn’t have resisted even if she’d wanted to; her bones had dissolved and the only thing she wanted was to stay locked like this in Hawke’s arms.
But eventually he raised his head and rested his forehead on hers. The sound of his breathing mingled with hers, harsh and impeded as though they’d run a marathon.
In a rough, driven voice, he said, ‘If we don’t stop this right now I’m going to make a huge mistake.’
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