‘Disgusting?’ He smiled and her blood ran cold. ‘What’s disgusting about this?’ he murmured, and bent his head.
Peta froze as his mouth drifted across one cheekbone. The elusive male scent that was his alone acted like an aphrodisiac on her, switching off her brain to leave her with no protection from the clamouring demands of desire except a basic instinct of self-preservation.
‘I am not a prostitute,’ she said thickly.
The ugly word hung between them. He laughed softly and said against her ear, ‘If you were I wouldn’t be doing this…’ His mouth moved to the lobe of her ear and he bit gently.
An erotic charge zinged through her, firing every cell into urgent craving.
‘…or this,’ he finished, and his mouth reached the frantic pulse in the hollow of her throat. He kissed it, and then lifted his mouth a fraction so that his breath blew warm on her sensitised skin. ‘And your heart wouldn’t be jumping so wildly.’
Tormented delight clamoured through her like a storm. Peta couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell him to stop using mock tenderness in his subtle, knowledgeable seduction.
She quivered, lost in a rush of desire that burned away the last coherent thought in her brain. Sighing against his lips, she opened her mouth to his.
The other kisses they’d exchanged faded into insignificance; she sensed a difference in him, a darker, deeper hunger beyond the simple desire of man for woman. It fuelled her anticipation into a raging inferno. She shuddered when his hand smoothed up from her waist, coming to rest over the soft mound of her breast. Hot, primeval pleasure burst into life inside her, aching through her body, softening internal pathways, melting her bones…
His touch felt so right, she thought recklessly, linking her arms around his neck and offering him her mouth. She’d been born for this dangerous magic, spent the empty years of her adult life waiting for it.
Eagerly expectant, she held her breath while tension spun between them in the taut, humming silence. Ravished by the pressure of his big, hard body against hers, the powerful strength of his arms, she at last surrendered to her own needs.
His heart thudded against hers, his chest rose and fell, and his arms were hard and demanding around her. Yet he didn’t move.
With immense reluctance she forced her heavy lids upwards.
Curt’s face was clamped into an expression she didn’t recognise; his eyes glittered and a streak of colour outlined the high, sweeping cheekbones.
Her stomach dropped in endless freefall, and she knew what he was going to say. Humiliated, she tried to turn her face away.
He said something under his breath and his mouth took hers again, hard and fierce and angry, only breaking the kiss to say harshly, ‘Not now. Not while Liz is waiting.’
Oh, God, no! She whispered, ‘Then what was that about?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, understanding the real question behind the words. He released her and stood with a face like stone, withdrawn to some inner place she could never reach.
She took a jagged indrawn breath, but before she could say anything he spoke again, the raw note banished from his voice.
With a remote deliberation that slammed up impassable barriers, he said, ‘I have no excuse; I lost my head. It won’t happen again.’
It took all her willpower to step back, to look straight at him. ‘Do I have your word on that?’
‘Yes.’
Her skin tightened; a heavy weight of loss overwhelmed her. She had to search for a response, and in the end all she could find was a banal, ‘Good.’
Curt looked around the bedroom and said with formidable composure, ‘An essential part of this masquerade is wearing the right clothes. I’m prepared to pay for them. If you don’t agree to that our bargain is over.’
He didn’t threaten; he didn’t need to. That cold, ruthless tone, his implacable face told her that if she reneged on their deal she’d find herself with no farm, no way of earning her living—nothing.
‘Very well,’ she said stonily. ‘But when I leave here the clothes will stay.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s entirely up to you. I’ll go and tell Liz you’ll be ready in ten minutes.’
In the sanctuary of the bathroom, all marble and mirrors and glimmering glass, Peta eyed her reflection. Completely out of place in this cool, sleek sophistication, the woman in the glass blazed with a sensuous earthiness, her mouth kissed red and sultry eyes shooting gold sparks.
Even her hair was wild—she looked as though she’d been plugged into an electric socket.
After fumbling with the taps she ran cold water over her wrists and washed her face, then dragged a comb through her hair and with a vicious twist tightened the tie that dragged it off her face.
Another survey of her reflection convinced her that she’d managed to tone down the telltale sensuality and hunger. Now she just looked…charged, energised, as though she was hurrying eagerly forward to the future.
As though she was in control of her life, she thought hollowly.
At the top of the stairs she heard voices floating up from below; they fell silent when she started down. She swallowed and held her head high, taking each step carefully as Curt watched her with an expression that gave nothing away. Liz followed his gaze, her mobile face registering a moment of comprehension before it too went blank.
Acutely self-conscious, Peta reached the bottom and came towards them.
‘You’re ready?’ Liz said, then gave a short laugh. ‘Stupid question. So let’s roll.’
‘Be back here at five,’ Curt said, walking beside Peta towards the open front door. ‘Don’t let them hack into her hair.’
Shocked, Peta glanced over her shoulder. He was looking at the woman beside her.
‘Of course not,’ Liz said with a frown. ‘It would be a wicked sin. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’
Curt transferred his gaze to Peta. ‘Have fun.’
Peta’s eyes focused somewhere beyond and above his broad shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ she said on a note of irony, and she and the other woman went out into the summer sunlight.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ Liz invited as she drove through Auckland’s crazy traffic.
‘I’m twenty-three,’ Peta said, wondering why she needed to do this. ‘I work my own farm and I lead a pure and wholesome life.’
Liz laughed. ‘Not if you stick with Curt for long,’ she warned. ‘He’s a course in sophistication all on his own. Who’s your favourite author?’
‘Only one?’
‘Run through them, then.’
Peta began with Jane Austen and finished with her latest discovery from the library, adding, ‘And I love reading whodunnits and romances.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Liz said cheerfully. ‘OK, so you’re a romantic. What do you do for a hobby? What flowers do you have in your garden? Or is it only vegetables?’
The vegetable garden had been her father’s domain, one she kept up for economy’s sake. Flower gardens, he’d said, were a waste of precious time. ‘I have three hibiscus bushes and a gardenia in a pot by the front door. As for hobbies, I sew. Every so often I knit.’ When she’d saved enough money to buy the wool.
Liz’s brows shot up. ‘Interesting. You could be a casual or a romantic, but my guess is that you’re one of the rare people who can wear several looks. We’ll see.’