The Prospective Wife (16 page)

Well, why do you think he imagines you want to stay, girl? she asked herself crossly. To admire the décor? Still, you’ve managed to clear up any uncertainty on the subject; now he
knows
you’re besotted!

‘Good.’

Is that all he has to say? I’ve just offered myself up on a platter and he says,
Good!
Her bosom was swelling with a deep sense of misuse when Matt took a step towards her. Kat didn’t realise until the last second what he intended to do.

With a gentle tug at the stretchy fabric of her dress, he inserted the key neatly between her breasts. As his fingertips brushed against her skin the key was swallowed up by the twin mounds of firm creamy flesh.

‘Just so that we both know where it is should either of us change our mind.’

The eroticism of the gesture was just too much to take. Kat drew a painful shaky breath. There was a liquid warmness in the pit of her stomach and it was spreading… She gazed back at him, almost paralysed with lust, and discovered Matt’s gaze hadn’t made it beyond the outline of her brazenly distended nipples.

She couldn’t even take the faltering couple of steps backwards without being reminded that her physical arousal extended beyond her burning nipples. She was painfully conscious of the treacherous wetness between her legs as she moved. The cold metal between her breasts was losing its chill against her hot skin.

What had happened to the young woman who had walked into this house emotionally well balanced? Shielded from the excesses of the mating game by strong principles and high moral standards. How was it possible to want a man so much?

The back of her knees hit the bed…
his
bed. Someone had turned it down… The sight of the crisp cotton sheets made Kat’s out-of-control stomach muscles tighten another painful notch. She automatically avoided the business end of the bed—it just seemed a shame to spoil those pristine, unsullied sheets—and sat down heavily on the edge.

‘You shouldn’t have said those things to her,’ she persisted in a fretful tone. ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed.’ With a distracted sigh, she let her high-heeled sandals slip one by one to the floor.

Matt watched as she rubbed one set of pearly painted nails against the instep of her opposing foot.

‘Lighten up, Kat,’ he suggested indulgently. He wondered if it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he followed his own advice. Any male, barring those with legitimate foot fetishes, who was driven to distraction by the sight of a pretty ankle was getting way too intense!

The more laid back Matt got, the more uptight she felt and acted.

‘Lighten up?’
she echoed.
‘Lighten up?’
It was Matt’s turn to look pained as her voice rose shrilly. ‘My God, I’d have been perfectly justified if I’d walked out of here and left you…’

‘Aching?’

At the sound of his throaty interjection her eyelids flickered upwards his expression was frustratingly enigmatic.

‘I think we’ve already established you don’t want to leave, Kathleen.’

‘Aching?’ she echoed in a shocked voice.
‘Really?’

Oh, God, why don’t I just go write a sign across my forehead saying ‘needy and pathetic’?
Cringeworthy, or what?
Is this really me, so desperate to please a man…?

To her relief, Matt’s expression didn’t suggest her behaviour was in any way unusual.

‘Actually, Kathleen, I was being quite restrained. You ever seen a grown man cry like a baby?’ he added, in case she had missed the point he was trying to make.

Torn between tears and laughter, she felt her mobile lips wobble. ‘You don’t cry,’ she sniffed.

‘I can learn. In fact, I’ve been meaning to get in touch with my feminine side for some time now. On second thoughts, that might not be such a good idea… You might not believe this but I was mistaken for someone of the gay persuasion quite recently.’

Gnawing anxiously on her lower lip, Kat drew her knees up under her chin and, resting her chin on the shelf they formed, glared resentfully up at his perfect profile from under the dark curling sweep of her lashes.

‘All right, there’s no need to rub it in.’

It still embarrassed Kat no end that she’d assumed on such fragile evidence that the most rampantly
male
male she’d ever encountered was gay! Perhaps on some subconscious level her eagerness to embrace this preposterous conclusion had been partly due to her own reluctance to admit, even to herself, the effect he had had on her from the very first moment.

‘I think there’s every need. When a man has been traumatised the way I was…’

Kat hooted derisively. ‘Sure, you look very traumatised.’

Trauma she could deal with; heart-stopping gorgeousness was another matter. Have I fallen in love with a pretty face…? No, it was more than that…
much
more than that.

Matt inclined his head in smooth acknowledgement of the accusation. His magnificent shoulders lifted as he limped slowly but inexorably towards her.

Kat noisily cleared the congestion in her throat.

‘They’re probably all gossiping about us now. You weren’t exactly subtle,’ she babbled nervously.

‘You, on the other hand, looked like a kid who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.’

Her eyes made a swift head-to-toe survey of his tall rangy frame; she stifled an appreciative sigh—just. Some cookie…
some man!
Desire clawed deep inside and Kat licked her dry lips nervously.

‘You looked so damned guilty, I couldn’t resist,’ he admitted huskily.

‘You were obviously one of those little boys who spent many a long hour watching twitching flies expire!’ she complained, without all that much conviction. Privately, she thought Matt must have been a delicious little boy…

A dreamy expression drifted across her face. His sons would no doubt be equally appealing… Her eyes widened in alarm as she swiftly brought this line of speculation to an abrupt halt.

‘What does it matter if she knows?’

Kat realised that, as unlikely as it seemed, his bewilderment was totally genuine. She sniffed angrily and twitched restively at the thin shoulder-strap which insisted on crawling down her arm.

‘You might not care what people think…’

‘You catch on fast…’ he admired with restrained sarcasm.

‘But I do!’ she told him forcefully. Well, it was
meant
to be a forceful condemnation; what actually emerged from her painfully dry, aching throat was a whisper—a forceful whisper, but nonetheless a whisper.

‘Why? It’s a total waste of energy to worry about what other people think of you,’ he explained, delivering one of his ruthless charismatic smiles.

He made it sound so simple, and she supposed for him it was. ‘Easy for you to say,’ she snapped.

‘You should try it,’ he recommended casually.

‘A nice philosophy but not exactly practical. Most of us ordinary mortals don’t have your giant ego,’ she pointed out spikily.

The closer he got, the harder it got for her to concentrate on what he was saying. She felt a flare of panic when she did manage to decipher the words that were emerging from his achingly beautiful mouth.

‘Maybe you should be more concerned about what I think…?’

‘There seem to be plenty of folk anxious to jump when you click your fingers already!’ she observed disapprovingly.

‘I don’t snap my fingers.’

‘No, you just smile.’

He looked taken aback by the ferocity of her response. ‘You have a problem with my smile?’

A bigger one than you could ever suspect!

Matt’s expression grew impatient when she didn’t respond. ‘If you carry on like this, I’ll start to think you’re ashamed of sharing my bed.’

‘Maybe I am.’

The consequences of what she was about to do were far-reaching. Even if she put aside the emotional aspect of taking a lover whose only commitment was to pleasure—a lover, furthermore, she was desperately in love with—there was the fact she was about to sleep herself out of a job when her financial situation was dire.

His blue eyes grew cold with displeasure. Kat got the full force of that icy look and stubbornly swallowed the retraction which had sprung to her lips. How dared he glare at her that way?

‘Have you had a change of heart somewhere between the door and the bed…?’

Good question, Kat.

‘Is that what this is about?’ he persisted.

Kat had no idea what he was driving at.

His deep-set eyes were hard and expressionless as he scanned her face, but despite the aloof exterior Kat had the impression he’d mind a lot if she
had
changed her mind… Even the suggestion made her foolish heart soar.

It seemed an appropriate time for a brutal reminder. This was sex, plain and simple, and there was absolutely no excuse for her to dress it up as anything else. If this was going to happen, it was imperative she didn’t try and kid herself it meant anything deep and meaningful to Matt. In the long run it would be less painful, she told herself dully.

Matt was the one who seemed to feel the need to fill the lengthening silence.

‘I realise that most men you sleep with don’t need your support, quite literally, to get you into bed.’ His laughter held no humour as his eyes left her face to flicker downwards over his left leg. As his fingertips brushed against his thigh, his brooding expression conveyed a deep contempt for his own weakness. ‘But once I get horizontal I expect I’ll be able to give you value for money.’

It wasn’t the crudeness of his boast that brought the guttural sound of indignant denial to her lips, but rather the ridiculous and deeply insulting notion that she gave a damn about his injury.

‘That remains to be seen,’ she responded in a clear, confident voice.

As a cure for incipient self-pity, her bracing comment seemed to have done the trick. He looked at her with startled shock that was on the point of tipping over into indulgent amusement. Kat didn’t bother disguising the fact she felt smugly pleased she’d succeeded in surprising him.

She knew that if she wanted to scold him some more she’d have to be quick about it; once he grinned at her in that crinkly blue-eyed way she’d be as stern as marshmallow.

‘Since when,’ she demanded self-righteously, ‘was making love all about fitness levels?’ Since when did I become such an expert…? ‘Making love,’ she added knowledgeably, ‘isn’t about staying power. And you don’t have to be a contortionist to get it right.’ At least, I hope not.

Matt was staring at her in a fascinated fashion.

‘True,’ he replied gravely, ‘but I hope you won’t deny that neither do any harm.’ Under the satirical glare of his deep-set eyes, Kat blushed deeply. ‘Call me over-sensitive, but have I done something to make you mad?’

‘Beyond imply I’m shallow and silly enough to care about your scars,
not a thing,
’ she gritted acidly. ‘It’s not like I’d be seeing anything I haven’t seen before.’

‘What,
nothing!
Why, Kathleen, I’m shocked you peeked!’ he chided.

‘I didn’t!’ she squeaked.

Matt’s expression sobered before she could embarrass herself any more. ‘Whatever you’ve seen, Kathleen, you’ve seen it clinically.’ His faith in her willpower made Kat shift uneasily… If he knew the half of it! ‘Seeing it as a lover would be quite different.’

Hearing him refer to them as lovers sent a sharp thrill zinging through her body.

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ she responded boldly. ‘As for your stamina, how do you know I wouldn’t prefer you weak and at my mercy…?’

His smokily blue eyes glowed dangerously. ‘Guilty on both counts.’

‘Don’t be flippant.’

‘I’m not. Besides, you’re right.’

‘I am?’ Deflated, she stared back at him in a baffled, uneasy kind of way.

‘Beautiful women curled up on my bed are always right,’ he explained simply.

It was nothing but a slick meaningless nothing, the sort of patter he used when seducing the endless stream of women who occupied his bed on a temporary basis. Something inside her rebelled noisily. She didn’t want to be the same as the others; she wanted this to be different!

‘Don’t try and s-soft soap me, Matthew Devlin,’ she stuttered. Despite her protest, anticipation fluttered hotly deep in her belly. ‘Oh, God!’ she gasped suddenly.

Matt saw her eyes snap open, wide and contrite.

‘You’re not worried, are you…?’ She lowered her voice to a subdued whisper. ‘That you might not be able…that you can’t…?’ She coloured as she fished about clumsily for the words least likely to wound a delicate masculine ego. ‘Because if you are I’d be just as happy with a hug,’ she reassured him earnestly.

Matt let out a great shout of laughter that seemed to indicate her concerns were unfounded. He planted his hands on her shoulders to steady himself before he bent forward to kiss her in a masterly fashion on her parted lips. He drew her upwards and forward in such a manner that made it impossible for her not to notice his libido was in good working order.

By the time his dark head had lifted, Kat’s head was spinning dizzily. She sank back down onto the bed like a limp rag doll and pressed the back of her shaking hand to her swollen lips.

‘Happy with a hug…?’ He seemed to find this the best joke he’d heard in ages. ‘You’re a delicious little liar.’

‘I am not!’ She felt obliged to protest, even though she liked the sound of that ‘delicious’.

‘Are too.’ He displayed obvious pleasure at being offered the chance to echo her childish retort. ‘Don’t get me wrong, hugs are good in their own way, but I want much more than a hug from you. And we both know you’d be about as satisfied with a hug as I would be,’ he accused. ‘I appreciate your concern, but I think you might have taken a throwaway comment too much to heart. I don’t think I’d be the only man who didn’t feel particularly randy while he was recovering from multiple fractures.’

This wasn’t the sort of house where the bedsprings squeaked, so when Matt lowered his long lean frame onto the bed beside her there was nothing but silence, acres of dense, nerve-stretching silence.

‘And it wasn’t soft soap.’ His fingers closed firmly around her chin. ‘You are beautiful, and this is my bed.’ He wouldn’t permit her to evade his searching eyes.