a strong, long-fingered hand.
Even though Sanchia had always known she’d been merely a summer diversion, his acceptance of her abrupt decision to leave had shattered some vulnerable part of her. For a couple of months—oh, why not admit it? For at least a year!—she’d hoped that he might care enough to follow her. But he hadn’t.
This, however, was different; this was business, and he wanted more than her untried body.
Great-Aunt Kate had always said that a gentleman waited until a woman indicated she wanted to shake hands. If the slow, heart-shaking smile Caid gave her was any indication, his mother had taught him the same thing, but his hand remained steadily out-thrust until Sanchia reluctantly put hers into it.
He didn’t mash her bones together as some men did, and neither did his clasp linger, yet the touch of those lean, powerful fingers reached all the way to secret places inside her body, sent a mysterious knowledge shivering through her.
Damn, she thought frantically. Oh, damn! It was happening again, and even though she knew her response was a pathway to disillusionment, she couldn’t control it.
When he released the swift, sure pressure, it felt like deliverance and abandonment at the same time.
Sanchia’s weighted lashes lifted. He wasn’t smiling; his blue gaze was fixed on her mouth. Beads of sweat sprang out at her temples, dampened her palms.
Lazily, almost noiselessly, he murmured, ‘I have an odd desire to see my name on your lips, to hear your throaty, summery voice say it again.’
Caid wondered how she’d respond to the open provocation in his tone, his words, even as he wondered what the hell had got into him.
No, he knew what had got into him. From the moment he’d watched her long, long, superb legs unfold from the car he’d been ridden by a need so brutal he’d barely been able to control his own mind.
Not that his mind had much to do with this elemental aberration prowling his body with all the deadly determination of a tiger on the hunt. Why didn’t she take off her sunglasses? By hiding those exotic green eyes, the dark lenses concentrated his attention on her luscious mouth.
What would it taste like now? What would she taste like? Incredulously he realised that his skin was tightening in a primitive warning, his muscles flexing in readiness. Fighting to subdue the hunger that threatened to drown his intelligence in a flood of lust, he waited for her reply.
It came with an infuriating dignity that should have quenched the heat gathering in his groin. With a return of the baffled frustration only she aroused, he remembered anew the way she’d taken refuge behind a distant, self-contained remoteness.
‘Caid,’ she said coolly. ‘Satisfied?’
‘No, but I’ll settle for your signature on an option form,’ he said, watching her intently.
That enticing mouth compressed as she hesitated.
Cynically aware that he’d left himself open to an attempt at extortion, he waited. It would be interesting to see what she’d do if he offered her a good lump sum of money right now.
His eyes skimmed her clothes, read chainstore. Such an exquisite body should be draped in silk. And there had to be something wrong with that elderly car. Was she a woman to be seduced by instant money?
No; if she was, she’d have slept with him three years previously.
Even as he wondered about the rush of altruism to his brain, he drawled, ‘I would, of course, pay for that assurance.’
She paused, her square chin lifting a fraction. ‘What’s the going rate for an option?’
A dollar.
Negligently, his tone casual and off-hand, he mentioned a sum of money—enough, he guessed, to give her a considerable jolt.
She took her time to answer, turning her head to survey the beach. A neat profile, but not exactly beautiful, not even pretty, although her features were fine and regular. Caid had always liked cool, restrained women, but what stirred his hormones when he looked at Sanchia Smith was the repressed passion he knew existed beneath that reserve.
With her black hair shimmering around her shoulders, pale, translucent skin and a mouth that had summoned forbidden fantasies, she’d always looked fey, enchanted—like a perilously exotic woman from the ancient fairy stories. Now, in old shorts, and a damp T-shirt moulded to small, high, tantalising breasts, that potent, sensuous bloom had turned into something that caught his breath.
Caid found himself wondering if she was still a virgin. It didn’t seem likely, and why should he care? He’d never demanded virginity from his lovers.
God, what the hell was he thinking? This was business, not sex! Get your mind, he commanded grimly, above your belt.
It was impossible to tell what was going on inside her head until in a crisp, no-nonsense voice, she said, ‘That’s a lot of money for nothing.’
Something in her tone, in her square shoulders and tilted chin, reminded Caid of the teenager who’d looked past him and through him, over him and around him—anywhere but at him. Need burning in his gut, he heard her say, ‘I’ll sign an option if it will make you happy, but I’m still not selling.’
An X-rated fantasy of her making him happy, in full colour and with sound and kinaesthetic effects, blocked Caid’s thought processes. Angry at the effort it took to reimpose control, he said curtly, ‘Think it over before you make a decision.’
‘I don’t need to think anything over because I’ve already made the decision.’
At last she turned towards him, face shuttered against him as she waited for him to go. For a split second he toyed with the idea of helping her unpack, but much more of this and his clamouring body would betray him.
‘I’ll bring the papers down this evening,’ he said.
No doubt, Sanchia thought, you didn’t get to be a big-time tycoon unless you were prepared for everything. ‘You travel with option forms?’ she asked ironically. ‘It’s the holidays, if you remember, and every solicitor in New Zealand is at the beach until at least halfway through January.’
‘I always have options,’ he said. Some underlying note in his voice caught her attention as he finished crisply, ‘So I’ll see you tonight.’
CHAPTER TWO
SANCHIA stood motionless until Caid’s imperious presence had disappeared into the green gloom of the pohutukawa trees. Expelling her breath with a whoosh that spun her brain, she muttered, ‘Oh, hell!’
It had been too much to hope fate would make sure their visits to the Bay didn’t coincide.
With jerky, abrupt movements she bent to haul the nearest carton out of the car, fighting a powerful, irresistible tug at her senses. One look at Caid and it had all come pouring back—the heady, dangerous compound of desire and longing and abject, hidden terror.
As she walked across the grass to the bach and dumped the groceries down on the lid of the gumboot box she thought stoutly that she was better able to deal with it now
