intimacy they had established.
Perfectly attuned to her, Sander frowned as he switched his phone off. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he groaned.
Tally was hot and dizzy. Dismayed to see that her robe was hanging open, she wrapped it more securely round her and reknotted the sash. Her hands were trembling and she was breathing rapidly, her bemused thoughts in freefall but that fast she understood that what he had just made her feel was the biggest temptation she had ever withstood. And she knew that what they had both felt was almost frighteningly powerful. Her nipples were tight, hard and almost stinging in response and at the heart of her she was uncomfortably hot and damp with a desire that clawed at her every sense. The taste of him? He tasted so unbelievably good that she could only want more …
Sander extended a lean brown hand. ‘Come …’
‘No, don’t say it!’ Tally urged, backing off another defensive step, feeling ridiculously like a woman in danger of losing her immortal soul. ‘Goodnight, Sander.’
‘You’re not serious?’ Sander breathed incredulously as she reached the door.
‘Very serious.’ Her hand closed tightly round the door knob and she refused to take the chance to turn her head and look at him again. ‘I don’t want anything else to happen.’
As the door swung shut on her quick exit Sander swore in raw and angry disbelief below his breath. What was the matter with her? Was the cut and run response her concept of flirtation? He had never ever got so hot with a woman only to have her walk away from him, leaving him unsatisfied. Nor had he ever been so surprised by the power of a woman to attract him. The prospect of a cold shower to cool his urgently aroused body had zero attraction.
Tally went to check on Cosima and found her sound asleep on top of the bed. Slipping off her half-sister’s shoes, she arranged a throw over the younger girl and suppressed a sigh. She would not hold spite: tomorrow she would try harder to win Cosima’s trust and perhaps she would get the chance to persuade her sibling that she was not sharing her weekend with some kind of prison warder.
But as Tally crept into the room she was sharing and slid back below the duvet on her bed, she was most troubled on her own behalf. When it came to the male sex she had always believed that she was intelligent and sensible and she had, if she was honest, looked down on several of the impulsive romantic choices her mother, Crystal, had made over the years. Yes, she acknowledged shamefacedly, she had felt quite superior in that field, convinced that she would never do anything half so foolish, so possibly she had deserved to be shot down in flames for being smug and short-sighted.
She had thought she knew it all and learned that in truth she was no more sophisticated than a toddler when it came to men. One salient fact had escaped her. Until she had actually experienced a genuinely powerful attraction to a man, she had not known what she was talking about. In the space of twenty-four hours, Sander Volakis had taught her things about herself that she really hadn’t wanted to find out. Meeting Sander had proved to be a horribly humbling experience, she reflected ruefully. She had learned that just being near him could make her as giddy, hot and incapable of rational thought as an empty-headed adolescent. She had learned that she was human and fallible and capable of doing foolish things. She had also learned that refusing to give way to so strong a desire and practising self-denial could actually hurt.
Little wonder, then, that her mother had wrecked so many of her relationships by being unfaithful. Crystal Spencer had never said no to such an attraction when it came her way, had never put her current lover or indeed her child’s stability ahead of sexual temptation. Crystal had done as she liked, when she liked, and had often paid the price for it. But Tally had also paid a high price too.
On more than one occasion, a young Tally had become attached to one of her mother’s live-in boyfriends and that man’s subsequent sudden disappearance from her life had distressed and confused her. At a tender age she had decided that men weren’t reliable and that it was safer not to care for them. It was only when she was older, and with hindsight, that she’d had to admit it was her mother’s behaviour that had often destroyed those relationships.
In any case, getting involved with Sander Volakis would lead nowhere. At least, it would have led her upstairs to his bedroom tonight, she admonished herself, well aware of his intentions. And deferred pleasure was definitely not something Sander knew much about. They had kissed and both had liked it and wanted more, and Sander would’ve seen no reason why they shouldn’t immediately satisfy that desire. She had known exactly what was on his mind, had felt the urgency of his need against her and had recognised her own.
Maybe she was going to die a virgin, Tally thought in sudden horror, untouched by human hand and unwanted. Sander was too cool to chase her uphill and down dale in the hope that she might relent. Her sudden astounding desirability to a male of his looks and worldly status must just have been a fluke, one of those crazy inexplicable things.
Utterly crazy, she repeated doggedly to herself. They had nothing in common aside of the fact that she was Greek on her father’s side and Sander didn’t even know that because her father and his family were in no hurry to tell people who she was. She and Sander inhabited different worlds. By all accounts he was a wealthy highflying businessman while she was a student. How much did she even share with Cosima who came from that same exclusive world of privilege? Precious little, she acknowledged sadly.
Yet, wasn’t this supposed to be the stage of her life when she made mistakes and discovered who she really was? When she broke the rules and experimented? But jumping into bed with Sander Volakis would definitely be a big mistake. There would be no future with him and she would only get hurt. Did every relationship have to have a future? Did serious feelings always have to be involved? Was there no room for anything lighter and more temporary?
In her single bed, Tally tossed and turned and fought with herself. It wasn’t as though she wanted to fall in love and get married any time soon. It wasn’t as though she was daft enough to imagine that Sander even cherished any long-term intentions where she was concerned. Crystal Spencer’s daughter could not be that naïve for, as a teenager, she had often been mortified to meet some strange man at the breakfast table while her mother flirted happily with her overnight guest, impervious to her daughter’s embarrassment.
As it was dawn before Tally got to sleep, she awoke late. She was utterly disorientated when she was shaken to by Cosima the next day and discovered that it was already the afternoon.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she mumbled, pushing her tumbled curls off her brow and sitting up. ‘How long have you been up?’
Her sibling was infuriatingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a young woman who had gone to bed under the influence of alcohol. ‘Long enough to play a couple of games of tennis this morning and then have lunch. Now the men are off on a shoot and we’re going shopping, so you had better get up—’
‘Shopping? Why?’ Tally responded, pushing back the duvet.
‘That question says it all, Tally. There is no such thing as why when it comes to shopping!’ Cosima told her. ‘There’s a big party here tonight and you can’t possibly wear that cheap LBD again, and I want something new as well.’
‘About last night …’ Tally began awkwardly.
‘Don’t preach,’ Cosima urged with a steely look. ‘But I do owe you an apology for this room—it’s a dive.’
Tally absorbed the younger woman’s grimace at the faded walls and worn furniture deemed suitable for staff rather than guests and laughed. ‘It’s not that bad. What happened to Chaz last
