gaze fell to her swollen breasts, heaving with each shallow, gasping breath, the tightly furled nipples prominent against the thin cotton. His eyelids lowered, covering the glitter of savage satisfaction.
‘I think your body begs to differ,’ he murmured.
She wanted to wrap her arms over her chest and shield herself from his knowing eyes, but knew it would be seen as an indication of weakness. ‘My brain is what runs my life, my body doesn’t get a vote,’ she said proudly.
His mouth curved sardonically as he took a step forward. ‘Oh, no?’
She threw up a desperate, staying hand. ‘I don’t want you touching me!’
He obediently halted, and looked ruefully down at himself, hooking a casual thumb in the empty belt-loop of his crumpled trousers. ‘Well, I guess you can see what I want …’
In spite of the fact she knew it was an intentional goad, she couldn’t help following his gaze to the bold erection outlined by the white fabric pulled taut over his groin. Just looking at it made her feel hot and dizzy and her lips parted as she sucked in a gulp of sluggish air. To her fevered shock his hand dropped from his belt-loop to adjust the stiffened bulge, easing it to one side of his zip, allowing her to see the outline visibly growing thicker under her fascinated stare.
Cheeks flaming cherry-red, her eyes ripped guiltily back to his face, to find his eyes lying tauntingly in wait.
‘Sorry, but I was afraid I was in danger of permanent damage from the teeth of that zip,’ he said with extravagant insincerity. ‘Of course, if it was your teeth around me I’d consider it well worth the risk. It’s something we never got around to, but I’m anticipating that might change. You were rather looking at me as if you’d like to eat me up …’
Shock nailed her to the spot. ‘I was not! I wouldn’t—I’ve never—’ Her mouth snapped shut as his sultry expression changed to one of electrified curiosity.
‘Never?’
She gave him an excoriating look and stalked to stand beside the door.
When she turned to indicate she was waiting for him to leave he was looking after her with a certain amount of awe, and a sizzling speculation that raised the fine hairs on her arms. He stood for a moment, then reluctantly began to move towards the door. As he came level with her rigid figure he paused to murmur:
‘You’ve really, never—?’
‘Could you leave now?’ Veronica interrupted with clipped emphasis.
‘Have none of your other lovers—?’
She lifted her chin. ‘Will you please get out!’
She could feel his eyes running possessively over her body. ‘Maybe they’ve just been incompetent, because you certainly liked it when I—’
‘Would you just go!’ she hastily cut him off before he started to brag. Men! When you wanted them to talk they were infuriatingly sullen and uncommunicative and when you wanted them to shut up they were relentless!
‘OK, I’m going … but bear in mind I’m the boy next door,’ he reminded her in a husky drawl that was like sandpaper against her frayed nerves. ‘I can be over in a flash if you need me for any reason whatsoever …’
‘I won’t,’ she bit out.
Her defiant certainty earned her a dark chuckle. ‘Wait and see. The nights here are long and hot, especially if you have something on your mind that might make you feel restless and prone to feverish dreams. Feel free to come and get me if you’re tossing and turning sleeplessly in your lonely bed tonight, and decide you want company for a midnight skinny-dip or an intimate friend to run a dripping wet ice cube over every delectable dip and hollow of your hot, naked body …’
And while she was coping with that highly disturbing image he archly informed her that his room was the one over the arched portico they had seen when they walked around by the pool, with a separate entrance up the stone stairway flanked with urns and discreetly placed solar lights.
‘So you don’t have to go tiptoeing in through the house peering into all of the bedrooms to find me,’ he said silkily. ‘Although, come to think of it, tiptoeing out of bedrooms is actually your specialty!’
She was annoyed with herself for letting him get the last word, but she was even more annoyed for allowing him to get under her skin to the extent that she spent a very sweaty, wakeful night, getting up several times to spray cold water on her skin and take a drink from the bottle in the fridge, longing to shed her sprigged cotton boxers and matching singlet top but unable to bring herself to sleep naked when he was crouched in the shadows of her subconscious, poised to pounce whenever she closed her eyes.
How smug he would be to know he had succeeded in making her dream about him, she thought crankily as she showered away the stickiness of the endless night and shimmied into a short, floral-patterned sundress.
The clock-tower tolled a single bell for the half-hour and she decided that six-thirty was possibly a little early to stroll up to the village to buy croissants for her breakfast, so she made herself a cup of tea and drank it out on the patio as she brushed her newly washed hair, listening to the pigeons cooing in the trees, soaking up the gentle warmth of the early sun as it climbed into azure sky.
She debated sending another patient text question to Karen about her plans, even though it would still be the middle of the night on Grand Bahama Island, which was where she was headed last time they communicated. Since her island-hopping sister seemed to be permanently switched to answering-phone mode there was little point in planning a call around the six-hour time difference, and so far Veronica had had to be content with a few intermittent texts from Karen, largely featuring the word ‘cool’.
Of course, once Karen got here Veronica wouldn’t have to worry about Lucien. He wasn’t likely to continue his private game of seduction when she had her sister around to act as a buffer.
He had already met Karen, but perhaps he had forgotten how very beautiful she was, thought Veronica broodingly as she deftly braided her hair into a neat French plait that would fit comfortably under her straw hat. Lucien would probably take one look at the two of them together and realise he was going after the wrong sister.
The idea made her chest tighten. She might try to dismiss his attentions as empty flattery in the pursuit of lecherous self-interest, but some kernel of hope inside her still sheltered the daring notion that he truly found something special about her …
She took her keys but she didn’t need to unlock the gate and realised why as she rounded the corner of the vineyard and saw Melanie and Sophie walking ahead of her, Sophie swinging a large woven basket.
Veronica increased her pace to catch up. ‘Hi, are we both going to the same place?’
‘We’re going to the boulangerie to get our bread while Dad’s making scrambled eggs for breakfast,’ reported Sophie gravely.
‘And Luc’s gone on ahead to the lavoir by the village square to get our drinking water,’ added Melanie, explaining that St Romain was one of the very rare local villages whose historic, spring-fed fountain with its stone clothes-washing trough provided safe drinking water from its horizontal spout. ‘People come
