answer his golden eyes transmitted the kind of simmering heat reserved for burning embers, and the raw, impassioned hunger Kit saw reflected there was impossible to ignore. Her slender thighs, clad in black leggings beneath a matching roomy sweater, clenched defensively together. But in truth she knew she was on a hiding to nothing. A shiver convulsed her slender frame. If she hoped to be able to ride out the merciless electric storm confronting her, then it was already clear she was odds-on to lose.
‘I’m not in pain, but if I was the only thing that would help ease it is you, Kit.’
Her eyes widening, she replied tremulously, ‘Don’t say that—at least not in that way. You hired me to work for you. Nothing else. I would never jeopardise my job by—by...’ Embarrassingly, she ran out of the ability to finish her sentence.
Lifting a wry eyebrow, Hal sighed. It didn’t help Kit’s case that the gesture made him look irresistibly endearing...almost boyish.
‘What you’ve said is true,’ he said. ‘But in the past couple of days I’ve developed feelings for you that go beyond just wanting you to work for me and they won’t go away. I may have a broken leg, but that doesn’t stop me from having the same needs as any other able-bodied red-blooded man.’
Curling her hair behind her ear, Kit knew it was a delaying tactic, but still she asked softly, ‘Exactly what kind of needs are we talking about?’
‘Scoot up next to me and I’ll tell you. Better still, I’ll demonstrate.’
‘No.’
‘Come on. I dare you. I want to try an experiment.’
She wanted to say something...anything. But forming words seemed impossible when her mouth had suddenly gone dry as sand and her tongue didn’t respond in tandem with her brain. Hal Treverne had put her in a dizzying spin and it wasn’t a state she was familiar with. She’d frequently anguished about her mother not having any common sense when it came to men, but where was hers now, when she needed it? Perhaps more than she’d ever needed it before?
Moistening her suddenly dry lips with her tongue, she made herself ask, ‘What kind of experiment are you talking about?’
Hal’s glance was unwaveringly direct.
‘I want to kiss you, Katherine with a K. Properly this time. And I want you to kiss me back. If neither of us enjoy the experience then there’s no harm done. We’ll simply carry on as before. I want to reassure you that there’s no danger of your job being jeopardised. I give you my word on that. You’ll stay until our arrangement naturally comes to an end—when I’m completely mobile again. Agreed?’
The silence that followed this inflammatory statement was deafening.
Hal was gesturing for Kit to move closer, and when she gazed back into his eyes the sight was akin to gazing into a mirage of mesmerising crystal waters after she’d stumbled through a burning hot desert without hope of ever having a drink again.
How could she possibly ignore the chance that her mirage might turn out to be a genuine vision and that it would save her life if she drank from it?
She reached out her hand to slide it over Hal’s. His skin was silkily smooth and warm, as it always was. But this time she had permission to actively enjoy the experience—not just tend to his practical needs as she normally did.
With a heated, lazy smile he tugged her hand to bring her close into his side. Before Kit even had time to gasp he’d pushed aside the heavy fall of her hair and laid his palm against her nape. Everything tingled. Then he hungrily drew her head towards his. Any opportunity or desire for further conversation disappeared abruptly the instant he touched his lips to hers. The texture of them was like the most seductive velvet and they tasted like nectar.
When Hal’s tongue dived into her mouth and duelled with hers pleasure such as she’d never known before suffused her—a delight so intensely hot and sensual that it was like a tropical storm descending out of a summer sky. Its sudden surprising appearance gave her no chance to find shelter. The only thing she could do was surrender, give herself up to its fierce elemental nature with no thought or concern of where the experience might lead her. Was she brave enough to do that? The more Hal kissed her, the more she wanted to fly into the face of her fear and challenge it.
Then he cupped her breast through her sweater, evoking a ravenous need in her blood that made her feel as if she was losing her mind with no hope of ever thinking straight again...like someone standing too close to a crumbling cliff-edge and dangerously being compelled to jump. Why did she suddenly feel that she would willingly sacrifice her dream of a safe place, a bolthole she could call her own, to travel into the unknown with him?
With a helpless whimper Kit anchored her hands round Hal’s iron-hard biceps, her fingers gripping hard, wishing she had the courage to lift up his sweater so that she might touch him more intimately and press her body into his.
Hal’s head and heart were reeling. He knew what it was like occasionally to drink more than one generous glass of intoxicating red wine at dinner, to have his head spin and his limbs turn to water, but never before had he experienced sensations as dizzyingly seductive and addictive as this! Kit’s ravishing mouth and silken tongue were so sinfully delicious that he knew he could willingly be a slave to her kisses for a very long time indeed, whilst her body... Her body and her scent aroused him more than any other woman’s had ever aroused him before.
The need to take this so-called experiment further was growing more and more demanding. He was so hot and hard that he had to tear his lips away from Kit’s to take a steadying breath and try to calm his escalating need. As he moved his hands up to cup her face Hal’s breath felt no less steady as he stared hungrily down into the incandescent blue eyes that gazed back at him. They looked as stunned and as intoxicated as he was.
‘I want to take you to bed, Kit.’ With a wry smile he added, ‘Let me rephrase that. I need to take you to bed. Our little experiment was more...much more successful than I’d hoped it would be.’
To his surprise, Kit responded with a troubled sigh.
‘We can’t always have what we want or—or need, Hal...and perhaps giving in to our base desires isn’t the best thing to do for either of us. I won’t deny that I find you attractive, but if you seriously think about this you’ll know it isn’t a good idea to take things any further. We’ve already crossed a boundary I vowed never to cross with a client. You’ve been hurt in an accident and forced to take a much slower pace than you’re used to while you recuperate, and I’ve been hired to help you.’
Reaching up, she gently freed his hands from round her face and sat back against the couch’s sumptuous leather upholstery, a shapely leg tucked beneath her.
‘It’s understandable that you’re feeling frustrated and lonely, but I’m not the cure for either of those states—even though you might think I am.’ Visibly blushing she added, ‘Your kiss was lovely, and so are you. But I’d rather you remembered me as a reliable and competent help when you most needed it than some convenient woman you took to bed simply because you were feeling horny.’
As shocked surprise eddied through him Hal hardly knew what to say. Kit had told him he was ‘lovely’ and yet she clearly didn’t trust his motives. A thought that might explain why she was so uneasy about taking things further suddenly struck him.
‘You think I’m just the same as one of those low-lifes who used your mother then abandoned
