sure you can spare the time?’ Her eyes flushed the colour of the flower she had been named for.
‘Just,’ he snapped grimly.
Her cheeks were flushed with anger at his arrogance, but she forced herself to relax as their guests took note of Lionel and Stella’s departure, and came over to congratulate them one last time as they began to take their leave.
An hour later her cheeks ached from smiling so much, although she knew Daniel couldn’t be suffering from the same affliction, his goodbyes terse to say the least. But finally the last guests had taken their leave, and they were now free to leave the staff to clear up the debris of the party while they retired to the small sitting-room where coffee was waiting for them.
Heather handed Daniel a cup of the black, unsweetened coffee she knew he preferred, watching as he curled a hand around the cup to take a sip, completely ignoring the delicate handle. Considering how hot the coffee had been when she poured it out, she was surprised he hadn’t burnt his mouth. Although from his grim expression, he wouldn’t have noticed even if he had!
He stood across the room from her, his restlessness something to be sensed, as he stood completely unmoving. ‘Well?’ he suddenly rasped.
Her hand shook slightly, spilling some of her coffee into the saucer. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand what he meant. ‘Well, fortunately, although my father took care of the idea of divorce—’ the shares were to be sold and the money distributed to the various charities, exactly as it would have been if she didn’t marry Daniel! ‘—he didn’t say anything about us having to have a normal marriage——’
‘In other words, you would prefer to leave things as they are?’ he said drily.
‘No, I wouldn’t!’ She swallowed hard at the speculative raise of his eyebrows. ‘I don’t like—like a Cassandra in your life.’ She looked away after having made the admission.
‘A mistress, you mean?’ he drawled.
‘Is that really what she is?’ Heather frowned. ‘Not a lover, or—or girl-friend?’
‘I go to her for only one reason,’ he shrugged. ‘So, what do you think?’
The other woman was his mistress! ‘Everyone must know that, and—and——’
‘And you couldn’t stand the humiliation of people thinking you can’t satisfy me in bed,’ he said mockingly. ‘Can you satisfy me in bed?’
How did she know; she had never tried to satisfy a man anywhere! But Daniel seemed to think Phillip had been the most recent in a long line of lovers for her, and she wasn’t about to tell him that after the mess her mother had made of her life, pregnant by one man but marrying another, she wasn’t about to take any risk of getting pregnant without a husband herself. Since meeting Daniel she had been glad she hadn’t fallen into the bed-hopping trap many of her friends had just because it was expected of them, for she knew that he was the only man she had ever wanted in that way.
She looked at him challengingly. ‘Can you satisfy me in bed?’
His mouth twisted in the semblance of a smile. ‘Would you like to find out?’
Her mouth suddenly went dry at the instant way he had accepted her challenge. ‘I——’
‘Maybe we should find out,’ he suggested slowly, putting down his empty cup to advance on her as she pressed back against the sofa. ‘After all—’ he took the cup from her unresisting fingers ‘—we should know what we’ll be getting from this marriage,’ he added harshly.
The pressure of his body on hers forced her back on to the sofa, and her mouth was open in protest as his lips descended on hers.
She was lost from the first touch, groaning softly as his mouth moved over and against hers in insistent demand, her arms moving up about his neck as her fingers became entangled in the thickness of his hair, increasing the pressure of his mouth on hers.
She had dreamt about his kisses, longed for them, even as she told herself they would never be hers. But they could all be hers, if only she could please him now!
She arched into his hand as he cupped her breast through the thin material of her dress, his body feeling warm and inviting as her arms moved beneath his jacket for closer contact, their kisses becoming wild as she felt the urgency of his response, glorying in his hardness, knowing she could satisfy him.
Her hair became a silken curtain over her face as she turned her head, Daniel’s mouth moving down her throat, his deft fingers sliding the zip down her back to pull her dress off one shoulder, baring a breast for his hungry mouth. As he suckled and pulled and nibbled it felt like a thousand tiny needles of pleasure melting her body to pliancy, his hand moving up her thigh beneath her dress now, moving higher and higher…!
She gasped at the warm rush between her thighs, pushing against him, groaning her frustration as his hand was suddenly removed, her breast a swollen ache as his mouth left her, too. She blinked up at him dazedly as he stood up, straightening his shirt and jacket.
She swallowed hard, feeling bereft, her body still aching for him. ‘Why did you stop?’ Her voice was husky with longing.
‘I didn’t think a sofa, in the middle of a house crowded with servants, was the right place to finish this,’ he drawled dismissively.
‘But I—we——’
‘You,’ he corrected hardily. ‘I believe we just answered your question.’
The colour drained from her cheeks. ‘But I thought you—too——’
Daniel looked down at her with mocking grey eyes. ‘We’ve just proved that I can satisfy you,’ he told her drily. ‘The fact that I became aroused by your response is not the same thing.’
It wasn’t? But——Heather pulled her dress back into place as she realised her breast was still bared to him, the nipple pouting hungrily for the touch of his lips. ‘You didn’t exactly seem to hate it,’ she snapped in her humiliation, sitting up, surprised to see that the minute hand on her watch showed that only ten minutes had elapsed since she had gone into his arms; in that ten minutes her whole life had changed.
‘I think we know enough now to give this marriage a try,’ he continued abruptly. ‘What do you think?’
It was as if their lovemaking had just been an experiment, coldly thought out, coldly executed. And maybe to Daniel it had been, but she could never think of her fiery response to him in the same unemotional way. ‘No more Cassandras?’ she prompted softly.
His expression was mocking. ‘Not initially, anyway,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll give it a couple of months to see how we get on together before making promises neither of us can keep. After all, just now didn’t really prove that much.’
Only that she forgot everything but him as soon as he touched her! She would make it the same way for him.
‘All right,’ she nodded. ‘We’ll—we’ll be lovers for two months after we’re married and see what happens.’
‘Oh, I think we both know what will happen, Heather,’ he taunted crudely. ‘It’s
