Lucy King
To my parents
‘OH. MY. God,’ Laura muttered, her fingers tightening around her binoculars and her breath hitching in her throat at the sight that met her eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat and her entire body flushed with a heat that had nothing to do with the warmth of the early summer sun and everything to do with the view.
Because, wow, what a view …
There, approximately two hundred metres away, across a lush green field and over a drystone wall, in one corner of the extensive grounds of the manor house, was a man.
Standing with his back to her, bending down and hauling a hefty log onto a stump. Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, heavy-duty work boots and a rather impressive tan.
Whoever he was, he was dark-haired and tall. Broad-shouldered and fit. The muscles of his shoulders and back twisted and flexed as he hammered the axe down on those poor helpless little logs, displaying such strength and control that every inch of her began to tingle.
When he moved round the other side of the stump and lifted the axe high above his head, the tingle turned to full-blown lust. For a brief frozen moment, in sharp definition, there was the most magnificent chest she’d ever seen. Tanned. Lean. Sprinkled with a smattering of dark hair that narrowed down his taut stomach and vanished tantalisingly beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Ignoring the little voice in her head telling her she really ought not to be doing this, Laura pressed the binoculars closer and bit her lip, largely to stop herself whimpering.
She’d never whimpered in her life, but if ever there was an occasion to start, this was it.
She could make out every rippling muscle. Every one of his ribs. Her fingers itched to trace the dips and contours of his body. What would he feel like beneath her hands? What would it feel like to have all that strength and control on top of her? Underneath her? Inside her?
At the bolt of desire that burst deep
