betraying movement of her hips. ‘Perhaps not,’ he murmured as his gaze shifted to her erect nipples competing for his attention beneath the clinging blouse.
Through the miasma of arousal Kate was aware she had him in her sway. The game was far from over yet. Willing ice through her veins, she managed somehow to sit up. Her gaze was an outright challenge. She watched in triumph as Guy failed to keep his gaze level. It strayed to the ruby upthrust of nipples taunting him from beneath the revealing, wet fabric. But, just as she was complimenting herself on reclaiming the advantage, he threw back his head and gave a laugh that rippled through her body like a seismic tremor.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweet Kate?’ he murmured, maintaining a tantalising distance between them.
‘What do you mean?’ In spite of Kate’s attempt to launch herself back into the fray, her voice sounded about as steady as a feather on a breath of wind. ‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.’
‘Then allow me to enlighten you,’ Guy murmured as he wound a damp tendril of Titian hair round his finger like a tether. ‘I think you’d like to see me lose control…bend to your will…serve you like some plundering stallion.’
‘No!’ His suggestion was outrageous—and so was its effect on her senses. Before she had a chance to recover he captured her chin in his hand.
‘I disagree,’ he said in low, harsh tone. ‘I think that’s exactly what you’d like me to do. Mais—’ He shook his head in mock-regret. ‘It isn’t going to be like that, Kate.’ Then, keeping her trapped in his gaze, he kissed her—just a frustrating brush of his lips accompanied by a sharp warning sound of denial when she tried to urge him on. ‘My way,’ he insisted softly when she sighed her complaint. ‘Or no way.’ But his way was gathering strength all the time, and a soft moan escaped Kate’s throat when a deep throb of pleasure accompanied his tongue’s possession of her mouth. Refusing her the firmer touch of his hands, Guy continued to ravish her mouth with a skill that left her weak, plunging and withdrawing in a provocative game of advance and retreat that effortlessly crowned her own inexpert tactics. ‘Better, Kate?’ he murmured sardonically as he lifted his head. ‘Or still not quite enough for you?’
‘I think you know the answer to that,’ she said huskily against the corner of his mouth, moulding herself to him when he kissed her again.
As if he could not bear to be removed from her lips for a moment, Guy helped her to take off the sodden blouse while they kissed. As soon as she was free his hands moved to claim her breasts. Then, swinging down flat on the ground, he brought her on top of him, still holding her away so that her tortured nipples were only inches from his face. ‘Now feed me,’ he ordered softly, his sweeping sable brows lifting in sardonic challenge. Gently and slowly he brought her down until Kate could feed one engorged tip between his lips. He took the other side himself, rolling the sensitive bud over and over between his tongue and his lips until she thought she’d go mad for him. But he showed her no mercy at all and only brought her legs round to straddle him so that she felt the unmistakable heat and thrust of his erection pulsing against her. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him.
But the moment he moved her skirt, she said, ‘No!’ and flinched back.
‘Non?’ Guy queried softly, hearing the panic in her voice.
‘No, I can’t… I just can’t.’ Shaking her head, Kate pulled away from him. Going to sit on her own a few feet away she drew her knees up and, wrapping her arms around them, she buried her face in her lap.
‘What’s wrong?’ Guy said, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. ‘Tell me, Kate. What’s the matter?’
‘I just can’t, that’s all,’ she said, burying her face deeper.
‘Look at me,’ he insisted gently. ‘Non, Kate,’ he said sharply when she turned away. ‘Look at me, Kate. Don’t turn away. Something’s upset you and you must tell me what it is.’
Still with her head buried on her knees, she turned her face just enough to mutter, ‘My damaged leg—it’s ugly.’
Guy stayed very still for a few moments then gently brought her round to face him. ‘Kate, Kate, courageous Kate,’ he murmured tenderly, ‘let me assure you that there is not one part of you I could possibly find ugly.’
‘There is,’ she argued, her eyes clouding with certainty.
‘Show me,’ he said simply.
‘I can’t.’
Laying her down flat on the ground beside him, Guy peeled back the soaking skirt to expose a scar that snaked down her left leg almost to the knee.
‘I had to have a plate put in after the accident,’ Kate explained tonelessly. ‘Now tell me it isn’t ugly.’
‘I think you’re beautiful,’ Guy said. ‘And that means every part of you. This doesn’t make any difference to me at all. I still think you’re beautiful.’ And, dipping his head, he planted kisses all the way down the fine silvery line. ‘Come to me,’ he said, drawing her into his arms. ‘Just lie quietly with me here and forget everything that happened—put everything out of your mind except for the fact that you’ve come back to me—back to France where I’ll never let anything hurt you again.’
Guy had seen the wound on her leg now, Kate thought as tears began to run unseen by him down her cheeks, but he couldn’t see the wound that his trust had just carved in her heart.
‘And where have you been?’ Megan demanded fondly when Kate returned to the cottage shortly before dusk. ‘A walk, you said. Not a ruddy marathon. And look at you! Your skirt’s a mess. Are you all right?’
Glancing down ruefully at her clothes, Kate hardly knew where to begin. ‘I’m fine,’ she said as a catch-all. ‘Stop worrying about me, Megan. I’m a big girl now.’
‘Oh, really.’ Megan sighed, clearly unconvinced.
‘I met Guy…’
‘Now you do surprise me,’ Megan murmured.
‘I fell in the stream…’
‘And he fished you out.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Nothing hurt?’
‘Only my pride.’
‘Well, that’s good, because I’ve got some news for you.’
From the way Megan was assessing her reaction with sneaky looks in the mirror whilst pretending to be fully occupied checking out the sets of paintbrushes she was arranging on the worktop, Kate thought the news might not be good. ‘Go on.’
‘Three of our guests phoned to ask if they could arrive a little early—so I telephoned the others and asked…’
‘Oh, Megan, you didn’t…’
‘As we are going to be welcoming half the neighbourhood to our opening bash I thought it would be a grand occasion they shouldn’t miss.’
‘You did?’ Kate said, throwing Megan a look of fond exasperation.
‘I
