hard urgency of his need, counterpoint to the melting softness of her desire.
She wanted to be touched, possessed, loved…
Even as she sank deeper into his embrace and his arms enfolded her, that ‘loved’ word, that dreadful word, the tool of mendacious men, betrayer of gullible women, splintered through her mind like a shaft of ice and she broke free, slithering from his grasp to the floor before he could stop her.
‘Josie—’ He followed, crashing onto the deck beside her, his hands reaching for her.
‘Don’t…’
She flinched, digging her heels into the deck, scooting away from him. Putting herself out of reach. Dragging the back of her hand over her mouth in an attempt to wipe away all trace of the touch, the taste of his seductive lips, the delicious temptation…
‘What have I done?’ he asked, but this time making no effort to follow her, hold her. And why would he? She wasn’t blaming Gideon. Nothing had happened that she hadn’t participated in eagerly, willingly and for a moment, one blissful moment in the warmth of his arms, she had managed to forget, shut out reality. Not this brilliant, sun-filled world, but the darkness within her.
‘Nothing…It’s not you. It’s me. Just…’ She shook her head, incapable of explaining. Finding the words to apologise for behaving so badly.
‘Don’t?’ he offered, a great deal more gently than she deserved.
She nodded once. Then, forcing herself to behave normally, like an adult. ‘Are you hurt?’ He’d come down off the lounger with a hell of a crash.
‘Only my pride. I don’t normally get that reaction when I kiss a woman.’
That she could believe. It had been the most perfect kiss. So bewitchingly sensuous that for a moment she had been utterly seduced. Nothing less would have stolen away her wits, her determined self-control, even for a moment.
‘There was nothing wrong with the kiss, Gideon.’ She could still feel the heat of it singing in her blood, telling her that she was strong, could do anything. Tempting her to reach out to him, test her power. ‘I just…’
She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. She’d turned her life around. Was in control. She would never allow anything, anyone to take that from her again.
His eyes narrowed.
‘Can’t?’ he offered helpfully, completing her unfinished sentence for the second time.
She knew that look, recognised the speculation as he wondered what had happened to her. Who had hurt her. Whatever he was thinking, he was wrong. Nothing he was imagining could be as bad as the truth.
CHAPTER SIX
The dress. Individual, unique, it is a statement of everything the bride feels about herself. A matter for secrecy, intrigue and speculation…
—The Perfect Wedding by Serafina
March
JOSIE steeled herself for the usual prurient inquisition—was it rape or abuse? No man had ever asked her if he’d done something to turn her off. Not that Gideon had. For a moment she had so utterly forgotten herself that she was still shaking with a surge of need unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
But the question never came.
‘Don’t worry about it, Josie,’ he said, so casually that if she hadn’t been so relieved she might have felt insulted. ‘It was nothing.’
Nothing?
‘You don’t have to apologise. Or explain.’
‘No?’
Easy for him to say. He probably had women throwing themselves at him all the time. Not that she had. Thrown herself. She’d had a giddy spell, had been off balance physically and mentally or she would never have reacted so wantonly to his closeness.
The kiss had not been forced upon her. It had been inevitable from the first moment she’d set eyes on him. She’d recognised the danger, thought she could control it…
‘No,’ she said, turning the word from a question to a statement as she eased herself carefully to her feet—she didn’t want a repeat of that giddy spell…‘Nothing at all.’ Then, because he hadn’t moved, ‘Do you need a hand up?’
He looked up at her for a moment as if considering the physics of the skinny girl/big bloke leverage situation.
‘Not a good idea.’
No. It would be too easy to repeat that tumble and it was obvious that he didn’t want to risk that.
Nor did she, she told herself hurriedly.
‘Shall I call someone?’
‘Forget about me,’ he said, apparently content to sit on the deck, his back against the hard frame. ‘You’ve got a bride to worry about.’
‘Yes…’ She backed slowly away—any injudicious move was likely to stir up all those hormones swirling about her body, desperate for action. ‘Did she say where she’d be?’
‘Her room, I imagine.’
‘Her room?’ She finally snapped out of the semi-inert state where her brain was focused entirely on Gideon. ‘This is her room!’ she declared.
‘Yes, well, that was the other thing I was about to tell you. Before you threw yourself on me.’
‘What a pity I didn’t do more damage.’
‘Is that any way to speak to a man who, while you were snoring your head off, has single-handedly sorted out your accommodation problems?’
She was fairly sure that the snoring slur was simply his attempt to put up a wall between them and who could blame him?
Ignoring it, she said, ‘What did you do? Rub a magic lamp and produce another tree house out of thin air?’
‘Is that what you do when, on the morning of the wedding, the bride tells you that a long lost cousin from New Zealand has arrived with all his family and you have to find room for half a dozen extra people at a reception?’
‘I don’t need magic to produce an extra table,’ she snapped back. ‘It’s my job.’ Then, because this was no way to cool things down, she extended a hand, palm out like a traffic cop. ‘Stop.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Back up.’ He waited, a questioning tilt to one of those devilish brows while she took another breath. Started again. ‘Thank you so much for involving yourself with my accommodation problem, Gideon. Would you care to update me?’ she enquired politely.
She got an appreciative grin for her efforts and all those escaped hormones stampeded in his direction and she took a step forward as she almost overbalanced.
Maybe he noticed because he said, ‘Sit down and I’ll fill you in.’
She
