and hadn’t been able to. Now, away from the pressures of the fast lane in which he functioned, here amidst the rugged country where he seemed to belong, she could see him as a gangling youth, obstinate, determined, a free spirit. She could visualize him sitting here with his grandparents on winter nights, and, during the summer, fishing for minnows in the tumbling becks, running barefoot, wild as the moorland and the fells.
Her eyes still trained on his formidably handsome features, almost involuntarily Taylor murmured, ‘This place brings out the best in you, too.’
His cruel mouth slackened broodingly as he gazed down on her, those black eyes holding hers with such dark power that she couldn’t look away. Sitting there on the rug she felt like a slender flower beneath the shadow of a great tree whose daunting presence was capable of blocking out the sunlight from her life, or giving her the strength to grow and thrive from its protection.
With their eyes linked, Taylor felt the stark desire that seemed to flow from the very root of him, filling her with a mutual need that rose like a dark and dangerous sap through her veins. Her breath came shallowly as her pulse rate quickened, and her throat ached so that she had to swallow to ease its dryness.
Light flared in his face at the same instant as Taylor smelled the smoke, became aware that the crumpet he was toasting had caught fire.
‘Look what you’re doing!’ she gasped with a shaky little laugh, catching the oath he uttered before he swiftly pushed the charcoaled offering, still flaming, onto a plate.
‘You’ll never make Chef of the Year like this!’ she laughed, more easily now, relieved that the emotion-charged moment was past.
‘Perhaps Chef of the Year doesn’t have the world’s sexiest siren to distract him,’ he chastised, defending himself as he speared another crumpet with the fork.
Putting a lump of butter on the blackened pikelet, careful not to burn her hands, Taylor watched the gold butter melt instantly across its surface, filling the holes. The way he could melt her resistance—fill her—she thought shamefully, and didn’t say anything because it was safer that way.
Breakfast was delicious, she decided, watching Jared chomp his way through at least a plateful of his own efforts, while Taylor surprised herself by eating at least three of the crumpets. She had brought some honey with her from Edinburgh and while Jared had refused it, she had indulged herself, spreading it thickly over each warm buttered mound.
‘That’s better,’ Jared commented when she put her plate down on the hearth, having finished every last crumb. ‘That’s the most I’ve seen you eat since we’ve been together.’
Lounging beside him on the rug, Taylor tensed.
‘We aren’t back together,’ she reminded him swiftly. She had made no such agreement, nor was she ready to.
‘Of course not.’ He flashed her a smile that didn’t quite warm his eyes. ‘I was speaking figuratively.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, don’t presume, Jared. I haven’t said I’m coming back to you.’
‘Taylor,’ he exhaled, the way he addressed her alone assuring her he wasn’t exactly very pleased. ‘The last thing I would ever do with you is presume.’
Feeling strangely chastised, Taylor looked down at her greasy fingers. A small trail of honey clung to the third finger of her left hand, she noticed, with her little finger splayed.
‘No,’ she uttered, her breath coming rapidly when Jared grabbed her hand and she saw the purpose in his face, realised his intention.
‘Stop me,’ he whispered, and it was a deeply sensual challenge.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIKE a rabbit mesmerised by a fox, Taylor watched him watching her even as he dipped his head and his mouth closed over her honeyed finger.
There was desire in his eyes, more potent and deadly than that which she had seen burning in them earlier.
‘Jared…’ She closed her eyes against the raw need she saw in him, against the ache of a new kind of hunger in herself that only this man could assuage. The suckling warmth of his mouth brought with it images of the pleasurable nights she had shared in his bed, the provocative action of his tongue encircling her finger calling forth more erotic imagery, of pleasing him, of his pleasuring her in the most intimate and earth-shattering ways so that remembering produced a deep sensual throb in her lower body.
She opened her eyes. He was still watching her, his proud dark face flushed now from more than the heat of the fire.
‘You used to taste like this all over. Remember, Taylor? You gave me honey every time I took you to bed. Like a queen bee paralysing me with her sweetness until I could do nothing but surrender to your hold over me—and still I could never get enough of you.’
His voice trembled with the depth of his desire. If he had been trying to turn her on, he had succeeded, but only at the expense of his own self-possession. Without even looking at him she could tell he was aroused, and she found herself craving the demands of his rock-hard body. He would be big and ready to take her. Helplessly, she realised, she wanted him to do just that. Push her back against the rug and come down heavily on top of her, give her no choice but to submit to him so that she could drown in the ecstasy of his driving passion, sate this unbelievable need of him and not feel afterwards that she had relinquished her pride or determination to be free.
With every gram of her will, she dragged herself back from the brink of stupidity to say shakily, ‘But you didn’t love me.’
For a moment his fingers tightened around her slim hand.
‘Didn’t I?’ His lips had moved to play erotically over the perfumed flesh of her wrist, and yet the eyes that continued to hold hers were intensely probing, assessing, and as unfathomable as the darkest night.
‘Let me go.’
Surprisingly, he complied at once.
‘I’d better get some more logs in,’ he said heavily, getting to his feet, as though he were totally unaffected by what had just happened between them.
But he had been. And severely, Taylor thought, watching him scoop up the wicker basket and carry it back across the room.
Even so, it felt like another put-down. Like he had been testing her, she decided bitterly, her spirits lowering like the sudden drop in the room temperature as he went through the kitchen and opened the back door, letting in the biting air from outside.
They spent the rest of the day treading carefully around each other, treating each other with polite caution as though each was reluctant to delve too deeply into what the other might be thinking or feeling.
The first thing they did after Taylor had found enough scraps to feed the birds was to search the house for candles, finding the half-burned remains of one, still in its holder, in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
‘That isn’t going to last an evening!’ Taylor groaned despairingly, then found a whole boxful while she was looking in the electricity meter cupboard under the stairs.
‘So you won’t have to worry about being left in the dark with me after all,’ Jared commented dryly when she rushed eagerly back to the kitchen to acquaint
