He was lounging in the seat beside her, the absolute epitome of casual nonchalance, but Charley saw the tension around his mouth."Why?" she breathed.His golden eyes flickered over her. "He upset you."He upset her, "He’s my father," she snapped out. "He’s allowed to upset me!""I am your husband," he countered. "I am allowed to remove all upset from your life."Charley threw him a look of burning dislike. "You upset me." Does that mean you’re going to remove yourself from my presence?"Not while we are flying at ten thousand feet." He grinned—then stopped grinning and sighed instead. "Stop spitting hatred at me, Charlotte, and explain to me why your father believes he can treat you the way that he did today."So she told him about her mother in a cool, flat, dignified voice, unaware that he watched every fleeting expression that passed across her face because she refused to look at him as she talked."So you see," she concluded, "he sees his worst fears for me materializing in our w
And the skin covering the muscles she could see shaping his body wore a sheen that made her think of suntan oil, though she knew the effect was due to his own natural oils conditioning his skin while he slept.Her husband, she thought, trying the title out to see how it felt, and still finding the concept as alien to her as having the two of them lying here together in this bed."Grey," a deep, dark, slumberously warm voice murmured.Charley started, her eyes leaping up to his face. He was awake. She tensed, her fingers gripping the duvet. She would have dived right out of bed if she weren’t aware that she was wearing the sheerest leaf green bra ever fashioned and matching panties that made a mockery of the name."Sexy soft smoky gray—no, don’t move away," he said when she went to do just that, and with a lithe shift of his body, he rolled onto his side and propped his head on the heel of his hand so he could look down into her wary face and the scented fire flow of her hair where it
With a softly uttered, tense expletive, he came back to her mouth, his hand sliding beneath her to draw her up against him. The next thing she knew, the clasp of her bra had sprung free, and he was lying her back against the pillows again, and the scrappy bit of mesh was being trailed away."You are exquisite," she heard him rasp through the hazy mists of her ravaged senses.Then he was taking her mouth once again, crushing the pulsing softness of her lips and dipping deep and hungrily with his tongue at the same time that his hand closed around her breast again, naked now and so alive to his touch that she cried out in half protest, half sense spinning pleasure, and grabbed blindly at his head, her fingers clawing into the glossy thickness of his hair.He kneaded and shaped and kissed her breathless. She could feel the tremors attacking him, the fevered flush of his body, and the tension in him. She trapped his groan with her tongue when he pressed the distended tightness of her nipp
Snatching up her skirt and shimmying into it, she finally felt brave enough to turn around. He was standing on the other side of the bed, with the bulkhead almost touching his broad shoulders. And he was still so boldly naked that she wished her ravished senses would just curl up and die. The soft light from the bedside lamp played across the flexing muscles in his shoulders as he pulled on his trousers, the taut clench of his stomach, and his hair-roughened chest.Dragging her eyes away from him, she missed the way he lowered his own eyes to the burgeoning fullness of her breasts, moulded by fine knit fabric so the tight peaks of her nipples pushed against the cloth."I’m not going to apologize for calling a stop to what you said was not going to happen," she tossed back her hair and said.He hooded his eyes and brought the old cold cynicism back with a vengeance. Bending down towards the bed, he picked up something. ‘Here…’ He tossed it at her. "You had better put this on before you
If Charley said it to shock Dami out of his cool composure, then she certainly succeeded, she saw, as burning dark color swept across his high golden cheekbones and he launched to his feet, sending paperwork scattering as he accidentally knocked against the table."Is that your idea of a damn joke?" His eyes flashed out a blaze of blistering fury that made her reach for and pull up the blanket."I just thought I should mention it before things go too heated again," she explained, blushing herself because now that she’d said it she felt silly and stupid and—"A virgin," he snapped out from between his clenched teeth. "Where in hell did you get the idea to throw something like that at me from out of nowhere?""Well, what would you have preferred me to do?" Charley reacted hotly. Have it written into that stupid prenuptial contract so you could take your time getting used to the idea?He was pale with anger now, not flushed. "We just almost made love.""No, I stopped it," she reminded hi
A swarm of staff came out to meet the vehicle. Doors were opened for them, and the still heat of the night became filled with warm smiles and even warmer congratulations that included hugs and happiness on their behalf until Dami gave the order for it to stop.The house itself looked as if it had been transported here right off the set of a period movie. Charley could almost see the ladies in crinolines gliding out onto the front porch.She could hear and smell the ocean though she couldn’t see it, and the heavy scent of tropical jasmine hung like a drug in the air.‘Come,’ Dami said, making another one of those small hesitations, then rested an arm about her shoulders—for the comfort of the staff, Charley realized, and didn’t push him away.But those hesitations were beginning to speak volumes. He didn’t want to touch her. Her silly confession about her lack of sexual experience had given him the biggest turn-off of his life. Now a wall was up and the detached cool was back, and it s
Ten minutes later, she walked back into the bedroom, wryly unsurprised to find that the maids had been in and finished the unpacking while she’d been showering.Wrapped in one of the toweling bathrobes she’d found hanging behind the door, she rubbed at her wet hair with a towel as she wandered over to the window to look out. On impulse, she tried the handle and found that the window was unlocked. Pushing it open showed her a bleach-boarded veranda with white slatted rails. The wood was warm beneath her bare feet as she stepped onto it; the heat of the night was kind of soothing, and she stood leaning lightly against the rail and rubbing her hair while she tried to make out what the view in front of her was like.It was truly pitch-dark out there, but she caught the frothing white roll of a wave as it came into shore. It wasn’t far away—perhaps a few hundred yards at most. And as her eyes grew more used to the darkness, she managed to make out the shape of a white-painted gazebo not fa
So, on a deep breath that pulled in a bit of a shake, she reached out for the bowl of pasta and spooned a few helpings onto his plate, then did the same for her own. Dami produced a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket set by his chair and popped the cork.‘More pre-planning?’ Charley mocked.He just sent her a brief smile as he poured frothing foam into two crystal flutes. "You don’t touch this until you have eaten some pasta," he instructed.Charley uttered a small laugh. "You sound like my father."He stiffened. "That was not my intention."Staring at the carved lines on his face, she realized that she’d touched that raw nerve again in this man with nerves made of steel.He didn’t like to be compared with her father, she realized. It offended him. Nor did he always recognize a tease.and he didn’t like virgins.The supper continued in near silence after that, his withdrawal from the sparring arena as obvious as the stern expression he wore on his face. And Charley had killed her