A Sudden Engagement

No man had ever seen her in only her underwear before, and she was all too conscious of the rounded smoothness of her breasts against the sculptured lace of her satin bra and matching cami-knickers suddenly glaringly provocative, and colour swept her body as she saw that Drew was looking at her, studying the slender lines of her body with an expression in his eyes that made her heart stand still before racing erratically, its jerky, uneven pace catching at her breath.

‘Beautiful!’ The husky timbre of his voice shivered across her nerve endings, the smoky sensuality darkening his eyes from grey almost to black and making her tremble beneath the explicit appraisal of his glance.

When he bent his head, sweeping aside her hair to touch his lips to her throat, exploring the delicate shape of her ear, Kirsty experienced a small explosion of panic, followed by the undeniable knowledge of her body’s physical response to a touch so sure and knowing that she marvelled that she could ever have imagined she could withstand it. The touch of his hands on her bare arms and midriff triggered off tiny pinpricks of pleasure, each one shivering through her, shocking her afresh. He seemed to know exactly where to kiss and touch. Violence she could have withstood, but not this subtle, sensual attack on her senses, this slowly seductive destruction of all her barriers until her breasts ached to know the possession of those skilled male hands, her lips parting involuntarily, as his tongue teased their trembling shape, the skilled stroking of his hands along her body, making her forget what had originally brought her to his suite, her body in the grip of a feverishly mounting desire that both shocked and fascinated the tiny corner of her

mind which had managed to stand aloof from his expert assault on her senses.

‘That’s better,’ she heard him mutter approvingly, raw sexuality underlining the words as he deftly unfastened her bra, and added throatily, ‘much, much better,’ his eyes feasting on the swelling curves he had just exposed.

She should feel shame, but she didn’t, Kirsty marvelled. Some wild, wanton part of her she had never dreamed existed positively revelled in the hungry intensity of his gaze, but even so, she wasn’t prepared for his husky groan or the sight of the dark head buried against her breasts, his breath ragged and warm against the tender flesh as lean fingers cupped her rounded softness.

‘God, but you’re beautiful! But you already know that, don’t you?’

Kirsty trembled as the coaxing fingers stroked tormentingly over the hard arousal of her nipple, her breathing ragged and shallow at the sensation the sensual caress aroused. Deep down inside her something seemed to be flowering into life, a weak, yielding sensation, curling through her stomach, the hands she had lifted to push Drew away in protest, hesitating until the rough texture of his skin against the acutely sensitised tip of her breast made her fingers curl in mute protest into the softness of his hair, a small cry smothered deep in her throat.

‘God, I want you! Want you, Kirsty Stannard,’ Drew muttered hoarsely as his tongue touched the flesh his thumb had so recently been tormenting. Kirsty’s eyes widened in shock at the exquisite flowering of pleasure his touch evoked, and as though he sensed her feelings, Drew muttered something under his breath, his hand cupping the swollen softness of her before his lips closed gently over the throbbing nipple.

Kirsty closed her eyes, shuddering with the waves of pleasure sweeping her, her whole being given up to concentration on the fierce tide of feeling enveloping her. Small moans of delight trembled past her lips, her whole body shaken with the torrent of sensation. Above her she heard Drew groan savagely, ‘Kirsty—my God, what are you trying to do to me? Touch me, for God’s sake, and stop driving me mad! Can’t you tell how much I want to feel all of you against me?’

Kirsty was beyond thought, beyond reason, swept along on a tide of sensual pleasure; a voyage of discovery which was taking her to a world she had never dreamed existed.

Drew’s lips left her breasts to trail burning kisses over her collarbone and against her throat. He had pulled of his shirt and the rough tangle of body hair on his chest scraped arousingly against the tenderness of her skin. In a daze Kirsty was aware of his removing his pants; of the powerful masculinity of his thighs, the taut muscles, beneath skin darkened with the same crisp hairs that covered his chest. She made no demur when he removed the last of her own clothes, trembling slightly beneath the burning intensity of his gaze, experiencing for the first time the piercing tension of desire.

‘You’re a witch, do you know that?’ she heard Drew demand thickly as his hand rested possessively on the narrow bones of her hips. ‘A witch, and God help me, I want you!’

Kirsty had forgotten that he had promised to make her want him; that the only reason she was here was punishment, and instead, her body gloried in the heady knowledge that she had aroused him; that he wanted her. Innocent though she was, she knew that much; felt it in the taut control of his muscles, saw it in the dark intensity of his eyes as they studied the pale curves of her body; heard it in the husky imprecations he was muttering under his breath, as his hands swept up and moulded her to him, his mouth buried hotly in hers as her arms tightened instinctively around him, her body on fire with a need to melt against him.

When he lifted his mouth it was merely to mutter hoarsely, ‘Kirsty, don’t make me wait any longer—I can’t, God help me. I don’t know what it is about you,’ he added ruefully, ‘but you seem to have turned me into a raw, uncontrolled boy again.’ His hands cupped her face as he turned it up to her own. ‘Forget what I said earlier,’ he told her roughly ‘This isn’t for revenge, or punishment, or anything else. It’s for me,’ he added huskily, ‘for the sheer pleasure of feeling you melt against me, for knowing the delight of your body. Love me, Kirsty,’ he begged throatily, parting her thighs urgently to slide between them, the heated pressure of his mouth silencing every emotion but the need to respond to the demands of his body.

And yet.… The taut masculinity of him was faintly alarming. Her muscles tensed automatically, and Kirsty was aware of him hesitating, checking suddenly, a frown touching his eyes.

He moved against her, almost experimentally, Kirsty thought on a sudden burning wave of embarrassment, and yet it was impossible for her to unlock her inexperienced muscles. Half of her still cried out for fulfilment, but the other half protested that things were moving too far too fast. She felt Drew move away from her, and turned her head, unable to meet his eyes.

‘Well now.’ She was amazed at how calm and controlled he sounded. ‘There are only two reasons for a reaction like that. Either you’re frigid—which we both know isn’t so—or you’re still a virgin. Are you, Kirsty?’ he demanded, suddenly grasping her shoulders and turning her round to face him. ‘And don’t lie to me. Are you?’

‘Does it make any difference?’ Instead of sounding defiant she sounded merely pathetic. Drew swore and she felt tears sting her eyes. An hour ago she would have welcomed this confrontation, welcomed the opportunity to throw her innocence down between them like a gauntlet, but now she felt curiously bereft of the warmth of his body, there was an ache in the pit of her stomach that left her restless and unappeased, and humiliation lay across her mind like a brand because she had betrayed her inexperience so easily, after succumbing so completely to his touch.

‘I suppose I should have known,’ he continued in evident disgust. ‘Only a fool or a complete innocent would have pulled a stunt like that in the first place.’ He pushed impatient fingers through his hair and reached for her clothes.

‘Here, put these on,’ he commanded curtly, cursing softly when her fingers trembled over the slips of silk, turning her round while he fastened the clip of her bra, dressing her with the ruthless efficiency he might have applied to a child, his mouth a thin line as he demanded,

‘Didn’t it ever occur to you what might happen? No, don’t bother answering that,’ he continued in a harsh voice. ‘It’s plain your experience of frustrated males is nil.’

He made her sound like a child, Kirsty thought tiredly, and yet only such a short time before he had been all too prepared to consider her a woman.…

‘Well, perhaps next time you’ll think before you act,’ he was saying, much like a schoolteacher to a backward pupil, and fresh humiliation seared her. What must he think of her?

‘Here!’

He passed her the old dressing gown she had discarded earlier, and while she struggled into it with trembling fingers, Kirsty was aware of him moving about, dressing swiftly.

‘Are you staying at the hotel?’

All she could manage was a nod.

‘Okay, I’ll walk you back to your room. You look as though you could do with a stiff drink first,’ Drew added unflatteringly as he switched on the bedside lamp flooding the room with soft colour.

‘Bit off more than you bargained for, didn’t you? Just out of interest, how far were you prepared to let me go before you finally stopped me, or were you simply looking on it as a good way of broadening your experience?’

Kirsty turned away, but not before he had seen the betraying sheen of tears in her eyes. There was a small explosion of sound and then suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, his voice harsh as he demanded bitingly, ‘You little fool, don’t you realise how close you came to being raped? Has no one ever told you just how damned hard it is for a man to stop when he’s as aroused as you’d got me? The experience might be lacking, but the equipment’s there all right,’ he added sardonically, watching the colour run up under her skin. ‘But next time you feel like experimenting pick on someone your own size.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Kirsty managed on a dignified whisper. ‘It was your idea to… to.…’

‘Make love to you?’ Drew supplied. ‘So it was, but it takes two, you realise, and the kind of response I was getting from you.…’ He broke off suddenly and looked at her. ‘It was the first time, wasn’t it?’ he asked expressionlessly, watching her with cool grey eyes that seemed to see right inside her head and make it impossible for her to lie.

Her, ‘Yes,’ sounded hunted and strangled, and Kirsty couldn’t meet his eyes, sure that she would read amused contempt there for her inexperience.

‘And at a guess you forgot what you were doing in my arms in the first place.’ He seemed to be speaking more to himself than her, and Kirsty was surprised to hear him add dryly, ‘Quite a salutary experience—for both of us. You’re a very desirable young lady, Kirsty Stannard, a very dynamic package, but in future, unless you want to lose that innocence very quickly, stop trying to pretend you’re something you aren’t. Have you any idea how close I came to taking you?’ he asked softly, with no mercy for the quick flood of colour under her skin.

‘Come on,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll walk you to your room, and order a drink from the kitchens for you—something to help you sleep.’

‘I’m not a child!’ Kirsty told him indignantly. ‘I.…’

‘Save it,’ she was advised with dry impatience, followed by a curt, ‘What the devil are your parents thinking about, letting a baby like you loose on the streets?’

‘I’m not a baby,’ Kirsty stormed back at him. ‘I’m twenty!’

‘A very great age,’ Drew taunted. ‘But I’m talking about experience, not age, little girl, and when it comes to the former.…’

‘I’m simply not in the same league as the Beverley Travers of this world,’ Kirsty supplied with a bitterness that surprised her.

‘Nowhere near it,’ Drew assured her mockingly. ‘Now come on, let’s get you tucked up in your little bed, before you go and drive some other unsuspecting male half crazy!’

Those minutes in his arms when he had wanted her so much that he had been tense with the effort on containing it might never have been. All at once she had been relegated to the role of child, and irrationally she resented it.

In the end Drew left her outside her room, but long after he had gone Kirsty lay awake reliving those emotions she had experienced in his arms, shivering at the knowledge that it had taken him to arouse them. A pure fluke, she assured herself, nothing more, and thank God she would never have to set eyes on him again. She didn’t think she could endure the humiliation. Bad enough if he had actually ‘raped’ her, as he described it, but in some ways worse to have been found out and rejected on the grounds of her innocence; to have fallen short of his requirements in a woman and be dismissed merely as a foolish child.

She had heard other people describing virginity as a ‘turn-off, but this was the first time she had come across concrete evidence of the fact. Drew had desired her, she knew that, but the moment he realised that she was still a virgin his desire had gone. Kirsty writhed in a torment of mortified chagrin; somehow the swift death of his desire made her feel a failure as a woman, a freak almost. What was the matter with her? she asked herself. She ought to be thanking her lucky stars. Self-disgust rose up inside her. What on earth had happened to her belief that physical desire was nothing without love? Why had she responded in the first place? Had perhaps fear released an adrenalin into her blood which had led to that warm, yielding tide of desire? That must be the explanation. Feeling happier, Kirsty closed her eyes. If she was honest she was forced to admit that she had been foolish enough to go to Drew Chalmers’ suite, but having done so and endured the after-effects, all she wanted to do now was to put the whole affair behind her, and forget about the incident completely. She could only thank her lucky stars that her path and Drew’s were hardly likely to cross again!

CHAPTER THREE (#ucfb945b8-1376-5052-94ee-9bc953faa2c8)

WAS she dreaming, Kirsty wondered, waiting in the wings for her turn to read, or was she actually here in Yorkshire, ready to go on stage for her first rehearsal as Hero, in Much Ado About Nothing?

She pinched herself just to make sure, reassured by the tingling pain in her arm. So much had happened in such a short period of time; first the failure of her previous play—not exactly unexpected—and then the phone call from her agent, Eve, in London telling her that she was to present herself in Ousebridge in Yorkshire for an audition for the part of Hero.

What had totally floored them both was that the director and producer Simon Bailey had specifically asked for her. He had heard that she might make an excellent Hero from a friend who had seen her on stage, he had told Kirsty with a smile when she had commented a little breathlessly on her good fortune in being invited to audition. Parts like Hero did not come the way of struggling young actresses very often, especially with such prestigious companies as the Ousebridge Players.

‘That was excellent, Kirsty,’ Simon approved as she came off stage. ‘You’re beginning to get the idea. Like I said, I want to get right away from the hackneyed image of Hero, and instil something a little different.’