The Temptress Of Tarika Bay

No, she wasn’t intimidated—she wanted him. Exultant fire burned in his gut and for the first time in his life he understood how a man could lose his head over a woman.

Without thinking he let his other hand come up, lifted hers, and kissed the fragile skin at the wrist, a primal instinct relishing the rapid thunder of her pulse against his mouth. He felt her fingers splay out in rigid rejection, before miraculously curving along his jaw in a caress that set his body surging.

But she said in a tight, hoarse voice, ‘No.’

Hawke’s fingers slid along her hand, holding it against his face. He watched the heat drain from her skin and then flood back across her wide cheekbones, softening her mouth into ripeness and provocation.

Through the fog clouding his brain he knew he had to stop this right now. It was far too early—besides, he’d spent the weekend doing informal research on her, and he didn’t like what he’d discovered.

Yet it appalled and infuriated him to find out how much will-power it took to release her and step back.

Robbed of strength, Morna staggered, flinching away when his hands shot out to catch her. ‘Just leave me alone, all right?’ Anger and an odd, creeping dread lent her enough backbone to continue with brittle determination, ‘I don’t want an affair with you, much less a one-night stand.’

Cruelly he said, ‘The feeling is entirely mutual.’

‘Good,’ she snapped, her head coming up in unspoken challenge.

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘What have you got on your hands? Have you been gardening?’

Pierced by an image of a huge bed, of Hawke’s burnished bronze skin contrasting erotically with her own, of surrendering to his strength and that wildly sexual charge between them, Morna didn’t understand his question at first. She forced her brain to go back and snatch the words rattling around inside it, then sort them into some kind of order. Finally she dragged air into empty lungs and glanced down at the faint stains her scrubbing hadn’t removed.

‘Jeweller’s rouge,’ she said gruffly. ‘I’ve been working. Don’t worry—it’s not transferable, so it won’t have stained your hands. Goodbye.’

She swivelled around, leaned into the car and pulled out her bag and the two plastic ones that held her groceries.

Automatically Hawke took the heaviest from her. Because struggling with him would be stupid and undignified she let it go, but positioned the other bag and her handbag in front of her like a shield as she turned towards the house.

Halfway there he said levelly, ‘How long do you plan to live here?’

‘Until I’m ready to leave,’ she said distantly, antagonised all over again. Hawke had no right to ask her what she was doing and when.

Taut silence linked them, humming with unspoken thoughts, forbidden hungers. Warned by an instinct as old as time that this man was incredibly dangerous to her, Morna waited tensely for his next words.

They came at the door to the bach. ‘Or until it’s sold?’

‘Perhaps.’ She’d tried for aloofness, but her response came out guarded and cagey.

Of course he noticed. His eyes narrowed, slashing her with knives of pale jade. ‘Is it true that Jacob Ward died here only a couple of weeks after you moved in?’

Morna fixed him with a cold stare. Jacob had been an old man with a weak heart, still mourning his only child—a son who’d been killed a couple of years previously. With no other family he’d been ready to go, but his collapse as they’d been drinking coffee had been a shock, and his death a grief.

‘Yes,’ she said evenly, schooling her face into immobility. ‘When he had to go into a nursing home he let me rent the place provided I brought him home once a week.’

Although Hawke said nothing, and she couldn’t read any expression in his handsome face, she knew what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d said it.

Her chin came up. She hated the insinuations; they were disrespectful to Jacob, who’d hunted gems around the world before arthritis and a longing for his homeland had driven him back to New Zealand. He’d been lonely—at least until he’d wandered into her shop one day and fascinated Annie, her assistant, into calling Morna out from the workroom.

Like Morna, he’d loved the glittering romance of gems, and he’d had a fund of stories about prospecting; he’d admired her skill with them, and often sat in the workroom watching as she worked. Over time their acquaintance had ripened into friendship, and because he’d had no one else he’d left her Tarika Bay.

So the rumours his legacy had caused—rumours it was obvious Hawke had heard—were hugely distasteful.

Yet he surprised her again. ‘If I invite the Hardings, will you come to dinner at the resort tomorrow night?’

Morna met the disturbing challenge in his green eyes. Her stomach contracted as though someone had hit her, but the agitated sensations rioting through her were piercingly carnal. His mouth curved into a smile so loaded with charm she almost buckled; he knew that when he’d kissed her wrist she’d wanted him to kiss her properly…

She saved herself from the snowballing temptation to agree by saying, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Why not? As it happens, I’ve already asked the Hardings, and they’re coming.’

‘They’ve agreed to go to dinner with you two nights in a row? Why?’ she asked, swift anger almost quenching her reckless excitement. She already knew why—Cathy’s decision that she needed a social life! One made with the best of intentions, but Morna felt like prey being remorselessly hunted down.

‘Last night was hardly a private dinner,’ he drawled. ‘Saturday night and Monday night aren’t consecutive either. As for why the Hardings agreed—I don’t know them all that well, but I can only assume that they don’t see an invitation to dinner as an insult.’

Morna had to swallow, because his amused, potent smile sliced through her defences with insulting speed. Glen, she thought desperately, but his memory was fading, dwindling, the lessons she’d learned from him overlaid by the powerful impact of this man’s personality.

‘Or a threat,’ Hawke added mockingly.

‘I don’t consider you a threat,’ she retorted, knowing she’d given him that opportunity.

His eyes glinted beneath their heavy lids. ‘I’m not going to ignore the mutual interest we have in each other, but as we’re neighbours I’d like to get to know you socially.’

Morna dithered. It was only a dinner…

If she agreed he might be bored with her, and that would be an end to it.

‘I’m sure Cathy and Nick will be more than adequate chaperons,’ he murmured, the gravelly note in his voice very pronounced as he smiled again.

It was a killer, that smile, and he knew what effect it had. Her heart skidded to a stop and then began to beat again, swift and uneven. ‘All right, I’ll be there,’ she said, regretting her surrender the moment the words left her lips.

Suckered by a million-dollar smile—and a crazy fascination that had smashed across her life, roaring in like a comet from outer space, bent on destruction.

So when she went to dinner tomorrow night, she decided after he’d left, she’d keep in mind the last time she’d felt like this—shooting stars in her stomach, feet not touching the ground, unbearable anticipation.

When she’d first met Glen.

Morna eyed her glass of New Zealand Riesling and took another tentative sip. Although they’d finished a superb dinner, she was still on her first drink because she needed to keep her head.

Even now she wasn’t going to admit that part of the reason she’d accepted Hawke’s invitation was sheer, blatant curiosity—some of which had been satisfied. Over dinner she’d discovered that he actually lived at his small, exclusive and very luxurious resort.

Excellent pickings for a good-looking man here, she thought, trying hard to be cynical. Quite a few eager unattached women were strolling about, not to mention jaded trophy wives. Scattered around the dining room, several of each watched the men at her table with the secret, starving intensity of a dieter tantalised by forbidden food.

Not that she blamed them. Tall, dark and handsome might be a cliché, but men who matched the description were rare—and to see two of them at the same table was probably unique outside Hollywood.

Stick to Hawke, she advised the avid watchers silently. Nick has given his heart.

Yet the thought of Hawke with anyone else summoned a hollow outrage that scared her. Her first instinct had been right—she should have refused to come. If he asked her again she’d turn him down.

Not that she could fault him tonight; he’d been a superb host. She slid a glance sideways to scan his striking profile with unwilling appreciation.