Untamed Lover

‘You think so?’ he asked softly.

Hurt him, urged an inner voice. Hurt him badly, as he hurt you. She gave him a supercilious little smile. ‘How did you make your money, then, Liam?’ she said patronisingly. ‘Labouring?’

‘But I thought you liked all that kind of thing, sweetheart?’ he drawled. ‘Your bit of rough,’ he added with insulting emphasis.

She felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘Why, you arrogant blackguard!’ she gasped out. Her eyes hardened to match the coldness in his. ‘Take me home, Liam!’

Soft snowflakes were fluttering onto the jet hair which the light breeze ruffled as he shook his head. ‘Not yet. I want to talk to you,’ he said, with the kind of steely emphasis used by a man not used to taking no for an answer.

‘See my solicitor.’

‘What’s the matter, Scarlett?’ he mocked. ‘Afraid to go inside? Does the past repulse you so much?’

As he drew her attention to the cottage she gave him her haughtiest look, narrowing her eyes so that he would be unable to read any of the nostalgic pain in her eyes. Not here, anywhere but here, where her love for him had been born. It had been in there—in that cottage—that she’d given herself to him one summer afternoon.

On a dusty floor he had slowly bared her flesh, had kissed her and possessed her with such exquisite sweetness. She had cried afterwards, salty tears of grateful joy sliding into his shoulders and down his chest. But even as the shudders had died away in his own body she had felt his anger. As though he had already sensed the repercussions of that sweet, wild mating...

‘Quite frankly, I can hardly remember the place,’ she lied frostily. ‘But, as you know, my stepfather owns it. So, as well as abduction we can add trespassing to your charge-sheet.’

He gave a short, abrasive laugh. ‘I think not,’ he said arrogantly. ‘Come inside, Scarlett. I told you—we need to talk, and it’s too cold to stay out here.’

He pulled her out of the car, not roughly, but with that gentle strength which had always been at the heart of his lovemaking. And for one bizarre moment of insanity Scarlett had to steel herself not to sink into those powerful arms.

‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’ she said fervently as he guided her towards the door and unlocked it.

‘That is purely academic.’ The handsome face was impassive, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

Scarlett walked in, and her mouth fell open in surprise. In her mind’s eye she had imagined that the cottage would look exactly the same—neglected and run-down, bare and dilapidated—but to her astonishment someone had done the place up. And had done it up beautifully too.

The floorboards had been properly waxed to a deep shine, and Persian rugs in vibrant hues of sapphire and turquoise silk were scattered around. The walls had been recently covered in a pale wash and hung with several superb watercolours. Soft and pale modern furniture provided the seating. Someone had put central heating in too. Whoever had decorated had exquisite taste, and it had nothing of her parents’ rather predictable penchant for old-fashioned polished mahogany.

‘Who owns this?’ asked Scarlett suddenly.

‘I do.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ But her denial was merely automatic; his words had held the unmistakable ring of truth.

‘That is, of course, your prerogative,’ he said coolly.

Scarlett was growing more confused by the moment. ‘But my stepfather would never sell it—certainly not to you!’

‘So sure?’ A kind of smile curved the corners of his lips upwards, though his blue eyes stayed as cold as the temperature outside, and something in the oddly confident look on his face filled her with a strange kind of dread. Of course her stepfather wouldn’t have sold him the cottage! Why on earth would he have had any dealings with a man he detested almost as much as she did?

‘Sit down, Scarlett, while I light the fire. Coffee? Or perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’

This was crazy! Any minute now and they’d be discussing politics—and here, of all places! She needed to get out—before the past, with its shockingly poignant memories, started that aching in her heart all over again. ‘I want out, that’s what I want—back to my party! You said you wanted to talk, Liam—then start talking. I’ll give you five minutes.’

‘We need some heat first.’ And he crouched down to start the fire. Flames leapt up and licked realistically at logs, and suddenly the room looked deceptively and cloyingly homely. Scarlett sat down on one of the squashy leather sofas, feeling as though her whole world had tipped upside-down, her reality totally distorted as she watched him pour brandy into two glasses and put them both onto a small table which sat in front of the sofa.

She glanced at her watch. It was approaching eleven. ‘I can’t wait for my stepfather to get here,’ she said calmly.

‘But not Henry?’

Henry? Scarlett stared at the hands which were clasped in her lap, wondering why she’d made the Freudian omission of neglecting to use Henry’s name. She looked up, and her eyes burned a golden fire as she met his steady blue stare. ‘Henry will take you to pieces. You can’t just walk into my house and carry me off against my will—you bloody great brute!’

‘But I just did,’ he pointed out.

‘If you wanted to speak to me didn’t it occur to you to just pick the phone up, like anyone else would have done, and ask to meet me?’

He gave her a coldly mocking smile. ‘And would you have agreed to meet me?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Well, then—I rest my case.’ And he lifted his glass to her in mock toast. ‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked conversationally.

‘How about divorce?’

‘So cruel,’ he remonstrated mockingly. ‘And yet, really I am the injured party—wouldn’t you say? After all, I was the one you trapped into marriage in the first place, wasn’t I?’

‘I didn’t...’ But her words of denial died away. Because wasn’t he right, in a way? She had trapped him. She had wanted him, and had lured him with all calculation of the spoilt child she’d been at the time. But she had loved him, or so she’d thought. And oh, how she’d paid a hundredfold for her youthful desire for Liam Rouse.

She watched as he slid down onto the squashy sofa opposite hers, the long black-trousered legs spread out in front of him.

Lord, but he looked good, she thought reluctantly. Still the same firmly packed muscular body, without a scrap of fat on it. The same broad chest, narrow hips and long, powerful thighs. But there was a change in him too.

She had known Liam in the very first flush of manhood, his virility untempered by anything other than need. But now... Now there was an element of rigid self-control about him, a steely determination—it was easy to see in the unperturbed watchfulness on that harshly handsome face, and even easier to read in those cold, blue eyes which unsmilingly underwent her scrutiny.

She took a deep breath and looked at him steadily, wanting to know what had turned Liam from that untamed and beautiful lover into this urbane and sophisticated man who now sat before her.

‘Have you been in England all this time?’

His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. ‘Why?’ he mocked softly. ‘Did you miss me?’

More than he would ever know. ‘I missed you like the proverbial hole in the head!’ she shot back archly.

‘But I bet you missed my body, Scarlett?’ he murmured with ruthless accuracy. ‘Mmm?’

To her horror, just the thought of his body in the context to which he was referring was enough to produce a reaction: that familiar tug which hardened her nipples to frustrated tips which just cried out for the suckling of his moist, ravening mouth; the warm pooling sensation which culminated in a hot, hot aching at the juncture of her thighs. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, feeling the scalding flush of shame and arousal stain her cheeks, and knew that her eyes had darkened in conjunction with his. And knew that he’d missed nothing.

‘Yes,’ he affirmed softly. ‘You missed my body like hell, Scarlett.’

Hell was appropriate enough—the smug, arrogant devil! She took a slug of brandy and managed a chilly stare. ‘How tedious you can be sometimes, Liam. Have you lost all the art of polite conversation?’ She gave him a mocking little smile. ‘Oh! How silly of me! I forgot, of course, that you didn’t really have the skill to begin with—’

‘Such condescension,’ he reprimanded. ‘Really, Scarlett—did no one ever tell you that’s a sign of low intelligence?’

And why was it she never seemed able to get the better of him in an argument? she thought furiously. ‘Go to hell!’ she snapped.

‘Succinct,’ he murmured. ‘Now, what were we talking about before you sank to playground level? You were, I believe, quizzing me about my life, weren’t you?’