Temporary Mistress: Mistress for a Weekend / Mistress on Demand / Public Wife, Private Mistress

She could feel her freckles popping at the blatantly patronising phrase. Nice? There was that damning, dull-as-dishwater word again. She had a good mind to peel off all her clothes and prance out into his pool just to show him that being nice was no longer on her agenda!

‘Thank you, but I don’t feel like a swim right now,’ she said primly. Much less in a pool that dropped off the edge of a cliff!

He shrugged, a supple flex of his shoulders that drew her attention back to his tapering torso. Why had she ever thought that Ryan’s thick and chunky rugby player’s physique was the height of attractiveness? This man, nearly ten years his senior, had a honed sleekness which made Ryan’s slabs of gyminflated muscle seem like puppy fat, and a potently mature confidence in his own strength and sexuality which was more persuasive than any boast.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, and she ran a self-conscious hand through her rumpled locks, wishing she had stopped to look in the mirror before she had come marching out.

‘Fine,’ she said, pleased to realise that it was only a slight exaggeration.

She glanced around. The breakfast bar stepped down to a working bench that ran around two sides of the kitchen. Beneath the windows overlooking the terrace was a double sink and on the opposite wall twin ovens topped with a fearsomely professional-looking gas cook-top interrupted the smooth flow of the granite surface. Lacquered grey cabinetry complemented the brushed stainless steel of the appliances and hooded extractor.

It was a well-planned kitchen. One with a definitive style and a serious purpose. Just like Blake MacLeod. She would do well to remember that he reputedly never made an uncalculated move.

‘I checked up on you several times through the day, but you were so deeply asleep that I thought it best to leave you to wake up naturally—you obviously needed the rest,’ he told her. ‘I only turned on the fan when I decided your skin felt overheated—’

‘Felt?’ Her tangled dreams suddenly rose up to haunt her. ‘You mean you came in and touched me?’

The little shrill of guilty alarm in her voice goaded him to say innocently, ‘You were very flushed and sweaty. I was concerned you might be suffering from more than just a hangover—dehydration can cause some nasty complications.’

Her imagination ran riot. ‘You should have woken me—’

‘As befits a Sleeping Beauty? I tried, but the evil spell of the demon drink must have been too strong.’

The riot became a rampage. ‘You k-kissed me?’ she said, her eyes instinctively falling to his firm mouth.

‘Actually, it was vice versa. I just put my hand against your cheek and you grabbed me and wrestled me down on to the bed.’

Her hazel eyes jerked back to his, flaring with embarrassment. ‘I did not!’ she protested.

‘You were all over me like a rash,’ he drawled. ‘I worked up quite a sweat myself, trying to fight you off without hurting you.’

She clutched at the edge of the breakfast bar to support her wobbly knees. ‘I wouldn’t! You’re making that up!’

‘How do you think I got these scratches?’

He touched a hand to the right side of his chest. Nora’s fingers curled into her palms as she stared in appalled fascination at the four parallel pink lines scoring the smooth skin just below his flat brown nipple.

‘You can examine me inch by inch if you like…You branded me in other places, too,’ he prompted softly.

She flushed, tearing her compulsive gaze from his hard chest. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. You could have scratched yourself for all I know, or it could have happened last night—’ She broke off, aware of her tactical error.

He took full advantage of her confusion. ‘Ah, yes…so it could. Some women are all teeth and claws in the sack, honey—here’s proof that you’re one of them.’

‘We never got as far as the sack,’ she growled.

‘Until today.’

That was definitely mockery in his tone. Nora tossed her caramel curls, more certain of herself. ‘Nothing happened. Or, if it did, it was only because I was having a nightmare.’

‘It seemed more like an erotic dream to me—’

‘And you would be an expert on those, I suppose?’ she shot back unwisely.

Another distracting shrug of his superb shoulders. ‘What can I say? I seem to attract women who like to talk to me about their sexual fantasies…’

A hot tingle streaked from the pit of Nora’s hollow stomach to the tips of her breasts. She could feel her nipples begin to bud against the stretchy cotton of her bra and hurriedly hitched her bottom on to the nearest bar stool, planting her elbows on the granite and folding her arms to shield the front of her snugly fitting T-shirt.

Her apparent nonchalance was a dismal failure.

‘You’re starting to look overheated again, Nora,’ he murmured, a thread of open amusement in the deep voice. ‘Here, perhaps this will help.’ He poured her a tall glass of amber liquid from a jug tinkling with ice cubes. ‘I made it for you earlier.’

‘What is it?’ she asked suspiciously, curling her fingers around the frosted glass, keeping her gaze firmly above his neck as he resumed his former position.

‘Iced tea,’ he said.

She took a cautious sniff, then hesitated, with her lips touching the icy rim. ‘Why aren’t you having any?’

‘Because I’m drinking something else.’ He tilted his head towards a glass of red wine standing on the kitchen windowsill above the double sink.

Still she hesitated, and he made a rough sound of impatience. ‘What’s the matter? Afraid it’s spiked? Do you really think I brought you here with the sole purpose of keeping you drugged and helpless?’

Her eyes widened and he gave an exaggerated sigh.

‘I’ve already had ample time to have my wicked way with your unconscious self—remember? I try never to repeat myself!’

She felt foolish. But it was his fault for making her so jumpy. ‘You can’t blame me for being suspicious after the way you carried on this morning. How do I know what’s going on in your devious male mind?’

He shot her a cynical look from beneath drooping eyelids. ‘Oh, I think if you try very, very hard you could make an educated guess…’

She blushed. ‘I—you—’

‘Drink your drink and stop trying to pretend you’re not as curious as I am.’

‘About what?’ she said, fighting to keep her end up.

‘About what it would be like to finish what you started when you deliberately poured that glass of wine all over my jacket.’

Nora was tempted to bluff it out, but her conscience wouldn’t let her. While she tried to think of a clever answer she buried her pinkened face in her drink. It tasted innocuous. She swilled more of the icy beverage over her tongue; in fact, it tasted quite delicious!

‘You said you made this?’ She gulped greedily, her parched mouth and throat absorbing so much moisture that only a trickle seemed to make it as far as her stomach. ‘From scratch?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ he murmured, topping up her empty glass. ‘I’m quite competent in the kitchen.’

He was much more than competent if he knew how to make iced tea. It wasn’t a common Kiwi beverage.

‘You just don’t seem the domesticated type,’ she said.

He turned to the bench by the sink where an assortment of partly sliced vegetables were strewn across the big chopping board. ‘What type am I?’