Presents, Passion and Proposals. Кэрол Мортимер
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mouth firmed. ‘No.’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘Nothing really happened tonight, Beth, so stop beating yourself up.’
She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. ‘I don’t know what you mean…’
‘Liar,’ he replied as he turned fully in his seat to face her. ‘If I had to guess, I would say you’ve only ever had one lover in your life—’
‘That’s none of your—’
‘A man who died two years ago,’ Nick continued. ‘Two years, Beth!’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Isn’t it time—past time—that you moved on?’
Her chin rose defensively. ‘By having an affair with you, I suppose you mean?’
‘I thought we had already agreed that probably isn’t a good idea.’ Nick gave a hard smile. ‘You did nothing wrong this evening, Beth—nothing you have to feel guilty about.’
‘I don’t feel in the least guilty!’ Beth assured him.
‘I would call you a liar again, but twice in one evening may be once too many!’ he said sceptically.
Her cheeks burned. ‘I’m not lying—’
‘Are you saying you didn’t want me earlier…?’
Beth drew herself up stiffly. ‘You think you know everything, don’t you, Nick? Think that every woman you meet has to fall down adoringly at your feet?’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Well, think again! I didn’t want you earlier, and I don’t want you now, either!’
Nick considered her accusations. ‘One—no, I don’t think I know everything. Two—I would prefer that any woman who did feel the need to fall down in front of me adoringly concentrated her attentions on another part of my anatomy entirely. And three…’ his voice lowered huskily ‘…deny it all you want, Beth, but you did want me.’
Her eyes flashed like twin sapphires. ‘You’re a conceited, arrogant—’
Nick silenced her in the easiest and quickest way possible—by claiming her mouth with his own and so cutting off all further conversation.
She tasted as good, as headily erotic, as Nick had imagined she would, her lips soft and delectable against his as she gave a low groan of capitulation, her lips parting invitingly beneath his.
Beth’s senses were assaulted with sensation. The heat of Nick’s lips as they moved hungrily against hers. The hardness of his chest against her aroused breasts. And the heady pleasure of his hands as they moved restlessly down the length of her spine before he pulled her hard against him in crushing need.
His hair felt dark and silky as her fingers became entangled in its thickness at his nape, and his skin was hot to the touch as his lips continued their heady and hungry assault on hers, his teeth gently biting before the hard thrust of his tongue entered the hot cavern of her mouth.
She did want this man, Beth acknowledged achingly. She wanted Nick with a hot fierceness that totally shocked her. Knew that she had felt this physical awareness of him from the very first moment she had looked up two days ago and seen him through the rain and sleet after she had tumbled into the road in front of his car.
Her throat arched as Nick dragged his mouth from hers to move down the length of her throat and then slowly up again, and Beth quivered with pleasure as she felt the rasp of his tongue against her earlobe.
Nick felt Beth arch against him as his teeth gently bit on that sensitive flesh, feeling the hard-tipped thrust of those soft breasts against his chest, and unable to resist the temptation of moving his hands beneath her sweater.
His mouth captured Beth’s again as her skin burned against the coolness of his hands, her back soft and silky, the skin firm over the curve of her ribcage, the thrust of her breasts bare as he cupped her there, the nipple firm as a berry as he ran the soft pad of his thumb rhythmically across it.
Beth groaned, her fingers tightening in his hair, and Nick felt the trembling of her body as she arched into those caresses in silent pleading.
Nick’s body was one pleasurable ache—a hard, pulsing ache that couldn’t be fully satisfied in the close confines of the front seats of his car.
He wrenched his mouth away from hers. ‘Invite me in, Beth!’
‘What…?’ She moved back slightly to look up at him in a daze.
His eyes glittered down at her in the darkness. ‘Invite me up to your apartment,’ he prompted huskily.
She continued to stare at him wordlessly for several long seconds, the enormity of what he was saying, what he was asking, almost overwhelming her. She knew exactly what would happen if she invited Nick into her apartment. What they both wanted to happen next. Making a complete nonsense of their earlier conversation!
‘I can’t, Nick!’ She wrenched herself out of his arms.
He reached for her. ‘Beth—’
‘I said no!’ Beth fumbled as she opened the passenger door, the instant blast of icy cold wind from outside sobering her, bringing her to her senses as nothing else could have done. She climbed hastily out of the car before turning back to look at him. ‘Please tell Bekka that I’m really sorry I can’t join her for the bowling tomorrow, or her birthday on Christmas Day.’ Beth didn’t wait for Nick to answer before slamming the door closed and turning sharply on her heel to hurry inside her apartment building.
‘Beth?’ came the tersely impatient query down the telephone line as soon as she answered the call.
A terse voice that was all too familiar! ‘Nick—Mr Steele…?’ she corrected firmly even as her fingers tightened about her mobile.
It had been four cold and icy days since the two of them had parted so ignominiously. Four long and lonely days and nights for Beth. Days and nights of self-doubt and self-recrimination for the way she had responded to Nick so completely.
Days and nights when Beth hadn’t been able to stop thinking of him. Of the way he had kissed her. Of the way she had wanted him to go on kissing her—and more!
‘Nick will do,’ he rasped. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you, and I wouldn’t have done so, except—I find myself in something of a dilemma.’
Nick was in a dilemma?
This man had turned Beth’s whole calm and ordered world upside down four days ago when he’d kissed her. Had evoked a heated response in her that still made her tremble just to think about it. Just the sound of his voice over the telephone now was enough to make her hands shake and her heart pound…!
‘What sort of dilemma?’ she asked warily.
Nick stood in his study at home, staring sightlessly out of the window into the back garden. ‘Bekka’s had your cold for the last three days—’
‘I’m really sorry about that, but you were the one who insisted I come out to dinner with the two of you,’ Beth reminded him indignantly.
‘Bekka’s cold isn’t the problem. Well…only indirectly.’ Nick grimaced. ‘My housekeeper was out shopping earlier today and slipped over on the ice. Luckily someone called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. I received a call from there a few minutes ago. Apparently Mrs Bennett has broken her ankle pretty badly.’
‘Yes…?’
His mouth tightened as he heard the increased wariness in Beth’s tone. Rightly so, probably, after the strained way the two of them had parted on Friday evening.
He should never have kissed her. Certainly never have suggested she invite him up to her apartment when she was obviously so vulnerable, when he knew how dangerous that vulnerability was!
In the same way he knew he shouldn’t have allowed his