Passionate Fantasy

‘I pointed it out to you earlier. Remember?’ he prompted sarcastically.

‘I’d—forgotten,’ she improvised quickly.

‘But that’s precisely why I instructed Simon to give you a guided tour,’ he snapped back. ‘I thought I told you to wait for him to collect you?’

‘Er—so you did,’ she said lamely as she tried to think of a reasonable-sounding excuse, but quite honestly the sight of his body, obviously stark-naked beneath the robe, had put paid to any powers of reasoning remaining intact.

‘So why didn’t you?’ he barked out at her, as though she were some kind of imbecile.

‘Because I——’ But she didn’t have a chance to formulate an answer.

‘Listen,’ he cut across her, his voice as cold as his silver-grey eyes. ‘Did you ever stop to wonder why I took so long before I interviewed you?’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ she admitted. ‘I thought you’d probably found someone else you preferred.’

‘What an attractive idea, Kitty,’ he said softly. ‘But unfortunately, unless I employed some well-established prima donna, there was no one nearly as good as you. And the reason I took so long was that I’m very fussy about who I allow in my home— and therefore I needed to write to England for your references.’

‘But I sent you my references!’ she protested.

‘Which weren’t worth the paper they were written on,’ he ground out uncompromisingly. ‘It’s a common enough trick among people working abroad to forge their testimonials.’

Kitty’s mouth fell open. In the circumstances, what right did he have to accuse her of being a cheat?

‘I was satisfied with the information I received from England,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘As I was satisfied that you were reliable enough to carry out simple instructions. When I told you to wait, you damned well should have waited!’

Kitty set her mouth into a truculent line. ‘I was using my initiative!’ She glowered at him.

The silver eyes never left hers. ‘Well, don’t.’

And at this cursory order her vague stirrings of anger bubbled right over, even as she recalled his earlier instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed in his study. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she snapped, tossing her red plaits back over her shoulders. ‘Is this room out of bounds or something?’

He said nothing for a moment, just allowed quicksilver eyes to travel over her face, resting for long seconds on her mouth with such intensity that she was afraid that she had some speck of dust on it or something, and her tongue snaked out to circle wetly round her lips.

‘Not necessarily,’ he said softly, his eyes still on her lips.

Oh, lord. He was so gorgeous. She suddenly forgot his high-handed and autocratic manner— forgot everything. Because, with his eyes homing in on her mouth like that, she felt as though he was actually kissing her, such was the potency of his magnetic stare. Tiny goose-pimples broke out beneath the thin blouse; she could feel her nipples begin to harden and scrape against the lace of her brassiere, and colour surged into her cheeks—because what if he noticed that? ‘Could you direct me to the kitchen—please?’ she asked breathlessly, desperate to get away from him and from this temporary insanity which had invaded her.

‘You’ll have to wait.’ He nodded to a chair directly opposite him, on the other side of the desk. ‘Sit down. I’m waiting for a call.’

She was reluctant to do as he asked, still afraid that those perceptive eyes would see the way her body was reacting to him, although the almost painful hardening of her breasts had already begun to subside. ‘Then if it’s confidential——’

‘I’d say so,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘Sit down.’

She had no alternative other than to obey him, looking down into her lap as she laced her fingers together—wondering how she could have been so naïvely stupid as to think she could just waltz in on her first day, grab the script, then disappear. And now she had probably alerted him, had probably made him suspicious. She looked up to find his eyes on her, and she gave him a polite half-smile, which went unanswered.

She was forced to sit there in silence and wait while he conducted what was evidently a high-powered conversation with some major studio backer in Los Angeles, and she gathered, from his cool, clipped replies, that he was refusing to back down on a particular point concerning finance. Her impression of film directors as unworldly, artistic and dreamy individuals flew right out of the window—this guy could evidently juggle figures with ease, and eat bankers for breakfast!

Eventually he replaced the receiver, and directed his attention at her again. He stood up. ‘Shall we go?’ he asked in a decidedly abrupt tone.

Kitty gulped and nodded, going through the door as he stood aside to let her pass, almost jolting from the sensation which rocked her as their arms brushed against one another, and then wondering if he must think her completely crazy, for his eyes narrowed as he stared down at her, observing the rigid movement of her arm as she pulled it away from him; but he said nothing.

He led the way down a larger corridor off the hall, before throwing open the door of the kitchen.

‘Remember now?’ he enquired, and she couldn’t miss the searching stare he gave her.

Banishing wishes that she had never agreed to come to this house, to take part in such a potentially foolish escapade, she fixed him with a brilliant smile. ‘Thanks. I won’t forget again.’

‘I’m sure you won’t,’ he drawled, then, to her utter amazement, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and stared down at her, and at that moment reality fled from her life as though it had never before existed.

It was like all the old fairy-stories, only more so— because she had never believed in them before.

His touch was just—magic.

Cool yet warm.

Firm yet gentle.

He tipped her head back a little and she was transfixed by the blinding blaze of the silver-grey eyes, unable now to stop the trembling of her mouth as it parted, as if impelled by him to do so ... waiting ... waiting ... waiting ...

His eyes gleamed and he nodded, as if satisfied. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s very powerful. You feel it too. Don’t you?’

‘Feel—wh-what ... ?’ she stammered.

He gave a click of impatience, the gleam leaving his eyes, and as the light left them they became as cold and as impersonal as if they’d been fashioned from metal.

‘Oh, come on, Kitty,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t deny what your body accepted minutes ago. Because you can’t, can you? Your eyes are begging me to kiss you, aren’t they?’

‘N-no. They aren’t,’ she lied ineffectually.

He smiled. ‘And do you know, I’m very tempted? Very tempted indeed!’

He was teasing, playing games with her—he must be. And it hurt. Gorgeous, world-famous film directors didn’t feel tempted to kiss girls like her. ‘Try it,’ she said shakily, over-reacting by a mile, ‘and I’ll slap your face.’

He laughed. ‘That might be interesting—purely for its novelty value,’ he murmured arrogantly.

She brought her chin up as her eyes flashed angrily at him.

‘Go on, then.’ His voice had dropped to a deep, dark caress, and Kitty felt her breasts tighten with the tingle of anticipation. ‘I dare you. Slap my face.’

She stared back at him, unable to move, her mind at odds with her body as she forgot all about Caro and why she was here, forgot all about everything other than the need to know what kissing him really would be like.

And, oh, heavens, she was just about to find out as that devastating dark head dipped down towards hers and his mouth found her lips.

For a second, there was a blaze inside her heart as she realised that the man whose face had graced a thousand movie-goers’ magazine covers was actually kissing her—Kitty Goodman with the ginger hair. It was every woman’s fantasy come to brazen, beautiful life.

And then she forgot just who she was kissing; her attention and her senses were all caught up with just how he was kissing. It was a soft, slow exploration, with scarcely any pressure on her mouth to begin with and with nothing but their lips touching at all. Which all changed when he shifted his head just a fraction to give him greater access to the moist, eager interior of her mouth, and she slipped her hands up to clutch at his shoulders as his tongue flicked with sensual ease to lick at hers, as though he were slowly licking cream off the top of a pudding.

She felt that pleasurable ache as the tips of her breasts clamoured into disbelieving life, her eyelids falling helplessly over her eyes, so, so tempted to move her hands down from his shoulders, to slip them inside his towelling robe and to touch and caress his bare chest ...

And then he stopped kissing her, and stood staring down at her thoughtfully as she fought to drag some air into her starved lungs. To her horror she discovered that her desires had become actions and that her palms were lying against the hard nakedness of his chest, fingers fanned out over his nipples in as provocatively inviting and sexually possessive a gesture as it was possible to make.

‘Oh, God!’ she cried, wrenching her hands away with lightning speed.

A slow smile curved his mouth. ‘I’m still waiting,’ he murmured softly.

‘W-waiting for what?’ Not to make love to her here, surely?

‘Why, for you to slap my face,’ he concluded arrogantly.

She was stung, shocked, ashamed; a red mist of fury swam before her eyes, and she swung her hand up to hit him, but he was too quick for her, easily capturing her small wrist in his hand.

‘Not now, Kitty,’ he admonished sardonically. ‘That’s what’s known as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, wouldn’t you say?’ And he waved his hand in the direction of a state-of-the-art cooker, and gave her an amused smile. ‘I’ll leave you to your cooking. I don’t know about you, but I seem to have worked up the most enormous appetite.’

CHAPTER FOUR

KITTY’S fingers inflicted cruel punishment as she slammed the dough down yet again on the flour-covered marble board which lay on Darius’s pristine work-surface.

What an utterly stupid, stupid thing to do, she told herself, her hands moving in time with her thoughts as she viciously kneaded the bread she was making. Darius had wanted sandwiches—well, she would give him sandwiches to die for!

She closed her eyes briefly. What had she been thinking of, sneaking around the house like a second-rate sleuth in an amateur-dramatic society’s annual production?

And not just that, she reminded herself as the heel of her hand came down hard on the elastic mixture. Because then ... Her cheeks flared with remembered chagrin. Then she had displayed the kind of fawning behaviour which was on a par with the woman in the black dress in the restaurant— the one with the ridiculous name—whose behaviour at the time she had so despised. Going gaga just because he’d touched her—even though he was thoroughly disreputable. No, far worse than that, she hadn’t just gone ga-ga, she’d gone completely overboard. And if he hadn’t stopped kissing her, she probably would have been tugging at the belt of that too-short robe to get her hands on even more of that smooth brown flesh. What must he have thought? Or was his spell over women so mesmeric that any woman taken into the arms of Darius Speed was doomed to behave so pathetically?

Kitty pounded the dough. What had happened back there? She’d seen stars, heard violins, swooned in his arms—all the things which were supposed to happen when you fell ...

She shook her head and actually laughed aloud. Now she really was letting her imagination run away with her. All that had happened was that the king of seducers had given her a taste of his considerable expertise at kissing. Imagine all the women he must have kissed over the years. Small wonder that a brief demonstration should act as such a powerful aphrodisiac. Although it was a little shaming to have been such a walk-over— why, she’d gone out with Hugo for nearly six months and her reactions towards him couldn’t have been more different ...

She took a deep breath as she covered the dough with a damp tea-towel and put it to one side to rise, looking up as she heard the kitchen door open, her hackles rising protectively as she steeled herself for Darius.

But it was Simon who smilingly appeared, his shiny brown hair gleaming, dressed in the habitual Australian male summer uniform of knee-length shorts worn instead of trousers, teamed with accompanying long socks. He had a pleasant face with regular features and none of the brooding watchfulness of his employer. In the normal course of events Simon was, Kitty decided, the kind of man who would never have a problem with women— but she suspected that he would always play second fiddle to the colder, harder but infinitely more attractive Darius.

‘Hi!’ His eyes lit up. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Great, thanks,’ said Kitty, relaxing instantly, thinking what a pleasant and genuine smile he had.

There was something almost of the big brother about Simon—not that she had any brothers to compare him with, of course, but he made her feel somehow safe—the very opposite to how her boss made her feel.

Was she at ease with Simon simply because they’d shared a meal that evening? Because they were both in the subordinate roles of employees? Or was it because he seemed so uncomplicated and easygoing when compared with Darius?

Or maybe, she thought ruefully, it was just that she needed an ally in a house where she was planning to break the law ...

‘What’s cooking?’ asked Simon as he reached for a wooden spoon which stood in a bowl full of chocolate sauce.

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