The Prospective Wife (11 page)

‘I know, I know, I got it all wrong…’ Impatiently he brushed aside her heated response.

‘Don’t humour me,’ she gritted. ‘I’m serious.’ If she said it often enough, she might start believing it herself.

‘Do you think I look at you and think clinical practitioner?’ he asked abruptly.

Kat felt pretty certain he was working up to a major insult. ‘I’m not sure I want to know what sort of things your head is cluttered with,’ she replied, sounding seriously priggish.

‘Shall we leave the sordid state of my subconscious out of this?’ It sounded like an afterthought when he added, ‘Are you trying to tell me that your thoughts are as pure as the driven snow?’

‘Of course I’m not,’ she responded crossly. Heaven help her if he asked her what she did mean, because she didn’t have the faintest idea.

‘For the sake of argument, let’s take the worst case scenario—you are consumed by lust every time you look at me.’

Kat could hear the strained note of uneasiness in her scornful laughter; she just hoped he couldn’t too.

‘Why are you getting so het up about this? You’re not my doctor; you’re not misusing a position of power. Look at me!’ he instructed her, cupping her chin so she didn’t have much option. ‘Do I look like someone who’s going to be sexually abused unless he wants to be?’

Did that mean he wanted to be? Kat’s eyes flickered wildly around the room but there was no way she could avoid his eyes for more than a few seconds; only she knew that once she’d made eye contact with those startling blue eyes she’d only be able to escape when he decided she could. It was bizarre, but she was acting like the sort of weak helpless female she detested. She had never encountered a man who made her feel impotent and out of control. Was this what being in love was about? If so, God knew how it had ever caught on!

‘We’re not talking medical malpractice here, Kathleen,’ he continued in a softer, more persuasive tone. He could be more persuasive without exerting himself than any man had a right to be! ‘We’re not talking sordid, unnatural practices…’ One dark, strongly delineated brow rose to a satirical slant. ‘At least, I’m not.’ He waited politely for Kat to recover from her choking fit before continuing, ‘We’re talking about nothing more sinister than bit of good old-fashioned chemistry.’

‘This sort of talk is…is…inappropriate.’ She carefully avoided all mention of wildly exciting.

She had a deliciously quaint turn of phrase.

Her hand came up to remove his from her face; she was going to be firm and calm about this. While she was being firm and calm, her fingers mysteriously became inextricably tangled with his… The chain of thought led to her picturing other parts of them tangled in more intimate ways. She gave a little gasp, shocked rigid by her own depravity.

‘Why don’t you let me decide what’s appropriate?’

Right at the moment, he seemed to think it was appropriate to draw her hand onto his lap. His face filled her vision as he maintained an apparently effortless grip on her eyes. She felt him separate each digit individually as he spread her fingers out against the hard warm flesh of his thigh.

The hunger curled low in her belly became urgent; she exhaled in a series of short, sharp breaths.

‘I thought you wanted to get rid of me,’ she mumbled.

‘That was before.’

Before I made myself out to be an easy sexual target…? It was a humiliating but pretty obvious conclusion to draw.

‘Aren’t you afraid this isn’t all part of my master plan to get you up the aisle?’

He dismissed her spiky words with a tolerant, almost caressing smile. ‘I don’t think this situation is the sort of thing you can plan for. I think that’s what’s bothering you most.’

Kat could have told him how completely wrong he was about that, only the telling would have involved explaining that at that precise moment the male scent of his skin was the single most bothersome factor in her life. It was probably a bit late in the day to be wise and cautious, but she kept her mouth shut anyhow.

‘When I said before, it evens things up…’

‘D…Did you?’ she stammered.

‘Did you understand what I meant?’

Kat didn’t understand anything! She shook her head and felt her wet hair slither down her back; the sodden weight of it felt cold against her overheated skin. ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening.’

She watched in a bemused fashion as a smile that managed to combine ferocity with tenderness slowly curved his deliciously sensuous lips.

‘This sort of thing happens all the time, Blondie.’

Kat gulped. Compared to this, drowning had been a bit of light relief! She was so far gone it didn’t even occur to pick him up on the ‘Blondie’!

‘Not to me it doesn’t.’ She had responded without thinking…so what was new?

Matt picked up a hank of darkened blonde hair and rubbed the silky wet texture between his thumb and forefinger before brushing the tip teasingly against the tip of her chin.

‘You feel embarrassed…’

Kat could hear a definite hint of hysteria in her bitter laugh. ‘You could say that,’ she croaked hoarsely. ‘And so will you,’ she predicted, ‘if you think I want you to do this.’

He had an infuriating habit of ignoring anything he didn’t want to hear.

‘Embarrassed because you told me you felt aroused. Men don’t always have the luxury of disguising the fact they are aroused.’ He watched her lusciously fringed eyes widen as the implication of what he said dawned on her. ‘Especially when they’re dressed the way I am,’ he elaborated with a complete lack of self-consciousness. ‘That’s what I meant when I said it evens things up. I’m not lying to spare your feelings,’ he promised. ‘You can check if you like.’

A soft whimper emerged from her dry throat. The thought of what checking would involve had sent her heart-rate into overdrive! The eerie, echoing pounding against her eardrums of her own hormones rushing around her body was almost deafening. And, to make matters worse, her eyes, which up to this point had been firmly glued to his face, now showed a lamentable tendency to wander. If she allowed them to plot their own route Kat didn’t need to be psychic to figure out where they’d end up!

A few seconds before, she’d have sworn it wasn’t possible to be more conscious of where her fingers lay. She had been wrong—big-time! She froze; the only safe thing to do was not move at all. That way there was no chance anything she did could be misconstrued.

‘Pretty nurses…bed baths…every young and not so young man’s nightmare, I would think.’

‘It hasn’t been mine…until now, if you know what I mean.’

She wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions. ‘I don’t,’ she said shortly as she nervously dabbed the beads of moisture form her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. The gesture drew his hot hungry gaze like honey drew a bee.

‘Let’s just say I didn’t have a hard time keeping my libido in check.’

Kat’s mouth opened in soundless O of wonder.

‘Are you saying you
couldn’t
…?’

Hadn’t felt like, would have been more accurate; however, now he could see what an improvement this slant could put on things.

‘There’s a very fine line dividing apathy and inability…’ So far, true and accurate. ‘But a man starts to wonder,’ he admitted, with the air of someone making a painful confession.

It wasn’t an outright lie. A more imaginative man might have lain awake wondering; it just so happened that he’d had more urgent things to worry about at the time, such as learning to walk again and keeping his company safe from the circling sharks!

Kat laughed nervously. She couldn’t decide if he was serious.

So he was stretching a point; Matt’s conscience was flexible enough to cope. It had succeeded in taking her mind off packing her bags, and Matt had every intention of putting all his not inconsiderable powers of persuasion into preventing her from doing that. He’d worry later about why it was so damned important all of a sudden.

‘When I first came to, I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down…’ This time he didn’t have to fake the dull note of repressed horror in his voice.

Kat felt his fingers tighten against the delicate bones of her collarbone. It hurt, but not as much as the surge of empathy that swelled her tender heart to breaking point.

‘But that was only temporary…’

‘Sure, my spinal cord turned out to be intact.’ He shrugged and the thick lashes momentarily cut off the glow of those articulate eyes of his. ‘But a man tends to wonder in that sort of situation…’

If the dark, brooding expression in his eyes was any indicator, Kat didn’t think that any of his thoughts had been pleasant.

‘I had a lot of time on my hands to think about all the things I took for granted and whether I had got the guts to go on as half a man.’

‘Of course you would!’ Her protest was instinctive; her conviction went bone-deep.

The words emerged more forcibly than she’d have liked, but she had no problem with the content. The idea of Matt Devlin giving up on anything, let alone life, struck her as just too ridiculous to contemplate. She might not have known him for long, but from what she’d seen so far he had the sort of iron will that would conquer any obstacle.

‘I’m glad I was never put to the test, but thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Without thinking, Kat raised her hand to emphasise the point she wanted to make.

‘There’s more to man than a…’ It was at the precise moment her hand brushed against the object she’d been dismissing as unimportant.

Matt watched the disintegration of her composure with a fascinated eye. It was hard to follow the precise sequence of events, things went so fast, but as far as he could tell she pressed the offending hand to her mouth at about the same moment the colour fled her face. Micro-seconds later, her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the cause of her discomfort. He could almost feel the heat from the wave of rosy colour that rose from her neck and took only a handful of seconds to cover every inch of visible skin.

Matt was so engrossed by the response that she’d already babbled
sorry
half a dozen times before he roused himself enough to silence her. The simplest way to do it—and he wasn’t man who liked to complicate matters—seemed to be to kiss her.

The touch of his lips against her ear was so delicate Kat couldn’t be sure whether it was the mere suggestion of a kiss that sent a shiver up her spine or the real thing.

‘I should be thanking you for dispelling the spectre of impotence,’ he whispered huskily.

There was no confusion about the next kiss—it was the real thing and then some! Kat had been kissed lots of times before; some had been more pleasant than others, but none had been like this!

This kiss was several light years removed from
pleasant!
It began unalarmingly enough; the light, almost soothing sensation of his lips against hers only lasted a few heart-stopping seconds. It was time enough for all the tension to magically drain from her body, time enough for her to ache with longing. By the time he plunged headlong into the welcome offered by her tremulous parted lips, restraint was a dim and distant memory.

She responded to everything his lips demanded of her, and the scariest thing was the slow-motion action replay later revealed to a dismayed Kat that she would have given more if that was what he’d wanted… She would have given everything!

Kat’s eyes stayed closed for a long time afterwards. Matt could see the delicate tracery of blue veins that showed through the thin, almost transparent delicacy of gently fluttering lids.

‘Oh, my God!’
she groaned huskily when her eyes did open.

Her slightly unfocused gaze slid immediately to his mouth. The amazement tinged with appreciative awe in that look was deeply flattering to a bloke’s ego. The ache in Matt’s loins kicked another jaw-clenching notch.

Kat became visibly flustered to discover her hands were still linked firmly around his neck. With a dismayed squeak, she pulled them away and proceeded to wedge them under her firm thighs. His own fingers itched to follow their example. Maybe she didn’t trust them not to wander… Now, that was a
very
agreeable thought.

‘It’s been a while.’ Maybe absence had made him appreciate the simple pleasures of kissing, either that or it had been an exceptionally great kiss. ‘I thought maybe I’d forgotten how.’

As if!
Kat lifted a hand to her spinning head.

‘You haven’t!’ she breathed, too distracted to think about what he might read into her words.

His head fell back and, eyes half-closed, he exhaled noisily. The action caused all sorts of fascinating things to happen to the powerful muscles of his chest and shoulders. Kat could have named each muscle and tendon involved; it wasn’t as if she was learning anything new, so why was she totally mesmerised by the spectacle?

‘One hell of a chemical reaction.’ Supporting his leg between his hands, he eased his position, and she saw the tight muscles of his belly clench in anticipation of the jarring movement.

‘One hell of a kisser!’ she indicted grimly.

Matt didn’t make the error of mistaking this for a compliment.

‘I can’t think why you did anything so stupid!’ she continued in the same fretful tone as she struggled, with limited success, to throw off the strange heavy lethargy which made it hard to think straight.

‘Why do you think I did it…?’ His glance moved with crude significance over her lush curves.

Kat gave a gasp; she was too angry to guard her tongue as she hit back.

‘Like a kid who’s just got his favourite toy back, you couldn’t resist trying it out?’

After a startled pause, Matt began to laugh; the sound was so warm and uninhibited and so deeply infectious that she found it hard not to respond with a grin of her own. But as abruptly as he had begun laughing he stopped, and his expression became hard and almost calculating.

‘Maybe I thought I had nothing to lose…?’ he suggested. Kat got the feeling his infuriatingly off-hand shrug was meant to annoy her. ‘I mean, what was the worst you could do? You’re already wimping out on the job…’ he reminded her scornfully. The blue eyes were uncomfortably intent when they came to rest on her flushed face. ‘You
are
wimping out?’