LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

was going to be clean as well.

      It felt wonderful.

      Closing her eyes, Lotty rested her head against the rim of the bath and let her mind drift. And somehow it drifted to Corran, and the way he had looked when he had stormed into the cottage. He had obviously showered himself, because his dark hair had been damp still. His jeans emphasised his long legs and narrow hips, while the plain dark T-shirt moulded his broad chest.

      Lotty had to admit that she liked his body. It was strong and solid, without being showy. She liked the easy way he moved, the feeling she had that he was utterly at home in his skin. She liked his competence, the assurance with which he did everything, even if it was just snapping his fingers at a dog or unscrewing a flask. Corran was in control of whatever he was doing.

      He might not smile, but there was an appealing sureness to him. Lotty’s mind floated further, back to the rock where she and Corran had shared lunch, back to wondering what he would be like as a lover.

      If only she had more confidence! She was intelligent, capable, beautiful. She was a princess, for heaven’s sake. By rights, she should have the nerve and the knowledge to seduce him without a second thought.

      Not a single one of her distinguished ancestors would have hesitated to take what they wanted. But they hadn’t had to be perfect, had they? They hadn’t been brought up by Grandmère, hadn’t been expected to take her mother’s place and save her father distress by behaving perfectly at all times.

      She didn’t have to behave perfectly now, Lotty reminded herself.

      The idea, terrifying in its recklessness, glimmered back into life. This was her chance, her one shot at living life like everyone else. For three short months, she could be normal.

      And how normal was it to be a virgin at twenty-eight?

      Maybe it was the hot water, but Lotty could feel herself beginning to glow. Perhaps she would never have the nerve, but she was allowed to dream, wasn’t she?

      She wanted to dream that she got out of this bath and went downstairs. In her dream, Corran was in the kitchen. Perhaps not the most romantic of settings, but it was the only room she had seen properly. Besides, there was something about all that tough masculinity in a domestic setting that appealed to her.

      So, yes, he was in the kitchen, doing something ordinary. Cooking. Chopping something. Not onions or garlic, but something not quite so pungent. Tomatoes, perhaps. His head was bent and he was totally focused on his task, but when she appeared in the doorway, he lifted his head.

      And he smiled.

      Lotty had never seen Corran smile, not properly, but she knew it would be slow and sure, like the rest of him, and she shivered at the way it warmed the granite face, creasing his cheeks and curving that cool mouth.

      Come here, he said, and in her fantasy his voice was dark and low and urgent. All the breath leaked out of Lotty’s lungs just imagining it. It was a voice that would brook no disobedience, and it would never occur to her not to do exactly as he asked. So she would cross the kitchen towards him without taking her eyes off his and…

      No, wait, what was she wearing? Lotty rewound a little. If she was going to have a fantasy, she might as well get it right, and she didn’t want to lose her virginity in the jeans, camisole and raspberry-pink cashmere cardigan, which was all she had had to wear in the evenings for the last week. She certainly didn’t want to be wearing her grungy work clothes.

      Just a towel? She wouldn’t have the nerve, Lotty decided. No, if this was a fantasy, she didn’t have to be limited to the contents of her rucksack, did she? Her suitcase that was still sitting at Glasgow Station contained a Japanese print silk robe. She could wear that.

      Satisfied, Lotty mentally slipped into the robe. Beneath it, she was naked and the silk felt cool against her bare skin. Ah, yes, now the fantasy was well back on track.

      Come here, Corran said—again—and she walked towards him, the robe fluttering around her legs. She stood in front of him, and he reached wordlessly for the belt, tugging it gently so that the robe fell open.

      Would he gasp at her beauty? Lotty considered and rejected this regretfully. She just couldn’t imagine Corran gasping at anything. But he might smile again, mightn’t he? A slow smile that started in his eyes and made her heart thump as he put his hard hands at her waist and drew her towards him.

      And then—oh, then!—he would lower his head and—

      ‘Lotty!’ The door flew open and Corran charged into the bathroom.

      Gasping with shock, Lotty jerked upright out of the water and slapped her hands to her shoulders to cover her breasts. ‘What are you doing?’ she shrieked.

      ‘I thought you had drowned!’

      He’d called her name. He’d knocked on the door. Silence. And then he’d remembered how tired she had been, because of him. He’d gone cold, picturing her sliding beneath the water, too tired to rouse herself, and he’d panicked, bursting into the room, convinced that he would find her limp and lifeless, desperately trying to remember resuscitation techniques.

      And there she was, her eyes huge and frightened, her shoulders bare, and Corran’s eyes had taken on a weird life of their own and were ensnared by the wet, glowing body in the bath, skidding from clavicle to earlobe to elbow to the arms clamped firmly over her breasts.

      ‘I did knock,’ he said, but his voice seemed to come from a long way away. He was disgusted with himself. He knew he had to get out of there, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t know whether he felt light-headed with relief or cold with anger.

      Anger was easier to deal with. ‘Why the hell didn’t you answer?’ he demanded.

      ‘I didn’t hear. I was d-daydreaming.’

      The tiny stammer jolted Corran back to himself. I still stammer a little when I’m nervous, she had said.

      She shouldn’t be nervous of him, but what else could she feel when he had stormed into the bathroom and was standing there, staring at her? Mortified, Corran forced himself to move at last. Turning his back on her, he strode for the door.

      ‘Well, since you’re alive after all, dinner’s ready,’ he said curtly.

      ‘I—I’ll be down in a minute.’

      How long was it going to be before he got the image of Lotty in the bath out of his mind? That luminous skin, the wet, lovely slope of her shoulders. Her short hair was spiky, the grey eyes wide and startled, and a pulse had hammered in the bewitching hollow at the base of her throat.

      Corran glowered as he drained the pasta. He’d been alone too long. The last thing he needed right now was a complication like Lotty.

      She appeared a few minutes later, modestly covered in jeans and a cardigan. Not her fault that the soft pink wool seemed to hug her arms enticingly, reminding him of the bare skin beneath, or that the top she wore beneath the cardigan emphasised the delicate line of her clavicle.

      Corran dragged his eyes away from it. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he said stiffly.

      ‘No, it was my fault,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you and I might well have fallen asleep if you hadn’t checked, so thank you.’

      An awkward silence fell.

      ‘It must have been some daydream,’ he said to fill it. ‘I was quite loud.’

      A wash of colour swept up Lotty’s throat.

      Her eyes slid from his as she pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Something smells good,’ she said, pointedly changing the subject, and Corran’s interest was perversely piqued. What did a woman like Lotty dream about? he wondered.

      Who did she dream about?

      Well, it was none of his business, he reminded himself as he turned the pasta in the sauce. And he didn’t care anyway. He had to remind himself of that

Скачать книгу