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‘I do not want a cat,’ he said through tight lips.
‘You’re not getting a cat,’ she said. ‘You’re babysitting one.’
Lucas rolled his eyes and took the box from her. His fingers brushed against hers and a lightning strike of electricity shot through his body. Her eyes flared as if she had felt it too, and two little spots of colour pooled high in her cheeks. She stood back from him and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear, her gaze slipping from his. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said.
‘My place is just along here,’ he said gruffly, and led the way.
Molly stepped into the huge foyer of the four-storey mansion Lucas owned. The house was tastefully decorated with an eclectic mix of modern, art deco and antique pieces. Room after room led off the foyer and a grand staircase to the floors above. There was even a ballroom, which overlooked the garden, and a conservatory. It was such a big house for one person. It would have housed three generations of a family with room to spare. ‘You don’t find it a little cramped?’ she asked dryly as she turned and faced him.
The corner of his mouth twitched, which was about the closest he ever got to a smile. ‘I like my space,’ he said as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the brass coat rack. ‘I guess it comes from growing up in the outback.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Molly said with feeling. ‘I’m starting to feel quite claustrophobic at that bedsit and I’ve barely been there a week. I don’t know why Simon suggested it.’
‘Does he live there with you?’ he asked.
‘No, he’s renting a place in Bloomsbury,’ she said. ‘He offered me a room but I wanted to keep my independence.’
‘Are you sleeping with him?’
Molly frowned to cover her embarrassment. She had only slept with Simon once and she had instantly regretted it. She couldn’t help feeling he had only slept with her as a sort of payback to his ex Serena because he’d been so hurt by her leaving him. Molly had mistaken his friendliness as attraction, but now she wasn’t sure how to get out of the relationship without causing him further hurt. ‘I can’t see how that is any of your business,’ she said.
His eyes remained steady on hers, quietly assessing. ‘You don’t seem the casual sleep around type.’
She felt her cheeks heat up a little more. ‘I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re suggesting. And there’s nothing wrong with casual sex as long as it’s safe.’
His gaze slowly tracked down to her mouth.
Something shifted in the air—an invisible current that connected her to him in a way Molly had never felt quite before. She felt her lips start to tingle as if he had bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers. She could almost feel the warm, firm dryness of his lips against her own. Her mind ran wild with the thought of his tongue slipping through the shield of her lips to find hers and call it into erotic play. Her insides flickered with hot little tongues of lust, sending arrows of awareness to the very heart of her. She ran the tip of her tongue out over the surface of her lips and watched as his hooded gaze followed its journey.
The mewling cry of Mittens from inside the box broke the spell.
Lucas frowned as if he had completely forgotten what he was carrying. ‘Er … aren’t we supposed to rub butter on its paws or something?’ he asked.
‘I think that’s just an old wives’ tale,’ Molly said. ‘I’m sure if we show him around first he’ll soon work out his territory. I don’t suppose you happen to have a pet door?’
He gave her a speaking look. ‘No.’
‘Oh, well, he’ll soon let you know when he wants to go in or out. Maybe you could leave a window open.’
‘No.’
Molly pursed her lips in thought. ‘How about a kitty litter box? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about him getting locked inside while you’re at work.’
‘Read my lips,’ he said, eyeballing her over the top of the box. ‘I am not keeping this cat. This is an interim thing until you find a pet-friendly place to stay.’
‘Fine.’ She opened the folded over lid of the box. Mittens immediately popped his head up and mewed at her. ‘Isn’t he cute?’
‘Adorable.’
Molly glanced up at him but he wasn’t looking at the cat. ‘Um … I brought some food with me,’ she said, and rummaged in her handbag for the sample packs the vet had given her.
Mittens wound himself around Lucas’s ankles, purring like an engine as his little cast bumped along the floor.
‘I think he likes you,’ Molly said.
Lucas glowered at her. ‘If he puts one paw out of place, it will be off to the cat shelter.’
She scooped the cat up into her arms, stroking his soft, velvety little head as she looked up into Lucas’s stern features. ‘I’ll just feed him and give him his medication and get out of your hair,’ she said.
‘The kitchen is this way,’ he said, and led the way.
Molly stood back to watch as Mittens tucked into the saucer of food she had placed on the floor. ‘He’s been wormed and vaccinated,’ she said.
‘Desexed?’
‘That too,’ she said. ‘He might still be a bit tender down there.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
Molly picked up her handbag and slung it across her shoulder. ‘He’ll need to use the bathroom once he’s finished eating. Do you know you can actually train a cat to use a human toilet? I saw it on the internet.’
He didn’t look in the least impressed. ‘How fascinating.’
‘Right, well, then,’ she said, and made a move for the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
‘What are you doing for dinner?’ Lucas suddenly asked.
Molly blinked. ‘Pardon?’
His mouth twisted self-deprecatingly. ‘Am I that out of practice?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I haven’t asked anyone to stay to dinner in a while,’ he said. ‘I like to keep myself to myself once I get home. But since you’re here you might as well stay and share a meal with me. That is if you’ve got nothing better to do.’
‘You’re not worried what people will think about us socialising out of hours?’ she asked.
‘Who’s going to know?’ he said. ‘My private life is private.’
Molly felt tempted to stay, more than tempted. She told herself it was to make sure Mittens was settled in, but if she was honest, it had far more to do with her craving a little more of Lucas’s company. It wasn’t just that he was from back home either. She felt drawn to his aloofness; his don’t-come-too-close-I-might-bite aura was strangely attractive. His accidental touch earlier had awoken her senses. She could still feel the tingling of her skin where his fingers had brushed against hers.
‘I haven’t got anything planned,’ she said. ‘Simon’s going to the theatre with his friend. There wasn’t a spare ticket.’ She saw his brows lift cynically and hastily added, ‘I didn’t want to see it anyway.’
Lucas moved across the room to open the French doors that led out to the garden. He turned on the outside light, which cast a glow over the neatly clipped hedges that made up the formal part of the garden. A fountain trickled in the middle of a pebbled area and a wrought-iron French provincial setting was against one wall where a row of espaliered ornamental trees was growing. Mittens bumped his way over and went out to explore his new domain. He stopped to play with a moth that had fluttered around the light Lucas had switched on.
‘It’s a lovely garden,’ Molly said. ‘Was it like that when you bought it?’
‘It had been a bit neglected,’ he said. ‘I’ve done a bit of work on the house too.’
‘You always were good with your hands,’ she said, and then blushed. ‘I mean, with doing things about the farm.’
His lips gave a vague sort of movement that could not on anyone’s terms be described as a smile. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ he asked.
‘Sure, why not?’ Molly said. Anything to make her relax and stop making a fool of herself, she thought.
He placed a glass of white wine in front of her. ‘I have red if you prefer.’
‘No, white is fine,’ she said. ‘Red always gives me a headache.’
Lucas went about preparing the meal. Molly watched as he deftly chopped vegetables and meat for the stir-fry he was making. He worked as if on autopilot but she could see he was frowning slightly. Was he regretting asking her to stay for dinner? He wasn’t exactly full of conversation. But, then, she was feeling a little tongue-tied herself.
‘So why an intensivist?’ he asked after a long silence. ‘I thought you always wanted to be a teacher.’
‘My teacher stage only lasted until I was ten,’ Molly said. ‘I’ve wanted to be lots of things since then. I decided on medicine in my final year at school. And I chose intensive care because I liked the idea of helping to save lives.’
‘Yeah, well, it sure beats the hell out of destroying them.’
Molly met his gaze over the island bench. ‘How long are you going to keep punishing yourself? It’s not going to bring him back.’
His eyes hardened. ‘You think I don’t know that?’
Molly watched him slice some celery as if it was a mortal enemy. His jaw was pulsing with tension as he worked. She let out an uneven sigh and put her wine down. ‘Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for me to stay and have dinner,’ she said as she slid off the stool she had perched on. ‘You don’t seem in the mood for company. I’ll see myself out.’
He caught her at the door. His long, strong fingers met around her wrist, sending sparks of awareness right up to her armpit and beyond. She looked into his eyes and felt her heart slip sideways. Pain was etched in those green and brown depths—pain and something else that made her blood kick-start in her veins like a shot of pure adrenalin. ‘Don’t go,’ he said in a low, gruff tone.
Molly’s gaze drifted to his mouth. She felt her insides shift, a little clench of longing that was slowly but surely moving through her body.
His body was closer than it had ever been. She felt the warmth of it, the bone-melting temptation of it. She sensed the stirring of his response to her. She couldn’t feel it but she could see it in his eyes as they held hers. It sent an arrow of lust through her. She wanted to feel him against her, to feel his blood surging in response to her closeness. She took a half a step to close the gap between their bodies but he dropped her wrist as if it had suddenly caught fire.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, raking that same hand through his thick hair, leaving crooked finger-width pathways in its wake.
‘It’s fine,’ Molly said, aiming for light and airy but falling miserably short. ‘No harm done.’
‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Molly,’ he said, frowning heavily. ‘Any … connection between us is inadvisable.’
‘Because you don’t mix work with play?’
His eyes were hard and intractable as they clashed with hers. ‘Because I don’t mix emotion with sex.’
‘Who said anything about sex?’ Molly asked.
His worldly look said it all.
‘Right, well … I’m not very good at this, as you can probably tell,’ she said, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. ‘I try to be sophisticated and modern about it all but I guess deep down inside I’m just an old-fashioned girl who wants the fairy-tale.’
‘You’re no different from most women—and most men, for that matter,’ he said. ‘It’s not wrong to want to be happy.’
‘Are you happy, Lucas?’ Molly asked, searching his tightly set features.
His eyes moved away from hers as he moved back to the kitchen. ‘I need to put on the rice,’ he said. ‘You’d better keep an eye on your cat.’
Molly went outside to find Mittens. He wasn’t too happy about being brought back inside, but she lured him back in with a thread she found hanging off her coat. She closed the door once he was inside and went back to where Lucas was washing the rice for the rice cooker. ‘What can I do to help?’ she said. ‘Shall I set the table in the dining room?’
‘I don’t use the dining room,’ he said. ‘I usually eat in here.’
‘Seems a shame to have such a lovely dining room and never use it,’ Molly said. ‘Don’t you ever have friends over for dinner parties?’
He gave a shrug and pressed the start button on the cooker. ‘Not my scene, I’m afraid.’
‘Do you have a housekeeper?’
‘A woman comes once a week to clean,’ he said. ‘I don’t make much mess, or at least I try not to. I wouldn’t have bothered getting anyone but Gina needed the work. Her husband left her to bring up a couple of kids on her own. She’s reliable and trustworthy.’
Molly cradled her wine in her hands. ‘Do you have a current girlfriend?’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I’m between appointments, so to speak.’
She angled her head at him. ‘What sort of women do you usually date?’
His eyes collided with hers. ‘Why do you ask?’
Molly gave a little shrug. ‘Just wondering.’
‘I’m not a prize date, by any means,’ he said after another long moment. ‘I hate socialising. I hate parties. I don’t drink more than one glass of alcohol.’
‘Not every woman wants to party hard,’ she pointed out.
He studied her unwaveringly for a moment. ‘Not very many women just want to have sex and leave it at that.’
Molly felt a wave of heat rise up in her body. ‘Is that all you want from a partner?’ she asked. ‘Just sex and nothing else?’
Had she imagined his eyes looking hungrily at her mouth for a microsecond? Desire clenched tight in her core as his gaze tethered hers in a sensually charged lock. ‘It’s a primal need like food and shelter,’ he said. ‘It’s programmed into our genes.’
Molly was more aware of her primal needs than she had ever been. Her body was screaming with them, and had been from the moment she had laid eyes on him on the street the other day. It still was a shock to her that she was reacting so intensely to him. She had never thought herself a particularly passionate person. But when she was around him she felt stirrings and longings that were so fervent they felt like they would override any other consideration.
‘We’re surely far more evolved and civilised than to respond solely to our basest needs?’ she said.
His eyes grazed her mouth. ‘Some of us, perhaps.’
The atmosphere tightened another notch.
‘So how do you get your primal needs met?’ Molly asked with a brazen daring she could hardly believe she possessed. ‘Do you drag women back here by the hair and have your wicked way with them?’
This time his gaze went to her hair. She felt every strand of it lift away from her scalp like a Mexican wave. Hot tingles of longing raced along her backbone. She felt a stirring in her breasts; a subtle tightening that made her aware of the lace that supported them. Her heart picked up its pace, a tippity-tap-tap beat that reverberated in her feminine core.
His eyes came back to hers, holding them, searing them, penetrating them. ‘I’m not going to have my wicked way with you, Molly,’ he said.
‘But you want to.’ Oh, dear God, had she really just said that? Molly thought.
