Expectant Mistress

скачать книгу бесплатно


Trish suppressed her involuntary flinch. ‘Great for intimacy.’

‘I’ll say,’ he replied enthusiastically.

Her lips compressed for a moment, then she remembered that he was a paying guest, nothing more.

‘I’ve laid on tea for you.’ On her best welcoming be-haviour, she pulled out the white wicker chair. ‘You have breakfast in here, squeezed in between the geraniums and petunias. Or outside, if it’s warm enough. Dinner ditto’

‘Wonderful,’ he said, when she’d expected him to turn his nose up at the cramped conditions.

‘I’ll go and make the tea and bring tonight’s menu,’ she continued pleasantly. ‘Help yourself to tea bread. The flapjacks and Dundee cake were made today Any preferred brand of tea?’

‘Earl Grey with lemon.’ He seemed to be fighting down laughter. ‘Join me, Trish. And stop being so damn formal!’

‘You’re getting the same treatment as anyone who comes here!’ she said indignantly. ‘I can’t deviate from the script—I’d forget something!’

She left him laughing, and as she put the kettle on to boil she knew she was longing to be on easy terms with him again. Should she sit with him or not? There were a thousand Jobs she could be doing. Her conscience and desires had a brief tussle. One cup of tea—just to be friendly, she decided, pleased with her cool compromise.

Surrounded by tumbling passion flowers and scarlet geraniums, and with jasmine shedding petals on his head, Adam had stretched out his legs and was finishing a sticky slab of tea bread. He slowly licked his fingers, his eyes fixed on the garden but his mind miles away. On Louise, Trish supposed. Then a small curl of erotic pleasure tweaked at her breasts as he sucked his forefinger in very sexy contemplation.

‘Right! Tea!’ she cried merrily, as though she were producing vintage champagne ‘I can only stop a moment. The weeds in the garden are in danger of taking over the whole island!’

Adam’s rich chuckle warmed her body. ‘It’s an amazing place! Like a jungle!’ he said, leaning forward in admiration, as if he were seeing it for the first time.

Flattered, Trish nevertheless felt a pang. He had been mooning over Louise. He was missing his fiancée already.

Subdued by this, she poured the tea then took a golden flapjack, noticing that he’d removed his sweater and had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow. His bare, oak-coloured arm lay along the edge of the chair, close to hers. An inch more and they’d be touching.

Something drastic happened to her throat. She began to choke.

‘Hold on!’

Adam leapt up and banged her on the back. Her coughing fit ceased but he continued to massage either side of her spine. She let him. A deep warmth invaded her body through the thin T-shirt, loosening tendon, muscle and sinew. The massage became slower. She could hear him breathing. Every inch of her was aware of him and tingling with an electric tension. A light touch of something—his fingers, perhaps?—brushed the nape of her neck and then he was moving back to his chair.

‘OK?’ he asked abruptly.

No. Aroused. Angry. Resentful... ‘Thanks to you. Good thing you were here!’ she said vigorously, in an effort to drive the devils from her body. ‘Think how awful it would be, having “Suffocation from home-made flapjack” on your death certificate!’