A Tempestuous Temptation (9 page)

‘I know there’s room for improvement, judging from the dismal blacks and greys I’ve seen you wear in the past.’

Aggie turned to him, hot under the collar and ready to be self-righteous. And she just didn’t know what happened. Rather, she knew
exactly
what happened. Their eyes clashed. His, dark and amused … Hers, blue and sparking. Sitting so close to each other on the sofa, she could breathe him in and she gave a little half-gasp.

She knew he was going to kiss her even before she felt his cool lips touch hers, and it was as if she had been waiting for this for much longer than a couple of days. It was
as if she had been waiting ever since the very first time they had met.

It was brief, over before it had begun, although when he drew back she found that she was still leaning into him, her mouth parted and her eyes half-closed.

‘Bad manners to launch into an argument in a shop,’ he murmured, which snapped her out of her trance, though her heart was beating so hard that she could scarcely breathe.

‘You kissed me to shut me up?’

‘It’s one way of stopping an argument in the making.’

Aggie tried and failed to be enraged. Her lips were still tingling and her whole body felt as though it was on fire. That five-second kiss had been as potent as a red-hot branding iron. While she tried hard to conceal how affected she had been by it, he now looked away, the moment already forgotten, his attention back to the shop owner who had emerged with more handfuls of clothing, special items from the stock room at the back.

‘Jeans—those three pairs. Those jumpers and that dress … not that one, the one hanging at the back.’ He turned to Aggie, whose lips were tightly compressed. ‘You look as though you’ve swallowed a lemon whole.’

‘I would appreciate it if you would keep your hands to yourself!’ she muttered, flinty-eyed, and Luiz grinned, unperturbed by this show of anger.

‘I hadn’t realised that my hands had made contact with your body,’ he said silkily. ‘If they had, you would certainly know about it. Now, be a good girl and try on that lot. Oh, and I want to see how you look in them.’

Aggie, the very last person on earth anyone could label an exhibitionist, decided that she hated parading in front of Luiz. Nevertheless, she couldn’t deny the low-level buzz of unsettling excitement threading through her as she walked out in the jeans, the jumpers and various T-shirts in bright
colours. He told her to slow down and not run as though she was trying out for a marathon. When she finally arrived at the dress, she held it up and looked at him quizzically.

‘A dress?’

‘Humour me.’

‘I don’t wear bright blues.’ Nor did she wear silky dresses with plunging necklines that clung to her body like a second skin, lovingly outlining every single curve.

‘This is a crazy dress for me to try on in the middle of winter,’ she complained, walking towards him in the high heels which the sales assistant had slipped under the door for her. ‘When it’s snowing outside …’

Luiz could count on the fingers of one hand the times when he had ever been lost for words. He was lost for words now. He had been slouching on the low sofa, his hands lightly clasped on his lap, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Now he sat up straight and ran his eyes slowly up and down the length of her small but incredibly sexy body.

The colour of the dress brought out the amazing aquamarine of her eyes, and the cut of the stretchy, silky fabric left very little to the imagination when it came to revealing the surprising fullness of her breasts, the slenderness of her legs and the flatness of her stomach. He wanted to tell her to go back inside the dressing room and remove her bra so that he could see how the dress looked without two white bra-straps visible on her narrow shoulders.

‘We’ll have the lot.’ His arousal was sudden, fierce and painful and he was damned thankful that he could reach for his coat which he had draped over the back of the chair and position it on his lap. He couldn’t take his eyes off her but he knew that the longer he looked, the more uncomfortable he was going to get.

‘And we’d better get a move on,’ he continued roughly. ‘I don’t want to be stuck out here in town for much longer.’ He watched, mesmerised, at the sway of her rounded bottom as she walked back towards the changing room. ‘And we’ll have those shoes as well,’ he told the shop owner, who couldn’t do enough for a customer who had practically bought half the shop, including a summer dress which she had foreseen having to hold in the store room until better weather came along.

‘Thank you,’ Aggie said once they were outside and holding four bags each. A coat had been one of the purchases. She was wearing it now and, much as she hated to admit it, it felt absolutely great. She hadn’t felt a twinge of conscience as she had bid farewell to her old threadbare one in the shop, where it had been left for the shop owner to dispose of.

‘Was it as gruelling an experience as you had imagined?’ He glanced down and immediately thought of those succulent, rounded breasts and the way the dress had clung to them.

‘It was pretty amazing,’ Aggie admitted. ‘But we were in there way too long. You want to get back. I understand that. I just … have one or two small things I need to get. Maybe we could branch off now? You could go and buy yourself some stuff.’

‘You mean you don’t want me to parade in front of you?’ Luiz murmured, and watched with satisfaction the hectic flush that coloured her cheeks.

He hadn’t expected this powerful sexual attraction. He had no idea where it was coming from. He wasn’t sure when, exactly, it had been born and it made no sense, because she was no more his type than he, apparently, was hers. She was too argumentative, too mouthy and, hell, hadn’t he started this trip with her in the starring role of
gold-digger? Yet there was something strangely erotic and forbidden about his attraction, something wildly exciting about the way he knew she looked at him from under her lashes. He got horny just thinking about it.

Problem was … what was he to do with this? Where was he going to go with it?

He surfaced from his uncustomary lapse in concentration to find her telling him something about a detour she wanted him to make.

‘Seven … what? What are you talking about?’

‘I said that I’d like to stop off at Sevenoaks. It’ll be a minor detour and I haven’t been back there in over eighteen months.’

‘What’s Sevenoaks?’

‘Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?’ She assumed that, after the little jaunt in the clothes shop, his mind had now switched back to its primary preoccupation, which was work, and in that mode she might just as well have been saying ‘blah, blah, blah’.

‘In one ear, out the other,’ Luiz drawled, marvelling that he could become so lost in his imagination that he literally hadn’t heard a word she had been saying to him.

‘Sevenoaks is the home we grew up in,’ Aggie repeated. ‘Perhaps we could stop off there? It’s only a slight detour and it would mean a lot to me. I know you’re in a rush to get to Mark’s hotel, but a couple of hours wouldn’t make a huge difference, would it?’

‘We could do that.’

‘Right … well … thanks.’ Suddenly she felt as though she wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of their time in the town with him. In response to that crazy thought, she took a couple of small steps back, just to get out of that spellbinding circle he seemed to project around him, the one which, once entered, wreaked havoc with her thought
processes. ‘And I’ll head off now and see you back at the bed and breakfast.’

‘What are you going to buy?’ Luiz frowned as he continued to stare down at her. ‘I thought we’d covered all essential purchases. Unless there are some slightly less essential ones outstanding? There must be a lingerie shop of sorts somewhere …’

Aggie reacted to that suggestion as though she had been stung. She imagined parading in front of him wearing nothing but a lacy bra and pants and she almost gasped aloud.

‘I can get my own underwear—thank you.’ She stumbled over the words in her rush to get them out. ‘And, no, I wasn’t talking about that!’

‘What, then?’

‘Luiz, it’s getting colder out here and I’d really like to get back to the bed and breakfast so …’ She took a few more steps back, although her eyes remained locked with his, like stupid, helpless prey mesmerised by an approaching predator.

Luiz nodded, breaking the spell. ‘I’ll see you back there in …’ he glanced at his watch. ‘… a couple of hours. I have some work to do. Let’s make it six-thirty in the dining room. If we’re to have any kind of detour, then we’re going to have to leave very early in the morning, barring any overnight fall of snow that makes it impossible. So we’ll get an early night.’

‘Of course,’ Aggie returned politely. She was gauging from the tone of his voice that, whatever temporary truces came into effect, nothing would deflect him from his mission. It suddenly seemed wildly inappropriate that she had thrilled to his eyes on her only moments before as she had provided him with his very own fashion show, purchased at great expense. She might have made a great song and
dance about her scorn for money, her lack of materialism but, thinking about how she had strutted her stuff to those lazy, watchful eyes, she suddenly felt as though without even realising it she had been bought somehow. And not only that, she had enjoyed the experience.

‘And I just want you to know …’ Her voice was cooler by several degrees. ‘That once we’re back in London, I shall make sure that all the stuff you bought for me is returned to you.’

‘Not this rubbish again!’ Luiz dismissed impatiently. ‘I thought we’d gone over all that old ground and you’d finally accepted that it wasn’t a mortal insult to allow me to buy you a few essential items of clothing, considering we’ve been delayed on this trip?’

‘Since when is a summer dress
an essential item of clothing
?’

‘Climb out of the box, Aggie. So the dress isn’t essential. Big deal. Try a little frivolity now and again.’ He couldn’t help himself. His gaze drifted down to her full lips. It seemed that even when she was getting on his nerves she still contrived to turn him on.

‘You think I’m dull!’

‘I think this is a ridiculous place to have an ongoing conversation about matters that have already been sorted. Standing in the snow. The last thing either of us need is to succumb to an attack of winter flu.’

With her concerns casually swatted away, and her pride not too gently and very firmly put in its place, Aggie spun round on her heels without a backward glance.

She could imagine his amusement at her contradictory behaviour. One minute she was gracefully accepting his largesse, the next minute she was ranting and railing against it. It made no sense. It was the very opposite of
the determined, cool, always sensible person she considered herself to be.

But then, she was realising that in his presence that determined, cool and always sensible person went into hiding.

Annoyed with herself, she did what she had to do in town, including purchasing some very functional underwear, and once back at the bed and breakfast she retreated up to her bedroom with a pot of tea. The landline at the hotel to which they were heading was still down and neither could she make contact with her brother on his mobile.

At this juncture, she should have been wringing her hands in worry at the prospect of the scene that would imminently unfold. She should have been depressed at the thought of Luiz doing his worst and bracing herself for a showdown that might result in her having to pick up the pieces. Her fierce protectiveness of her brother should have kicked in.

Instead, as she settled in the chair by the window with her cup of tea, she found herself thinking of Luiz and remembering the brush of his lips on hers. One fleeting kiss that had galvanised all the nerve-endings in her body.

She found herself looking forward to seeing him downstairs, even though she knew that it was entirely wrong to do so. Fighting the urge to bathe and change as quickly as possible, she took her time instead and arrived in the dining room half an hour after their agreed time.

She paused by the door and gathered herself. Luiz was in the clothes he had presumably bought after they had parted company, a pair of black jeans and a black, round-necked jumper. He had pushed his chair back and in front of him was his laptop, at which he was staring with a slight frown.

He looked every inch the tycoon, controlling his empire
from a distance. He was a man who could have any woman he wanted. To look at him was to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. So why was she getting into such a tizzy at the sight of him? He had kissed her to shut her up, and here she was, reacting as though he had swept her off her feet and transported her to his bed.

Luiz looked up and caught her in the act of staring. He shut his computer and in the space of a few seconds had clocked the new jeans, tighter than her previous ones, and one of the new, more brightly coloured long-sleeved T-shirts that clung in a way she probably hadn’t noticed. It was warm in the dining room. No need for a thick jumper.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting your work,’ Aggie said, settling in the chair opposite him. There was a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket next to the table and she eyed it suspiciously. Now was definitely not the time to over-indulge.

‘All finished, and you’ll be pleased to know that the deal is more or less done and dusted. Jobs saved. Happy employees. A few lucky ones might even get pay rises. What did you buy in town after you left me?’

He poured her some wine and she fiddled with the stem of the glass.

‘A few toys,’ Aggie confessed. ‘Things to take to the home. The children don’t get a lot of treats. I thought it would be nice if I brought some with me. I shall wrap them; it’ll be hugely exciting for them. ‘Course, I couldn’t really splash out, but I managed to find a shop with nothing in it over a fiver.’

Luiz watched the animation on her face. This was what the women he dated lacked. They had all been beautiful. In some cases, they had graced the covers of magazines. But, compared to Aggie’s mobile, expressive face, theirs seemed in recollection lifeless and empty. Like mannequins.
Was it any wonder that he had tired of them so quickly?