Miranda Lee - Contract with Consequences

When the plane banked sharply, the setting sun shone straight into Scarlet’s eyes. She automatically shut them, then kept them shut, always having found landing stressful, though this time her stresses were many and varied.

The landing seemed to take for ever, but exiting the plane was relatively quick, thank goodness, as her seat was right down the back, not far from the exit. She walked across the tarmac towards the terminal building, her only thought at that moment being that every step brought her closer to John.

John stood at a window in the arrivals area, scanning the passengers as they left the plane. He spotted Scarlet immediately, the rays of the setting sun bouncing gold off her blonde hair which was down and blowing in the breeze. She was wearing jeans and a white jacket, with a white-and-blue top underneath. She looked utterly gorgeous, sexy and… very tense. Her forehead was scrunched into a frown and her walk was fast and anxious, passing several other passengers before entering the terminal building.

Clearly, she didn’t see him standing nearby, although her eyes were darting around the place. When he stepped forward to make his presence known, she gave him a tight smile, obviously very nervous indeed. At her request, he led her to the nearest ladies’ room, waiting patiently outside for her return, using the time to gather his thoughts and assess his reaction to her arrival.

There was only one word to describe the way he was feeling.

Excited. More excited than he’d been in years. Not just sexual excitement, though that was there as well. Hell, yes! He’d had a hard-on for days. But there was another excitement firing him up: the excitement which came from rising to meet a challenge.

During the last week or so John had given a lot of thought to why he was doing this. He’d finally come to the conclusion that it was his male ego that had directed his offer to Scarlet. There wasn’t anything mysterious or confusing about it. It was his competitive spirit coming to the fore. He, John Mitchell, was going to do what no other man could do. His intense desire to give Scarlet a baby wasn’t just sexual, it was primal . Man doing what he was put on earth to do: propagate.

Scarlet had been spot on when she’d said having a child was a basic drive for men as well as for women. It was.

All these realisations had led John to approach his time with Scarlet as much more than an opportunistic affair. It was an important project, to be researched and carried out with meticulous attention to detail. When he’d been looking for oil in Argentina he hadn’t just lucked upon the discovery. It had taken months of painstaking work, both physical and intellectual. So he’d set about researching the reasons for an otherwise healthy woman not conceiving with the same dogged determination. After reading every article on the Internet on the subject, he’d come to the conclusion that Scarlet’s most likely problem was stress, something he’d already suspected. She needed to relax more and stop obsessing about having a baby.

Which was where he came in. His job was to relax her, and the best way to relax her was through sex. Not just ordinary old sex-great sex. The kind which would eventually make the woman forget everything but having her partner deep inside her. John had concluded that Mother Nature had created orgasms for a reason, so making sure that Scarlet had fun was his number one priority.

Luckily, John knew his way around a woman’s body very well indeed. Knew what pleasured them. Knew what was likely to satisfy them. Scarlet had obviously had some negative experiences where the opposite sex was concerned. It made sense that she’d been turned off men to a degree.

She’d probably expect him to make a pass tonight. All the more reason why he wouldn’t. Let her be impressed with his gentlemanly manners and his apartment. It was a very nice apartment. He’d give her one of the two guest rooms, the one which opened out onto the balcony with a view of the harbour, the same balcony his bedroom opened onto. Tomorrow, he would take her sightseeing during the day, wine and dine her in the evening, then make love to her afterwards. Romantic sex, the kind with silk sheets and candles.

John’s mouth quirked. Unfortunately, he didn’t have silk sheets or candles. He wasn’t that kind of guy. Damn. Still, perhaps it was for the best not to get too romantic-it might… confuse the issue.

Such thinking brought a rueful laugh to his lips. Scarlet King, fall in love with him ? Not bloody likely!

Scarlet felt marginally better by the time she emerged from the ladies’ room. Besides a much-needed trip to the loo, she’d taken off her jacket and brushed her hair. But the sight of John standing there brought a swarm of butterflies to her stomach. She still couldn’t get used to how sexy she found him. He looked very attractive, dressed in fawn cargo shorts and a white polo shirt which highlighted his tan, as well as his broad-shouldered, very fit body.

She also couldn’t get used to the way he kept looking at her, like she was a freshly cooked pizza and he a starving Italian. His obvious desire was both flattering and nerve-wracking at the same time. Her pulse-rate definitely moved up several notches.

Scooping in a deep breath, she hooked her bag over her right shoulder, draped her jacket over her left arm and moved towards him, fiercely aware of the movements slow walking and fast breathing were creating in her female body. The soft rise and fall of her breasts. The sway of her hips. Lord, but she was blushing now!

Thankfully, his eyes had by then moved in the direction of the nearby carousel where the luggage was coming out.

‘What does your bag look like?’ he asked, glancing back over his shoulder at her.

‘It’s black with a big pink ribbon tied to the handle. There it is now,’ she said, pointing.

John strode over and scooped her bag off the carousel, his eyebrows lifting when he felt the weight of it. ‘I only asked you to come for ten days, Scarlet,’ he said with dry amusement as he steered her towards the exit, dragging the bag behind them. ‘Not for life.’

‘I hate going away anywhere and getting caught with either not enough clothes or all the wrong ones.’

‘Can’t say it’s a problem I have often.’

‘You’re not a female.’

‘Which is rather a good thing,’ he said with a wry little smile.

Scarlet ground to a halt and stared up at him.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Do I know you at all, John Mitchell? I thought I did. I thought I had you pegged as that introverted, antisocial pain-in-the-neck kid from across the street who’d grown up into an irritatingly gorgeous but pain-in-the-neck adult. Instead, suddenly, I find out you’re nothing like that at all. You’re actually quite witty and charming and… and…’

‘Maybe you never knew the real John Mitchell,’ he countered.

‘Obviously I didn’t. What other surprises do you have in store for me?’

‘Shall we go and find out?’ he said, taking her elbow again and leading her out to the visitors’ car-park.

His SUV didn’t surprise her, despite being relatively new and relatively unused. But the sheet of paper waiting on the passenger seat did. It was the printout of a medical bill of health.

She shook her head from side to side as she read it. ‘It was very thoughtful of you to do this, John,’ she said.

‘I just didn’t want to you to worry about anything at any stage. I wasn’t going to offer you less than what you were getting at that clinic. I’m quite sure your anonymous donor had a similar clearance.’

‘Yes. Yes, he did,’ she said, frowning. ‘I should have thought to ask you, but I didn’t. It was silly of me.’

‘Not silly. Just human. You’ve been upset lately. And very busy. But you would have thought of it eventually, and you would have worried. Now, you don’t have to.’