Julia James - Passion & Pleasure

Immediately, Fliss abandoned her exercises, and swung round to face him. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, the shock of being discovered in her night wear briefly obscuring the fact of how unusual it was for him to leave the house. ‘Where’s Amy?’

Matt tucked his fingers beneath his arms, an expression of mild amusement giving his dark features a disturbingly sexual appeal. Like her, he was wearing shorts, though she guessed he hadn’t slept in his. And a black vest, that revealed surprisingly muscled biceps for a man who supposedly led a sedentary life. Just looking at him like this made her toes curl, and the ache down in her belly caused a moist heat to make itself felt between her legs.

‘As I said before, she’s coming,’ Matt declared, his eyes surveying her just as thoroughly as she was surveying him. ‘I think she wanted me to speak to you first.’

Fliss’s heart sank. ‘What’s she done now?’ she asked wearily, deciding she couldn’t worry about her appearance right now. What she was wearing was decent enough, even if her nipples were etched unmistakably against the thin cloth of her T-shirt. ‘Don’t tell me she’s been annoying you again.’

‘As far as I’m aware, Amy has never annoyed me,’ he retorted, emphasising the last two words. ‘I like her. She’s a good kid.’

Fliss breathed through her nose, trying to subdue the erratic beat of her heart. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop her from getting into mischief.’ She paused, and then, as the reality of his presence registered, ‘I’m sorry. Were you looking for me?’

Matt sighed. ‘In a manner of speaking, I guess.’

Fliss frowned. ‘You haven’t come here to speak to my father, have you?’

‘Unlikely.’ Matt’s lips twisted. ‘My information was that he isn’t up yet.’

‘From Amy?’ Fliss blew out an exasperated breath. ‘Well, sorry to disappoint you, but he is up. He’s in the bathroom, but I have every reason to believe he’ll be down here any minute now.’

‘Magic.’ Matt pulled a wry face. ‘OK, here’s what I came to say—Amy tells me you don’t have time to take her to the beach—’

‘Amy told you that?’

‘Yeah.’ Matt shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘All right, I’ll admit it. She did come over to the house. The dog—what’s its name? Harvey?—had got into the garden and she was looking for it.’

Fliss snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’ She gave him a pitying look. ‘Believe me, if Harvey was in your garden, Amy must have put him there. There’s no way he could get out of this garden without someone opening the gate.’

‘Perhaps she was taking him for a walk?’ suggested Matt mildly, but Fliss only made another impatient gesture.

‘In her nightclothes?’ she demanded scornfully, and Matt gave a lazy shrug.

‘Why not? You apparently do aerobics in yours.’

Fliss felt the colour flood into her throat. ‘In my own kitchen,’ she retorted indignantly, and his lean mouth tilted in an incredibly sexy grin.

‘OK,’ he conceded. ‘That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry. But it’s true, isn’t it? You did tell Amy you couldn’t take her to the beach.’

‘I might have done.’

Matt waited a beat. Then, he said, ‘I wondered if you’d allow me to take her out.’

‘You?’

Fliss was taken aback and it showed, and Matt’s mouth compressed. ‘Yeah,’ he said flatly. ‘I knew it was a crazy idea, but I had to run it by you.’ He half turned. ‘Forget it. I’ll see you Monday morning at the usual time—’

‘Wait!’ Fliss didn’t know what possessed her, but she couldn’t let him go like this. ‘I—let me think about it, at least.’

Matt paused, and eyes dark as sin impaled her with a sceptical look. ‘What’s to think about?’ he asked. ‘You hardly know me. I know that. You don’t know if you can trust me. Like I said, it was a crazy idea. Why don’t we both forget I ever mentioned it?’

Fliss shook her head. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well—for a start, because I do think I can trust you.’

‘Thanks.’ His tone was dry.

‘I mean it.’ Fliss sighed. ‘But Amy had no right to involve you—’

‘If you say so.’

‘—and I’m sure you have better things to do than take a nine-year-old to the beach.’

‘Ah.’ He was sardonic. ‘This is your way of letting me down gently, right?’

‘Wrong.’

‘But you’re going to say no, anyway,’ he persisted harshly. ‘Why don’t you just come out and say so?’

‘If you must know, I’d already decided to take her myself,’ said Fliss defensively, and she saw the way his mouth turned down at this news.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I mean it.’ She gave a helpless shake of her head. ‘Why would I lie?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I’m not lying,’ she protested. ‘If you don’t believe me, why don’t you come with us?’

It was one of those moments when the air in the room practically shimmered with tension. Matt was obviously taken aback by her words and Fliss was wondering how much deeper a hole she was going to dig herself. Dear God, she didn’t want to spend a whole day with him any more than he wanted to spend the day with her. Dammit, why hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut?

‘What’s going on here?’

Her father’s appearance in the doorway seemed like the last straw. She had hoped Matt would have said his piece and disappeared before her father came down, but now George Taylor was staring at their visitor with wary eyes. He’d recognised him, of course. How could he not? And he was characteristically suspicious as to why Matt should be standing in his kitchen.

In fact it was Matt who took the initiative. ‘Mr Taylor, I presume,’ he remarked easily, putting out his hand to shake the other man’s as if he’d never expressed any reluctance to speak to a member of the Press. ‘Matt Quinn. I’m the new owner of the Old Coaching House.’

‘I know who you are Mr Quinn,’ said Fliss’s father stiffly, obviously as taken aback by Matt’s cordiality as Fliss was herself. Then his gaze turned to his daughter, and his lips tightened. ‘I suggest you go and put some clothes on, Felicity. I’ll entertain our guest.’

Fliss rolled her eyes. ‘Dad—’

‘It’s OK,’ said Matt, before she could say anything more. ‘I’ve got to go and finish my breakfast and lock up the house.’ He met Fliss’s gaze with apparent unconcern. ‘I’ll leave your daughter to explain that I’m taking her and your granddaughter out for the day.’

Fliss didn’t know which of them was the most shocked, her or her father. But rather than wait to see how she was going to handle it, Matt arched a challenging brow in her direction and headed for the door.

‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ he promised blandly. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Taylor.’

And with that, he was gone, and Fliss was left to face her father’s undoubted irritation. The door had scarcely closed behind Matt before he snapped, ‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on between you and that man? Why would he think he had the right to come here at—’ he consulted his wrist-watch before continuing—‘at seven-thirty in the morning? Has he been here all night?’

Fliss’s jaw dropped. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘What’s ridiculous about it? I didn’t hear a car, and you’re hardly dressed to receive visitors.’ His lips pursed with annoyance as he viewed her attire. ‘And couldn’t you buy yourself some nightgowns? What must he think, finding you wearing men’s underpants to sleep in?’

‘They’re boxers,’ Fliss corrected him shortly. ‘And they’re very comfortable, actually.’