Penny Jordan - Northern Sunset

Catriona moved slightly, the moonlight briefly touching her hair, turning it silver. His eyes followed the movement, widening slightly.

“So it’s you…” he drawled in recognition. “I saw you in the bar….”

“And I saw you,” Catriona whipped back. “And you’re quite right, I don’t like men like you. I detest them, and everything they stand for.” Her lip curled faintly as she forgot her fear. “You’re quite safe with me—I wouldn’t touch you for all the oil in the North Sea!”

He was pulling off his shirt, and his hands stilled, his eyes like jade as they held hers, compelling them to witness the undeniable maleness of his hair toughened chest as the shirt was discarded.

“Is that a fact?”

“I can’t stay here with you,” Catriona protested, forgetting her earlier determination not to plead with him. “Just let me get dressed and….”

“And get the manager, who’ll turf me out of my room, and no doubt accuse me of seducing you into the bargain. No way,” he told her curtly. “You’re staying right there. Unless of course you’re brave enough to get out of that bed and get the key?”

He knew she couldn’t, Catriona admitted wrathfully as he turned his back on her and calmly turned on the basin tap. If only he had been going to have a bath, she could have left while he was gone. The suspicion that he was deliberately punishing her by remaining would not be denied. He could have as little desire to share the bed with her as she did with him, but he had sensed her fear, beneath her anger, and meant to punish her by arousing it still further. Her shocked ears caught the unmistakable sound of more clothes being removed, and the wardrobe she had left untouched was opened and a case dragged out.

“Seems to me whoever was supposed to tell me that you had my room also forgot to get my luggage removed,” he drawled coolly from the other side of the bed. “Unless you were lying all along?”

“No….”

This time she made no attempt to conceal her panic, rolling as close to the edge of the bed as she could as she felt it depress with his weight. Her heart was thudding like a sledgehammer, and she had never felt less like sleep. Her companion turned over and she froze, unaware of the small protest she had uttered until his fingers grasped her chin, sending shocked fear washing over her.

“Something tells me you’ve never done this before,” he murmured, in a voice which, for the first time, held a thread of humour. “Would I be right?”

More right than he knew, Catriona acknowledged wryly. She hadn’t slept with any man yet, never mind one who was a complete stranger, and even though she prided herself on being a modern girl, his presence overwhelmed her, conscious as she was of his unembarrassed nudity, so totally and frankly male.

As she fought against the panic his touch had aroused, Catriona heard him add softly,

“Too scared to reply?”

Her tense muscles gave him the answer she was incapable of speaking, and she thought she heard him sigh as his thumb stroked softly along her gritted jaw bone.

“You’re quite safe,” he assured her gravely. “I’m not about to ravish you. All I want is a decent night’s sleep. We’ve been out on the rigs for the last five days, in a force nine gale, and believe me,” he told her frankly, “even if I wanted to I doubt I could summon the energy to teach you how to make love.”

“I don’t need anyone to teach me!” Catriona choked back, furious with both him and herself. By rights they shouldn’t be having this conversation. They were complete strangers.

He laughed and she felt the sound shake his body—a body which she was acutely conscious was as naked as her own—and colour flamed momentarily along her cheekbones, curiosity mingling with outrage, a strange desire to know more about this man who treated their presence in bed together as though it were of no more moment than a casual chance meeting at a bus stop.

“Don’t touch me!” she demanded, jerking away from the hand which cupped her chin, gasping with pain as hard fingers suddenly seized her wrists, pulling her against the male body she had mentally been contemplating, its weight pinning her back against the mattress as cool masculine lips feathered lightly against the full softness of her own.

Catriona knew enough about men to know there was nothing of passion in the kiss. It was firm, experienced, and totally platonic, just as the male contours of the body now dominating her own were completely and absolutely devoid of sexual intensity. Before she could protest she was released to listen in bitter chagrin to the male voice whispering in her ear.

“You see? And now that I’ve disposed of your girlish fears perhaps we can both get some sleep.”

There was a pause while she struggled to formulate a suitably crushing response, and then he added suavely, “Disappointed?”

The sardonic question released her anger to spill out over him in heated denial. Disappointed? She glared at him with loathing. Never in a thousand years! How could he have inflicted such humiliation upon her? And yet at the back of her mind was an emotion, far too tenuous to be given a name, which niggled tormentingly.

“Now go to sleep,” she was instructed in much the same tones one might use to an erring child, and much to her own astonishment she found that her eyes were closing; the sleep she had denied she would ever experience washed over her in waves.

Some time during the night those same waves were transformed to the beating fury of the North Sea which had destroyed her parents’ sailing dinghy and robbed them of life, and her cries of protest were drowned out by the roaring sound of the water, until as always she found sanctuary in Magnus’s protective arms and the storm was spent.

When she awoke she was alone in the bed, no trace of its other occupant visible anywhere in the room, and on trembling legs Catriona sped to the door, making sure it was locked and leaving her key in the lock while she washed and dressed hurriedly, trying not to remember the events of the previous night.

How dared he think she had actually been waiting for him! She pulled her jeans on viciously, breaking a nail, and cursing as she searched for an emery board. When you lose your temper it always rebounds on you, her mother had told her when she was a child, and surveying the broken nail with a fierce frown Catriona was forced to reflect on the truth of this statement.

Just how much she had been dreading coming face to face with her unwanted room-mate Catriona could only acknowledge when she got downstairs and found the dining room empty. At least he had had the decency to make himself scarce this morning, she reflected over her breakfast, but that did not excuse him for his behaviour of the previous night. She felt the colour wash over her skin as she remembered the cool feel of his flesh against hers. She started to tremble and dismissed the thought. It was over now, and if she had any sense she would simply forget about it.

She had confined her hair in a neat plait to keep it out of the way and she looked closer to sixteen than twenty-two as she headed for the harbour. Her body felt lethargic—a legacy from last night’s nightmare. Her lips curved into a fond smile as she remembered the deep sense of protective security she had experienced as she dreamed of Magnus’s comforting arms.

IT was a four-hour journey to Falla, but Catriona, wearing workmanlike oilskins over her jumper and jeans, worked efficiently, nursing the old fishing yaol across the windswept winter sea. The open cockpit offered scant protection from the elements, but Catriona was barely aware of the fierce wind teasing tendrils of hair which had escaped from her plait, as she concentrated on manoeuvring the unwieldy craft through the dangerous cross-currents. There was something about this battle with the wind and sea that exhilarated, setting her free from all worries and cares.