Kat Black - Playing With Fire

Like the photo, she’d been convinced she’d lost Aidan from her life for ever. But after six weeks of silence he’d suddenly surfaced, showing up at her door, looking for answers.

‘I want to know why you acted the way you did. Why you ran out without a word, without a reason,’ he’d demanded with an uncharacteristic cool detachment, the lovely lilt of his accent clipped short, the look in his beautiful grey eyes – usually so expressive – shuttered and remote.

Shivering as she discarded her damp nightshirt and pulled on a replacement, Annabel pondered how, in the past, she would have welcomed such remoteness, would have encouraged exactly such emotional distance between herself and another human being.

But this time had been different, and even as she’d felt a rush of hope at his unexpected appearance, one look at his stern demeanour had crushed it, leaving her convinced he’d come for nothing more than to officially end things between them, face to face, after she’d been too cowardly to.

Feeling certain that she had nothing left to lose had somehow made it easier to open up, to reveal more vulnerability than she could ever remember doing with anyone else. ‘I was scared,’ she’d admitted, because when she’d so abruptly run out on his generosity and kindness, she had done so out of fear. Since she had so little experience of close friendships, let alone relationships, the shocking strength of the feelings this intensely passionate man had awoken in her had her literally running scared.

And now, as she pulled on her robe, she was scared all over again. Scared because, rather than gloating over or disdaining her for admitting her cowardice, Aidan had done something far more devastating and dangerous to her emotional state. He’d shown compassion and understanding by restoring her most precious possession to her.

Annabel grabbed the faux-fur throw from the end of the bed and returned to the bedside table to gather up the photograph before making her way to the sitting room. Clutching the frame to her chest, she recalled how that ultimate act of kindness had caused that very spot to ache with a pain so overwhelming that she had turned away from him to hide the tears that threatened to overflow.

‘Thank you,’ she’d barely managed to rasp out. ‘I don’t deserve this.’

He’d touched her then, for the first time since his arrival. Fingers on her chin, he’d forced her to face him, to meet that crystalline gaze that left her tears and her pain nowhere to hide. ‘If you had the chance to do that day differently, would you?’

Too choked at the thought of everything she’d thrown away, she’d simply nodded, unable to find her voice. But instead of the final goodbye she’d been anticipating, she’d found herself wrapped in a strong pair of arms and given a second chance. The deal sealed with a kiss.

And what a kiss. Potent, ardent, yet tempered with such heart-rending tenderness that even the memory had Annabel’s lips tingling.

She entered the sitting room and returned the frame to its usual place on her bookshelf before switching on a lamp and the television. Settling on the sofa, she draped the throw over herself and snuggled down to try to get comfortable.

Almost immediately, the lack of give in the cushions reminded her that, however bad her nights might currently seem, it was nothing compared to what was in store for her once the small, style-over-substance piece of furniture became her bed again when her mother was finally released from hospital. For six weeks Ellen had been in traction for the fractured neck she’d sustained during Tony Maplin’s attack. Although it had never been mentioned, Annabel couldn’t help but wonder if her mother’s sleep was as terrorised by nightmare replays of that day as her own.

Feeling the heavy pull of exhaustion, she used the television remote to channel-hop, searching for some late-night show mindless enough to send her back into a doze before she had to get up for a busy day at Cluny’s. But, unsurprisingly, neither the shopping channel nor sitcom reruns were up to the task of distracting her from the force that was Aidan Flynn. Or the velvet-wrapped promises of a future together he’d made to her mere hours before.

Despite his unwavering positivity, she was doubtful that they’d be able to merge their individual paths to make any long term commitment between them work. How could it, when she’d discovered that ultimately his intention was to move back to Ireland, while she had her own career path mapped out in England?

It was a sign of just how far he’d snuck through her defences when, seated beside him on this very sofa, she’d chosen to risk having him short-term rather than not at all. ‘Let’s try it and see.’

‘Oh, we’ll try, Annabel. Don’t you worry about that.’ He’d flashed his wicked, slightly crooked trademark smile at her – the one that never failed to make her belly somersault. ‘We’ll try anything and everything to make this work.’ Then he’d kissed her until she’d been left breathless, dizzy, so electrified by the prospect of what ‘everything’ might include that she’d been left stammering. ‘L-like what?’

‘All sorts,’ he’d promised. ‘To start with, we’ll date.’

That had thrown her. ‘Date?’ She’d never really been a dater … and surely they’d moved a bit beyond that stage already?

Her confusion must have been stamped on her features because he’d laughed and smoothed a thumb between her brows as though to rub away a frown. ‘Yes, you know – dinner, dancing, shows.’

‘Oh, but –’

‘Starting tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she’d parroted, still not really getting it. ‘I’m working.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he’d insisted, the light of laughter in his eyes sharpened to a determined glint. ‘I’ll pick you up from Cluny’s. Just for a quick nightcap.’

And then, apparently still being able to read the invisible undercurrents running through her as easily as he’d been able to do from the very start, he’d cupped her face, his expression softening again. ‘I know this is all going to be a first for you, and I want to do it right. We’ll feel our way through it together,’ he’d vowed, and lowered his head to brush his lips against hers again, that time a bare whisper of a touch, gone almost before it had begun, a warm, soft tease that had left her instinctively leaning in for more as he’d pulled back to add, ‘We’ll take it slow.’

Eyes still closed, she’d nodded, even as her body had screamed at her to jump him for the instant earth-shattering satisfaction it craved, remembering all too well the torture of Aidan Flynn’s idea of slow. But slow also meant she could keep control of the crazy emotions bubbling up from deeply hidden places inside her – the ones already threatening to drown her common sense. So when she’d finally opened her eyes and looked into his, it had been to agree.

‘Slow is good.’

‘Hurry!’ Annabel gasped.

The only response Aidan was capable of giving was an urgent, animalistic growl of frustration deep in his throat as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. The smell, the feel, the taste of her had his blood fired and his senses reeling. If only she’d keep still, he could do as she asked. Hurry, as he so badly wanted to do.

But it appeared she was as far gone as he, caught in the grip of a frantic physical need that had them groping at each other like horny teenagers. Bodies rubbing and hands everywhere – sliding over smooth planes, moulding curves, fumbling in their haste to get past the barriers of clothing and revisit the pleasures of naked flesh their separation had denied them.

So much for taking things slow, Flynn. Despite wanting to do the noble thing, his good intentions were no match for the force of the attraction he felt for Annabel Frost. One second they’d been offering each other a tentative goodnight as she’d stepped over the threshold of her flat. The next he’d been inside too, his hands grasping the sides of her head as he’d pinned her tight between his body and the entrance-hall wall, lips fused, tongues sparring. All before her door had even had the chance to swing shut.