SUSANNE MCCARTHY - Satan's Contract

‘Well, for a start, I’m the man who owns Claremont, however much you and your precious parents might dislike the idea,’ he responded, coolly provocative.

She tried to draw back from him, her anger at boiling point. ‘Why, you bast—’ She shut her mouth abruptly as she realised what she was saying, her colour deepening to a vivid scarlet.

‘Go on—why don’t you say it?’ he taunted, drawing her back even closer into his arms. ‘I’m a bastard. I’m not ashamed of that fact. I’d rather have been born out of wedlock than into the kind of marriage my father had with your grandmother.’

Her mind was struggling in vain for an answer, but deep down she was too inclined to agree with him to be able to retaliate. And anyway, it was impossible to think straight when he was holding her so intimately close, moving her slowly to the music, his warm breath stirring her hair.

Slowly, imperceptibly, the warmth of his arms was melting the ice in her spine, the musky male scent of his skin invading her senses, drugging her mind. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the spell he had woven around them, a spell that was causing everything else to fade to a dark blur, until it seemed as though he was the only real and solid thing in the whole world.

As the music changed, she made no further attempt to pull away from him. The whole length of her body was curved intimately against his, as if it had been cast as part of the same mould. She could sense a fierce male hunger in his embrace, but a tide of purely feminine submissiveness was flooding through her, filling her with a strange glow of warmth that seemed to be melting her bones...

A sudden loud roar of laughter from Jeremy snatched her back abruptly to the real world. He seemed to have already forgotten her existence—he had clambered on to a table, and was trying boozily to balance a half-full magnum of champagne on top of his head as he began to strip off his jacket.

‘I hope you’re not proposing to let that drunken lout drive you home?’ Shaun enquired, his voice laced with scorn.

She retreated swiftly into a pose of defensive disdain. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she countered with studied indifference. ‘What are you going to do about it? Report him to the police?’

‘If we were in Canada, I’d be the police.’

She stared at him in blank surprise. ‘You’re a policeman ?’

His smile was grim. ‘That’s what I said. And I don’t find the idea of drunken driving at all clever or funny. You should see the consequences of a freeway accident some time, or maybe have to go knocking on some poor family’s door at one in the morning to tell them their kid’s been smashed up or killed. You might learn something about real life.’

His low, ferocious voice made her shiver, and she swallowed hard, ashamed now of the flippancy she had put on deliberately to annoy him. ‘I...I didn’t know you were a policeman,’ she stammered.

‘Detective,’ he amended shortly. ‘But I guess I’ll be handing in my badge now.’ She glanced up at him questioningly. ‘I’ve just inherited a pretty large chunk of an engineering business,’ he pointed out with dry emphasis. ‘I ought to see about learning how to run it properly.’

‘Oh... Yes, of course—I...suppose you’ll be moving back to England now?’

‘Naturally. I’ve also inherited a very nice house.’ His eyes were glinting with that hard, mocking humour as he deliberately taunted her. ‘It’ll make a pleasant change from a tenth-floor condo in Parkdale—though I do have a pretty decent view of the lake. I guess I might want to make a few changes, of course. Does the place have central heating?’

She clenched her jaw, her regrets already forgotten. ‘Some parts of it do,’ she returned caustically. ‘But please don’t hesitate to rip out the floors and the panelling to put it in the rest.’

‘Thank you. Your permission, of course, was essential.’

The most annoying thing about him, Pippa reflected acidly, was the way he always seemed able to return her poison barbs with interest. And the way he always seemed to be laughing at her. And the way he looked at her, with a kind of calculated insolence that reminded her all too uncomfortably of that first moment of meeting him, when her blouse had been all agape from her tumble into the hedge.

The memory of that incident was still vividly alive in her brain, a constant source of embarrassment. Maybe that was why she always felt so vulnerable when she was around him... You know it isn’t that, a small voice was whispering inside her head. It was something in the strange alchemy he wove—something in the glint of humour in those hazel-brown eyes, the lazy mockery of that soft drawling voice.

He was holding her very close, his hand resting intimately over the base of her spine, his cheek against her hair. Dancing in his arms, she felt as if this was where she had always belonged. She was floating, outside of time and space, all her anger at his insults forgotten, all her defences crumbling to dust. She closed her eyes again, wishing this moment would never end...

‘Hey, Pippa!’ Jeremy had spotted her from his vantage-point on the table and had remembered with sudden indignation that she had come in with him. He handed the champagne bottle to Peter, and jumped heavily down, scattering several dancers out of his way. ‘Who the devil’s this?’ he demanded, snatching at her arm and glowering at Shaun in drunken belligerence.

‘Jeremy,’ she begged in an anxious whisper, ‘there’s no need to make a scene.’

‘Oh, isn’t there?’ He pushed Shaun rudely on the shoulder with his hand. ‘Get away from her,’ he ordered, very much on his high horse. ‘Who do you think you are, dancing with my girl?’

For one awful moment, Pippa feared that there was going to be a fight. It would have been a very uneven contest; Shaun had several inches’ advantage in both height and breadth—and besides, Jeremy was far too drunk. But clearly Shaun had come to the same conclusion, and his look was one of mocking contempt.

‘She’s all yours,’ he drawled, releasing her from his arms. ‘I wish you well of her—you seem pretty well matched.’

Jeremy, dimly suspecting that they had both been insulted, stood with his mouth hanging rather stupidly open as Shaun turned and walked away. ‘Well, of all the bloody cheek!’ he protested. ‘I’ve a good mind to teach him a lesson. Who the hell does he think he is?’

‘No, don’t,’ pleaded Pippa, rather exasperated with him. ‘Leave it alone.’

‘Well, but...’ He conceded the point with a show of reluctance, but he wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know he was likely to receive the worst of any physical confrontation—Pippa’s restraining hand had provided him with the excuse he needed to allow him to back down without losing face. ‘Who is he, anyway?’ he queried. ‘Do you know him?’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.