SARA WOOD - White Lies

She missed being hugged by her beloved husband. She missed the joy of sex. And the bliss afterwards.

Slowly her limpid gaze came back to focus on his. ‘Spoken like a true chauvinist,’ she said resentfully. Yet the memories had roughened her voice and she sounded horribly husky and inviting.

‘You need men... and I need women. There’s something terrible about the sex urge, isn’t there, Mandy?’

Taking advantage of her astonished silence, he slowly displayed his masculine approval by openly studying her body. Mandy squirmed uncomfortably, aware that her sweat was holding her thin dress against her damp skin and that he must be learning more about her figure than he should.

‘Don’t!’ she husked, reeling from his intense sexuality. It was making her body throb... It was such a long time since a man had been so bold and poured desire from the depths of his eyes! Her mouth trembled and pouted. ‘Don’t!’

‘Invitation and rebuke. Little-girl sweetness, womanly sensuality. Demure and innocent, yet offering the promise of curves that will fire an old man’s loins. What a joy you must be to lustful old satyrs,’ mused Pascal with breathtaking insolence.

‘What?’ she gasped.

‘Easy arousal is vitally important when you’re dealing with lowered libido,’ he drawled.

‘Is that an observation from personal experience?’ she snapped waspishly.

He smiled with the confidence of a man who knew he couldn’t ever give the impression that he might be less than one hundred per cent pure male. ‘I have a very high libido. It’s a problem sometimes,’ he murmured. ‘Particularly when faced with temptation.’

Her chin jerked down, following the direction of his fascinated and mocking gaze. The freshening breeze—or something—had teased each dark centre of her breasts into a firm peak which thrust at the cloth assertively in an unspoken invitation. No wonder Pascal’s mouth was looking sultrier by the minute! Hastily, she covered their come-and-get-me appeal with defensively folded arms.

‘Don’t flatter yourself that that’s anything to do with you!’ she snapped. ‘Get your libido back in line. I’m not interested in you—’

‘What about money?’ he suggested.

‘All I’m interested in at present is your father—’

‘They amount to the same thing. He represents money for you.’

‘He represents my dreams,’ she corrected.

‘You’re determined to stay on, aren’t you?’ he murmured. ‘So...we’ll have to get along together after all.’ His mouth twisted at her wide-eyed hope. ‘Would you like to spend an hour or two on my boat?’ he suggested casually.

Although he was smiling at her innocently, she couldn’t mistake the sinfully arched eyebrow and the undercurrent of male desire in his deep blue eyes.

‘No. I wouldn’t. And I know what you’re suggesting and you’re no gentleman—’

‘True,’ he admitted. ‘I’m the local rogue.’ And he flashed his dazzling, tigerish grin.

She was beginning to get his measure. A playboy. Rolling in his father’s hard-earned wealth.

Perhaps, she thought, elaborating on the theme, the antipathy between father and son came from Monsieur St Honoré’s resentment at having built up a thriving legal practice only to have his son lounge about on beaches, chat up women and spend his money.

‘You’ve made that perfectly clear by your clumsy invitation,’ she said coldly, deciding to scramble over the rocks to the next bay and escape his unwanted attentions.

‘Good. Because I don’t want you to think I’d ever play fair,’ he told her silkily, and she paused, wondering what he meant. Her hesitation gave him the opportunity to capture her wrists in his vice-like hands. ‘You and your kind are like parasites. And, for your information, I invited you to my boat on the off chance that I could keep you there till you promised to get the hell off the island,’ he added, with no shame at all for his attempt to manipulate her.

‘If you don’t take your hands off me,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m going to scream. And I can scream for England, I promise you.’

‘Surely you don’t want any publicity?’ he murmured. ‘Not the kind of woman you are.’

She tried to speak, but her throat was filled by a hard, dry lump. What kind of woman did he mean? she wanted to ask, horrified to be thought anything but hard-working, moral and conscientious. But the curl of Pascal’s lip, the flinty scorn in his piercing eyes and the intensely physical threat of his muscular body made her feel as if she’d committed an indecent act and ought to be hiding herself in shame.

Dawning on her slowly was the realisation that he knew something about her background—something so dreadful that any decent person would be justified in despising her and her kind. What kind? Who was she?

Mandy’s sharp, shuddering intake of breath sucked in his warmth, the scent of his powerful male body. A shiver skimmed down her back. If she was right, she didn’t want to hear the truth from this unsympathetic brute. The revelation should come in private, from someone who might care about her feelings. The shock that there might be awful secrets in her family past had shaken her to the core. She wanted. to know now. Or she’d have a sleepless night filled with the sound of her own sobbing.

Sound suddenly forced its way through her white, trembling lips. ‘Pascal,’ she said rawly, ‘I pray that somewhere inside that steel skin of yours is a heart. Because I need to find it.’ Her hand reached out in an urgent plea because she knew she had nothing to lose. ‘I beg you, take pity on me—’

‘Go home. Staying here will destroy you,’ he said grimly.

She winced. ‘I have to stay! You know why I’m here!’ she cried, looking up at him through swimming eyes. ‘Don’t you feel any compassion for me?’

‘Not a scrap.’

‘Forget your bitterness!’ she begged. ‘Forget whatever vendetta lies between you and your father! I badly need to see him; you must realise that! I can, I will do it the hard way if I have to, but you can make it a lot easier and save me time. Whatever your feelings, please, in the name of humanity, arrange a meeting for me as soon as he’s better! I’ve come all this way, my hopes raised...’

Her voice trailed into silence. He had moved even closer, so that her fingers touched his chest. Blinking, she registered the firm, moulded muscle, the warmth and the flawless texture of his skin that cried out to be stroked. Beautiful, she thought, much to her own surprise, and had to fight against the foolish, knee-jerk urge to slide each palm up to his gleaming brown shoulders and hold him close, because the lure of that warm body was overwhelming.

She pulled herself together. ‘Please,’ she repeated, her hazel eyes huge with anxiety and her whole heart in her long, pleading look.

‘You were right. You can be very persuasive,’ he said huskily.

‘Oh!’ she breathed, filled with hope. ‘Pascal...’ Her voice dried up.

Serious and unnervingly determined, he slowly reached out with his forefinger, and Mandy watched it come closer to her mouth, knowing that her lips were parting and that her breath was rushing from her lungs in a long, low sigh. Hunger. Hunger for a man’s touch!

She stopped breathing, fighting her need for comfort and love. It had happened once before, when she’d been desperately lonely and in need of affection. A million hormones had flooded her brain and made her behave stupidly, allowing an acquaintance to kiss and caress her and touch her body till she’d found herself hating the fact that he wasn’t her late husband. And she’d spent the next twenty minutes fighting and coaxing and pleading to be left alone.

She recognised that her body still yearned for a lover. But not this man. So, to save herself, she whipped her head around and the fingertip briefly touched her teeth, then slid across her jaw and throat before it was retracted.