Sophie Weston - Avoiding Mr Right

‘You know nothing at all about how I was brought up.’

‘Oh, I think you’re wrong there.’ He put his head on one side and pretended to consider. ‘I know the signs. I can’t think how I missed them this morning.’

She was trembling with anger. ‘What signs?’

‘Lovely manners. Minimal morals,’ he said succinctly.

They might have been alone. Christina was hardly aware of the crowded café. Neither of them had raised their voice but their argument was too intense to escape attention. They were beginning to attract the occasional sideways look, but she did not notice that either. She could not remember ever being so angry in her life.

‘What right have you got to talk about my morals?’

‘Right?’ He shrugged. ‘None.’

‘Or to sit in judgement on me on the basis of ten minutes’ spying? Or was it as much as that? I didn’t see you when we came in. Maybe you’ve only just arrived. Maybe we’re talking about ten seconds’ spying here.’

‘Call it five minutes,’ Luc Henri said negligently.

‘Well, then—’

‘Five memorable minutes.’

Christina stared.

‘I watched. Fascinating. You kissed the owner. Well, I suppose ownership of a waterfront café brings some perks.’

Christina gasped but Luc did not appear to notice. He swept on, itemising her actions with precision, and putting the worst possible gloss on them.

‘You swung what passes for a skirt at the group at the corner table. And it only took one bat of your eyelashes at the boy who plays that noisy substitute for a guitar to gain his devoted attention.’

She was so angry that she did not even think of defending herself. In fact, after a brief moment of blank outrage, she decided to prove to him that she was every bit as bad as he thought her—and worse. So she gave a careless laugh and shrugged. Her crocheted top slipped off one bare brown shoulder.

Christina felt rather than saw his eyes follow the falling fabric. He could not repress his reaction and it was not disapproval. She. registered it with a glow of something like triumph.

It was utterly unlike her. Anger must have made her reckless, she thought. Resisting the instinct to pull the top back into place, she shook back her hair and lifted her chin defiantly. She met his eyes with a look quite as contemptuous as his own.

‘So?’ she said softly. ‘What business is it of yours?’ For a moment he did not answer. Then he looked deliberately at the sagging top. ‘So you like to play with fire,’ he mused. ‘Now why didn’t I pick that up before?’

Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I said, What business is it of yours?’ Her voice rose.

‘Oh, come on, lady. You’re not that nicely brought up.’

She knew he was going to reach for her but she still did not quite believe it. Not now, not here, with a crowd of evening diners looking on. It was not the sort of thing that happened to her. It was not the sort of thing that ultra-civilised men like Luc Henri did.

There was nothing civilised in the way he jerked her off her feet to bring her hard against him. For a moment he held her breast to breast, looking down into her defiant eyes with a curious expression, almost as if behind the anger he was in pain. But the impression of pain was gone in an instant and he was laughing. ‘Burn, fire, burn,’ he said cynically.

And she was engulfed.

The thought flashed across Christina’s mind: well, he is certainly not treating me as if I were his sister now. It was her last coherent thought for some time.

For all the cynicism, he was not playing games. His hands were hard on her slim frame—mercilessly hard. And his mouth was hungry.

The crowded café, the smell of spiced meats and hot bread, the sounds of talk and laughter and wine being poured from rough glass carafes all receded as if they did not exist. Christina’s head fell back under the onslaught of his kiss. Her dazed eyes drifted shut. She felt as if her bones were melting. She had no strength in the powerful circle of his arms, no wish for strength, no resistance at all. All she knew was that her blood was pounding in her veins, driving her deeper and deeper into his embrace. And that she had never felt like this before.

Luc’s arms tightened.

He was giving no quarter, she realised dimly. He was so angry that neither the public place nor her blank astonishment was holding him back. In fact, she had a faint suspicion that they normally would have done and he knew it; so the fact that this uninhibited sexual demand was out of character was adding fuel to his anger. Of the anger there was no doubt at all. Nor of the demand.

His mouth ravaged the softness of hers until she could hardly breathe. She felt the blood beating frantically at his pulse points, battering at her. She felt his breath in her throat, her lungs. She smelled a faint, unfamiliar, woody scent which seemed to come from his light jacket. It failed entirely to mask the darker, stronger smell from his heated skin. It half repelled her, half fascinated her.

It was a wholly new sensation. It set her trembling even as it made her feel gloriously alive. The relentless kiss relaxed at last. Christina made a small animal noise and turned her head blindly to seek the hollow between his throat and shoulder with her lips.

Luc gave a sharp exclamation. He flinched as if he had burned himself. He pushed her to arm’s length almost savagely. Christina swayed and opened her eyes. She blinked. He looked murderous. She could feel the tremor in the hands clamped on her shoulders, holding her away from him. He looked as if he wanted to shake the life out of her.

‘That seems to answer your question.’ His voice was uneven. He was breathing hard but otherwise the iron self-control was back.

Christina shook her head. She did not recover so quickly.

‘Question?’ she echoed blankly.

‘What business it is of mine,’ Luc reminded her. There was an edge to his voice.

Christina stared at him in gathering disbelief. ‘Are you saying that makes me your business?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ she said heatedly.

His mouth quirked. ‘Quite possibly.’

She ignored that. ‘Just because you have the gall to force yourself upon me...in front of everyone—’ She broke off, lost for words.

Instead she looked eloquently round the café. The diners seemed to be making too big a thing of being totally absorbed by their food. Christina was fairly sure that a minute earlier they had been mesmerized by the scene between the tall dark stranger and the English girl they had never seen behave like that before. It made her want to scream with rage.

He said softly, ‘I didn’t hear you calling for help.’

‘What?’

He repeated it. His voice was quiet but his eyes were dangerous.

Christina was not intimidated. She was shaking with justified temper. At least, she told herself it was temper. At his contemptuous words her rage hit boiling point. She stepped back out of his hands.

‘Then hear me now,’ she said grimly. She turned her head and shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Costa!’

Luc winced, but the dangerous glint went out of his eyes. It was replaced by surprise. Then, astoundingly, came amusement and even a hint of admiration. Or so Christina thought, viewing him from behind a red mist of fury.

The proprietor appeared so quickly that she suspected he had been waiting for such a summons. He did not look like a righteously vengeful protector of insulted innocence, however. He looked hugely amused and was not trying very hard to hide it.

‘Throw this jerk out,’ Christina said in a choked voice.

‘I can’t do that, Christina.’

She turned astounded eyes on Costa. ‘You saw what he did.’