Chasing Summer: Date with Destiny / Marooned with the Maverick / A Summer Wedding at Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

that could only be eclipsed in one way. She had no doubt where they were heading, where these torturous kisses would end. No doubt. And much as a far distant corner of her conscience struggled to make her see the wrong and the danger, her body steadfastly refused to recognise any of it. It needed to do this, needed it with an intensity that was frightening because it was utterly and completely beyond her control.

      They were slipping sideways on to the flat side of the case, Mike’s weight pressing down upon her, when suddenly he made a grunting sound and wrenched himself away. ‘What in hell’s this?’ he growled. The handbag was yanked roughly out of her hands and obviously flung aside with considerable force, for it thudded noisily against a wall.

      Now his hands were back, pushing her right down across the case, her buttocks on one end, the back of her head falling off the other on to the floor. It was a crazily uncomfortable position for her, with one arm lying up the wall of the elevator, the other flung wide, yet Salome found it incredibly exciting. She liked the feel of his touch, possessive and masterful on her spread-eagled body, liked the way her impatient breasts were being thrust upwards into his impassioned hands.

      She could hear his breathing, as heavy and ragged as her own, hear his dark mutterings as he began working on the buttons of her jacket and blouse, then the tie at her neck. Cool air suddenly caressed bare breasts, a rash of goose-bumps temporarily sobering her. For a split second the appalling truth of what she was allowing came home to Salome but, before she could react, Mike’s mouth moved across her breasts and closed over one single, straining nipple.

      A moan was torn from deep in her throat, the fingers of both her hands curling over to dig into her palms. ‘Oh, God!’ she whimpered. She jammed her fists down beside her on the case, but this only served to give her a lever with which to arch her back further upwards, pushing her flesh deeper and deeper into his mouth. Her head swam with dizzying pleasure, the blood in her veins surging hotly through her body.

      Finally, when she thought she had felt every nuance of delight her breasts could possibly produce, he took one rock-like point between his teeth and gave it a not-too-gentle tug.

      Salome’s mouth fell open in a tortured gasp, the shaft of sensation slicing sharp and deep inside her. Her mind struggled to distinguish whether it was pain or pleasure.

      Till he did it again.

      Both! she realised with another gasp. Both...but she didn’t care. All she knew was that she wanted it to go on and on. Madness! Insanity!

      So Salome was startled when all of a sudden an incredibly warm and loving wave of emotion joined those other more electric sensations, impelling her hands to lift and splay into his hair, curling the silky strands round and round her fingers as she held him to her breasts as fiercely and possessively as a mother held an adored infant. Strange words of love hovered on her lips, dying to be spoken. She moaned in her battle to keep them at bay. Somehow, even in her dazed state of rapture, she knew the danger of telling this man she loved him. It wasn’t true, anyway. Deeply embedded maternal instincts were confusing her. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t...

      Perhaps he took her moans as a protest, for suddenly he stopped those tormenting little nips, and began licking her instead. She sighed, half relieved, half disappointed, though the feel of a moist and gentle tongue on those highly sensitised buds was oddly soothing. But, when a hand covered her knee and began sliding upwards, any sense of soothing disappeared, every nerve-ending instantly on alert.

      Salome always wore suspenders, and she gasped when Mike’s fingertips moved from the top of her stockings to feather across the soft flesh of her inner thigh. But he didn’t linger there for long, his fingers homing in on the heat that was already searing its way through her panties. Her breathing ceased as he stroked the damp silk, tension and suspense at what he would do next holding her frozen.

      There was no hesitation. His fingers slipped underneath, where he began to explore her with devastating intimacy. Salome could no longer hold her breath; the air punched from her body in gasps as she sucked in again and again for oxygen. Her heart was going at fifty to the dozen, blood pounding in her brain. She could feel her muscles clenching tightly inside, and while what he was doing was incredibly exciting, she began to get a glimpse of what it might feel like if he was really inside her, filling her, loving her.

      ‘Mike,’ she groaned.

      She had forgotten his mouth was busy at her breast till he abandoned it and the air stung the moist bud.

      ‘Yes, I know,’ he muttered thickly. ‘I know. I will...’

      Suddenly, lights blazed overhead, the floor of the elevator shuddering beneath them as it lurched into an upward movement.

      Glazed green eyes looked up into smouldering black ones, horror dawning instantly. Salome’s head jerked up from the floor, her stricken gaze staring down at her semi-naked body, her dishevelled clothes, her knees, raised and evocatively apart. Mike was still leaning over her, his face full of recent passion and immediate frustration.

      She threw at him what could only have been interpreted as a reproachful and damning glance. Immediately, that impassioned black gaze hardened, his cynical expression challenging her to deny that she had been a willing participant in all that had happened, and almost happened.

      Salome knew she couldn’t, which only increased her shame and self-disgust. But mixed with the feelings of humiliation was a righteous and indignant anger, for, in her opinion, he had indeed taken advantage of her and the situation. Hadn’t she practically begged him not to kiss her?

      Yet thinking about that first kiss now, and how quickly she had surrendered to his will, sent a humiliating heat to her cheeks. How could she have allowed such liberties, in a lift, of all places? As she uttered a tortured groan, Salome’s right hand shot out to give him a hard push in the chest, and he fell backwards. ‘Get away from me, you...you...’

      ‘Cad?’ he suggested drily as he levered himself from the floor.

      A sob of fury broke from her lips. ‘That word’s too good for you!’ she cried, her hands scrambling to do her jacket up over the gaping blouse, her only thought now being that at any second the lift would stop and those doors might open on to shocked eyes. Feeling sick to her stomach, she catapulted herself upwards, stumbling when her right heel buckled under her.

      Mike steadied her with a hand on her arm, but she wrenched away, sending him another vicious glare. ‘Don’t you touch me!’

      His eyebrows shot ceilingwards in mock surprise. ‘Really! A minute ago you were begging me to. It just shows you the fickleness of some women.’

      ‘You know damned well I would never normally let you even touch me, let alone...let alone...’ A shudder of remembered disgust reverberated through her already shaking body. ‘You took advantage of me! You...you knew I was in a vulnerable state about Ralph and that woman. You probably deliberately got me tipsy, all the time planning to...to—’

      The lift reached the penthouse floor and the doors whooshed open.

      No one was there.

      Sighing, Salome sagged back against the wall, relief flooding through her. She couldn’t have borne for anyone to see what her shame kept telling her must be obvious, with her tangled hair, her bruised mouth, her over-bright eyes, her disorganised clothes.

      Though any relief was short-lived.

      ‘You were saying?’ Mike drawled. He had moved to stand with his back against the open doors, his arms folded, his harsh gaze merciless in its derision. Looking at him now, Salome found it incredible to believe that a minute ago she had been wanting him. At this very second she hated him, hated him for being able to make her feel what he made her feel, without love or caring. It was cheap and horrible and tacky. And almost beyond comprehension!

      She had known earlier in the evening she was madly attracted to him, had even fantasised about making love to him, but the reality had been much more shocking. The speed of her surrender; the intensity of her feelings—the madness of it all!

      All Salome could think of to explain