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

be necessary for us to meet again.’

      Charles looked even sicker at this, if that were possible, and stumbled out the door.

      Mike closed it with a quiet click, turning to walk slowly over to Salome. It flustered and annoyed her the way her heart stepped up its beat as he approached, not to mention the way she kept staring at him. She tried focusing her mind on her divorce and the pain it had caused, thinking that that would sway her from any further disastrous involvements with selfishly motivated males.

      But no...her pulse-rate kept doing a jig, and an uncomfortable heat started sweeping across her skin as he drew closer and closer, his dark eyes both assessing and speculative.

      At the critical moment she spun away and hurried behind the breakfast-bar, busying herself organising cups and saucers, chattering away to cover the rattling of her shaking hands.

      ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough,’ she said, ‘or how you managed to subdue Charles so totally. He really scared me, you know, though I do think he was quite drunk, and maybe he wouldn’t have done anything; but who knows?’ She shrugged and threw Mike a nervous glance. He was staring at her across the counter with hard, unfathomable eyes, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking.

      But she suspected he would never tell her, and to keep staring back would be to reveal what she herself was thinking: that he was quite marvellously male and virile and gorgeous and, oh, dear God, she wanted him like crazy!

      So she dragged her eyes back to what she was doing quite ineptly, spilling some milk on the counter-top as she transferred it from carton to cup. ‘I’m afraid there was only long-life milk in the cupboards,’ she rattled on. ‘You take milk in your coffee, don’t you? You did at the restaurant tonight.’

      She was about to pick up the percolator to pour when firm hands closed over her shoulders. Her fingers froze mid-air, and she gasped as Mike pulled her back against him.

      ‘I don’t really want coffee,’ he murmured at her ear.

      Slowly he turned her round, and Salome found herself looking into eyes that told a million stories, all with the same ending. ‘I merely said that to give you something to do,’ he soothed. ‘You were looking lost.’

      Salome swallowed. ‘Lost’... What a good word. Yes, that was what she definitely was. Lost... When her marriage had ended she’d been tossed out on to an aimless sea, a ship without a rudder, floating aimlessly, a virtual wreck.

      But the man holding her captive and looking down into her eyes was no real salvager, merely one of those scrap-metal dealers who took dead ships to their grave, stripping them of all they were worth and leaving their ghastly empty hulls to rust and ruin.

      Her graphic thoughts sent renewed panic into her heart, and she would have pulled back if his grip hadn’t tightened at that moment. She flinched under his bruising hold. ‘What is it you want, then?’ she choked out.

      His smile was strangely sad. ‘The same thing I’ve always wanted, Salome. You...’

      She stared up at him, unable to understand why he wanted her when he despised her so. Was it just an answer to the challenge he thought she had thrown out to him all those years ago? Or was she always to be plagued with men who only desired her? ‘I—I can’t,’ she blurted out in fear of what would become of her if she gave in.

      ‘Why not?’ he persisted. ‘You want to. Our encounter in the lift proved that. Besides, I saw it in your eyes a few minutes ago. The need, the yearning. You’re lonely, Salome. Lonely and alone. Let me be with you tonight, to make love to you, comfort you.’

      It all sounded so reasonable. And he wasn’t even dressing it up with false words of love.

      She stared at him with a mixture of desire and wariness, mindful that he had changed tack on her somewhere, substituting the masterful macho play with a more seductive, subtle tactic. And it was working, too, slipping past her defences to make her melt inside. The temptation to lean against his bare chest, to give herself up to his will, was overwhelming. A low moan escaped her lips before she could smother it. And then it was too late, her head moving of its own accord to nestle into his warm brown throat, a sigh of surrender wafting from deep within her breast.

      Mike didn’t say a word. He merely swept her up into his arms and carried her from the penthouse, down the hall, and into his own place, kicking the door shut behind him. Only then did he look into her eyes, shocking her with the violence of emotion burning in their black depths.

      ‘If you change your mind again,’ he warned darkly, ‘I’m likely to strangle you!’

      With that, he continued on into the bedroom, once again kicking the door shut behind him.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      I CAN’T possibly be doing this, Salome thought as Mike laid her down on a bed in the dark. When he snapped on a bedside lamp, her eyes darted nervously around the dimly lit room, which was as exquisitely and blandly furnished as Ralph’s main bedroom, and just as impersonal. Not a photograph or a memento in sight. Her eyes returned to the man who was now sitting on the side of the king-size bed, watching her with a closed expression on his face. And it came to her that he was virtually a stranger.

      What did she know of him? Only that he was in his early thirties, unmarried, lived here in this penthouse, and owned an Italian restaurant. Everything else she’d gleaned about him had been sheer gossip or speculation.

      Their conversation over dinner the evening before had been desultory to say the least, betraying nothing of his background or his private life. For all she knew he could be part of that network of Italian immigrants whose businesses were merely fronts for organised crime. Drug-running and the like. His restaurant was in King’s Cross, after all—the crime centre of Sydney. She had read of such men—men who made and lived by their own rules. Powerful, ruthless men.

      The image of a white-faced Charles giving Mike a sick look jumped into her mind, and her stomach turned over. Good God, surely he couldn’t be a member of the Mafia?

      Much as she immediately rejected that idea as one of an over-active imagination, her thoughts had alarmed her, making her want to jump up from the bed and run for her very life. But she lay there, stiff with expectation and apprehension.

      ‘You’re nervous,’ he said, almost accusingly.

      She gulped down the lump in her throat and turned her face away from those probing black eyes. His hand closed over her chin and turned her back, where she was astonished to see a wry smile on his lips. ‘They say women are hard to understand,’ he murmured, his thumb moving in soft, tantalising circles along her jawline. ‘But you, my lovely Salome, are the hardest of them all.’

      He bent and covered her mouth with his, moving his lips back and forth across hers with slow, unhurried movements. She sucked in a startled breath as the most incredible wave of delight rippled through her. His head lifted a few inches, his eyes revealing a measure of surprise. ‘You’re amazing,’ he whispered. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was your first time...’

      He kissed her again, this time teasing her mouth open and caressing the tip of her tongue with his. Desire seized Salome in its tenacious grip, making her moan deep in her throat.

      Again Mike straightened to gaze frustratedly at the dazed expression on her face. ‘I can see why men go crazy for you,’ he muttered, his fingers drifting down her throat to trace the ‘V’ of the dressing-gown, making her shiver when he lingered on the valley between her breasts. ‘You are whatever they want of you at the time. In the lift, a wild wanton, here, a virgin on her wedding night, tentative and sweet, amazed yet delighted by your responses. How do you do it, Salome?’ he said, half admiringly, half derisively. ‘How many years of practice did it take to master the fine art of erotic fantasy?’

      There was no time for an answer, even if her hurt