Rumours: The Legacy Of Revenge. Cathy Williams

Flynn would not be a simple affair. The way he made her feel was so different from anyone else. She hadn’t fallen in love with anyone before. But then she had never got to know anyone so well before. She’d had infatuations and mild crushes, but she hadn’t learned anything about them as people.

      But with Flynn it was completely different.

      She had got to know him over the last few months, finding out more and more things about who he was, what he wanted, what he represented. The values he held. The information about his background was deeply personal stuff and yet he had chosen to reveal it to her. It made her feel as if their relationship was on a completely different footing from any she’d had before. No one had ever come close enough to make her want the fairytale. She had always been career focused, not marriage-and-family focused.

      But Flynn made her feel stuff. Stuff she didn’t want to feel. Not just a potent attraction but a sense of relating to someone who understood what it was like always to be on the outside.

      But what did he want?

      He was a commitment-phobe, or so Miranda and Jaz had intimated. Was he interested in her only so he could get her to Richard’s party by fair means or foul? She was a task he had to accomplish, a box that had to be ticked.

      Or did he want her because he too felt this powerful connection that pulled and tugged at every organ in her body?

      Kat gave him a pointed look. ‘Are you close to my father? Are you close to anyone?’

      The glint dulled in his eyes. ‘Don’t try and analyse me, Kat.’ He turned away on his crutches to settle back in a sitting position on the bed.

      ‘Why haven’t you had a serious relationship since Claire?’

      ‘Been there, done that, packed away the tuxedo.’

      ‘So you’re not interested in ever settling down?’

      ‘Nope.’ The word sounded like it was underlined. In bold.

      ‘Once bitten, twice shy?’ Kat said. ‘Seems a bit defeatist, if you ask me. What if you fall in love?’

      ‘I won’t.’

      ‘Is that something you can control?’

      ‘I’ve never met anyone I want to spend the rest of my life with.’

      ‘But that could change,’ Kat said. ‘You could meet someone tomorrow who completely rocks your world.’

      His eyes held hers for a beat. ‘So could you.’

      She looked away first, watching out of the corner of her eye as he made his way back to the bed. He lay back on the pillows, propping his arms behind his head. ‘Can you unzip my boot for me?’

      Kat approached the bed with a scowl that would have sent a drill sergeant running for cover. ‘Would you like me to bring your pipe and slippers while I’m at it?’

      He smiled a breath-snatching smile. ‘If I told you what I’d like you to do you’d blush to the roots of your hair.’

      She pressed her lips together, undid the zip on his leather boot and slipped it off his foot. His bandaged foot was swollen and there were purple and black streaks running between his toes. She touched her fingers to his foot to check for excessive heat. ‘Do you need more painkillers?’

      ‘No, I’m fine, but you can take the food away.’ He closed his eyes as if signing out for the night. ‘I’m not hungry.’

      Kat hovered at the end of his bed. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

      He opened one twinkling eye. ‘A goodnight kiss wouldn’t go astray.’

      Her lips hadn’t stopped tingling from the last one. She wasn’t game to do a repeat. Her self-control was on a precarious knife-edge as it was. ‘You don’t give up easily, do you?’

      His smile was one of those lazy, spine-melting ones. The ones that made her want to dive headfirst into his bed and crawl into his skin. ‘We want the same thing,’ he said. ‘Sex without complications.’

      ‘Sex is always complicated.’

      ‘Maybe you haven’t had the right partner.’

      Kat put her hands on her hips. ‘So you think you are?’

      His eyes kindled. ‘I’m damn sure of it.’

      She tried to ignore the pulse of lust that throbbed in her core. Throbbed and ached. ‘How can you be so confident?’

      His eyes moved over her flushed features, lingering the longest on her mouth. ‘One kiss told me all I needed to know. That’s why you won’t do it again, because you’re frightened you won’t be able to control yourself.’

      ‘Really? Is that what you think?’

      ‘Come here and prove me wrong.’

      Kat knew she should resist his challenge but she wanted to prove it to herself as well as him. She would show him she could press her lips to his and feel nothing. No fireworks. No shooting stars. No fireballs of lust ripping through her body.

      She stood next to him and lowered her mouth to his smiling one. It was the only point of contact, lips on lips. But he didn’t respond. He didn’t do anything to prolong the kiss. In fact, he didn’t do anything but lie there like a mummified body.

      Wasn’t he feeling anything?

      Anything at all?

      She pressed her lips back down again, moving them against the firm warmth of his in a slow-moving caress. She couldn’t remember a time when she had kissed a man with such concentrated intensity. It was as though all the nerve endings in her body had gathered in her lips, heightening their sensitivity. She sent out the tip of her tongue to trace the seam of his mouth, the touch slow, sensual and soft. She did it again, once, twice, and then the third time he gave a swift intake of breath and took control of the kiss. His arms came around her, bringing her down on the bed beside him, his mouth clamped to hers in a searing kiss, their tongues teasing and tangling, their lips sliding and sucking, their teeth nipping and tugging. She felt the full force of his arousal against her thigh, the potent power of it triggering her own intimate moisture.

      He rolled her so she was half under him, his mouth still pressed hotly to hers. She swallowed a gasp as he slid one of his hands across her breast in a light skating touch that left her aching for more. She stroked his hair, his face, his back and shoulders as he plundered her mouth, inciting her desire to a level she had not thought possible. Never had desire rushed through her at such a breakneck pace. It was as if a drug had invaded her system, powering her up to do things she normally would never dream of doing. She reached for his belt and unhooked it, then went for his zipper. She wanted to feel the throb of him in her hand, to feel the desire he felt for her skin-on-skin.

      He made a guttural sound when she got his zipper down, responded by slipping a warm, dry hand up under her sweater to cup her breast. Even though she was still wearing a bra her senses went wild. Off-the-scale wild. Scarily out-of-control wild. The promise of more was there in his hand as he cradled her. It was there in the roll of his thumb over her lace-covered nipple, making it go pebble-hard.

      He left her mouth to bring his down to her breast, sucking on her through the lace, then when she thought she could stand it no longer he deftly unhooked her bra and drew on her with his warm, moist, tantalising mouth.

      Kat reached for him with desperate fingers, peeling back the fabric of his underwear to access the satin-covered steel of his flesh. He made another deep sound of approval as she explored his length, concentrating on the blunt tip where his pre-ejaculate fluid had gathered.

      His mouth left her breast to concentrate on the other one, subjecting it to the same delicious torture until she was writhing with longing beneath him. Such swift arousal was unusual for her. She wasn’t used to her body aching with such urgent pressing need, as if she would die if he didn’t follow through and complete their union. She could feel her clitoris