Kiss Don’t Tell. Avril Tremayne

at you,’ Adam said, still laughing. ‘I thought you were never going to shut up long enough to drink that.’

      She was beating a hand on her chest, in time with his back slaps. ‘Needs Coke,’ she croaked.

      Adam stopped slapping and tried to take the glass off her. ‘Coke? Heathen! Give that back. Let me get you something with an umbrella in it instead.’

      ‘Hit me again,’ she said, handing over her glass. ‘I mean the whisky. Not my back, because I’m probably bruised from that assault of yours. I just need another drink.’

      Adam poured her another measure of whisky and passed it to her, and they sat and sipped in silence for a long moment.

      And then, Sarah sighed. ‘I love her you know. And she … she needs people to love her, because she can’t see anything inside her that’s worth loving. So I’m going to trust you with her, on that basis. I know you’ll do the right thing.’

      ‘Hey, whoa, step back from the edge, Sarah. This isn’t a romance, or a psychology session, it’s a sex contract.’

      ‘Just promise me you’ll do better than DeWayne.’

      ‘I won’t be “doing better” than DeWayne; I’ll be wiping him out of existence.’

      ‘Hmm. Don’t overpromise until you know what you’re facing. Remember the fire under the ice—maybe that’s why DeWayne got there so fast. She was too hot for him!’

      ‘Talking about ice, the stuff you’re standing on is getting thinner, Sarah. A lot, lot thinner.’

      ‘I guess the contract will work just as well for you as it will for her, though,’ Sarah said, slanting an interested look at him. ‘Sex on tap for three months, no strings—gotta love that, right?’

      ‘I already have sex on tap, no strings.’

      ‘Well, this one comes with a nice, bloodless breakup at the end, which should suit you to a T, Mr Love-’em-and-leave-’em. No histrionics. No stalking. No drunk texting.’

      ‘Shut up, Sarah.’

      ‘I just hope I haven’t oversold your abilities.’

      ‘The ice is cracking,’ he warned.

      ‘Although I’m sure Lane has non-performance covered in that contract of hers.’

      That startled a laugh out of him. ‘As a matter of fact, she does.’

      ‘Well don’t tarnish the family name, please. I’ll never be able to hold my head up if you don’t go the distance.’

      Adam gave her a look of acute dislike.

      She laughed, but then stopped and winced. ‘But God knows what Erica’s going to make of all this,’ she said.

      Adam slammed his glass down on the table between them. ‘Okay, I think I’ve heard Erica’s name a time too many, and I also think it’s time for you to bow out of the business. Not one word on the subject from you, got it? Not to me. Not to Lane. Not to Mum. Not to bloody Erica. It’s going to be hard enough to get through it without being instructed from the sidelines by the fucking coven.’

      ‘Language!’

      ‘Fuck my language.’ He glared at Sarah. ‘From now on, what happens between Lane and me is none of your goddamn business. I’m bound by a confidentiality clause, thank God, and so is she!’ He stood, snagging the half-empty bottle of whisky from the table along with his glass, and prepared to storm out of the room. ‘And I don’t remember asking you to wait in my house.’

      Sarah smiled, unperturbed. ‘She sure got under your skin, didn’t she?’

      ‘Leave your key behind on your way out,’ Adam ordered, striding past her.

      ‘You know you’ll just end up giving it back to me.’

      ‘Not for three months, at any rate,’ Adam said and slammed the library door after himself to drive home the you-are-barred-from-the-house message.

      And then he realized he’d effectively banished himself from his favourite room, leaving the spoils to Sarah, and his satisfaction at getting in the last word vaporized. His sister was such a manipulative wretch; he wouldn’t put it past her to have masterminded the whole evening not to scare Lane off her idea but to get him to sign the contract. She needs people to love her … she can’t see anything inside her that’s worth loving … I’m going to trust you with her … I know you’ll do the right thing. Jesus wept!

      Well, if his sister thought he was going to be jumping to anyone’s command when it came to implementing that damn contract, she had another think coming. Lane too. And should the flight attendant ever make an appearance, he’d be only too happy to show her who was boss while he was at it.

      Poor vulnerable, valiant, complex-riddled Lane? His arse! Controlling and rigid and uptight is what she was. Surrounded by a force field that zapped out beams to repel any humans from approaching her personal space let alone invading it. He was even starting to disbelieve that he’d really seen that flash of vulnerability—because every other time she’d looked at him, it had been out of cool, assessing, icy eyes. Like he was an object. An ‘alleged’ expert who had to prove himself. And that contract, aimed at getting him to prove it, was so impersonal it was downright scary.

      The contract. It all lay in the contract.

      He was going to have to read it again, just to make sure he hadn’t imagined the offensiveness of it. He retrieved it from his back pocket where he’d folded and stuffed it into what he’d thought was submission, and took it, and his whisky, to the kitchen. He went through the pages once … and then once more … plus one last time to make one hundred per cent sure he wasn’t missing anything …

      And then he smiled.

      By the time he stumbled into bed an hour later, his mood had improved to the point where he was actually whistling to himself.

      Nothing to do with the dent he’d put in the rest of the single malt.

      Everything to do with the contract and his own devious mind.

      Because one little detail Lane Davis had left out of her precious contract was what they’d actually spend their two to four nights per week doing. Imagine that! A contract, a three-page checklist—but no mention of an actual sex act!

      An amazing oversight, but a fortuitous one. There was a lot he could teach her without actually consummating their relationship. An awful lot.

      Tomorrow, he would call Lane Davis and start lesson number one on his agenda: who was the boss in this partnership.

      ‘And I can tell you one thing for sure, my icy new lover, it isn’t you,’ he said.

      But as he lay back and closed his eyes, a sudden, sharp vision of Lane, naked, slammed into his head and stole his complacency so that he wanted to sit up, turn on the lights and banish the image. And yet he kept lying there in the dark, not only seeing her but almost … feeling her too. Tall, slender, pale except for the vivid hair. She was looking at him, and her eyes were hot with lust.

      Fire under the ice.

      He sucked in his breath as his skin tightened, listening to his pulse whooshing too loudly in his ears. Whisky, he told himself, fuddling his brain, messing with his self-control, turning her into some kind of mental reality. Well, what the hell? Let her stay there in his head tonight. But tomorrow, he’d be putting her exactly where he wanted her.

      Tomorrow, the game would begin.

      

CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘Lane?’

      Lane’s heart leapt into her throat and strangled her vocal cords.

      ‘Lane?