Desire Never Changes. PENNY JORDAN

time it really hurt.

      Shrugging mentally he got to his feet, telling himself sardonically that he was a fool to let himself get involved, but he knew he wanted her; against all logic and common sense maybe, but still he wanted her. But before he took her he would lay it on the line for her, tell her that no way was making love with him the equivalent of the modelling world’s casting couch. He frowned as he glanced down at her. Lying like that with her head pillowed in her arms she looked like a child, innocent, untouched. He grimaced faintly. He was getting far too sentimental, surely life with Laura had taught him that. He had believed himself in love with her and her with him, but all she had wanted was to use him. She had laughed at him when he proposed marriage, and inflicted a painful blow to his twenty-two-year-old ego, but the tables were turned now; now that she was a fading star, a model who was finding it more and more difficult to get assignments, who needed all the tricks a clever photographer could use to preserve the illusion of youth; who at thirty betrayed in her face the way she had lived—and loved, if you could call the casual sexual encounters she indulged in, that. Now Laura wanted to marry him, especially now that she knew that he was his uncle’s heir, but he wasn’t twenty-two any longer; he had grown older and wiser; there had been far too many Lauras in his life for him to be deceived.

      As he glanced down at Somer again his eyes were tinged with sadness and a hint of self-contempt, and here was another. A potential Laura, young enough to have the bloom still on her skin and the illusion of innocence but in reality…Picking up his equipment he headed for one end of the beach and soon became engrossed in his self-imposed task, glancing up only once to stare at the sleeping figure.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS the chink of a bottle against glass that brought Somer out of her light sleep, her eyes hazy with uncertainty. The sun was hot on her bare shoulders, its angle in the sky telling her how long she had slept—payment for her inability to do so properly last night.

      ‘Good, you’re awake, I was just thinking I would have to eat my lunch alone. Are you hungry?’

      A picnic hamper was open on a towel next to him, and Somer peered into it, trying to suppress the agitation prickling her skin. Had she been completely mad? she wondered muzzily. Had she really intended to…to seduce this dark, arrogant stranger into making love to her? She jumped when Chase reached across and touched her shoulder, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

      ‘You’re not suffering from sunstroke, are you?’ he queried, letting his fingers absorb the heat from her skin. ‘I did cream your back for you but you have been lying there for a couple of hours.’

      ‘I’m feeling fine,’ she lied brazenly, bending her head over the wicker basket so that he couldn’t see the faint tell-tale flush on her skin. ‘I just couldn’t remember where I was when I first woke up.’

      ‘Or who you were with,’ Chase supplemented drily, ‘but then I suppose you’re used to that. Pass me something to eat, will you, while I pour the wine.’

      Two plates of chicken salad were attractively arranged under a protective film, and investigating the basket further Somer discovered crusty French bread, salmon paˆte´, and some Brie. In one corner of the basket were peaches and grapes, and the appetite she had lacked earlier suddenly made her feel quite hungry. She handed Chase his plate, trying not to recoil from the brief brush of his fingers against hers.

      ‘More wine?’

      Somer glanced into her glass surprised to see that she had almost drained it.

      ‘Please.’ She was thirsty and besides wasn’t alcohol supposed to have a relaxing effect on the nervous system?

      They ate in silence with Somer stealing brief, nervous glances at Chase’s inscrutable face, her eyes sliding against her will to the broad expanse of his chest with its fine covering of dark hair, and lower, almost hypnotised by that same arrowing of hair over his body.

      As he bent to replenish her glass for the third time Chase mocked softly, ‘You’re looking at me as though I’m the first man you’ve ever seen, and it’s having a highly combustible effect on my nervous system.’

      ‘I wasn’t looking at you, I was thinking,’ Somer lied protestingly, hanging her head so that he wouldn’t see her betraying blush.

      ‘About touching me instead of merely looking at me,’ Chase agreed. ‘You were looking at me like a little girl let loose inside a toyshop.’

      ‘I’ve told you I was miles away,’ Somer protested hotly. ‘I’m sorry if you thought I was staring at you…’

      ‘Why get so het up about it? I’m flattered. Or isn’t that part of the game? Does the man have to let you know how hungry he is for you before you’ll deign to admit you want him in return?’

      Somer could only stammer, ‘No…I…I don’t want you.’

      ‘No?’ Just for a second she had a brief glimpse of something fiercely bitter burning in the depths of his eyes and then it was caged, his voice urbanely amused as he reached out and stroked his thumb across her chin. ‘Peach juice,’ he murmured when she shied away. His fingers curled along her jaw holding her captive, and Somer felt her breath explode in a tight knot inside her chest as he bent his head, his tongue touching her skin as he licked away the small trickle of juice.

      Every nerve in her body seemed to lock, and yet at the same time a wild fluttery excitement pulsed through her, her dazed eyes holding the impenetrable gaze of the dark green ones now close enough for her to see their tiny gold specks like a dusting of gold in jade malachite.

      A dizzying sensation swept through her and she clutched automatically at Chase’s arm to prevent herself from overbalancing. Beneath her fingers his muscles tensed and then relaxed, his maurauding tongue stroking hypnotically along the tremulous line of her mouth.