Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

probably just wishful thinking on your part!’ retorted Lola instantly, then wished she hadn’t.

      He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that all the bad guys in films possessed—it didn’t make the corners of his eyes go all crinkly, and it didn’t have any degree of warmth in it either. Again, Lola felt that uncomfortable chill creep across the surface of her skin.

      ‘Is it? Does wishful thinking manage to manufacture eyes which keep darkening with passion, or lips that automatically soften and part in anticipation of being kissed?’ he drawled silkily. ‘As yours are doing right now?’

      To her horror, Lola suddenly felt absolutely weak with longing as the deep, sensual words seemed to orchestrate her response. The fairly sensible, middle-of-the-road woman she considered herself to be had suddenly been replaced by a pathetic, swooning wimp! ‘St-stop it,’ she implored, despising herself for sounding so feeble but unable to do anything about it.

      He shook his dark head. ‘But you don’t want me to stop it, do you? That’s just the trouble. You like it, Lola. And you like me. Your body is telling me just how much, isn’t it?’

      And his eyes lazily flicked over her, lingering with undisguised interest on her breasts in a way that Lola would have found intolerable if any other man had done it. But she did not find it intolerable when Geraint Howell-Williams did it.

      Beneath the dress of lapis lazuli velvet which made her blue eyes even bluer, Lola could feel her body betraying her, flowering beneath the approbation and the hunger in his eyes. She felt her breasts grow heavy and full, the tips begin to prickle with a kind of delicious ache which was actually more uncomfortable than enjoyable.

      Because Lola recognised that there was only one way of taking that terrible aching away and that, astonishingly and shockingly, she wanted Geraint to touch her...

      ‘Do you normally behave like this towards women you have only just met?’ she demanded, her knees now weak with wanting.

      ‘Never,’ he responded softly, clearly mesmerised by the jutting thrust of her breasts against the rich material of her dress. ‘Do you normally react in this way to men you have only just met?’

      Lola dragged a deep, determined breath into her lungs. ‘I think I’d better get out of here,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘Before one of us says something really offensive—’

      ‘You’re in no state to go anywhere,’ he responded wryly as he looked down at her searchingly, the stormy eyes narrowing in surprise at her wide eyes and flushed face. ‘Here, give me that.’

      ‘That’ was the glass she was clutching as if it were a lifeline, and smoothly—masterfully—he managed to remove the forgotten tonic from her hand and deposit it on a nearby table, then slowly pull her into his arms before she had time to make a protest.

      ‘Geraint, please...’ she whispered, aware of a tiny pull of pleasure as she said his name for the first time, and she found herself wanting to say it over and over again, as though it were some life-sustaining mantra.

      ‘Please what?’ he responded softly, his mouth pressed against her hair.

      ‘Please let go of me.’

      ‘If I do you’ll fall.’ His voice deepened. ‘Won’t you?’

      ’N-no, I won’t,’ she answered uncertainly, realising that she was actually enjoying the rather scary feeling of being this much out of control.

      ‘Try it,’ he suggested, and loosened his hands from where they had been holding her by the waist, and Lola actually felt herself sway, like a flu victim just out of bed for the first time. She wondered if she might have slithered to the floor, had he not renewed his hold on her with a steely strength that made Lola feel weaker than she had ever felt in her life.

      ‘See?’ he challenged softly.

      Oh, yes, Lola saw all right. She saw that she had been sending out entirely the wrong messages to Geraint Howell-Williams since she had first clapped eyes on him tonight.

      Or maybe—just maybe—she had been sending out the right messages, and he was just clever enough to pick up on them, realise that she was hopelessly infatuated, and then capitalise on that by having her almost swooning in his arms.

      ‘Relax,’ he urged softly. ‘Just enjoy the music.’

      For a moment she did as he suggested. She gave in to temptation and to feeling, loving the exciting warm circle of his arms, the way his head rested so easily against hers.

      She forgot all about the band playing and listened to the infinitely more spellbinding music of his body.

      The beat of his heart. The rhythm of his breathing. The almost unconscious little thrust of his pelvis as he allowed himself to respond to the saxophonist who was the band’s only saving grace.

      She knew that she ought to move, that a dance with a stranger should not be this intimate, and yet, to all intents and purposes, the dance was not intimate. They were just a man and a woman swaying loosely in each other’s arms, as others were all around them.

      So this sensation of almost drowning in sweet, drenching pleasure—was this unique to her? Did this dance feel like any other to Geraint Howell-Williams? Lola wondered. Because it sure as hell didn’t to her! At that moment, drifting in his arms, she felt as though she was starring in every love story ever written.

      Love story?

      Her adolescent little fantasies brought Lola back to her senses with a start, and as the number trailed off with one final, lingering throb of the saxophone she took a deep breath and looked up at him.

      ‘Th-thank you for the dance,’ she said falteringly.

      The grey eyes were enigmatic as he dropped his hands from where they had been lightly holding her hips. ‘My pleasure.’

      ‘It’s time I was going.’

      ‘Sure?’

      That was, thought Lola wryly, what they called a leading question. To be honest, she wasn’t sure—she would have liked to hang around and dance like that with him all night.

      But a girl had her pride to think of. He was the kind of over-gorgeous man who had probably had things much, much too easy in the past. And Lola’s turning him down was almost certainly going to help his emotional development enormously! ‘Quite sure,’ she answered firmly.

      He nodded his dark head. ‘Where do you live?’

      Lola had only been a resident for the past six months, and she still had not worked out how to answer this particular question without giving in to the toe-curling embarrassment of having to explain how she’d actually come to own a house worth almost a million pounds.

      People always jumped to such awful conclusions when they found out that a pensioner she hardly knew had left it to her!

      ‘I live here,’ she told him. ‘On the St Fiacre’s estate.’

      ‘I see,’ he murmured softly.

      Lola searched his face for the tell-tale looks of surprise—but there were none.

      She was still extremely sensitive about living in a house on the estate once termed ‘the Beverly Hills of England’ by some enterprising journalist—one where all the residents were not just rich, they were seriously rich.

      Except for Lola, of course.

      The rich had a look and a lifestyle all of their own, and Lola did not possess either! She looked exactly what she was—a working woman who needed a bit of clever juggling to pay her bills. Although, admittedly, a working woman who lived in an enormous house. A house which she was fast coming to the conclusion she was going to have to sell.

      ‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.

      ‘No!’ It came out more vehemently than she had intended, but really! A walk home in the moonlight with a man like Geraint Howell-Williams?