Just Once. Susan Napier

flame-haired companion over for a bonding drink!

      ‘So I take it you won’t be staying for that drink after all?’ she said smoothly, sitting back down to her steaming brew.

      Still holding her gaze, he unscrewed the lid of the jar, broke the new seal and inhaled the aroma, wrinkling his patrician nose.

      ‘I suppose your tea is decaffeinated too?’

      Her hands curled possessively around the mug, drawing it towards her. ‘No. But I didn’t make a pot, I just used an ordinary tea bag.’

      His snobbish palate ignored the blatant discouragement. ‘Well, I suppose that’ll have to do, then.’ She watched in dismay while he snagged a mug from the row of hooks under the cupboards and dropped in one of the tea bags from the open cardboard box on the counter.

      ‘Make yourself at home,’ she commented sarcastically as he re-boiled the kettle.

      ‘Thanks. I am,’ he said, filling his cup, his quick grin of genuine amusement setting off alarm bells. What had made him so good-humoured all of a sudden?

      Kate wished she hadn’t made it so obvious that she wanted him to leave, for now it seemed he was going to punish her by lingering.

      ‘Any biscuits?’ he asked, returning the milk to the fridge and scooping a teaspoon out of the cutlery drawer.

      ‘No. I thought you were anxious to get back to—’ She broke off as he dropped into the chair opposite, his long calves brushing her bare legs under the table, sending a shiver of goose-pimples scooting up her inner thighs. She quickly crossed her legs, swivelling her hips sideways so that she was well away from his unsettling touch, tucking the short, flared skirt neatly under her bottom.

      ‘Back to Melissa?’ he completed her question helpfully, heaping sugar into his tea.

      Kate’s face ached with the strain of not reacting to his casual twist of the knife.

      ‘To your writing,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve got deadlines to meet.’ She was pleased to see that her hand was rock-steady as she raised her cup to her lips.

      ‘Is that what Marcus told you?’

      ‘Sorry, I don’t talk shop while I’m on holiday,’ she said coldly. Let him believe that she was here at someone else’s behest, if that was the way his mind was tracking. It would take some of the heat off her and, in reality, it was close enough to the truth not to cause her undue guilt.

      He blew across his tea, wreathing his dark head in curls of steam: the devil in a domestic setting. ‘Then what shall we talk about?’ he invited in the deep voice that haunted her dreams.

      Her stomach tightened and she lowered her lashes to hide a violent upsurge of emotion. ‘What do we usually talk about?’

      ‘Everything.’

      And nothing…They never spoke about the disjointed nature of their affair—the weeks of passionate closeness interspersed by months apart, with little or no contact. In a mutual conspiracy of silence they could argue the state of the world, but never the state of their own feelings.

      The only place their communications were truly uncensored was in bed, where actions spoke louder than words and their bodies were perfectly attuned to each other’s needs. Drake was a generous lover, and Kate found a fierce rapture in his arms that helped carry her through the long, lonely periods of empty yearning.

      The things that she ached to say to him were suddenly dammed up behind a thick wall of resentment. He didn’t really want to talk, he simply wanted Kate to answer his questions…questions that she didn’t yet have answers for herself!

      ‘Nice weather we’re having for the time of year,’ she said.

      ‘It is indeed…and you’re obviously taking full advantage of it,’ he agreed, taking up the challenge, his eyes stroking across the honey-coloured skin of her shoulders exposed by the spaghetti straps of her sundress.

      Kate was suddenly conscious of the pull of the cotton bodice where it was cut straight across the slope of her breasts, notched in the centre of her cleavage by a V-shaped slit. The flower-splashed, chain-store dress was a comfortable old favourite of hers, despised by her mother for its cheerfully déclassé origins. She had never worn overly casual styles in Drake’s company, knowing that it was her classic, understated elegance that appealed to his sophisticated tastes, and set her apart from the trend-setting flamboyance of more beautiful rivals for his attention.

      She stopped breathing as Drake’s gaze drifted down to the sliver of pale skin revealed by the straining V. Nor did she usually go braless when she was with him, preferring the protection and provocation of a lacy bra to enhance her slender curves. She hadn’t worn this sundress since last summer, and was suddenly uncomfortably aware of a slight tugging at the side seams, a tightness pressing up under her arms that crowded her breasts forward against the strict cut of the fabric with an unaccustomed boldness. Thankfully the contrasting double-fold of colour that banded the top of the low bodice masked the crushed outline of her painfully sensitive nipples, and allowed her the semblance of indifference as he continued to rudely stare.

      Was he making unflattering comparisons…or thinking that she had let herself go? Kate felt faint at the thought. Then she realised that she was still holding her breath and let it out in a little huff of relief, sucking in a fresh supply of oxygen to chase away the dizziness. The sudden reinflation of her lungs caused her breasts to further test their close confinement, and she was mortified to feel a stitch pop.

      It wasn’t only the dress, it was her own skin she no longer felt comfortable in, she tormented herself. And if he dared to ask if she had gained weight since he had last seen her, he was going to get a faceful of hot tea!

      Perhaps he sensed her violent impulse because he rocked back on the hind legs of his chair with a lazy, placating smile, taking a long, leisurely gulp from his mug before resting it on his chest.

      ‘Bright, splashy colours suit you rather well in this setting. That dress makes you look very much the part…’ he trailed off suggestively and she obligingly snapped at the bait.

      ‘What part?’

      ‘The young, frivolous holiday-maker out looking for trouble.’

      ‘I’ve never been frivolous in my life,’ said Kate, offended.

      He compounded the offence with a mocking grin that creased the sunfolds at the outer corners of his eyes. ‘Sorry, perhaps I should have said “carefree”…’

      A lot he knew! ‘And I’m not “looking for trouble”, either,’ she added, far less sincerely.

      ‘No? What about your handsome young fisherman?’

      ‘What?’ She took a moment to trace the origins of his non sequitur. ‘That was a joke.’

      ‘Was it?’

      His cynical response make her hackles rise. ‘You know it was!’

      ‘Do I?’ He lowered his chair with a thud and leaned forward on the table, the amusement wiped from his face. ‘Because it’s not as if there’s anything to hold you back from experimenting. We never promised each other total fidelity, did we, Kate?’

      Her heart stuttered. Experimenting? Was that what he was doing?

      ‘We never promised each other anything at all,’ she forced out evenly. ‘But I think at the very least we owe each other a certain degree of respect and consideration.’

      ‘You mean we should be discreet about our indiscretions?’ he commented drily, his dark eyes intent on her still face. ‘I thought I was…’ His shrug encompassed their surroundings. ‘A cosy little hideaway “far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife”…how much more careful can a man be?’

      Trust Drake to frame a paralysing statement in a poetic quotation, but Kate was inured to his clever verbal games. She battled the crushing pain in her chest to try and