‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her gently. ‘Cold feet…?’
When she shook her head, his expression relaxed slightly.
‘Good, then I shan’t need to add bedsocks to my shopping-list, shall I?’ he teased her before brushing his mouth lightly over hers and stepping back from her.
* * *
‘I’ve ordered the beef in cider for both of us. Is that OK?’
‘Fine,’ Daniel confirmed as he joined Christa at the table where she had been waiting for him. He had been gone rather longer than she had expected.
‘Not going to ask me what I bought?’ he asked wickedly as he sat down.
Again Christa blushed.
‘I love it when you do that,’ he told her. ‘The greengrocer was out of cucumber, by the way…’
‘Stop it,’ Christa commanded, almost choking on the sip of water she had taken to cool her overheated skin.
It was all so new to her, this gentle teasing, this intimacy…this loving; but she could very, very quickly grow addicted to it. Addicted to him, she acknowledged, as Daniel’s hand reached for hers under the table.
‘Mmm…this is good,’ she commented when their food had been served.
‘Not bad,’ Daniel agreed, ‘but wait until you taste…’
He stopped and watched in fascination as Christa’s face suddenly turned a pretty shade of soft coral.
‘Now what,’ he asked her huskily wonder, calson that.
Christa shook her head, letting her hair slide forward to conceal her flushed face from him. She had no intention of telling him. At least not at this stage in their relationship.
Her thoughts, the images his words had conjured, the desire to slowly feast herself on the banquet of his naked body, were far too personal and far too betraying for that.
‘I didn’t realise you could cook,’ she said jerkily instead.
‘Only the basics,’ Daniel admitted ruefully. His eyes suddenly clouded. ‘And most of those are self-taught. After my father’s death…well, my mother lost interest in normal day-to-day life. Without my father there, she seemed to lose all motivation. He was very much the centre of her life and…’
‘I think most women feel like that about the men they love,’ Christa suggested gently. What was it about loving someone that made you want to protect them from even the smallest pain?
Loving someone. The words still frightened her a little and she pushed them quickly away, not wanting to dwell on what they meant.
‘Do they?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Modern women have learned to be very wary of that kind of emotional dependency, to scorn it almost.’
‘If we don’t trust men enough to allow ourselves to be so vulnerable, perhaps that’s because we’ve too often seen, too often experienced, men’s betrayal of us…’
‘That works both ways, you know,’ Daniel told her, ‘and in the end it all comes down to the same thingtrust, and whether you stand in line with those who give it freely or those who believe it has to be earned.’
‘Let’s talk about something else,’ Christa begged him. The seriousness of their conversation was beginning to cloud her earlier euphoric mood. There were still vast areas of such thin ice in her newly forming relationship with Daniel which she didn’t trust to bear the weight of too much intense scrutiny. Much better to skate lightly over them for now. She didn’t want to dissipate the sharp sense of anticipatory excitement and desire she had felt earlier; she didn’t want to risk spoiling things with too many questions. She had made her decision and now she wanted…
She wanted Daniel, she acknowledged shakily as she glanced quickly at him. She wanted him so much that she could feel the ache of her need pulsing fiercely within her body. She didn’t want to analyse the question, to wait for her doubts to return.
Totally unexpectedly, her eyes suddenly filmed with emotional tears. She put down her fork, unable to eat.
‘Christa, what is it?’ Daniel asked in concern. ‘Is it your food—is——?’
‘No,’ she told him huskily as she shook her head. It’s not the food…it’s you, she could have said, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do so. However, something in her expression must have given her away anyway, because when she added whisperingly, ‘Would you mind…? Could we…could we go…?’ the look Daniel gave her as he pushed his chair back and came over to her made her face burn with hot colour and her body start to shake all over.
He knew…Somehow, he knew what she was thinking…feeling.
Outside the pub she breathed in great lungfuls of the clean, cold air, trying to calm herself down. She was totally out of control, she recognised dizzily, her body, her emotions, even her thoughts no longer exclusively her own. Daniel dominated them.
He was standing next to her, watching her, his own expression sombre, but his eyes…His eyes…She closed her own, torn between shock and excitement at the message she could read in them.
Was her hunger for him as nakedly obvious in her eyes as his was for her?
The shock of recognising the intensity of his hunger-especially in a man who had previously seemed so laidback and in control—kept her silent as they walked back to the car. As he unlocked the passenger door of the Land Rover for her, Daniel moved forward to help her into it and then stopped.
‘I can’t,’ he told her huskily. ‘If I touch you now…’
Christa had no need to ask what he meant. She already knew. She felt the same way herself, as dangerously overcombustible as brittle, dried timber, knowing that all it would take to send her up in flames was the smallest spark.
Neither of them made any attempt at conversation on the drive back to the farm. The sun was already dropping quickly towards the horizon, the sharp clearness of the sky throwing the mountains into dark, brooding relief.
It seemed impossible to believe that tomorrow she would be walking them.
Tomorrow—her heartbeat quickened. Between now and tomorrow, the present and the future, lay…tonight.
She felt more nervous, more on edge, more…more virginal than she had done when she had actually been a virgin. Her muscles tensed as Daniel drove into the farmyard and stopped the Land Rover.
When he had switched off the ignition, instead of getting out he turned towards her.
‘It isn’t too late. If you want to change your mind,’ he told her quietly. ‘Not now…not ever,’ he reiterated firmly.
Christa knew what he was saying to her. Emotional tears filled her eyes.
‘I haven’t…I don’t want to change my mind,’ she assured him.
It was true, but it didn’t stop her from feeling slightly afraid. Not of Daniel, but of herself, her desire, her need…her love.
While Christa collected her own shopping from the back of the Land Rover, Daniel picked up a large box of groceries he had presumably bought while she was waiting for him. Her heart suddenly started to thump very heavily and very unevenly as she remembered the look he had given her when he said he had some shopping to do.
The icy chill in the wind as they crossed the yard made her shiver, and she was glad of the warmth of the kitchen as Daniel opened the door into it.
‘I’ll just go and take this stuff up to my room,’ she began, awkwardly, as Daniel put the groceries down on the kitchen table.
‘No, not yet,’ he told her quietly, taking her parcels from her and putting them down before turning back to her.
For a moment, his calm deliberateness confused her, but then he took a step towards her and opened his arms.
‘Come here,’ he demanded softly.
Her mouth had gone dry and her heart was somersaulting wildly.
Shakily she moved towards him, shivering with pleasure as she felt his arms close round her. As he bent his head to kiss her she could feel the fierce thud of his heartbeat. His mouth brushed hers, a fine tremor running through his body as he paused and then reluctantly lifted his mouth from hers.
‘It’s no good. I can’t…I daren’t,’ he told