‘Through hell and high water,’ said Julia flippantly.
‘Of all the stupid, irresponsible bitches!’ He exploded, hands thumping on his hips as he strode across the room to tower over her. ‘You must be a complete cretin! And why, for God’s sake? What if I hadn’t been here, what would you have done then? Gone straight back I suppose—probably driving to your death in the process!’
Julia muttered a sullen negative to the effect that she wasn’t completely idiotic. ‘I knew you were here because Connie told me.’
‘So? No doubt she also told you when I’d be back in Auckland,’ he shot at her.
‘I couldn’t wait.’ Julia lifted her chin defiantly, her clothes beginning to steam along with her temper.
‘You couldn’t …? God give me strength!’ He grabbed her by the shoulders with a quick, jerky movement. ‘You could have been killed out there you little fool.’
‘All right, so I’m a fool, what else is new?’ she flung at him. ‘What are you so mad about? You would have been well rid of me wouldn’t you!’
‘Don’t be so bloody childish!’ He gave her a furious shake and then suddenly he wasn’t shaking her anymore, but kissing her, crowding her close to his body, his mouth hot and hard on hers. For Julia it was bliss, vindication of all her doubts, but when she wriggled to come up for air, he let her go as if she was a hot coal.
‘You can’t stand around in those wet things all day,’ he said hoarsely, backing away hurriedly as if the dampness was infectious. Julia stood open-mouthed, tingling all over from his delicious attack, her anger dissipating in delight at his nervousness.
‘All my clothes are in my poor car,’ she said faintly.
He frow
ned thunderously at her as she plucked at the sweater where it held her breasts in wet embrace. ‘Go and take a shower,’ he ordered, in the manner of ‘get thee behind me, Satan’. ‘I’ll see if Connie or the girls left anything.’
‘What about hot water?’ asked Julia, as he reached the door. ‘Is there any power?’
‘We’ve got a generator. That’s what I was checking on down in the garage.’
Julia stood under a wonderfully hot stream of water, hoping he wouldn’t find anything. She would look very sexy in one of his shirts—maybe irresistibly so, if he could be driven to kiss her when she looked like a drowned rat. She smiled dreamily at the tiled wall. He had been so mad. She had loved the way his teeth had gritted and his ears had flushed, the way his eyes shot silver sparks. The shell was definitely in imminent danger.
Wrapped in one of Connie’s luxurious velvet robes, her clothes draped in front of the fire, Julia munched on toasted cheese sandwiches, eyeing Hugh as he sat in his chair, staring fixedly at the flames in the grate. They listened to the latest news and weather report on the radio through a veil of static. Coromandel was indeed cut off and on the verge of being declared in a state of emergency.
‘Further rain, with isolated thunderstorms and easterlies up to gale force can be expected, decreasing slowly tonight,’ finished the earnest young man from the Weather Bureau.
‘Damn!’
‘Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while,’ said Julia, viewing his frustration with glee. ‘You make a lovely toasted sandwich, Hugh, although you can’t really fail with those griller gadgets. Don’t you want yours?’ She took his untouched share and wolfed them greedily—it was her first food since the chicken and champagne of the previous night. ‘Umm, delicious,’ she licked her buttery fingers. Hunger satisfied, it was time to go into battle. Much as she hated what she had decided to do, she really had no choice. Hugh was proof against propinquity alone.
‘Seeing as we’re going to spend hours and hours and hours together,’ she said, settling more comfortably on the floor, ‘what shall we do to amuse each other?’ She blinked at him with wide, suggestive eyes and he overreacted instantly, rearing up to his feet like an enraged bear.
‘Damnit, Julia, if you came down here just to torment me …’
‘Torment, torment,’ Julia rose beside him, the red robe falling over her hands and trailing on the floor, so that she looked, to him, like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. ‘What an odd word to use, Hugh. Do I torment you?’ She moved towards him, stumbling on the bunched hem of the robe and pitching forward conveniently into his arms. Body contact produced instant ignition. ‘Oh … Hugh …’
‘Julia, be sensible …’ The rough plea brought forth a laugh, muffled in his crisp shirt-front. ‘Sensible? Me? Who are you trying to kid? You’ve already impressed on me that I’m a fool. Let’s be foolish together, mmmm …?’ She snuggled against his chest, a tiny creature trying to nestle into his heart.
‘No …’ The word was dragged harshly from the depths.
‘Yes.’ She flung back her head to smile sensuously up into his rigid face. ‘When are you going to stop fighting it? I want you and you want me … that’s something you can’t hide behind a poker face.’ She pushed her hips provocatively against his to prove her point and he couldn’t deny her the surge of his body.
Triumphantly Julia trailed her hands down the muscular arms to stroke up under his sleeves, finding the crisp hairs that curled down to his wrists, the inner tendons hard cords. He shook her hands away and she recklessly slid them up under his sweater, caressing the scalloped stomach, raking through the soft tangle on his chest. Virgin that she was, her body seemed to have taken on an instinctive voluptuousness of its own— flaunting, seducing, draining his physical resistance.
‘I can show you a good time,’ she attacked softly, at what intuition told her would be his weakest point. ‘Richard said that I showed a lot of initiative in bed. He said I was …’
‘Shut up!’ Hugh swore at her, wrenching her hands from his body, holding them as, unwillingly: ‘You said that you and Richard weren’t lovers.’
‘Did I?’ she shrugged off the accusation and succeeded in producing what she hoped was a husky, rather than broken, laugh. ‘Maybe I’m mixing him up with someone else. Now … who could it have been?’ She tapped a finger against the serene curve of her cheek, mocking his silent outrage. She produced and discarded the list of non-existent lovers for his disapproval, watching his face grow more and more grim while his eyes began to burn blackly, bleakly, within their frosty rims. Recklessly she continued, surely the fire must melt the ice soon.
‘You know, I think it must have been Steve,’ she finished tauntingly, having seen how the mention of his brothers seemed to disturb him … perhaps he found that a little too close to home. ‘Yes, that’s who it was. He was such a lover … so raunchy and …’