She swallowed hard, her eyes fixed on his. ‘And what do you want, Oliver?’
‘You,’ he said softly, lifting a hand and cupping her face as he looked down into her eyes. ‘I want you, Helen. And I’m prepared to wait until you realise that you want me, too.’
‘Oliver…’ She tried to pull away but he slid his other hand around her waist and anchored her against him.
‘Let’s just try something, shall we?’
Holding her gently but firmly, he brought his mouth down on hers.
Her lips were soft and sweet and Oliver gave a groan, waiting for her to pull away or slap his face, but instead she gave a little sigh and her mouth opened under his. His last coherent thought was that kissing Helen was going straight to the top of his list of favourite pastimes and then he sank under the surface of an excitement so intense that it couldn’t be measured.
His previously clear mind was drugged by sensation and he kissed her fiercely, driven by a ravenous hunger deep inside him.
He felt her arms slide around his neck and Oliver dragged her closer, frustrated by the thickness of the clothing that separated them, desperate to rip off her layers so that he could feast on her body.
He felt her quiver against him, felt the intensity of her response as she kissed him back, and knew without doubt that this was the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
But he had the sense to know that he couldn’t take her there in one enormous leap, and when she suddenly made a little sound and pushed at his chest, he didn’t try and stop her.
To be honest, he was too shocked to stop her.
He’d kissed enough women in his life to think that he’d experienced all the different degrees of sexual excitement, but nothing had come close to the way he’d felt kissing Helen. It was as if all the other kisses had been in black and white and this one had been in colour.
And you didn’t have to be a genius to know that it had been the same for her.
Her breath was coming in shallow pants and she dropped her eyes, focusing her attention on the middle of his chest. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’
‘You didn’t,’ he said calmly. ‘I did. I was the one who kissed you.’
‘But I kissed you back.’
She sounded so appalled that he smiled.
‘Well, just a bit perhaps.’
‘Anyone could have seen us.’
‘Those sheep over there definitely saw.’
She didn’t smile and he gave a sigh and stroked the back of his hand down her cheek in a gesture that was supposed to comfort. ‘Is that why you stopped? Because someone might have seen us?’
‘Yes. No.’ She was deliciously confused and he felt something shift inside him.
‘Helen, stop analysing, sweetheart,’ he advised softly. ‘We kissed and it was—it was…’ What was it? How on earth did you describe a kiss like that? Explosive? Frightening? ‘It was just a kiss.’
She looked at him. ‘Two
weeks ago I was marrying David.’
‘Three weeks ago.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘It was three weeks ago.’
She gave a lopsided smile. ‘You think one more week makes a difference to the fact that I just got carried away with another man?’
‘You weren’t carried away, Helen,’ he said easily. ‘You stopped it. If you’d been carried away we’d both now be naked on that rock at severe risk of suffering frostbite.’
She blushed and looked away. ‘I can’t believe I let you kiss me. That I kissed you back.’ Her expression was troubled. ‘I’ve never—I don’t know what I was thinking of. Why did I let you?’
‘Because I’m irresistible,’ he said helpfully, and then sighed when she didn’t laugh.