‘Good. Secondly, you will restrict your remarks to matters relating to the cataloguing. You will most certainly not discuss anything to do with our previous relationship or the existence of our marriage with anyone. And I don’t just mean my grandfather.’
Prudence stared at him, her mouth trembling. ‘Oh, don’t worry—I don’t intend to tell anyone about our marriage; it’s not something I actually go around boasting about.’
His hand twisted in her hair and she squirmed in his grip as he jerked her closer. ‘Finally,’ he said softly. ‘Something we can agree on.’
Her eyes slammed into his like thunderclouds colliding with the sun and then she shook her head wearily. She was beginning to wish that she’d just stayed in the taxi.
‘You know what? I actually don’t want to have anything to do with you when I’m not working. That’s my ground rule. I came back for my job and that’s what I’m going to do: my job. Not gossip about a marriage I didn’t even know was real and that quite frankly was so long ago and so short I can’t really remember it anyway!’
His eyes met hers and she held her breath, her blood humming in her veins.
‘Oh, but I can,’ he murmured.
His hand slid down her neck, cupping her chin, the thumb strumming her cheek, stroking slowly, steadily, until she arched helplessly against him, feeling his hard strength, his raw desire, and wanting more of both.
‘I can remember every single moment.’
Prudence swallowed. She opened her mouth to speak, tried to lift her hands and push him away, but her brain and body refused to co-operate. Her head was spinning and she could feel her insides tightening, desire mingling with frustration and anger. And then he shifted against her so that the hard muscle of his thigh pushed against her pelvis.
She moaned softly, tipping her head back as his lips caressed her neck, moving slowly, deliberately over her throat and back to her mouth, and then her lips parted and he lowered his mouth to hers. Tingling currents of sensation snaked across her skin and, reaching up, she curled her fingers through his hair and drew him closer, gripping him tightly, for it felt almost as though she might disappear into the kiss itself.
And then, slowly at first, and then with a jolt, her brain seemed to awaken from a deep sleep and she broke free of his arms.
The air on her skin felt sudden and sharp, like a knife, and she rubbed her hand against her mouth as though to remove all traces of his dark, compelling kiss.
‘We shouldn’t have done that.’
Her voice was raw, her breathing coming in panicky little gasps. It had been wrong. And stupid and dangerous. A shudder ran through her. But how could it be wrong when it had felt so good and so right?
Laszlo watched her shake her head, a fierce, urgent heat flaring in his belly. He wanted her so much he could hardly stand. And she had wanted him—she still did. He could see that in the dark turbulence in her eyes and in the convulsive trembling of her skin.
‘What are you talking about?’ His voice was taut, his breathing fraying apart as he spoke.
‘I don’t want that—I don’t want you—’ she began.
Laszlo cut her off incredulously. ‘That was you not wanting me?’
Biting her lip, she shook her head, too horrified by the violence of her response to him even to try to dissemble her desire for him. ‘No. I do want you.’ Shivering, she took a step backwards, staring at him with wide-eyed agitation. ‘But we can’t. It would be wrong—’ She looked frantically past him, trying to locate the door in the gloom of the barn.
Laszlo frowned. ‘Wrong? How could it be wrong? We’re married—’
It was her turn to look incredulous. ‘It’s not about whether we’re married, Laszlo!’ She shook her head again. ‘It’s not appropriate, our doing that, when—’ She was struggling for words. ‘I mean, you hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you,’ he said slowly, and he was surprised to find that it was true. He didn’t.
There was a shocked silence and she met his gaze.
‘But you don’t like me, and I don’t like you, and we certainly don’t love one another.’ Her voice sounded wooden but her breathing was calmer now and she lifted her chin. ‘This is just sex.’
‘This is not just sex,’ he said, speaking with slow, clear emphasis. ‘You clearly haven’t had much in the way of sexual experience if you think that was just sex.’
Her face coloured. ‘You’re right. I haven’t. But when I make love to someone it will be because I love them and only because I love them. Not because of anything else.’
Knowing just how good that ‘anything else’ could feel, she clenched her fists against the treacherous warmth seeping over her skin.
‘So, no, Laszlo. I’m not going to have sex with you in a barn even though we may be married.’
Crossing her arms in front of her body, she stared at him defiantly.