CHAPTER ONE
‘OH. MY. God,’ Laura muttered, her fingers tightening around her binoculars and her breath hitching in her throat at the sight that met her eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat and her entire body flushed with a heat that had nothing to do with the warmth of the early summer sun and everything to do with the view.
Because, wow, what a view…
There, approximately two hundred metres away, across a lush green field and over a drystone wall, in one corner of the extensive grounds of the manor house, was a man.
Standing with his back to her, bending down and hauling a hefty log onto a stump. Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, heavy-duty work boots and a rather impressive tan.
Whoever he was, he was dark-haired and tall. Broad-shouldered and fit. The muscles of his shoulders and back twisted and flexed as he hammered the axe down on those poor helpless little logs, displaying such strength and control that every inch of her began to tingle.
When he moved round the other side of the stump and lifted the axe high above his head, the tingle turned to full-blown lust. For a brief frozen moment, in sharp definition, there was the most magnificent chest she’d ever seen. Tanned. Lean. Sprinkled with a smattering of dark hair that narrowed down his taut stomach and vanished tantalisingly beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Ignoring the little voice in her head telling her she really ought not to be doing this, Laura pressed the binoculars closer and bit her lip, largely to stop herself whimpering.
She’d never whimpered in her life, but if ever there was an occasion to start, this was it.
She could make out every rippling muscle. Every one of his ribs. Her fingers itched to trace the dips and contours of his body. What would he feel like beneath her hands? What would it feel like to have all that strength and control on top of her? Underneath her? Inside her?
At the bolt of desire that burst deep inside her, Laura’s temperature went through the roof. The breath shot from her lungs and her heart practically stopped. A weird kind of fizzing sprang to life in the pit of her stomach and she clutched at the curtain before her balance vaporised and she nearly toppled out of the window.
Good Lord, she thought dazedly as stars spun around her head. She was fantasising. Ogling. Virtually salivating. Since when had she started doing that? She dragged in a shaky breath. Crikey, maybe she really had gone off the rails.
Letting the binoculars dangle from the leather strap hanging around her neck, Laura sagged against the wall and willed her breathing to steady and her heart rate to slow.
Now, of all times, when she was by herself and inches from an open window with a ten-foot drop to the ground, would really not be a good time to faint.
Which was precisely why she ought to unwrap herself from the curtains, back away and pull herself together.
Besides, quite apart from her precarious position, she had no business ogling men, however hot. After the traumatic collapse of her last relationship she’d sworn off the whole lousy lot of them. And even if she had been in the mood, voyeurism had never been her thing. It was sneaky. It was reckless.
And kind of thrilling.
Laura swallowed and blinked to clear her suddenly blurry vision. Oh, for heaven’s sake. That little thrill currently whooshing around her body could stop it right now. She was interested in the house, that was all.
For the six weeks she’d been living in the village the manor house had been as silent as the grave, and her frustration at not being able to take a look inside had reached such a peak that if she weren’t such a law-abiding person she’d have contemplated a spot of breaking and entering.
So when she’d heard the sound of splintering wood coming from the other side of the village earlier this morning she’d barely been able to believe her luck. Grabbing her binoculars, she’d raced upstairs, wrapped herself in her curtains and scouted the landscape for the source of the noise.
Quite what she’d been expecting she wasn’t sure, but it certainly hadn’t been a sight as enticing as this.
As the thrill returned, more delicious and more insistent than before, Laura paused mid-unwrap, nibbled on her lip and frowned. She’d always appreciated beauty. Had always admired structure. Which was why she’d become an architect. Now here was the finest animate example of both she’d seen in a long time and given the current sorry state of her love life it was unlikely that she’d ever get the chance again.
Her heart thumping with illicit excitement, she edged closer to the wall, huddled deeper into the curtain, and fished her binoculars out from beneath the heavy fabric.
How could another second or two hurt? After all, it wasn’t as if he could see her, was it?
Matt swung the axe high above his head and froze.
There it was again. The flash.
Once. Twice. And then intermittently, like a sputtering light bulb. Like a beacon. Or like the sun glinting off a pair of binoculars.
Hell.