Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor (11 page)

He groaned louder. “Miranda, there’s not a bed in the world big enough for both of us. What do you think’s going on here? You’re a beautiful girl, and I’m as frail as the next guy.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. “Not once you make up your mind. And you
have
made it up, haven’t you?”

He gave a soundless laugh. “How do you know my best intentions won’t fall into ruins?”

“If they do, it’s
our
secret,” she said. “We have secrets, don’t we, Corin?”

“Boy, are you full of surprises!” he exclaimed. “You’re saying you’ll sleep with me?”

“I’m desperate.”

He laughed aloud. “Miranda, I can’t sleep on the sofa. I’m too big. You can. We can’t share the bed. You know as well as I do that’s pushing it too far. My job is to look after you.”

“Well, I didn’t say you have this terrible aching longing for me, did I? You’re not by any chance getting engaged when you go home?”

“Miranda, engagements are the last thing on my mind.” The expression on his handsome face turned severe.

“Me too. So take it easy. Can you sleep in your jeans?”

“You bet I can.”

“Thank you for coming, Corin,” she said. “I’m not making this up. I’m sure of what I saw.”

“Then you’re a very lucky girl!” he offered darkly. “You’ll be dining off the experience for years.” He rose to his six foot plus, giving vent to a disturbed sigh. “Okay, I take the bed.”

“I’ll just curl up here on the sofa,” she said, immensely grateful for his presence. The force in him overrode all sense of trepidation. The worst of the trembling had stopped. “You can throw me the silk throw, if you would.”

“Anything, my lady.” He picked it up and passed it to her.

“Can we keep a light on in the sitting room?” she asked, settling herself with the luxurious silk throw over her.

“I don’t see why not.” He moved into the other room, switching on a single lamp, with its golden pool of illumination. “I just knew in my bones this was going to be a memorable stay. Shut your eyes and go to sleep now, Miranda. Your ghost will know better than to return.”

CHAPTER FOUR

S
OMETHING
drew him out of a tormented sleep. His body was still vibrating, unable to shut down. It had taken him ages to settle into a doze, but at least Miranda had lapsed into sleep almost immediately. Shock, of course. She was a highly intelligent, level-headed young woman. He had to believe she had seen
something
. Whatever it was, it wasn’t about to bother him. Or he sure as hell wasn’t worried. What worried him was that sex was very much on his mind. Sex with Miranda. God knew it was normal enough to want to make love to a young woman who held him in thrall. But not now—not like this. It seemed to him too much like taking advantage. That he could not do. But try telling that to his powerfully aroused body.

Decency must override desire, Corin.

He was getting a bit tired of his conscience blasting him.

Only the unthinkable had happened. Miranda had crept into bed beside him and now rolled lightly against his back, her petite body with its soft curves and light bones nestled up against his flesh. Tension tore through him. His heart set up a loud tattoo, beating in his ears with the volume turned full on. He turned very carefully, fighting not to give a strangled moan. He was lying beneath the coverlet. She was lying on top of it.

My God, what do I do next?

His whole body was throbbing, stirred into flaming life. He could barely stay in his skin. Desire was a burning fever. He would have coped with half a dozen Venetian ghosts far better than this intensely desirable young woman curled up against him. The lightness of her! The fragrance! A man could drown in it. The only course open to him was to retreat, slide out of the other side of the bed. He could prop himself up on the sofa for the rest of the night. Get comfortable somehow. See it out until morning. Ghosts didn’t hang around in the light of day. They were too tired out from their nocturnal excursions. Or was that vampires? Either way, he didn’t care. Miranda was the real problem.

“Corin?” Just to make the problem near unsolvable, she suddenly sat up, twisting her shining head towards him. Her voice was hushed, but filled with urgency. “Don’t go away. Please don’t. I didn’t like the sofa much. I wanted to be closer.”

“Miranda, stop it,” he begged.

You’re losing it, Corin!

“I can’t stay here in this bed with you,” he said tautly. “You’re nobody’s fool. My whole body is hurting. I’ll make love to you. Nothing surer!”

“Then do it!” she burst out, sounding as though she knew far better than he did. “Ease the pain. This is
life
! I’ve decided I want to live it. None of us knows how much time we have, do we? Why waste what we’ve got? You’re alive. I’m alive. If you like, when we wake up we can pretend it was all a dream.”

“And you think there’s going to be a lot of comfort in that?” he demanded, aghast. He reached for her, took hold of a bare delicate shoulder where her robe had fallen off. He could see the silver shimmer of her hair, like radiant moonlight. “Are you or are you not a virgin?”

“Will that improve or detract from my status?” she challenged. “Technically I’m not, but I
can
say in all truth the earth has never moved for me. I’ve had two lovers. Really nice guys. Fellow students. Smart, good-looking. Not untried either. But I couldn’t for the life of me see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps you can tell me? I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experience.”

“And you’d like me to share it with you?” he asked acidly. “Does this give me the go-ahead?”

A golden glow was spilling out of the sitting room. She could easily make out the hard tension in his face. “Oh, God, that’s up to you!” she moaned, embarrassment welling, but not enough to drown the yearning. “I’ve had more thrills from your touching my cheek than ever I got from my previous experiences. You can multiply that by one thousand. Such are your erotic skills. Once I thought I couldn’t give myself to anyone. Not after my mother. Not after her falling pregnant as a schoolgirl. Abandoning me. It altered my life. Maybe altered me in a radical way. Do you understand?”

“No, I damned well do not.” He was merciless. He had to be.

“You’re weighing up the consequences?” she asked.

“Miranda, this is madness,” he groaned. But then, hadn’t it been madness from the moment she had literally catapulted into his life?

“There are always consequences, I suppose. One or both of us could be hurt. But you’re not married. I’m not married. Neither of us is in any great rush.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Either you go back to the sofa or I do.”

“No, stay.
Please.
I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking you to
make
love to me. There’s a big difference. You said you wanted to, so just
do
it.”

“And perhaps make you pay for it?” He showed the full heat of his anger and arousal. “I don’t walk around with condoms in my pocket. Oh, my God, Miranda, what are we talking about?” he asked in an agonised voice. Never in his life had he faced such temptation.

“Making love. You may not care to hear it, but I’m on the pill. I believe in being prepared. I’m not saying with you. I never dreamt we’d be here together like this. But I could have met someone. You never know. I’m a modern girl. This is right. For tonight, Corin. I know it in my soul. I didn’t set out to seduce you. You had no intention of seducing me, such are your stringent scruples and code of morality. The ghost actually did us a favour.”

“Oh, be quiet! Truly,
be quiet!
” He pulled her across him, wrapping his arms around her. She had to know what she was doing to him, but she didn’t seem to care. “This is madness!”

“But splendid madness!” She let her head fall against his chest. She would remember this extraordinary night in the last dying seconds of her life.

“To put yourself in my hands?” His vibrant voice turned steely.

“Yes, yes, and
yes
! Put it down to shock. Shock has made me shameless.
‘My heart, by many snares beguiled, Has grown timorous and wild!’
Some poet said that. Can’t think who.”

She allowed her body to spread out over his: fantastic feeling, utter abandon. Then she locked her bare, slender arms around his neck. She wasn’t herself at all. She was a Miranda she had never known. Had her otherworldly visitor put a sensual spell on her? Maybe that was what he’d come for?

The agony of it!
Corin felt every muscle shift in his lean body. His head was nearly bursting with conflicting emotions. Should he? Shouldn’t he? The truth was he was already lost. He let his crow-black head fall back against the piled-up pillows like a man defeated. Such extreme sexual agony demanded release. There could be no ease without action. He wanted her. God, how he wanted her! Yet for a split second he faltered. Was it possible this perfect creature with her beautiful turquoise eyes was after
revenge
? Did she count this the right time? Had she
really
seen anything? Or was she winding him up? It could all be an elaborate scam. Some kind of weird payback? She was extremely intelligent. Highly rational. Very possibly an accomplished actress. Was she indeed playing him for a fool? If so, it was working!

Momentarily maddened, he turned her onto her side. That too was dangerously erotic, increasing the sexual tension. Then he put a hand to her tender neck, his fingers on that pulsing vein. Her flesh was like lustrous satin, as warm and as flushed as a rose. He wasn’t
her
captor, though. That was the trouble, he thought with a tiny stab of hostility. She had captured
him
. Delilah bringing another Samson to his knees.

“Look at me. Kiss me,” she whispered. “Before I dissolve right away.”

Her little sigh was quite audible in the deeply shadowed room. He answered darkly. “What man can resist such witchcraft? Okay, Miranda, if this is what you want.”

With one wrench, he had the coverlet on the floor, and then he pulled her to him, never more excruciatingly aware that passion was heedless of anything but itself. Such was his appetite, his mouth crushed hers…covered its sweetness completely…his tongue making triumphant entry into the moist apple-fresh interior. The kiss was punishing at first, ruthless, explosive, raw in its conquest. As he’d intended it to be. A futile show of male superiority? Only very quickly the fierceness gentled into something miraculous…utterly voluptuous…undreamed of rapture!

She was working her magic, turning the key to a heart he had thought locked safely away.

He paused for a moment, holding her hips, his head bent above her. He could see that her jewelled eyes were tightly shut. Her limbs were wound around his like tendrils, curved and curled. She was beautiful to him. Beautiful beyond belief. He could no more have stopped kissing her, no more stopped his hands from moving to shape and caress her small perfect breasts, than he could have stopped his own breath.

She was right. This was living. This was
life
!

They were entering into it together. No matter the consequences.

The moments of astonishing sensuality spun on and on, until he could no longer tolerate a shred of clothing to separate skin from skin. He had to unwrap her from her robe—it had almost fallen off her—then her nightgown, flinging both garments away. He looked back for the switch on the lamp. She seemed to shake her head, but he took no notice.

“Don’t refuse me.” He turned back to her, fully exposed to his sight; she was beautifully, delicately nude, like some lovely painting, showing lustrous skin tones. In one sweeping movement he slid his hand in a widening circle around her taut but pliant stomach, stopping to within an inch of the sensitive delta between her legs. “I want to
see
you. I want to kiss every inch of you. I want you to know you’re exquisite to my eyes. And you
wanted
this, Miranda, remember.”

Wanted it?
She was half mad with longing. Pelted with it. She made a soft, helpless sound that was like a wail. He cut it off with his mouth.

Every cell in Miranda’s body was a live wire of sensation. It was impossible not to respond to such mastery. She might never have been kissed or touched in her life before now.

He placed her exactly as he wanted her. Then he began to play her like a superbly crafted instrument. Perfect for a man’s hand, its pitch exact, and capable of displaying a glorious range of emotions. He had never had a woman respond to his lovemaking with such passion and urgency. He had never felt within himself so wild an elation. He found he was shaping words,
saying
words—what were they? She had him totally in her power. Did it matter? All he knew was this was ecstasy, as fabulous as it was strange to him.

She could be your downfall.

He was more than willing to risk it. He needed to throw off his own clothes. Naked, he returned to the bed, where she pulled him down to her, glittery tears standing in her eyes.

“No—oh,
no
, Miranda, don’t cry.” Her tears stayed him. He leaned over her, supported by his strong arms, overtaken by a powerful sense of protectiveness.

“I’m
not
crying,” she protested, reaching up to sink her fingers into his thick hair, all tousled waves and curls, tugging at it in her passion. “I’m on fire!”

Any glimmer of uncertainty vanished into thin air. Air that seemed scented by hundreds of glowing, unimaginably beautiful flowers. None of this had been premeditated, he thought, yet he had the absolute certainty both of them were in their rightful place. Slowly, voluptuously, on a surge of exultation, he covered her smooth-as-silk body with his own, still controlling his far more substantial weight with his arms while she clutched his naked back, her voice an emotional little sob.

“Love me!”

“For hours. Hours and hours on end.” He was confronted with a searing truth. He wasn’t just in love with Miranda. He wanted her with him for as long as he lived.