By Marriage Divided. Lindsay Armstrong
when you’re pulling out all stops to prove to me you don’t consider yourself above me in any way.’
She set her teeth. Then she put her head to one side and regarded him coolly. ‘I just hope you’re a good dancer, Mr Keir.’
‘We shall see, Miss Harris,’ he replied formally, but his smoky-grey eyes were still laughing at her.
At eleven o’clock a set of wooden doors was rolled apart to reveal an Aladdin’s cave.
Domenica blinked because she’d eaten at this restaurant before but never been to the disco. So the grotto-like interior with its pinprick, jewel-bright swinging lights and polished floor came as something of a surprise. Then the music started, more as background music at first, and she and Angus finished their coffee leisurely.
It wasn’t until there were several other couples on the floor that he raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Should we get it over and done with?’
A little glint in her blue eyes told him she resented, possibly irrationally, his implication that she was about to perform a penance, but she murmured, ‘By all means.’
Ten minutes later, she knew without doubt that she’d thrown down the wrong gauntlet. Angus Keir was a very good dancer. So good, it was impossible, especially if you loved dancing yourself, to be stiff, and unresponsive in his arms. Not that she’d planned to be stiff, precisely. But she certainly hadn’t planned on throwing aside all caution and giving herself over to the music—and to him. Yet the two were inseparable. And it occurred to her that, if she wanted to continue to hold herself aloof from him and the attraction between them, she’d made a tactical error.
On the other hand, all her senses were stirring as they moved together with their bodies touching. She felt light, slim and shapely in his arms—his hands on her waist seemed to emphasize its slenderness and her skin felt like velvet beneath his fingers. And the contact with his hard, honed body did strange things to her breathing and caused tremors of delicious anticipation to run through her.
Nor did the sensuous rhythm they were dancing to help matters. It stirred her blood and it came naturally to move with a fluid grace that was both provocative and a celebration of her lithe, tall figure in the revealing little black dress that emphasized the pale, smooth glossiness of her skin. But most of all, even above the sureness of the way he led her and how they moved together in complete unity, the way he watched her was the most worrying.
Because it told her that the provocation she was unable to help herself offering was being noted and could be held against her at some time in the future. But those smoky-grey eyes also blazed a trail almost as tangible as if his fingers or lips were exploring the satiny skin of her throat, the valley between her breasts and elsewhere.
Then the disco changed beat and, with a sheer effort of will, she grasped the opportunity to release herself from the mesmerizing power of Angus Keir and the music. ‘I…think I’d like to sit down.’
He didn’t release her immediately and she stood in the circle of his arms for a long moment, wondering if she was mad, because it felt so good, to want to rationalize this powerful force between them.
It was the sudden glint of irony in his eyes that told her she should but, not only that, she should take all possible precautions against falling under the spell of a man she barely knew who was also wielding another kind of power over her—her mother’s future.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.