Revenge is Sweet: Getting Even. Sharon Kendrick
‘And yet they don’t drink so much of it as you might expect?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Exactly!’ His grey eyes gleamed with a steely fire. ‘If something is free it’s acceptable—and therefore less exciting. Put something out of bounds by either making it prohibitively expensive or banning it altogether and your appetite for it increases —that’s human nature!’
Lola hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before. ‘I don’t quite see how champagne consumption on the airline relates to—’
‘Us?’ he supplied acidly.
Lola clamped her lips tightly shut, worried that he would see the vulnerable tremor which hovered around her mouth and threatened to blow her cover. ‘But there is no us, Geraint,’ she told him tartly, because in spite of everything she derived no pleasure from saying it.
‘But that’s just where you’re wrong,’ he breathed, his grey eyes narrowing to flinty chips. ‘There is something between us. You know there is. Have you no sense of adventure in your soul, Lola? Don’t t you think we ought to explore all the infinite possibilities?’
‘No,’ Lola answered repressively. ‘I don’t.
‘But if you make something forbidden, then it becomes an obsession,’ he told her. ‘Doesn’t it?’ he persisted, with a wry elevation of one dark eyebrow. ‘And obsession is not just hard to live with, it’s downright impossible. Instead of concentrating on the day-to-day pattern of life, your thoughts become one-track, so that you can spend hours reflecting on the pleasing curve of a jawline, or how sunlight can turn hair into satin ribbons.’
His gaze ran swiftly over her face before he concluded, ‘Obsession makes life take a back seat, and that’s no good to anyone.’
Lola surveyed him steadily, unwillingly caught off guard by his frankness, his lack of game-playing. ‘You sound as though you have a lot of experience of being obsessed,’ she commented in surprise.
‘Thankfully not.’ He shook his dark head. ‘Any knowledge I may have of the subject I have gained through observation, not experience.’ He glanced down at the pale gold watch which gleamed on his wrist. ‘Now, why don’t I wait here while you get changed, and then we’ll go shopping together?’
‘Shopping together?’ Lola found herself smiling at his audacity. ‘Because I—’
‘Because unless you go upstairs and take off that ridiculous uniform,’ he interrupted in an urgent, smoky whisper, ‘I might just do something as uncharacteristic as I did last night.’
Afterwards she would hate herself for asking the question, but for now she seemed to have no control over the words she heard herself using. ‘And what’s that?’
Had he imagined her to be coy? He must have done, for a cool, almost calculating look hardened the smoky grey eyes and something approaching regret darkened their pupils to an inky glitter. ‘Did I underestimate your honesty, Lola? You want to play games with me now, do you?’
‘N-no,’ she stumbled. She wanted something, yes, but not games. Something more exciting than games. And what she wanted she was just about to get. . .
He reached out and tilted her chin with his hands, his gaze locking thoughtfully with hers. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if he was answering a question, and bent his head to kiss her.
Lola tried to hold back the tide of emotion which was threatening to flood her with its sweet, relentless waves, but it was no good. One touch and she was hooked. Out of her mind and out of control—just like that. Unprotesting, she let him take her wordlessly into his embrace.
He cradled her in a manner which hinted at protectiveness and yet at the same time he made no effort whatsoever to disguise the fact that he wanted her very, very much.
Lola shivered when she felt the hardness of his hips as he pressed his body close to hers, and found her fingers stealing up to rub distractedly at the broad bank of his shoulders.
She heard the small laugh he gave—of triumph and desire and delight—and she lifted her face to his, not caring whether it was right or wrong, just eager to have his lips on hers once more. To have him rain sweet, reviving kisses onto her mouth. . .
There was an unsettling, questioning look in his eyes and then they narrowed with the determined glitter of passion. Their mouths were near enough for Lola to be able to feel the warmth of his quickened breath, when, with all the welcomeness of an early morning alarm call, the doorbell pealed loudly in their ears.
IT WAS Lola’s house and it was Lola who theoretically found herself in the most compromising position. She should have been glad of the clanging intrusion of the doorbell.
And yet it was Lola who uttered an anguished little moan at the interruption. For two pins she would have ignored the insistent ringing and just carried on with what they had been about to do.
Kiss.
But Geraint clearly had other ideas.
With admirable composure he let go of her and gently pushed her in the direction of the door.
‘You’d better see who it is,’ he instructed, his voice a sultry whisper.
Still dazed by cruel longing and frustration, Lola stared up at him unseeingly.
‘Or shall I answer it?’ he prompted, frowning as he took in her wide-eyed inability to do anything other than gaze at him longingly.
Lola shook her head, feeling the silken corkscrews of her hair tickle the back of her long neck. ‘I’ll go,’ she told him, and even though her eyes were focused now she found that she couldn’t, just couldn’t look at him.
Not yet, anyway.
‘After all, it is my house,’ she emphasised fiercely as she pulled the heavy front door open.
On the doorstep stood a woman, a stranger, and yet Lola had the oddest sensation that she knew her. Her forehead creased in a frown as she tried to remember. ‘Hello?’ she said questioningly.
‘Hello,’ said the woman in a soft, deep voice, and smiled.
She was tall. Very tall. Close on six feet, Lola guessed, with a scrubbed white face and close-cropped brown hair which had hints of autumnal red in it. But because she was almost painfully thin her height seemed diminished. She looked fragile, almost tiny, and was wearing faded jeans and an old camel-coloured duffle-coat.
There was something compelling about her face. It drew one’s attention to it like a magnet, and yet Lola could not for the life of her work out why, because it was not conventionally beautiful. The mouth was too wide, the jaw too square.
But her eyes were remarkable. In her pale, pinched face they shone out and dominated like two giant beacons.
Amazing eyes, thought Lola. Chameleon eyes. Now green. Now gold. Now brown.
The woman was looking at a spot somewhere behind Lola—almost beseechingly, Lola thought—and then a dark voice poured its way into her thoughts like honey, and she realised that for all of thirty seconds she had completely forgotten about Geraint standing behind her.
You see, she told herself firmly. It can be done! You can forget him!
Geraint stepped forward to stand beside Lola, almost as though he were the host, and Lola found herself wondering what kind of image they presented to an outsider, especially to an outsider with such a nervous, tentative look on her face.
‘Hi,’ Geraint greeted her, in a far kinder voice than he had ever used with her, Lola thought indignantly, and her heart gave a sudden, frightened lurch. ‘You’re Triss Alexander,’ he said slowly, and some distant bell of recognition