Four Christmas Treats. Jessica Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ first to give her a quick kiss, and then saying a general goodnight, while Art’s daughters were still protesting in high-pitched whiny voices about the disruption to their children’s routine.

      ‘Does your mother know what she’s letting herself in for?’ Silas demanded as they headed for the stairs.

      ‘I don’t know,’ Tilly was forced to admit. Her own concern betrayed her into adding, ‘She says she’s in love with Art, but I don’t see how she can be.’

      By the time they reached the second floor her skin had broken out in goosebumps, and she was so cold that her longing to crawl into bed to try and get warm was overwhelming her apprehension about sharing it with Silas.

      ‘Do you suppose there’ll be any hot water up here?’ she asked Silas as he opened the bedroom door for her.

      ‘Potentially,’ Silas answered her dryly. ‘There’s an electrically heated shower in the bathroom, although my experience of it so far suggests that it isn’t totally efficient.’

      ‘Meaning what?’ Tilly asked him suspiciously.

      ‘Meaning lukewarm is probably as good as it’s going to get,’ he replied. ‘At least the bed should be warm, though. I went down to the kitchen earlier and borrowed a kettle and a couple of hot water bottles.’

      Tilly’s eyes widened, and then blurred with tired tears. Somehow he wasn’t the type she had imagined doing something so domestic and so thoughtful.

      He would be a fool to start feeling sorry for Tilly, Silas warned himself, hardening his heart against her obvious misery. His only purpose in being here was to get his story. And that was exactly what he intended to do, no matter what methods he had to use to do so.

      ‘I don’t think I can bear a week of this.’ Tilly was too tired to care about how vulnerable her admission might make her seem. ‘I hate the cold, and I hate even more the thought of not being able to have a decent hot shower whenever I want.’

      Silas looked at her. ‘If that’s a hint that you’re expecting me to be a gentleman and offer to let you use the shower first, I’ve got a better idea.’

      ‘You mean I should use my mother’s bathroom?’ Tilly asked absently, as she stepped into the lamp-lit bedroom that looked cosier and felt slightly warmer than she had expected.

      ‘No, I was going to say that it would make sense for us to share the shower, to make the best use of what hot water it provides.’

      Was he serious? He couldn’t be, could he? She looked at him, and then wished she hadn’t as her body reacted to the intimacy of discovering that he was looking right back at her.

      ‘It’s warmer in here than I was expecting.’ She gave him a too-bright smile to match the light tone of her voice. Anything—just as long as she didn’t have to respond to the suggestion that they share a shower. Already her senses were working overtime, bombarding her with erotic messages and images.

      ‘That’s because I bribed one of the maids to find us a plug-in electric radiator.’ He had closed the door and was looking at her in a way that made her heart bounce about inside her chest like a tennis ball hit by a pro. ‘Now, about that shower…’

      Tilly shook her head, trying to cling on to her normal, firm common sense, and to react to what he was saying as though it had been said by one of her young subordinates. The kindly but firm maternal voice of authority she used on them would surely make it plain to Silas that she wasn’t expecting what he thought, as well as controlling her own dangerous longing.

      ‘Silas, I’ve already told you, you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t have to have sex with me.’

      The effect of her words wasn’t what she had hoped for. Instead of obediently backing off, Silas stopped leaning casually against the wall and straightened up to his full height. Such a small movement, barely more than a single step, but in terms of meaningful body language it sent her a message that had her muscles cramping with sexual tension.

      ‘Well, that certainly isn’t what my body is telling me,’ he announced silkily. ‘It’s telling me that right now there is nothing I need or want more than to take you to bed and make love to you slowly and thoroughly and completely.’

      Tilly was beyond words. She could only shake her head.

      He smiled at her, and her resistance melted under the heat of the look in his eyes.

      ‘This is crazy.’Was that quavering, somehow betraying, yearning voice really hers? ‘I mean, we’ve only just met. We don’t know one another. We’re strangers.’

      ‘Is there a law that says strangers can’t become lovers?’ He was walking very purposefully towards her now, and she felt positively light-headed with shocked excitement.

      The only reason he was doing this was as a form of insurance against her threatening to break off their engagement and forcing him to leave, Silas told himself. If he could keep her happy in bed she would get what she wanted, whether she knew it or not, and he, with any luck, would get his information. The fact that he was so strongly physically attracted to Tilly wasn’t what was motivating him at all. This was simply something that it was necessary for him to do.

      Very necessary.

      If only she was the sort of person who could just live for the moment and enjoy what that moment was offering, Tilly acknowledged giddily. If only she didn’t have these crazy hang-ups about love and sex working together. If only she was able to separate them as others could. If only she didn’t have even more inhibiting hang-ups about permanency and commitment, and a fear that they simply did not exist. She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? She wanted Silas sexually so much. So why not indulge in that wanting? Why not simply offer herself up to him now? Why not slide her arms around his neck, press her body eagerly against his and lift her face for his kiss…?

      Why not? Because she could not. She simply couldn’t cold-bloodedly have sex with a man just because physically he turned her on. Cold-bloodedly? She was so hot for him that it hurt!

      Silas was used to playing a waiting game. So why the hell did he feel so impatient now that he was tempted to cross the distance that separated them and show Tilly what they would have instead of waiting for her to agree to it?

      ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do it.’ The words burst out from Tilly in a flurried tremble, causing Silas to check in mid-step and stare at Tilly in disbelief. ‘It’s true that I do…That is…you…Physically I am attracted to you,’ she managed to say primly, whilst her stomach went hollow with the intensity of her body’s disappointment. ‘But I don’t want to have sex with you.’

      It surprised Silas that she was prepared to go to such lengths to show him that he had originally misjudged the situation, but what surprised him even more was how gut-wrenchingly savagely deprived he felt. The intensity of his disappointment was a measure of just how much he wanted her—and that was far too much, he decided grimly.

      ‘If that’s your decision then that’s your decision,’he told her flatly. If she expected him to coax and plead she had the wrong man. Because he had no intention of doing so.

       CHAPTER SIX

      TILLY СКАЧАТЬ