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      CHAPTER THREE

      THE touch of Cooper’s mouth sent a lightning bolt of reaction through her, catching Darcy off balance. It was as if the floor had dropped away beneath her, plunging her into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, and she gasped, clutching instinctively at the front of his shirt as her only anchor.

      How had she known that his lips would be so warm, so sure, so treacherously persuasive? Darcy was caught between shock and the arrowing certainty that it had always been like this. Just as when she had hesitated in the kitchen door last night she had been swamped by that strange sense of familiarity, so now his kiss left her awash with recognition. It was almost like coming home; the touch and the scent and the hard, masculine feel of his body through the flimsy silk dressing-gown were all part of her, inseparable from the intoxicating rush of feeling that swirled through her senses and left her reeling and incapable of thought.

      She was unaware of her hands slowly loosening their clutch on his shirt to spread and slide over his chest and up to his shoulders. Beneath the cotton, his body was tempered steel, solid and unyielding to her touch. Darcy clung to its reassuring strength, heedless of the instinctive arch of her body. Her head was tipped back invitingly so that her soft dark hair fell over his hand, which was smoothing seductively down her spine. She had forgotten her anger, forgotten Sebastian and the cold floor beneath her bare feet, forgotten everything but Cooper’s kiss, his mouth on hers, his hands burning through the silk on to her skin and the breathtaking thump of excitement that was beating ever louder and faster, drowning out the voice that should have been shouting at her to resist.

      As her arms slid round his neck, Cooper lifted his mouth from hers, but only to gather her closer again into a kiss that was deeper and more demanding than before. Darcy was drowning, dissolving in a rising tide of desire, and her fingers tightened on his shoulders as the silk belt of her gown slithered apart and his hands slipped beneath to curve over her body. Darcy gasped aloud, electrified by their scorching exploration, and sheer, shameful pleasure shuddered over her skin.

      Abandoned to the wash of sensation, Darcy hardly heard Cooper’s muttered exclamation or realised that his hands had stilled abruptly. They withdrew slowly, sliding reluctantly out from beneath the silk as he levered himself away from her. By the time Darcy had grasped what was happening, he was retying her belt with a wry smile.

      ‘I think Sebastian might have made a big mistake,’ he said. ‘A very big one.’

      He might as well have dashed a bucket of cold water in her face. Darcy recoiled from the sharp slap of reality, aghast at her own response. White-faced, she pushed his hands away from her waist and retied the belt herself, pulling the sides of the dressing-gown together high around her throat with shaking fingers.

      ‘That wasn’t fair,’ she said unsteadily.

      ‘It wasn’t particularly fair of you to sit there with nothing on under that dressing-gown either.’ Quite unconcerned, Cooper propped himself against the table and calmly watched Darcy’s fumbling attempts to straighten herself.

      It was impossible to believe that this cool, self-contained man eyeing her with faint amusement could be the same man who had been kissing her only moments ago, the same man who had buried his face in her hair, whose hands had explored the smooth softness of her body with such devastating skill. Darcy clutched her robe about her, her eyes huge and dark. She felt disorientated and lost, almost bereft. How could he look so indifferent? Hadn’t he felt anything?

      She pulled herself together with an immense effort. If Cooper could appear so unmoved, she wasn’t going to let him know just how shattered she felt. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said, somehow managing to keep her voice steady. ‘You just want to make me leave and you’re prepared to do anything to make sure I go as soon as possible.’

      ‘If that were what I was trying to do, I would hardly have offered you a month’s truce,’ Cooper pointed out coolly. ‘However, now you mention it, it doesn’t sound like a bad policy. Have I persuaded you that you’d be better off leaving as soon as the creeks are down?’

      ‘No, you haven’t!’ said Darcy, who was regaining her temper with her composure. ‘If you think a paltry little kiss like that is enough to scare me into leaving, you’ve got another think coming!’

      ‘Does that mean you want to go ahead with a month’s trial partnership?’

      Darcy felt as if she had been outmanoeuvred somewhere along the line. She wanted nothing better than to tell Cooper what he could do with his trial partnership, but then she would have little option but to leave, and she wasn’t going to give in that easily. ‘As long as there are no more... incidents... like the one that’s just taken place,’ she said.

      ‘But I thought paltry little kisses didn’t bother you?’

      ‘They don’t,’ said Darcy bravely and quite untruthfully. ‘That doesn’t mean I like them.’

      ‘That’s funny,’ said Cooper. ‘I was under the impression that you quite enjoyed it. I know I did.’

      Darcy eyed him with acute resentment. ‘I’d rather it didn’t happen again,’ she said in a frosty voice.

      ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said amenably. ‘I won’t kiss you again if you don’t provoke me again.’

      ‘I didn’t provoke you!’ she protested indignantly.

      Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you? It felt that way to me.’

      ‘I can’t help the way you feel,’ said Darcy, ruffled as much by Cooper’s calm discussion of the kiss СКАЧАТЬ