dare he do that to me?
Am I? she asked herself next, as she massaged a night cream into her skin. Making all the running?
No, look here, he keeps suggesting things,
he’s
the one who keeps pushing us onwards and upwards.
She grimaced at her choice of words, then she thought, with a frown, yes, he does, but he’s also the one who holds back. Why? Is there a sort of no-go zone around him or is it only my imagination? Why would that be, though, if it was so? Am I still a rather ridiculous little rich girl to him?
Am I being observed like some sort of scientific phenomenon he hasn’t experienced before? Or is this stop/start approach meant to entice me on?
She put the tub of night cream with its gold top down with a little thump as a flash of annoyance at the thought claimed her, and she got up and roamed around the room.
Finally she got into bed and turned the light off buther thoughts took another direction, one not greatly removed, however.
Should she call it off?
Should she pull a really arrogant, if not necessarily rich, stunt and simply not turn up tomorrow?
Or, even better, have a message delivered to him as he waited for her, to the effect that she’d decided she had better things to do …
She sat up suddenly as it struck her—forcibly—that it had only been two days—she’d only known Reith Richardson for two days! How could she be going through this level of turmoil for a man she barely knew?
She lay back and commanded herself to breathe slowly and calmly but it didn’t work in helping her to fall asleep.
CHAPTER THREE
‘S LEEP well?’
‘No,’ Kim said flatly.
‘Neither did I , if it’s any help,’ Reith Richardson offered.
Kim switched her attention from the painting she was studying and looked up at him. She wore a fitted leather miniskirt in peach with a loose scarlet top in a filmy material. Her shoes were high cork wedges, her hair was looped back in a roll, she had big diamond-studded gold hoops in her ears and there were the faintest blue shadows beneath her eyes.
She looked, he thought wryly, gorgeous, from her red-gold hair down to those sensational legs, but moody. And he was presented with a sudden mental picture of her waking up in his bed with that same moody expression. Could she maintain it, though, if he cupped her breasts, then drew his hands down her body and made love to her slowly, very slowly, until they were both on fire? Careful, he warned himself, remember who this is …
She said, ‘Why should it be any help?’ then gesturedas if to erase the words. ‘It doesn’t matter. Look, it’s very difficult to choose art when you have no idea where it’s going to end up.’
‘I’ve got some sketches.’
‘You’ve also got to be in the mood,’ she added.
He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m getting some pretty distressed vibes here so, starting at the top, is it that time of the month?’
‘No,’ she snapped.
‘Is it the lack of really good sex then?’ He shrugged. ‘Can give you the blues.’
Kim beamed a glance of the opposite—pure blue fire—his way but at the same time a mental image of her lying naked in his arms and as aroused as he was streaked through her mind. And she couldn’t for the life of her decide what annoyed her more—the tingle that went through her, lovely though it was, or the fact that he could do this to her after shipping her home last night.
‘No,’ she said through her teeth and was about to add a pithy comment, although she hadn’t actually thought of one, but he interrupted.
‘Have you had breakfast?’
She closed her mouth, then opened it again. ‘What makes you think I didn’t?’ she answered.
‘Did you?’
She looked mutinous. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. ‘I went for a ride, then I was running late.’
‘Another wacky day in the making,’ he commented, and put his arm through hers. ‘Come.’
‘Where? We haven’t picked a thing yet.’
‘You’ll see.’
She shrugged again,
Janwillem van de Wetering