His headlights picked her up straight away and he pulled up beside her, rolling his window down. ‘Are you running uphill for the sake of your beautiful bottom? Or would you like to climb in here with me?’
Surprise blazed across her face as she laughed. ‘I think I’ll just climb in there with you.’ She tugged the large door open. ‘I let one of the ladies at the self-defence class show me where to catch the bus. Unfortunately, it was a bus that only came as far as Rottingdean before looping back.’ She hopped up into the passenger seat. Then paused, blinking at him, as if suddenly unsure.
He gazed back into those gooseberry eyes. Then let his eyes drop to her pretty mouth. ‘This is where you kiss me,’ he suggested.
With a strangled laugh, she threw herself into his arms, as well as she could above the steering wheel, and hugged him as if she were a child. Hugging him and hugging him, hugging him hard, desperately.
‘That’s almost as good,’ he murmured, wrapping her up in his arms and pressing his lips to her hair. But he frowned. What was with such desperation? Had her lips trembled? He stroked her neck, her shoulder, followed her spine with the palm of his hand. ‘You OK?’
She withdrew slightly and he was able to see that she was gathering herself. ‘Sure.’ She smiled. ‘It’s just good to see you.’
Her smile was a fake if ever he saw one. He lowered his lips to hers, taking his time, letting his fingertips follow the shape of her arm, her fingers, then back up to trace her jawline. ‘Ru not with you?’
A shadow dropped across her face.
So it was something to do with Ru. Surprise, surprise.
But as traffic was having to squeeze past the BMW, pulled up inconveniently at the side of the road, he just kissed the tip of her nose and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ In a few minutes he was turning left into her drive, the bungalow perched above them.
He flicked off his seat belt and went to give her a comforting hug. But she turned her face up for his kiss and suddenly he was all over her, her smooth lips and hot tongue passing a thousand volts through his heart and his groin. He savoured the heat of her body, the incredible softness of her skin, ignoring the centre consol digging into his knee as one of her breasts pressed tantalisingly against his chest.
Her fingers fastened in his hair and he groaned aloud. ‘It’s so hot when you do that. How about we take this indoors? Even a big car can get tricky for a tall guy, however horny.’
‘Mmm,’ she agreed, but kissed him again. Slowly, sloooowly.
His hands slid up and inside her T-shirt, skimming the smoothness of her back, discovering the clasp of her bra, fighting the urge to find a way, right now, right here.
Five steps from the road? With supreme effort, he controlled his hands, breathing faster than if he’d been for a five-mile run. ‘Let’s get inside. Before something explodes.’
‘Always better to get inside before exploding,’ she agreed, groping behind her for the door handle.
He couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. Tricky with his arousal to work around but he caught her halfway up on the steps, threading his hands back under her T-shirt, heading for that bra strap. She laughed and put in a wiggle to make his job harder.
He had to put in a giant stride to get his hands around her waist and spin her around and catch her up against him, so that he could possess her mouth again as he steered them up the last couple of steps and slowly across the patio, lifting and trapping her between himself and her door while she wrappedthose shapely legs around him. He couldn’t drag his mouth away, couldn’t stop holding her against him while he settled snugly exactly where he wanted to be. ‘Where’s your key? Get us through this door.’
But self-preservation did make him turn his head when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Because, like a harbinger of doom, a dark figure was rising up from the wooden lounger at the side of the patio.
And the harbinger of doom had a voice. It said: ‘Say, buddy, you want to take your hands off my wife’s ass?’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Honor found herself deposited suddenly on to her own two feet.
She closed her eyes. She was falling down a lift shaft. She opened them again. Nope. She was still here, the figure was still there and she had to force suddenly frozen lips to work. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his blue jeans, Stef strolled closer. ‘Getting here in the nick of time, seems to me.’ His voice was deceptively lazy.
Martyn didn’t move or speak. Honor felt as if her insides had turned to worms and every single one of them cringed away from how he must feel about being caught in exactly the situation he’d been trying to avoid from the first. She touched his chest. ‘I have to speak to him.’
Slowly, he turned his eyes to her. His expression was unreadable as the last of the light began to leach from the clear summer sky. ‘I suppose so,’ he said, stiffly, as if he actually didn’t think so at all. ‘I’ll wait in the car so I know you’re OK.’ He nodded, shifting his weight, ready to step back.
Stef laughed, stepping out of the shadows so that his face caught the light from a street lamp. He was harder, thinner and looked weary. ‘Why wouldn’t she be? She’s mywife! Listen, you’re really not needed here. I don’t know what Honor let you think but, believe me, I know her. She’s mad as hell at me, right now, but she’ll cool down and come home. I know her.’ He rocked on and off his heels. ‘Didn’t I know exactly where to find her, right here in liddle ole England? As soon as she left town on her high horse I knew she’d be heading here to meet her long lost mommy. So, what’s she like, Honor? This Robina Gordon?’
And Martyn let go of her hand.
His shock was like a cold breath between them, curling and chilling as fog. ‘Your mother’sRobina?’ Even through the twilight, Honor could feel his disbelief.
She nodded, miserably. ‘I was going to tell you, tonight.’
