Appreciation rumbled in his throat. ‘I sure as hell like you in it. You look like my favourite fantasy.’
She wriggled and stretched. ‘It feels lovely. The lining’s probably pure silk.’
He stroked her hair over one shoulder. ‘That’s how you feel. Silk. Or satin. Your skin …’ He sucked in his breath as his hands found their way inside the jacket. Her hair spilled over the leather and over the whiteness of her flesh.
It was some time before he took her back for her car.
Chapter Eight
What have I done?
Riding back to the Ackerman, Diane felt as if she’d just become a complete stranger to herself.
She was super aware of the powerful Mercedes around her, the soft seats that had so recently been beneath her knees; their squishing swishing marking the rhythm of the sex she’d just enjoyed. Enjoyed a lot.
The tunnel vision of desire had shot past sense and integrity and she’d hurled away quarter of a century’s monogamy. And enjoyed that, too.
In the close confines, James’s thrusts had bumped her head on the roof. ‘Sorry – too enthusiastic!’ Even while he laughed, he was drawing her down to kiss her better, his laughter fading as he took up a slower, less boisterous rhythm.
What was I thinking?
I rode him as if frightened he’d stop. I didn’t want to be brought back to my senses.
James had laughed again to find that all his change had chinked out of his pockets and into the dark recesses of the upholstery. Sex seemed a merry experience for James.
And she’d shared the joy.
Back in the car park at the Ackerman, she took a breath to say so as he rolled his car to a stop close to hers. But a shout whipped away her attention.
‘Diane!’
She gazed in horror at two men barging out of the brightly lit hospital foyer, the heavy glass door closing slowly behind them.
James frowned through the windscreen. ‘Who are these guys?’
‘Shit.’ She fumbled for the door handle, heart galloping, legs tangling, panic overhauling guilt by a short head. ‘You’d better go.’ She made – casually, she hoped – for her own vehicle parked under the sodium lights, hoping to hear James purr away equally casually behind her.
But what she heard was the engine being switched off and the creak and thud of a door opening and closing.
Trying desperately to ignore James, she watched the men stride towards her. A deep vertical line engraved the negligible area between the brows of the first man, his brown hair slicked straight back from his disgruntled expression. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
The second was a flabbier, taller, slightly younger version of the first, the vertical line less deep, the hair flicked to the side and over his face. The disgruntlement register was about the same. ‘No one knew where you’d gone and why you hadn’t taken your car. Our Gary didn’t, nor the nurses.’
Diane unlocked her door. ‘I needed something to eat, James gave me a lift.’ It would be odd not to acknowledge him as he was leaning against the Mercedes with his hands in his pockets, dark brows low over watchful eyes.
Both men turned simultaneously to stare at James with identicalwho are you and what do you want?expressions.
James simply stared back.
Diane’s pulse quickened. ‘Have you met James North?’ She managed to open her car door. ‘He’s Valerie’s husband, Gareth’s brother-in-law. James, this is Ivan and this is Melvyn, Gareth’s half-brothers.’ She inserted the ‘half’ deliberately. The Jenner brothers made such a deal of their blood being thicker than the proverbial water, none of them seemed to like being reminded that this especially thick blood was not drawn from identical gene pools.
James nodded.
Melvyn and Ivan merely stared.
Ivan was the first to look away. ‘Can you come home with us for a while, Diane? We need a meeting about our Gary. You can come in my car.’
With a quick movement Diane threw her handbag onto her passenger seat and a twist of her body put her behind the wheel. ‘I’ll follow you.’ Then, ultra casually, ‘’Bye James. Thanks for the lift.’
