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SILK WICKEDNESS 8
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YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 9
When she reseated herself, the jellyfish was still oozing into her legs regardless. She could still feel his hands encircling her wrists, and it made her feel like woozy eggshells.‘The flight’s around ten on Friday morning,’ he said crisply. ‘Have you got suitable clothes? It’ll be in the eighties or nineties, but the kind of things you’d wear in the Med are right out, except on the beach. You need to keep your knees and shoulders covered, and anything tight around your . . . hips is right out too.’ His eyes flickered to the V of her sweater. ‘Ditto anything low-cut.’Something weird suddenly lurched in her stomach. Christmas! He must have got a right old eyeful while I was mopping his sweater! Never mind the carpetlThis reaction startled her a good deal. So what if he had? Why in heaven’s name was she fluttering like something out of a daft Victorian novel? i Oh i Ludy fetch the smelling saltsV ‘ Whyy dearest Claudia } what is amiss?' i Ohy sister y I fear Lord Filthyrich just glim
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 10
‘OK, OK, don’t blow a gasket. If you pop in in the next day or two. I’ll dig out my chequebook.'‘Pop m? Ryan, there’s this thing called the Post Office. You stick things in envelopes and put them in letterboxes. They’re the big red things in the street, with large openings about the size of your mouth.*It was dark when they landed at Seeb International Airport, but even so the heat felt like a warm blanket.Instantly Claudia felt that tingle that comes from first setting foot in the unknown. Everything not only looked different, it smelt and sounded different. The signs were in Arabic and English. Arabic was being spoken all around her. It felt odd to hear a language of which she understood absolutely nothing. Even in Greece she understood bits and pieces.The policewomen in the airport wore ankle-length skirts; the policemen wore guns.If they weren’t in uniform, the other local men wore long white robes with little caps on their heads, or turban- style head-dresses.The airport wa
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 11
Sorting the quick from the dead and throwing the still wiggling into the sea kept her occupied for a while. Keeping a couple of the obviously dead and desiccated, she strolled on. What a setting , she thought.Behind the multi-sided ‘palace’ and its gardens rose stark, mini-mountains of rock. The bay was bounded by rocks too, and at one end a fisherman was busy with his nets. He wore a long checked sarong, an untidy turban and a long grey beard. And when she walked past, he gave her a wide, one-toothed smile.‘Good morning,’ she smiled.His answer was unintelligible, but obviously kindly meant, making her ashamed at knowing not one word of the language. She walked back and headed for the shop in the foyer for a phrasebook. There were guide books too,which she browsed through for ages. It was a shock when she glanced at her watch and saw the time. For a while she had felt she was on holiday in a new and fascinating country, but that mood was vanishing fast. It was time to check on Ano
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 12
And to rip that lot up, no doubt. Claudia’s impression of two brick walls had perhaps been understating the situation. Reinforced concrete might be nearer the mark.He, at any rate, would make a very passable concrete wall. No physical defects had been revealed with the shedding of his clothes - no incipient gut or skinny, hairless legs, both of which would have made her go off him instantly.With Anoushka’s words barely cold in her ears, she almost wished she could go off him instantly. ‘Whenever he’s got a rampant thing about somebody . . .*Still, a good erotic fantasy passed the time nicely, especially when you were sitting in the sun with the object of your fantasies within crackling distance.He was wearing a pair of navy shorts-type trunks, not the skimpy, male-knicker type she particularly hated. Firm, interlocking muscles moved under his skin like a mobile jigsaw. There was enough dark brown hair on his chest and legs to indicate abundant male hormones without making him a go
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 13
Slinging everything in her bag, she went inside, wondering whether to call on Superbrat on her way up. Superbrat wouldn’t want to see her, but that was beside the point.Anoushka answered the door with a mutinous expression. ‘Now what?’‘May I come in?’‘If you must.’She flopped back on the bed and picked up one of the magazines that littered it.Claudia sat on the other bed. ‘Was your father spitting nails?’‘I don’t know why you’re asking. You’ve obviously seen him and had an earnest discussion about the enfant terrible .’‘We hardly spoke about you at all.* She wondered instantly whether she’d said the wrong thing. Superbrats generally liked to think they were the centre of everyone’s universe. ‘Look, I know you don’t want me here, but - ’‘I couldn’t care less whether you’re here or not. If Dad wants to shell out on a babysitter I don’t need, that’s his problem.’‘He thought you’d be fed up on your own all day.’Still Anoushka did not look up. ‘If you believe that, you’re even du
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 14
‘It’s not so horrible.’ He picked the scuttling thing up. ‘And it’s not a cockroach either. Look.’Holding back her fluttering fringe, she took a wary step forwards. ‘It’s just a shell!’‘Wait.’ She could hear the amusement in his voice. He came closer, stood right beside her, The Thing on his outstretched palm.For about twenty seconds the shell stayed still. And then it tilted a little and some little legs poked hesitantly out. ‘It’s just a hermit crab,* he said. ‘Just going about its crabby little business.’Her frown vanished. She watched as it crept hesitantly across his palm and stopped again. ‘I do apologize for insulting you,’ she told it, ‘but you really did feel like a cockroach.*He put it back on the sand. When he straightened up there was more than a half-smile on his face. It was more like three-quarters.‘Go on, then,’ she said half defensively. ‘Have a good laugh.’Paradoxically, his smile faded. ‘I wasn’t laughing at you.’As he gazed down at her, her heart and stomac
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 15
Yes, he knew all right. But what had he thought? Mmm, not bad , probably. Coupled with, But Pm not taken enough to start anything that might get complicated .’She’d been standing there like something dished up on a plate with parsley on top and he’d thought, Oh y what the hell. Might as well make her day with a minor thrill.So he’d kissed her and she’d loved it, so he’d kissed her some more. And, being only human, he’d thought he’d test the water with some subtle will-she, won’t-she tactics.They’d been subtle, all right. Just a shivering almost- touch that had whispered, ‘ There's more , if you want it. . .’Just the memory of it made that something in her stomach stir and shift itself again. What was that wretched thing? Why didn’t they tell you such things in O level Biology? Even old Immac would have dealt with it in her own inimitable way.‘ This , girls , is the Lurch organ , which nice girls need know nothing about till they 3 re married. Turn to page sixty-four , please , an
YOUR LOVE (ROMANTIC SERIES) SILK WICKEDNESS 16
Anoushka put her pencil down. ‘You’re dying to know why I’m working after I tore everything up yesterday.’Oh, that . ‘I was wondering. Has he threatened you with death?’‘Worse.’Claudia wondered briefly what could be worse. ‘Packing you off to some boarding school in the wilds of Scotland? The kind that believes in porridge for breakfast and lots of good healthy exercise?’‘I’d run away.’Yes, of course you would. ‘What, then?’‘No ski-ing at Christmas.’You poor child. Claudia thought of the pale little faces at Bruin Wood, who thought a few days in the New Forest akin to heaven. Still, it wasn’t Anoushka’s fault she was spoilt rotten.‘And you think he means it?’‘Yep.’ Her face was bent over an A4 pad, hidden by her hair.‘Has he made threats before?’‘Hardly ever, but I could tell he meant this one. Going to Switzerland at Christmas is the thing I love best in the world, and he knows it.’‘You mean you go every Christmas?’She nodded. ‘And every Easter. Ever since I came to live
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