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  There was a damp towel, too, lying on the floor, where Conor must have dropped it and, unable to help herself, Olivia bent and picked it up. The faint aroma of the soap he had used still clung to the cloth, and with a feeling of despair she buried her face in its clammy folds.

  ’Liv!’

  Conor’s voice brought her to an unwelcome awareness of what she was doing, and she flung the towel aside almost convulsively. God, she was going out of her mind, she thought, with a tremor of self-disgust. Was she really reduced to seeking comfort from a towel?

  ’Liv!’ Conor’s voice was much nearer now, and she realised that by not answering him she had achieved what she had been trying to avoid: his awareness of her as a vulnerable human being. ‘Liv—are you OK?’

  He sounded as if he was just outside the door, and she gazed at her flushed face with frustrated eyes. If only she had brought some cosmetics with her. As it was, there was no way she could disguise the fact that she had been crying.

  ’Liv—–’

  ’Yes, I’m all right.’ In spite of her efforts, her voice was higher than it should be. ‘I—I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ’Well—if you’re sure.’

  ’I’m sure.’ Olivia stood on the other side of the door, praying he wouldn’t ask what she was doing. She cleared her throat, and managed a lower tone. ‘I’m sorry for taking so long.’

  There was a silence that was almost audibly analytical, and then Conor said, ‘No problem,’ in a flat, unemotional tone, and she heard him move away towards the stairs.

  She waited several minutes until she was sure he had had time to reach the kitchen, and then opened the door. As she had expected, the landing was deserted, and, moving silently across it, she opened the door into what had once been Sally and Keith’s bedroom. She guessed it was most probably the room Conor used now, and, while the connotations of that reality caused a fluttery feeling in her stomach, her need was greater than her fears.

  Besides, she consoled herself, her motives were innocent enough. Well, mostly, she conceded, as her eyes moved hungrily over the familiar appointments of the apartment. But it had occurred to her that if Sharon had stayed—she stumbled over the word—at the house, she might have left a lipstick behind her. Not that the idea of using anything of Sharon’s was particularly appealing to her, but she was desperate.

  However, as she walked across the soft oatmeal carpet, it wasn’t Sharon’s presence that invaded her senses. In fact, there was no evidence that Sharon had ever been in the room. It was Conor’s clothes that were strewn haphazardly about the place, and Conor’s towelling bathrobe draped over the rail at the foot of the unmade bed.

  Her eyes flicked quickly away from the bed, but the temptation to touch his clothes was almost irresistible. Still, she overcame it, and approached the solid oak dressing-table. If Sharon had left any personal belongings behind, surely this was where they would be, and, ignoring the censure she knew she would see in her reflection, she jerked the top drawer open.

  ’Looking for something, Liv?’

  Conor’s quiet enquiry almost scared the life out of her, and she dropped the box of cuff-links she had been holding, feeling like a thief caught rifling the premises. The tiny gold and silver items spilled all over the floor, and Olivia wanted to die of embarrassment.

  ’I …’ She dragged her eyes away from the scattered pieces and looked helplessly at him. But the need to justify herself was uppermost. ‘I—wasn’t being nosy.’

  ’Did I say you were?’ Conor had been standing with his arms folded, his shoulder propped against the frame of the door, but now he straightened and came into the room. ‘Not that I’ve got anything to hide.’

  Olivia sighed, and, remembering why she had wanted something to disguise her appearance, she felt a sense of resignation. She could only hope that he would attribute her swollen eyes and bare lips to the ignominy of her position.

  ’I—was—just looking for a—comb,’ she improvised swiftly, realising she couldn’t admit to searching for something of Sharon’s. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Conor glanced at the dressing-table. ‘Isn’t my comb good enough?’ he asked drily, and, following his gaze, Olivia saw the silver-backed brushes and comb she had overlooked earlier.

  Allowing her breath to escape from lungs that felt decidedly inadequate at this moment, she moved her shoulders in a helpless gesture. ‘I … didn’t notice them,’ she mumbled lamely, averting her gaze, and Conor’s hand came to lift her chin.

  ’Why don’t you ever admit the truth, Liv?’ he demanded, his thumb brushing across her stiff lips. ‘You wanted to see for yourself that I wasn’t lying when I said Sharon didn’t live with me.’

  Wo!’ His words were sufficiently outrageous to give Olivia the strength to jerk her chin from his grasp. ‘You flatter yourself, Conor Brennan!’ she snapped, and, grasping the corner of the dressing-table, she levered herself down on to the floor, and began gathering the scattered cuff-links together.

  It wasn’t the most elegant thing she had ever done. As yet, she couldn’t bear her weight on her injured knee, and consequently she had to sit on the floor, with one leg tucked under her, and the other stretched out. It also meant she had to shuffle across the floor on her bottom when those nearest to her had all been collected into a small pile.

  ’Liv!’ Conor’s use of her name was exasperated, and he squatted on his haunches beside her, successfully preventing her from reaching the last few pieces. ‘Liv, leave them! I’ll pick them up later.’

  ’I can do it,’ she exclaimed, aware that several tendrils of hair had come loose from the knot she had secured earlier, and were now falling into her eyes. She pushed them back with a frustrated hand as she attempted to edge past him, but the dressing-table stool was in the way, and she got herself wedged. ‘Will you move?’

  ’Liv, listen to me …’ he began, but she was no longer totally in control of her actions. She was desperate to prove she was not the helpless creature he seemed to think her, and when he reached out to grasp her hand she forcibly pushed him away.

  Unfortunately, Conor was caught off balance. Squatting as he was, his weight was not evenly distributed, and when she pushed him he tried to save himself by grabbing the rail at the foot of the bed. He missed, his hand only encountering the folds of his bathrobe and bringing it down on top of him. Then, as Olivia watched with horrified eyes, he toppled back on to the floor, his head striking one of the solid black castors with a sickening thud.

  ’Oh, God!’ Abandoning her search for the cuff-links, Olivia scrambled towards him, and for once she never even felt the protesting pain in her leg. ‘Conor!’ she cried, when she saw that his eyes were closed, and, reaching awkwardly across him, she fumbled for the pulse beneath his ear.

  It was still there—fast and erratic, it was true, but reassuringly strong. What she would have done if it hadn’t been, she didn’t care to speculate. All that mattered was that he was still alive, and her hand trembled as it brushed his cheek and the bronze tips of his absurdly long lashes.

  ’Oh, Conor,’ she breathed, and, unable to help herself, she bent her head and touched her lips to the slightly parted contours of his mouth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CONOR’S response was unexpected, and instantaneous. His tongue came to meet her lips, and she found her mouth clinging to his. Almost compulsively, her fingers slid into the silky length of his hair, and the kiss deepened to a breath-robbing assault.

  His eyes opened as she was drawing back, a belated sense of the impropriety of what she was doing causing her to try and rescue her composure, but his expression was frankly sensual.

  ’Don’t go,’ he said, and she felt his hand at the back of her neck. ‘I may be in need of more mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.’

  Olivia pressed her lips together, trying to summon some resentment towards him for frightening her like that, but she was so relieved he was all right that she could only shake her head. ‘You—you’re impossible,’ she said uns
teadily, becoming aware that he had removed his jacket while she had been using the bathroom, and he grinned.

  ’Whatever it takes,’ he said huskily, and, drawing her mouth back to his, he rolled over until she was lying flat on her back. ‘Just don’t—tell me you don’t want me now.’

  Olivia groaned. ‘But I—I’m such a mess,’ she stammered, while his mouth, moving over the silken curve of her cheek, denied her protest.

  ’You’re crazy,’ he told her, threading his hands through her hair, and scattering her hairpins as she had scattered his cuff-links a few minutes ago. His thumbs smoothed the dark shadows her tears had painted beneath her eyes. ‘Is that why you were crying?’

  She moved her head helplessly from side to side. ‘We—we shouldn’t do this—–’

  ’But we’re going to,’ he essayed a little roughly. His eyes lowered to where his fingers were tracing the neckline of her blouse. ‘This is for us. No one else.’

  Olivia’s resistance was faltering. Everywhere he touched, her skin felt sensitised, and when he unbuttoned the first few buttons of her blouse and delicately stroked the tops of her breasts a wave of uncontrollable longing swept over her. Her nipples hardened beneath their lacy covering, and she knew he had noticed her reaction when his tongue circled his lips in undisguised anticipation.

  Her eyes drooped beneath the hunger she could see in his. What if she disappointed him? she thought raggedly. What did she know of making love, other than the rather unsatisfactory coupling she and Stephen had indulged in? What if this turned out to be a terrible mistake? How would she live with herself if it all went wrong …?

  ’Look at me,’ Conor said, interrupting her anxious introspection, and when her lids flickered upwards she saw he had torn open the buttons of his own shirt and dragged it out of his trousers. ‘Help me,’ he added, and almost automatically her hands moved to ease the shirt off his shoulders.

  But, after he had discarded it on to the floor, her hands lingered on his chest, and on the fine pelt of honey-coloured hair that arrowed so enticingly down to his navel. It felt so clean—so good—that she wanted to bury her face in its downy softness, and she knew Stephen had never made her feel so aware of her own weakness.

  Conor was unbuttoning the rest of her blouse now, and his fingers made short work of the front fastening on her bra. Experience, she supposed, as a fleeting surge of uncontrolled jealousy swept over her, but then he bent his head to her breasts and all negative emotion was cast aside.

  She caught her breath as he licked the sensitive peak of one breast, and when his teeth fastened round the nipple and tugged, ever so gently, her heart nearly exploded.

  ’Beautiful,’ he breathed, his hand running possessively down her body to her thigh, before returning to ease both her blouse and the chunky cardigan from her shoulders. ‘But now, I want to see you naked.’

  Olivia stiffened. Until then, she had been so wrapped up in what he was doing to her body that she hadn’t given a thought to how she would feel about him seeing her totally nude. It was all very well—if a little exaggerated—for him to say she was beautiful, when his attention was concentrated on the slender curve of her torso. But how would he feel—how would she feel—when he peeled off her leggings, and …?

  But she couldn’t go any further. ‘I—can’t,’ she got out miserably, suddenly aware of the texture of the carpet at her back, the incongruity of making love on the floor when there was a perfectly good bed just a few feet away. ‘You don’t understand …’

  Conor’s eyes were so dark a green that she felt as if she were drowning in their shaded depths. ‘What don’t I understand precisely?’ he asked, one leg wedged between her knees, and a finger lightly probing the waistband of her leggings. The timbre of his voice lowered. ‘Do you really think I don’t know what you’re afraid of?’

  Olivia moved her head. ‘You don’t know what I look like,’ she insisted, and Conor sighed.

  ’Then let’s see, shall we?’ he suggested evenly, and, ignoring her outraged hands, he dragged the leggings down over her hips.

  The fact that her silk knickers were tugged away along with the leggings didn’t immediately register. She was so shocked at the high-handed way he had acted that she could only lie there with her eyes closed, as a wave of hot embarrassment swept over her. Only it wasn’t just embarrassment, she acknowledged painfully. It was shame, and humiliation, and downright anger. How could he have done such a thing? Without even the protection of a sheet to hide her blushes?

  And then, like a balm to her mortified flesh, she felt his mouth moving on her thigh. His lips were following the line of the ugly scar that seared from her groin to her knee, she realised incredulously. He was kissing her, soothing her quivering limb with sensuous caresses that burned their way into her consciousness, and left her weak and helpless.

  Her eyes opened, shifting quickly from the high ceiling to the amazing sight of Conor’s bent head. The snowstorm was over, and the clear light from a white world filled the room with brilliance. It silvered Conor’s hair, showing up the darkness of the strands the snow had dampened earlier, and as he sensed her gaze and lifted his head a silky wave fell against his temple.

  Olivia moved then, her hand lifting to touch his hair before sliding to the nape of his neck. But Conor captured her fingers in passing, drawing her palm against his mouth. Then, with his eyes still on her, he allowed his tongue to caress her palm, causing the drenching heat of excitement to pool between her legs.

  Olivia was shaking with emotion when he knelt and lifted her into his arms. Then, lowering his mouth to hers, he got to his feet, and walked the short distance to the bed.

  The sheets were cool, but oh, so soft against her bare shoulders, and he only paused long enough to strip off his trousers before sliding on to the bed beside her.

  ’Better?’ he breathed huskily, spreading her hair out on the pillow, and burying his face in its dusky tangle, and she could only nod bemusedly. But the world had narrowed to this room, this bed, and this man, and for the first time in their association she was prepared to let him have his way.

  His tongue slid into her mouth, filling her with the taste and the feel of him, hot and wet, and devastatingly real. Against her breasts, the hair-roughened skin of his chest was unbearably erotic. When he rolled to one side to explore her hips and her navel and the sensitive inner curve of her thigh, she looked down and saw the glistening shaft of his manhood rearing from its nest of darker blond hair.

  Her nails dug into her palms as the emotions the mere sight of his arousal evoked inside her threatened to overwhelm her, and then, unable to stop herself, she uncurled her fingers and let them seek their own destiny. The hot velvety skin swelled beneath her touch, and with a groan that was half pain, half ecstasy, Conor slid over her.

  ’Don’t—don’t do that,’ he implored her brokenly, and then, seeing her instinctive withdrawal, he drew her hand back to his body. ‘All right, do it,’ he conceded. ‘Just don’t expect my control to be limitless.’

  Olivia licked her lips. ‘What control?’ she asked, relaxing, and Conor’s mouth cut off the soft smile of understanding that tugged at her lips.

  Her head swam as his weight pressed her into the mattress, and her legs parted to admit his probing hand. His fingers slid between the moist curls, seeking the slick cleft that was already throbbing in anticipation, and when he stroked the sensitive nub of her femininity she could barely suppress the urge to thrust herself against him.

  ’Good,’ he whispered, the unsteadiness of his voice revealing his own dwindling self-control, and, instead of answering, she wound her arms around his neck.

  It was all an exquisite agony, a soul-wrenching torture that demanded its own fulfilment. She had never felt this way with Stephen, never felt this way before, and the need for him to invade her body was becoming an unbearable torment.

  She found herself moving against him, rotating her hips, inviting his participation, showing him without words exactly how
she felt. Her mouth was swollen, bruised by the hungry possession of his mouth, but it was another possession entirely that she wanted now.

  And Conor had driven himself beyond the point of rationality. With movements that were motivated purely by instinct, he guided himself to the very threshold of her womanhood and then, with an aching need that Olivia’s body echoed, he buried himself in her yielding flesh.

  ’Oh, God,’ he groaned, as her muscles expanded to admit him and then closed tightly about him. ‘God, Liv—I’m going to make a mess of this.’

  ’Sh-sh,’ she whispered, content for the moment just to enjoy the sensation of him stretching her and filling her in a way she had never experienced before. Acting purely on impulse, she lifted her legs to facilitate his moving even deeper inside her, and a moan of frustration broke from him.

  ’Aw—hell!’ he swore, and, feeling the sudden hot flood of his release, Olivia guessed what had happened.

  ’It’s all right,’ she breathed, hanging on to his shoulders when he would have dragged himself away. ‘I don’t mind, honestly.’ And, in spite of her own unrequited needs, it was true. She had wanted to please him and she had. And that was what mattered.

  ’I mind,’ he muttered, some minutes later, when the shuddering spasm of his climax had left his body. He levered himself up on to his elbows, placed at either side of her head. ‘I wanted this to be perfect. Instead of which, I lost control like a demented schoolboy!’

  ’Well, you were,’ she said softly, smoothing the damp hair back from his forehead with teasing hands, and he frowned.

  ’I was what?’

  ’Demented,’ she told him gently, and, guessing he thought she had meant something else, she added, ‘But nothing like a schoolboy.’

  ’And I didn’t wear anything,’ he declared, turning his lips against her fingers. ‘After all the advice I’ve given my patients on the need to use a condom, and when you touched me I couldn’t wait long enough to put one on.’

  Olivia took a quivering breath. ‘Do you wish you had?’ she asked, and Conor gave her a rueful look.