Temporary Mistress: Mistress for a Weekend / Mistress on Demand / Public Wife, Private Mistress

As she lashed out at the floating phantoms, the ghosts abruptly transformed themselves into billowing folds of mosquito netting dancing to the slow beat of the ceiling fan chopping quietly overhead.

She blinked and her vision cleared. Waking up in a state of horror seemed to be an ongoing feature of her relationship with Blake MacLeod, she thought wryly, batting away the wispy veils and scrambling off the wide bed. She could have sworn she had only closed her eyes for a few minutes, but her cramped limbs were telling another story.

Groping through the gloom, she located the familiar shape of a switch on the wall. The mellow glow of uplights sprang to life, but her relief turned to dismay as she stared at the dark rectangle looming behind the sheer curtains at the window.

She looked down at her watch in disbelief, verifying what her disordered senses were telling her. It was well into the evening. She had been crashed out all day!

A mortified groan rusted across her dry lips as she realised who must have turned on the fan. The thought of Blake looking in on her as she slept made her feel shivery inside.

Of course he had seen her asleep in his car, too, she reminded herself—but his disciplined mind would have been totally focused on his driving. This was different—even though she was fully dressed, the surroundings were far more intimate…

Crushing down her embarrassment, she ventured out, following the faint sounds of a tap gushing and utensils clattering, underscored by some mellow jazz. The kitchen, she recalled vaguely, was at the far end of that huge open living space…

She marched into the almost dark room and came to a halt with a stunned gasp.

There was a sharp movement off to her far left, where angled halogen spotlights bounced off polished surfaces.

‘What’s wrong?’

Nora pressed her hand to the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat, a foolish reaction to the sound of his voice. ‘Nothing…For a moment I thought there’d been some kind of volcanic eruption out there,’ she said sheepishly. ‘It looks like the whole rim of the earth is on fire!’

The wall of glass on to the west-facing terrace had been folded open, and far out in the darkness a thin line of molten red bled across the width of the sky, radiating hot colour up into shadowy clouds boiling with crimson, orange and gold: the last throes of the dying day. A velvety blackness, already pricked with stars, bore down from above, poised to smother the final rays of the red sun.

‘Another minute or so and you would have been too late. The sunsets here are always spectacular—no smog to diffuse the light particles.’ Even as Blake spoke, the last sliver of fire was swallowed by the black glitter of the sea and the hot crimson cooled to a golden-pink blush.

‘I wish I’d had a chance to see it properly,’ Nora murmured. When was the last time she had paused to appreciate the splendours of nature? Since she had come to Auckland she had allowed Ryan’s scorn for such unsophisticated pastimes to stifle her enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life.

‘There’s always tomorrow night…’

The cool assumption in the gravelly voice spun her around.

Blake was leaning behind the curving granite-topped breakfast bar that divided the big kitchen from the rest of the room. With a shock, Nora saw that he was bare above the low-slung waist of his white drawstring pants. His raw masculinity was like a punch to the stomach, a violent reminder of the last time she had seen him stripped for action. A faint glistening of moisture dotted the dark hair on his tawny chest and imparted a glossy sheen to the streamlined muscles which rippled in the arms braced against the gleaming granite. Not an ounce of surplus body fat marred the ridged lines of his abdomen or the taut curve of his waist where it tapered to meet his lean hips. Nora hurriedly lifted her gaze from the tantalising streak of damp hair that arrowed down from the flat scoop of his navel to disappear beneath the loose gathers of white linen. The hair on his head was also wet, gleaming blue-black under a halogen halo and slicked back from his hard forehead to emphasise the dramatic widow’s peak. The thick straight brows cast his grey eyes into shadow, but Nora could tell that he was amused at her flustered reaction.

‘Excuse my state of undress, but I’ve just had a swim,’ he said lazily. ‘The pool is solar-heated but it’s cool enough to be refreshing, if you want to take the plunge…’

Nora had the feeling that she’d already plunged in way over her head. He must have shaved very recently, she noticed with a fresh tingle of awareness, for the long masculine jaw was invitingly smooth and glossy.

‘Uh, no, thanks.’

‘I did pack a swimsuit with your things,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘but you might prefer to do as I do and not bother with any encumbrance. There’s no one overlooking us here, so you don’t have to worry about peeping Toms—’

‘Only peeping Blakes,’ she said, walking self-consciously towards him, the soles of her feet shrinking at the change from soft carpet to the slick hardness of the unglazed tiles.

‘Ah, but there’s not much I haven’t seen of you already, is there, Nora?’ he responded lazily, looking her over from sleep-creased cheek to dainty toes. ‘You have nothing to be shy about, as I recall—you have a very nice body.’

She could feel her freckles popping at the blatantly patronising phrase. Nice? There was that damning, dull-as-dishwater word again. She had a good mind to peel off all her clothes and prance out into his pool just to show him that being nice was no longer on her agenda!

‘Thank you, but I don’t feel like a swim right now,’ she said primly. Much less in a pool that dropped off the edge of a cliff!

He shrugged, a supple flex of his shoulders that drew her attention back to his tapering torso. Why had she ever thought that Ryan’s thick and chunky rugby player’s physique was the height of attractiveness? This man, nearly ten years his senior, had a honed sleekness which made Ryan’s slabs of gyminflated muscle seem like puppy fat, and a potently mature confidence in his own strength and sexuality which was more persuasive than any boast.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, and she ran a self-conscious hand through her rumpled locks, wishing she had stopped to look in the mirror before she had come marching out.

‘Fine,’ she said, pleased to realise that it was only a slight exaggeration.

She glanced around. The breakfast bar stepped down to a working bench that ran around two sides of the kitchen. Beneath the windows overlooking the terrace was a double sink and on the opposite wall twin ovens topped with a fearsomely professional-looking gas cook-top interrupted the smooth flow of the granite surface. Lacquered grey cabinetry complemented the brushed stainless steel of the appliances and hooded extractor.

It was a well-planned kitchen. One with a definitive style and a serious purpose. Just like Blake MacLeod. She would do well to remember that he reputedly never made an uncalculated move.

‘I checked up on you several times through the day, but you were so deeply asleep that I thought it best to leave you to wake up naturally—you obviously needed the rest,’ he told her. ‘I only turned on the fan when I decided your skin felt overheated—’

‘Felt?’ Her tangled dreams suddenly rose up to haunt her. ‘You mean you came in and touched me?’

The little shrill of guilty alarm in her voice goaded him to say innocently, ‘You were very flushed and sweaty. I was concerned you might be suffering from more than just a hangover—dehydration can cause some nasty complications.’

Her imagination ran riot. ‘You should have woken me—’

‘As befits a Sleeping Beauty? I tried, but the evil spell of the demon drink must have been too strong.’

The riot became a rampage. ‘You k-kissed me?’ she said, her eyes instinctively falling to his firm mouth.

‘Actually, it was vice versa. I just put my hand against your cheek and you grabbed me and wrestled me down on to the bed.’

Her hazel eyes jerked back to his, flaring with embarrassment. ‘I did not!’ she protested.

‘You were all over me like a rash,’ he drawled. ‘I worked up quite a sweat myself, trying to fight you off without hurting you.’

She clutched at the edge of the breakfast bar to support her wobbly knees. ‘I wouldn’t! You’re making that up!’

‘How do you think I got these scratches?’

He touched a hand to the right side of his chest. Nora’s fingers curled into her palms as she stared in appalled fascination at the four parallel pink lines scoring the smooth skin just below his flat brown nipple.

‘You can examine me inch by inch if you like…You branded me in other places, too,’ he prompted softly.

She flushed, tearing her compulsive gaze from his hard chest. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. You could have scratched yourself for all I know, or it could have happened last night—’ She broke off, aware of her tactical error.

He took full advantage of her confusion. ‘Ah, yes…so it could. Some women are all teeth and claws in the sack, honey—here’s proof that you’re one of them.’

‘We never got as far as the sack,’ she growled.

‘Until today.’

That was definitely mockery in his tone. Nora tossed her caramel curls, more certain of herself. ‘Nothing happened. Or, if it did, it was only because I was having a nightmare.’

‘It seemed more like an erotic dream to me—’

‘And you would be an expert on those, I suppose?’ she shot back unwisely.

Another distracting shrug of his superb shoulders. ‘What can I say? I seem to attract women who like to talk to me about their sexual fantasies…’

A hot tingle streaked from the pit of Nora’s hollow stomach to the tips of her breasts. She could feel her nipples begin to bud against the stretchy cotton of her bra and hurriedly hitched her bottom on to the nearest bar stool, planting her elbows on the granite and folding her arms to shield the front of her snugly fitting T-shirt.

Her apparent nonchalance was a dismal failure.

‘You’re starting to look overheated again, Nora,’ he murmured, a thread of open amusement in the deep voice. ‘Here, perhaps this will help.’ He poured her a tall glass of amber liquid from a jug tinkling with ice cubes. ‘I made it for you earlier.’

‘What is it?’ she asked suspiciously, curling her fingers around the frosted glass, keeping her gaze firmly above his neck as he resumed his former position.

‘Iced tea,’ he said.

She took a cautious sniff, then hesitated, with her lips touching the icy rim. ‘Why aren’t you having any?’

‘Because I’m drinking something else.’ He tilted his head towards a glass of red wine standing on the kitchen windowsill above the double sink.

Still she hesitated, and he made a rough sound of impatience. ‘What’s the matter? Afraid it’s spiked? Do you really think I brought you here with the sole purpose of keeping you drugged and helpless?’

Her eyes widened and he gave an exaggerated sigh.

‘I’ve already had ample time to have my wicked way with your unconscious self—remember? I try never to repeat myself!’

She felt foolish. But it was his fault for making her so jumpy. ‘You can’t blame me for being suspicious after the way you carried on this morning. How do I know what’s going on in your devious male mind?’

He shot her a cynical look from beneath drooping eyelids. ‘Oh, I think if you try very, very hard you could make an educated guess…’

She blushed. ‘I—you—’

‘Drink your drink and stop trying to pretend you’re not as curious as I am.’

‘About what?’ she said, fighting to keep her end up.

‘About what it would be like to finish what you started when you deliberately poured that glass of wine all over my jacket.’

Nora was tempted to bluff it out, but her conscience wouldn’t let her. While she tried to think of a clever answer she buried her pinkened face in her drink. It tasted innocuous. She swilled more of the icy beverage over her tongue; in fact, it tasted quite delicious!

‘You said you made this?’ She gulped greedily, her parched mouth and throat absorbing so much moisture that only a trickle seemed to make it as far as her stomach. ‘From scratch?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ he murmured, topping up her empty glass. ‘I’m quite competent in the kitchen.’

He was much more than competent if he knew how to make iced tea. It wasn’t a common Kiwi beverage.

‘You just don’t seem the domesticated type,’ she said.

He turned to the bench by the sink where an assortment of partly sliced vegetables were strewn across the big chopping board. ‘What type am I?’

She eyed the flashing knife, wielded with lethal precision against a defenceless red pepper. ‘Rich single male—the type who eats out a lot and delegates all the grunt work to someone else.’

The knife turned expertly on an unwary onion. ‘You think I’m lazy?’

‘Quite the opposite. I think you’re probably far too busy to bother with the mundane details of life.’

‘Wrong. The devil is in the detail, Nora. It can make men’s fortunes—or break them. The fact that I’m rich and single makes it more, not less imperative that I maintain my basic survival skills. Actually, I like to cook; I find it relaxing.’

To Nora, who found it a chore, he sounded insufferably superior.

‘I suppose you’re going to claim you do all your own cleaning, too?’ she said sceptically.

‘I’m self-reliant, not stupid,’ he said, pausing to sample his wine. ‘My eldest sister runs a co-operative of domestic cleaners—she gives me a good deal on a contract for my home in town and this place gets done for free, since the whole family uses it…’

A chip of ice caught in Nora’s throat. ‘Your sister’s a cleaning lady?’

Her choking disbelief induced a grin that exploded the harsh angles of his face. ‘Don’t let Kate hear you call her a lady, she’ll be insulted—she’s a working woman. She started up a business which now supports her and her kids, not to mention giving other solo mums a chance to earn a decent wage without having to pay for childcare. I consider that a pretty admirable achievement, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, of course it is…I just thought—’

‘What? That because I’m wealthy my family must live in the lap of luxury?’

‘It’s a reasonable assumption,’ she defended herself. ‘Most people like to share their good fortune with their loved ones—’

‘Not if the loved ones are pig-headed idealists who would throw the offer back in his condescending teeth,’ he said wryly. ‘You forget, the MacLeod roots are staunchly working class—I’m the renegade in a bunch of social reformers. Mum would take every cent I had for one of her causes, but for herself she doesn’t believe in soft living or idle hands. She’s a union activist who sees it as her duty to remind me that the average working Joe’s health and welfare depend on men like me sacrificing a few points from the bottom line.’

A belated recognition clicked in Nora’s brain. ‘Your mother’s the Pamela MacLeod who chained herself to an official limo during the Commonwealth trade talks in Wellington!’

‘Actually, it was my official limo, and, yes, she managed to get herself arrested on primetime news. Again. Much as she’s against the globalisation of industry she seems to have no problem using the information highway to globalise her fight against oppression. That artistic photo of her plastered against my grille was all over the Internet within minutes of it being taken.’

There was amused exasperation in his tone, a rueful respect that told her more about his feelings for his mother than any amount of words.

‘She doesn’t sound very oppressed.’ Nora chuckled.

He rolled his eyes. ‘I wish!’

She didn’t believe it for a moment. ‘Would you prefer to have the kind of mother who cooed and clucked over you and believed her darling boy could do no wrong?’

He shuddered—a very distracting ripple of that long, lean masculine back. Was he that same melted honey colour all over? she speculated helplessly. Her gaze slipped lower down his profile and she couldn’t help noticing that the finespun fabric of his drawstring pants clung patchily to his damp flanks in a way that suggested he wore little or nothing underneath.

He turned towards her and her eyes shot hastily up to his face.

‘Chicken.’

What was he? A mind-reader? ‘Of course not!’ She was embarrassed to have been caught sneaking an ogle.

He looked taken aback by her vehemence. ‘If you don’t want chicken, I could defrost some prawns…’

‘Oh!’ She fought down another blush, determined not to encourage the speculation stirring in his hawkish gaze. ‘I—uh—chicken is fine, but really, I’m not very hungry—’

‘You will be,’ he said, cutting through her defensive babble. ‘By my estimation, you haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. You’ll run out of steam very quickly if you don’t put something solid in your stomach.’

At the moment the inner heat she was generating was enough to power a small city! Nora fumbled to pour herself another drink, her damp hand slipping against the handle of the jug, almost shattering the lip of the glass. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, leaping to her feet as iced tea spilled on the counter. ‘Let me get that.’ She snatched up a handy cloth and mopped up the pooling liquid.

‘Thanks,’ he murmured. ‘May I have my shirt back now?’

She looked down at the crumpled white cloth in her hand and noticed a button poking out between her thumb and forefinger. A tiny embroidered polo player, now stained with brown, stared accusingly up at her. ‘Oh, God! I’m sorry—it was just lying there—I thought it was a dishcloth!’

‘So much for my taste in clothes,’ he said wryly. ‘You really are hell on a man’s wardrobe, aren’t you, Nora?’

‘I don’t suppose it’s a cheap knock-off rather than the genuine article?’ she said with a sigh.

His trademark scowl wiped the amusement from his expression. ‘Now you’re adding insult to injury. Do I seem like the kind of cheapskate who would buy fakes when I can afford the real thing? Or do you think I’m just too undiscriminating to be able to tell the difference?’

‘I think your inferiority complex is showing again,’ she told him. ‘I’m the one who can’t tell the difference. What do I know about designer labels? I used to sew all my own clothes before I came to Auckland, and I still get most of my stuff from chainstores.’

He cocked his head. ‘Is money a problem for you?’

She wasn’t fooled by the casual way he tossed out the question. Her soft mouth tensed. ‘Why bother to ask? I’m sure your snoop ran a full credit check on me.’

‘And you came up clean as a whistle. But, as Doug pointed out, some debts don’t show up on official files—’

‘I’m not being blackmailed, I don’t have a drug or gambling habit or any other form of secret addiction,’ she declared, her voice rising above the smoky jazz. ‘With me, what you see is exactly what you get!’

His mouth kinked, his gaze flicking over her slight figure. ‘That’s very generous of you, Nora, but I think we should eat first…’

She spluttered, as he’d known she would. ‘That’s not what I meant!’ She glared in frustration as he carried the board of chopped vegetables across to the hob, watching him line up bottles of cooking oil, soy and sweet chilli sauce within easy reach of the wok.

‘You’re not going to cook like that, are you?’ she felt compelled to say. ‘What if the oil spits when you add the food? Here, maybe you should put this back on.’

He turned just in time to catch the balled shirt—thrown with a little more force than was necessary—as it hit his bare chest. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll go and get myself something less clammy,’ he said with a grimace.

She averted her eyes from temptation as he strolled past her, and while he was gone she decided to make the most of her opportunity to poke and prowl. She was rifling the telephone table at the top of the stairs when a voice sounded in her ear.

‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

Nora jumped, her knee knocking against the open drawer, trapping her groping fingers inside.

‘Ouch! I—uh—’ She pulled her hand free and sucked on her stinging fingertips, flustered by Blake’s sudden reappearance in a tight black T-shirt that was but a small improvement on the distraction of his bare chest.

‘I was just wondering where the telephone was,’ she mumbled.

‘Why?’

‘I thought I’d ring home…’ she confessed, further unnerved by his looming intensity.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You want to call your flat? I thought you said your flatmate had gone to work. Who was it you expected to pick up?’

She nibbled at her lower lip, presenting an unwitting picture of guilt. ‘Nobody.’

The straight black bars of his eyebrows rose above eyes steely with suspicion and she sighed.

‘I just thought I’d better leave a message on my machine, saying where I was and when I’d be back, that’s all. You know—contact details in case of emergency.’ She tugged at her wrist and his fingers tightened.

‘You mean as insurance against any plans I might have to make you permanently disappear?’ He invested his words with a silken menace.

‘Yes—I mean, no! I’m sure you’re a very law-abiding citizen,’ she added hurriedly.

His eyelids drooped. ‘I’m flattered by your faith in my honour.’ His sarcasm was designed to intimidate.

‘The phone?’ she reminded him with dogged persistence.

‘There isn’t one.’

‘No phone?’ She was startled as much by what he said as his tone of grim satisfaction. ‘But…there are phone jacks all over the place—’

‘To be functional they have to be connected to a network,’ he pointed out, stalking back to the kitchen. ‘I come here to get away from all that—to have some uninterrupted down-time.’

Nora trailed after him. It sounded like an excellent theory, but…

‘I don’t believe it,’ she muttered. ‘I bet you didn’t get where you are today by working nine-to-five five days a week. It would be tantamount to professional suicide for you to totally cut yourself off here, especially when your boss happens to be in the middle of a hostile takeover bid—’

‘Which is why I regularly check for messages on my mobile,’ he said, abruptly curtailing her speculative musing.

‘Oh,’ She felt foolish for forgetting. ‘Of course. Then…may I borrow it for a minute?’

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