Glancing round, he saw at once what had happened, and, slamming down his drink, he came to take her hand.

'How the h.e.l.l did you do that?' he exclaimed, but his tone was indulgent. Taking the injured finger into his mouth, he licked the blood away. 'What a pity it wasn't your lip. Then I'd have had an excuse to do this.' And, lowering his head, he brushed her mouth with his tongue.

Joanna's legs wobbled. He was fast, she thought, trying to keep a hold on her senses. He hadn't been in the apartment fifteen minutes, and already he had kissed her. Or was that really kissing? It hadn't happened to her before, so she didn't really know.

'You OK?' he asked, and she realised he was watching her fairly closely. Close enough to glimpse the uncer tainty in her eyes, she thought. Close enough to realise she was getting out of her depth.

'I'm-fine,' she got out hurriedly, her tone tense and clipped. 'I think I'd better get a plaster. 1 don't want to get blood everywhere.'

'A plaster?' Cole looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cleared. 'Oh, you mean a Band-aid.' He nodded. 'Right.'

'Right.' Joanna drew her hand firmly away, breathing a sigh of relief, when he let her. 'Why-er-why don't you go and finish your drink? 1 won't be a minute.'

Cole didn't move. 'Is something wrong?' he queried, and Joanna, who had started rummaging about in a drawer for the packet of Elastoplast she knew was there somewhere, gave him a guilty look.

'Something wrong?' she echoed, trying to sound sur prised. 'No.

No. Why would there be?'

'You tell me.'

Joanna shook her head, feeling more and more awkward. 'I don't know what you mean.' She found the box of plasters, and her fingers fastened weakly about it. 'Really-I won't be long.'

Cole regarded her intently for what seemed an inor dinate amount of time, and then, moving forward, he took the box from her.

'Let me do it,' be said, and although Joanna wanted to argue it was easier to give in.

Besides, she had to admit later, he had made a neat job of wrapping the plaster round her thumb. It was certainly neater than she could have managed. But, when she opened her mouth to thank him, he forestalled her.

'Tell me something,' he said, holding on to her fingers when she would have withdrawn them again. 'Did I get the wrong signal here?'

Joanna swallowed. 'The wrong signal?'

'Yeah.' Cole smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand. 'Do you want me to go?'

Joanna's jaw sagged, and she moved her shoulders in a helpless gesture. Her skin was p.r.i.c.kling with awareness and, somewhere down in her stomach, she could feel a dull pain. 'I-why, no,' she said at last. 'Why should you think that?'

Cole shrugged. 'The way you acted when I touched you,' he replied.

Joanna tried to act casually. 'You're touching me now,' she pointed out lightly, but Cole didn't smile.

'You know what I mean,' he said flatly. 'Is this a turn off?'

Such words he used! Joanna shook her head. She didn't know how to answer him. She had never met anybody who asked such personal questions before. Her dealings with his s.e.x had been fairly simple up till now. The men she had dated had been the kind of men who let her dictate the pace of their relationships.

And, because she had never been emotionally involved before, their encounters had never been in any danger of getting out of hand. But Cole was different. She had known that as soon as she met him. What she hadn't recognised was how different. And, in her eagerness to know him better, she had walked into a situation she simply didn't know how to deal with.

'I don't think-we should rush things,' she got out at last, wondering how the abrasive brush of his thumb could cause such havoc inside her. 'We-we hardly know one another.'

'Don't we?' With a little jerk, he brought her unwary body towards him. Then, before she had a chance to protest, he released her fingers and put both his hands on her hips. The weight of those hard hands burned through the thin material of her dungarees, and be cause, underneath, her hips were bare, they were dis turbingly intimate, too. 'So,' he crooned softly, 'let's get to know one another better.'

'Oh, really!' Joanna's hands spread against his shirt front. It was a puny defence and she knew it, but events were moving far too swiftly. 'I wish you wouldn't do this.'

'Do what?' asked Cole huskily, looking down into the open V of her shirt, and causing a wave of heat to en velop her. 'Say, are you wearing anything under this coverall?'

'You know I am.' Joanna's response wasn't hesitant this time, and Cole's eyes glimmered with undisguised amus.e.m.e.nt. But, conversely, his humour upset her almost as much as his advances had done, and in a tight, angry tone she added, 'I suppose you think this is very funny!'

Cole's eyes softened. 'Don't be so touchy.' He lifted one hand and stroked it down her cheek. 'Is all your skin as soft as this?'

Joanna's breathing felt constricted. 'Cole-'

'Hmm.' His hand had left her cheek, and had now coiled around her neck. His thumb was rubbing the skin on the underside of her jaw, as if he was testing for an answer to the question he had asked earlier, and his fingers beneath her hair were hard against her nape. It was strange, she thought bemusedly, how his bands were so hard, while hers were so soft. Everything about him was hard and masculine, and she had the craziest urge to lean into him and feel his hardness right down her body .

'Cole, I think - I think we should go into the other room,' she stammered, as the realisation of what was happening to her brought her briefly to her senses. 'I could make us something to eat.'

'I've got something to eat,' retorted Cole huskily, bending his head to stroke his tongue from a point just below her ear to the curve of shoulder he was exposing. He tipped off the strap of her dungarees, and slipped his hand into the neckline of her shirt.

'G.o.d, you taste good,' he muttered, taking a tender circle of flesh be tween his teeth and tugging it into his mouth. 'So good .. .'

Joanna trembled. All the juices in her body seemed to be melting and expanding, rising to the surface of her skin and dissolving her resistance. She knew she was going to have a bruise on her neck later, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her senses were blinding her to everything but the needs he was building inside her, and her eyes closed instinctively, Shutting out the world.

He pulled her against him, his hand finding the swollen fullness of her breast. The engorged aureole surged against his palm, and he rubbed its sensitive tip ur gently. Then he lowered his head and dragged the aching nipple into his mouth.

Joanna's legs sagged. Like a drowning woman now, she wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face against his chest. His shirt was half open, and the hair that cl.u.s.tered in the V was rough against her cheek. But the scent of his skin was heavenly, and she opened her mouth wide to taste his fragrance.

Cole moved into her then, imprisoning her against the wall behind her, and jerking her mouth up to his. His hungry tongue surged into her mouth, fierce and pos sessive, and his jeans-clad thigh was insistent as it eased its way between her legs. His a.s.sault was demanding, but sweetly sensual. And nothing had prepared Joanna for her own need to respond.

This couldn't be happening, she told herself in one lucid moment, when the coolness of the air around her thighs warned her that her dungarees were in a heap around her ankles. Cole had flipped the other strap from her shoulder, and the loose-fitting overalls had slipped cleanly down her body. Now his hands were cupping her rounded bottom as he tugged her even closer, and not even the tight-fitting denim could hide his huge arousal.

But what troubled her most was her own willingness to give in to him. The firm pressure of his mouth and the sensuous invasion of his tongue were becoming as important to her as breathing.

Innocent she might be, ignorant even, of the many forms of s.e.xuality. But her instincts were all rebellious, and her blood felt as if it was on fire. The touch of his hands against her bare flesh; the musky scent of his body. She could think of nothing more desirable than to feel his naked flesh against hers. And, acting without thinking, she tenta tively touched the bulge of his erection.

'Oh G.o.dl'

Cole's reaction was-not entirely unexpectedly-vi olent. When her slim artist's fingers strayed along the straining teeth of his zip, he visibly shuddered. With a burning impatience, he sloughed off his belt and tore open his jeans. Then, he took her down on to the floor in the same instant that his hard manhood surged into her hands.

'G.o.d, you're beautiful!' he muttered, cradling her head on one arm, and using the other to peel away her shirt. And, although common sense was telling her she must not let this go any further, the admiration in his eyes was an overpowering temptation.

Besides, her curiosity about him was just as com pelling. Probably more so, she admitted, looking down at his magnificent body. It was the first time she had seen a man naked and aroused, and even though he had only bared his s.e.x its rampant power was mesmerizing.

Cole's head blocked her view, as he bent to lay a trail of kisses from the tip of one breast to the hollow of her navel. His forefinger hooked into the band of her bikini briefs, tugging them out of his way, and then his mouth concluded its journey in the moist curls that hid her womanhood.

She jerked then, her inexperienced limbs responding to the fever he was creating. Her legs splayed, and then she clamped them tight together. Dear G.o.d, she thought disbelievingly, did she want him to think she was cheap? But, in spite of all her misgivings, Cole eased her legs apart again. While his tongue searched the helpless cavern of her mouth, his finger slid inside her, finding the dew-drenched honeycomb, and the sensitive bud of her s.e.x.

Her eyes, which had drifted shut, now opened in alarm, but Cole's expression was sensuous, revealing he was just as involved as she was. And she relaxed as she looked at him, reveling in the knowledge that he found her beautiful. He was beautiful, too; beautiful and s.e.xy. She wanted him to go on touching her, and she shud dered at the needs he was arousing.

'Do it,' he said huskily, and she realized he could read her thoughts as well. 'Here.' He took one of her trem bling hands and laid it on him. 'Yes, that's right you're a natural. Oh, G.o.d, Jo, I want you. And I don't think I can wait any longer.'

CHAPTER NINE.

'G.o.d, Jo, you should have told me!'

Cole lay beside her on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor, one arm raised across his eyes, and the other lying by his side. It was funny, Joanna thought, but she could never have imagined she would lose her virginity in such unlikely surroundings. When she had occasionally daydreamed about how it would happen, a bed had always been involved. a bed; and champagne; and a rather fetching negligee.

'It doesn't matter,' she said now, wondering if he re gretted it already. For herself, she hardly knew what she was feeling. It had been so much less-and yet so much more-than she had antic.i.p.ated that she felt almost numb. She was shocked by what had happened, yes; but she was also anxious that it might never happen again.

And she wanted it to happen again, she knew that.

Whatever kind of a disappointment it had been for Cole, she had experienced feelings she had not even dreamed were possible. He had invaded the limits of her s.e.xu ality, and time and place meant nothing, compared to the sensations that had gripped her.

Even now, she remembered every moment of his pos session. The surging heat of his manhood, pressing its way inside her. The momentary withdrawal, when he had felt her inexperience. He had wanted to draw back then, she knew it. But her hands clutching his b.u.t.tocks, and the undoubted invitation of her expanding muscles, had compelled him to go on. Besides, there was a limit to his endurance; she had guessed that for herself. He had wanted her. He had said so. And the aching fullness of his loins had demanded its own release.

But he had drawn back before his shuddering spasms informed her of his climax. And the mindless race inside her had come abruptly to its end. But, even though the little knowledge she possessed told her that there had to be more, she was inordinately grateful that it had been Cole who had taken her virginity. No other man had ever aroused the feelings inside her that he aroused, and, although she knew she ought to feel some measure of regret for what had happened, she didn't.

And, when he rolled on to his elbow to look down at her with rueful eyes, she felt no embarra.s.sment for her nudity. On the contrary, if nothing else, Cole had taught her that she was beautiful, in his eyes at least, and she moved instinctively, unconsciously inviting his approval.

'It matters,' he said at last, but there was a sensual twist to his mouth as he bent to touch her lips with his. 'G.o.d, Jo, I've never done anything like this before.'

'Have you wanted to?' she asked, unknowingly pro vocative, and he shook his head, the sweat-streaked blond hair brushing her sensitised skin.

'No,' he admitted gruffly, but when her arm curved around his neck he couldn't prevent the kiss from deepening.

This time, Joanna's tongue was the invader, teasing his lips and his tongue, until Cole lost control and drove down deep into her mouth. Joanna was overwhelmed with the need to get closer to him. Half experimentally, she coiled one leg about him, revelling in the way it brought the lower half of his body nearer to hers.

Sud denly, she could feel the rigid thrust of his hips, and the hairy tautness of his thigh riding against hers. But it was the muscles between his legs that strained against her. He was already hard again, she discovered. Hard and hot, and as satin-smooth as velvet against her stomach.

'We shouldn't do this,' he muttered, when her hand stroked possessively over his b.u.t.tocks, and Joanna found the courage to look up at him.

'Why not?' she breathed. 'Don't you want to?' But her question became unimportant when he crushed her beneath him again. For Cole wasn't immune to the needs of his own body, and the readiness of hers was an ir resistible temptation. She was wet with longings he had created, and her tight, resistant muscles closed eagerly about him.

Fever gripped Joanna's body. She was still aroused from their previous coupling, and the emotions she had felt before sprang into fervent life. Like an athlete who had faltered before the final hurdle, her body was eager to redress the balance, and when Cole's rhythm quickened she matched him pace for pace.

And, in so doing, she found her own senses slipping away. A mindless pleasure was encompa.s.sing her limbs, melting her bones, drowning her inhibitions. She wasn't aware of making any sound at all, yet she could hear gasps, and moans, and anguished pleas escaping her lips.

'Say it's good,' Cole breathed against her temple, and the voice that answered him sounded nothing like her own. It was soft, and husky, and incredibly sensual, and Cole's satisfaction took him even deeper inside her.

'Yes, yes,' she cried, her nails digging into his shoulders, and the wild excitement that had been building and expanding inside her became unbearably sweet. And then it happened. A pulsing wave of pure pleasure en veloped her, sweeping her up and up, until she was half afraid she was going to lose consciousness, and she didn't want that. She didn't want to lose a moment of such incredible beauty, and when Cole would have drawn back she wrapped her legs around him. The flooding heat as he spilled himself inside her just added to her en joyment, and this time when his body shook she held him close to her breast.

Of course, afterwards, after Cole had gone, and she was alone, Joanna was appalled at the wanton way she had acted. That she, who had always regarded herself as being totally self-possessed, should have lost control so completely was bad enough. But that she should have done so with a man she had known less than twenty-four hours seemed almost indecent. He would think she had been desperate to lose her virginity, she thought, and for days after that she refused to answer either the telephone or the doorbell, in case it shouldn't be him. She had convinced herself he wouldn't want to contact her again, and she submerged herself in her work to the exclusion of everything else.

Eventually, it was Grace who smoked her out; Grace who informed her that, far from not wanting to see her again, Cole had been practically going out of his head with worry, because he couldn't reach her. And, because he was sure Joanna must blame him for what had hap pened, he had confided in his aunt, and asked for her a.s.sistance.

Later, Joanna had understood what it must have cost him to approach Grace. When she learned more about him, and about his background, she had realised how galling it must have been for Ryan Macallister's son to ask a woman for anything, particularly someone his father both disliked and despised.

But, at the time, she had been too overwhelmed by Cole's interest in her to consider how his family might react to another Englishwoman in their midst. She and Cole had seen one another every day, and their re lationship just got better and better. So much so that Cole delayed his return to South Carolina long enough to persuade her to marry him.

Of course, Grace had had misgivings, and she had voiced them.

The Macallisters were a very close family, she said. They weren't like Joanna's parents, who had taken to Cole from the start. On top of which, Tidewater was another world, with its own laws, and its Own tra ditions. She hadn't been happy there, and she didn't know if Joanna would be, particularly as Cole was just as possessive as his uncle.

But Joanna hadn't wanted to listen, even though the only arguments she and Cole had were about her work. He resented the time she devoted to it and not to him, and, although she was convinced that once they were married it wouldn't be a problem, it was a complication she had foolishly ignored.

The wedding was planned for the end of June, and Cole had flown home to give his family the news. But when he had flown back again, only a couple of days before the wedding, not one of his family had come with him. 'They couldn't leave the plantation,' he had said, his face reddening. His younger brother and sisters were still in school, and there was simply too much to do, particularly since he was away, too.

And Joanna, not wanting to embarra.s.s him any further, had accepted his excuses. But Grace had had no such reservations.

The night before the wedding, she had warned Joanna of what she might have to face at Tidewater, and if she hadn't been fathoms deep in love Joanna might have listened to her. As it was, she con vinced herself that Grace was exaggerating, and the weeks immediately following their wedding were the happiest weeks she could remember.

But that had been while they were on honeymoon, she conceded drily. Cole had taken her to Tahiti, and during those exotic days and nights she had had no doubts that nothing and no one could come between them. They had been timeless days, when they had been drunk with each other's possession. Days of sun and happiness, and luscious, languid nights. Then they had returned to Tidewater.

To begin with, Joanna managed to convince herself that they would work it out. Even though his mother made no secret of her disapproval of the marriage, and his father was barely civil, she refused to lose heart. When they left the plantation house, and got a home of their own, she told herself, his parents'

att.i.tude wouldn't matter. In the meanwhile, it was up to her to try and make it friendly.

And, although Cole's parents could control his days, she controlled his nights. While the heat and the hu midity of midsummer .made other people terse and ir ritable, she and Cole continued to revel in those hot,sleepless nights. He taught her so much about her body, and she was a willing pupil. She learned that even the most unlikely areas could prove wildly erotic, and Cole spent hours tracing nerves and sensitive pulses, and setting them on fire with his tongue. Their lovemaking just got better and better, and she responded to his de mands with all the urgency of her youth.

But, ironically enough, it was that very eagerness to prove herself that sowed the seeds of her destruction. In trying to avoid conflict, Joanna only joined the family for meals if Cole was going to be there. She had found her skin was too thin to withstand the barbs and insults his father threw around when he wasn't, and she was too proud to tell Cole what they were doing to her.

Besides, what could she have said? Cole himself ad mitted she wasn't used to the kind of life they led at Tidewater, and he would be the first to agree that she was much softer than the southern women he was used to. And to complain that his mother regarded any ef forts she made to help around the house with contempt would hardly arouse his indignation. He would probably have wondered why she cared, without understanding how important it was for Joanna to find her own s.p.a.ce.

Even their own rooms were not sacrosanct. Maggie thought nothing of coming into their bedroom without knocking, except when she knew her son was there. Flowers were rearranged; furniture Joanna had altered was replaced; and even her closet was not free from his mothers' influence. Favourite dresses went missing; shirts she especially liked developed unexplained tears, or lost b.u.t.tons; and any time she wore anything at all pro- vocative, she was made to feel so cheap that she started buying clothes that didn't show her shape.

Just thinking about it now made Joanna feel physi cally sick.

Gradually, over a period of time, they had caused her to doubt herself, and her own sanity, and once that happened she was on a downward spiral.

But that had come later-after the illness, which had caused the first faint cracks to appear in their relationship. Because of the heat, and because she was neither eating nor sleeping enough, those long pa.s.sionate nights took their toll. A chill developed quickly into pneumonia, and while she was weak and helpless Cole's parents took their chance.

By the time she was lucid enough to know what was happening, Cole's belongings had been moved into another suite of rooms entirely. His mother had only been thinking of her, he said, when Joanna grew strong enough to offer her objections. There was no way he could have continued to share her room without dis- turbing her. And they all wanted to do their best, so that she would soon be well again.

It was a reasonable excuse, and one with which Cole evidently agreed, but Joanna was uneasy. She was more uneasy still, when Ryan Macallister set up a business trip for Cole to South America, thus delaying his return to her bed even longer. In other circ.u.mstances, Cole as sured her, she could have gone with him.

But as she had been so ill ..

The night before he went away, she had tried to talk to him about their future. When were they going to get a home of their own? she pleaded. They'd been married more than three months now, and it was time she started looking after her husband herself.

Cole had avoided a direct answer, she remembered.

Now was not the time for her to start worrying about things like that, he said. She needed to get her strength back. Better she leave the housekeeping to his mother for the time being. If he remembered correctly, domestic duties had never been her strong point.