A Kiss To Remember Read online

  Memories of their swimming together in the creek at home came back in a rush. Lance had such a great body. A swimmer’s body. Wide of shoulder, slender of hip, with long, tapering muscular legs. He’d been a champion swimmer at university, only missing out on the Olympics because he would never take training seriously.

  That had always been a problem with Lance. He’d never taken anything really seriously. But that had been part of his attraction too. Serious-minded, deep-thinking Angie had been intrigued by someone who didn’t seem to plan or worry about much.

  Not that he had to. He’d been born clever and handsome and rich—the rich part being the most influential in forming Lance’s attitude to life. Everything just fell into rich people’s laps, it seemed. Everything had certainly fallen into Lance’s lap—females included.

  This last thought brought a sour grimace to Angie’s face. She threw together a whisky and dry which would have made the heroine in Raiders of the Lost Ark finally slide under the table, and carried it upstairs, wondering what her motivation was in mixing such a stiff drink. Was she trying to anaesthetise Lance, or prime him for seduction later on?

  She gasped with shock at this last thought, grinding to a halt on the top landing. But the shock quickly changed to defiance. Hadn’t she promised Vanessa that if a suitable candidate showed up at the party tonight she would give him a chance to become her first lover? Who better than the man she’d wanted to be her first lover all along?

  God, maybe she was drunk after all. How many glasses of wine had she had before Lance arrived? Two? Three? No, only two. She wasn’t drunk, but she also wasn’t acting like her usual sensible self either, as Lance had so accurately pointed out at the door. Suddenly she felt even more reckless than she had earlier, and just a little bit wild. Wild as in angry.

  Oh, yes, she was angry. Angry at Lance. He had no right to show up here tonight and spoil everything for her again. It wasn’t fair! He would have to pay. She would make him pay. With his body!

  She didn’t knock, just bowled straight on in. But as luck would have it, Lance was out of the shower and almost dressed. He still looked very inviting, with his shirt open to the waist, giving her a splendid view of his golden and gloriously hairless chest.

  His eyes snapped up at her abrupt entry, glaring his disapproval at her as he finished buttoning his shirt and then his cuffs. ‘I’m sure your mother taught you to knock before entering a gentleman’s room,’ he said sharply, tucking the shirt into the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘I’m sure she did,’ Angie countered. ‘I’ll remember that next time I enter one.’

  He sucked in a startled breath, his blue eyes darkening. Are you trying to pick a fight with me for some reason, Angie?’

  Yes, came the totally unexpected but brutally honest thought. For if I don’t, I just might throw myself at your feet and tell you that I still love you— have done all these years!

  Angie turned away before he could see the stricken look on her face. Oh, God. It couldn’t be true. It shouldn’t be true. But it was...

  She whirled back, a plastic smile on her face. Her head was spinning and she had no idea what she was going to do now. Her idea from a moment before, of a crazy seduction, suddenly seemed even more appropriate—maybe even essential.

  For the first time in her life Angie wanted Lance to be as heartless a womaniser as he’d always been painted. For she didn’t have much time. There was no doubt that he would return to Melbourne in a day or two. She would never have another chance. Maybe all she had was tonight.

  ‘That was bitchy of me, wasn’t it?’ she said, trying to bring a seductively soothing quality to her smile. ‘I was only teasing. Here’s your drink. Bud asked me to bring it up to you.’ She handed it over, then perched on the edge of the bed, hitching her dress up over her knees as she saucily crossed her legs.

  ‘So what happened to make your wife leave you?’ she asked, still smiling. ‘Have you been a naughty boy again, Lance?’ One part of her wanted him to say he’d been a very naughty boy. Another part wanted him to deny adultery, to claim he’d done his best to make his marriage work but found it couldn’t because he’d never really loved his wife. He’d really been in love with someone else, you see. A girl named Angie.

  He stared at her legs while he swallowed a deep gulp of the drink, grimaced, then placed the glass down on the nearby dressing-table. Still saying nothing, he picked up a comb and started combing his hair in the dressing-table mirror—his lovely, thick, wet dark blond hair. Angie watched it fall into perfect place, hating every single obedient lock, wanting to clasp great clumps of it with cruel hands while she pulled his mouth down on to hers.

  A deep shudder ran through her. She had never thought herself capable of such feelings, of such a savage passion. It made her afraid of what she might do afterwards, if she went to bed with Lance and it was as incredible as she expected that it might be.

  Suddenly she became aware that he was staring at her in the mirror. Not at her legs, this time, but deep into her eyes. ‘Why do you want to know about my marriage?’ he asked.

  Her shrug was marvellously indifferent. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. Bud always said it wouldn’t last.’

  His eyebrows shot up as he turned around. ‘Is that so? And did he say why?’

  ‘I dare say he thought the man voted Superstud of the Year wasn’t good husband material.’

  Lance went awfully still before shaking his head slowly and sighing. ‘Dear old Bud,’ came his dry remark. ‘And I thought he was my friend.’

  Angie bristled at the implied criticism of her brother. ‘Bud is your friend,’ she snapped. ‘His saying that didn’t make it so, Lance. If your marriage failed, look to yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I do, Angie. Indeed I do. I made a big mistake marrying Helen.’

  ‘I hope you’re not blaming her now.’

  ‘I blame no one but myself.’

  ‘So you’re definitely getting a divorce, are you?’ Angie asked, hating herself for wanting to know so desperately. What difference could it possibly make to her, or her life? Lance was only up here for a night or two, then he would go back to Melbourne and his own world of high-fliers and other women like Helen. ‘There’s no chance of a reconciliation?’ she added, in what she hoped was a carefree fashion.

  ‘None,’ he grated out, sweeping the whisky glass up for another gulp, followed by another pained grimace. ‘Hell, Angie, what did Bud put in this? It’s strong enough to kill a brown dog.’

  ‘Don’t blame Bud. I made it. I thought you looked like you needed relaxing.’

  ‘You could be right there. But not this way.’ And he placed the drink down. ‘So, tell me, Angie, has life brought you all you ever wanted? Is there some eager young man waiting downstairs for you to return to his loving arms?’

  At that moment, Angie wished she’d put arsenic in his drink. ‘Actually no, Lance,’ she returned with a coldly brittle smile. ‘I’m between boyfriends at the moment. As for my other ambitions, I am only twenty-four, and only three years out of my degree. I need a little more time before I can change the whole world. Though I realise now that some things—and some people—can never be changed.’ This with a sour look at Lance.

  ‘Look, drop the acid barbs, will you? It’s Bud’s birthday, and if I remember Bud, there’ll be music and dancing downstairs. I could do with some music and dancing at this moment, believe me.’

  Taking Angie’s nearest hand, he pulled her somewhat abruptly to her feet. She stumbled slightly and his other arm shot out to steady her, then snaked slowly round her waist. Startled, her green eyes widened as they flew to his, only to meet a decidedly cynical gaze.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, Angie,’ he drawled. ‘Isn’t this the sort of behaviour you would expect from an unconscionable rake like myself? I’m just taking you up on that hello kiss you offered me earlier on.’

  Panic-stricken, Angie turned her face away from his descending mouth. ‘Too late,’ she muttered through
clenched teeth as his lips brushed her cheek. ‘I only give hello kisses at the door, not in bedrooms.’

  He cupped her chin and brutally forced her face frontwards. ‘Then call this a goodbye kiss,’ he ground out.

  No, she tried to cry out, but his kiss obliterated the word before she could do more than open her lips.

  The memory can certainly play tricks with your mind, Angie thought dazedly as Lance’s lips took violent possession of hers. She’d told Vanessa that his kiss had made her think she’d died and gone to heaven. Either she’d been mistaken, or things had changed dramatically. There was nothing at all heavenly about the lips which were clamped to hers at that moment, prying them apart with so much force that her lips were ground back against her teeth. It was sheer hell.

  But no sooner had Angie decided that she’d been mad to imagine she’d loved him all these years than everything changed. The fingers gripping her chin suddenly gentled, then trailed tantalisingly down her throat. Another hand slid up her back and into the hair around her neck. The vice-like lips lightened their gruelling pressure.

  And then—then, when she was sighing with relief and almost relaxing into him—then his tongue moved slowly and incredibly seductively into her mouth.

  It dipped deep, then withdrew, then darted back, coupling with her own tongue in an erotic dance which went on and on and on.

  Angie was polarised with the most intense pleasure—eclipsing everything she had remembered. Sensations were racing to every corner of her body, every last nerve-ending, every tiny fibre of her being. She felt shattered, yet at the same time almost complete. This was where she’d always wanted to be—in Lance’s arms, his mouth fused with hers, their bodies pressed together. Only by making love would she be totally complete.

  In silent yearning she reached for that end, her hands instinctively lifting to splay into his hair, to keep his mouth on hers, to press herself closer and closer. She heard his groan of raw desire, felt it rising against her. Her own desire rose to meet his, and her hips moved with instinctive need.

  ‘Auntie Angie...’

  The small voice pierced the fog of her passion with crippling effect. She gasped away from Lance’s mouth, the wild wonder of it all immediately replaced by sordid reality as Angie was faced with the knowledge that she had only been moments away from letting Lance do whatever he wanted with her.

  ‘I want a dwink of water,’ three-year-old Morris cried, when his auntie looked over Lance’s shoulder at him.

  With a soft moan of self-disgust, she pried herself out of Lance’s seemingly frozen arms and turned to her nephew, who was standing just outside the open doorway—another factor in Angie’s mortification. My God, she thought, anybody could have walked by and seen us. What if Bud had come up?

  Her insides churning, she scooped up Morris and carried him swiftly down towards the main bathroom and his bedroom. ‘Your mummy and daddy won’t be too happy with your being out of bed, young man,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I won’t tell them if you promise to drink up your water real quick, then go back to sleep.’

  ‘Who was that man kissing you, Auntie Angie?’ Morris asked with a child’s innocent puzzlement.

  ‘He’s a friend of your father’s and mine,’ she told him, hoping that would be a satisfactory answer. Morris was going through an inquisitive stage when he asked questions about everything.

  ‘Why was he kissing you? Are you going to marry him, Auntie Angie?’

  Angie felt sick inside. ‘No. I’m not going to marry him, Morris. We haven’t seen each other for a long time. People kiss each other when they haven’t seen each other for a long time.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘How much water do you want?’ she broke in, hoping to distract the child. ‘A whole glassful or only half a glass?’

  Angie managed to get Morris back to bed without any more embarrassing questions. She only hoped he wouldn’t relay the news in the morning, of his Auntie Angie kissing one of Daddy’s friends in the guest-room. Briskly she tucked him in, pecked him on the forehead, and was about to escape when Morris decided that he couldn’t possibly go to sleep without being read a story.

  Sighing, Angie did the honours with Toby, the Tonka Truck which proved to be quite a long story. By the time she finished it, Morris was sound asleep. For a long moment she stared down at the sleeping child, with his olive skin and black curls, the unbidden thought coming that a son of Lance’s would probably be as fair as Morris was dark. Asleep, he would look like a golden angel.

  Her heart turned over and, closing her eyes, she bent to kiss Morris on the forehead, her mind still full of that imaginary golden angel. ‘Love you,’ she whispered softly.

  With a sad sigh, she opened her eyes, closed the book, put it aside and stood up. After carefully snapping off the bedside light, she had turned to tiptoe out of the room when she encountered Lance, lounging in the doorway. Clearly he’d watched the whole proceedings; the thought disturbed and then infuriated Angie. When would she rid herself of these stupid futile dreams?

  She shoved him out of the doorway none too gently, and quickly closed the door before he said anything and woke Morris.

  ‘Smart little tyke,’ Lance said. ‘Trust Bud to have a great kid like that.’

  Angie eyed him with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. ‘Jealous, Lance?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In that case, why haven’t you had children of your own?’ she snapped. ‘Or have you been too busy with your jet-setting life to fit them in?’

  ‘If you’re going to answer your own questions, Angie, then why should I? I might ask you the same question. Why haven’t you converted that obvious maternal instinct of yours into first-hand reality? Why haven’t you found some nice man to marry by now and had a couple of kids?’

  God, he had a hide to ask her that! The man had to be thick as a brick! ‘No doubt I will,’ she said, smothering her hurt behind a cold smile. ‘Eventually. But for now I happen to have a career.’

  ‘All, yes... your career. Bud tells me you’re directing schoolgirls along the path of right and righteousness.’

  ‘Trust someone like you to sneer,’ she countered tartly. ‘People with no morals and standards always mock those who have.’

  His eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Watch it, Angie. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, you know.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning ten minutes ago you showed a tendency to loose morals yourself. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found you’d become one of those females willing to open their legs after one kiss.’

  Her hand flashed across his cheek, the sound harsh and biting. ‘Bastard,’ she hissed, everything inside her trembling wildly.

  His own hand lifted rather indolently to rub his reddened cheek. ‘Was that for just now, Angie, my sweet? Or nine years ago?’

  ‘Both,’ she bit out.

  His gaze narrowed on her, his brilliant and deceptively intelligent eyes darkening to a deep thoughtfulness. ‘Good,’ he said at last, in an oddly satisfied voice.

  ‘What’s good about it?’

  ‘Not all that much, I guess. Come on,’ he said, grabbing her hand and tugging her along the hall. ‘Let’s go downstairs and dance.’

  Outrage had her wrenching her hand out of his and grinding to a halt. ‘Just like that? You expect me to go downstairs and dance with you after you insulted me?’

  His mouth broke into one of those old smiles of his, dazzling and totally disarming. ‘Hell, Angie, you’ve been insulting me ever since I got here. What’s a few insults among friends? Besides, I don’t think what I said was an insult. I rather like females of easy virtue. Saves a chap a hell of a lot of lies.’

  ‘Oh, you—’ He shut her up with another kiss. A lightly teasing brush of lips which evoked a soft little moan of despair mixed with delight. ‘You’re wicked,’ she whispered shakily.

  ‘And you’re gorgeous,’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing sexily as he pi
cked up one of the long curling strands of hair that covered her appallingly peaked nipple and drew it slowly between her lips.

  A wild heat flooded those lips, and then her limbs. Weak with desire, she reached out to grip his shoulder, her lips falling apart as she unconsciously pulled him closer.

  ‘Later, I think, sweet Angie,’ he murmured, withdrawing the lock of hair and smoothing it down back over her breast, brushing over the pained peak as he did so. ‘I have an aversion to starting anything I can’t finish, and I have a feeling that brother of yours might shortly make an appearance.’

  Angie’s nostrils flared as she sucked in another indignant breath. ‘And I have an aversion to men who make arrogant presumptions,’ she flung back at him. ‘I’m not as free and easy with my favours as you think, Lance.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How interesting...’

  ‘Not really. You like your females easy, remember?’

  ‘Usually. But for you, my sweet Angie, I’d be prepared to make an exception.’

  ‘Stop calling me that!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not your sweet Angie any more. I’m not your Angie in any way, shape or form. I despise you, Lance, and all men like you. You wreak havoc wherever you go. You smile and you laugh and you dazzle, but you’re all show and no substance. You come here tonight and try to seduce me within five minutes of landing, while your poor wife is probably crying her eyes out back in Melbourne.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Lance snarled, all the dazzle gone from his face. ‘I doubt that very much. Far from crying, Helen is probably at this very moment bonking her head off with her current lover.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For a second Angie was stunned, sympathy sweeping in for the angry man standing before her. Till the truth sank into her addled brain. Then sympathy turned to sarcasm. ‘So she’d finally had enough, had she? Gave you back some of your own medicine.’

  Lance simply stared at her. ‘You’re incredible, do you know that? You really think I’m a cross between Casanova and Bluebeard, don’t you?’

  ‘You can stop at Casanova,’ she said drily. ‘Murder is not your style. You’re a lot of things, Lance, but violent is not one of them.’