Linzi scrambled to her feet in a hurry. She had to get to safety before he changed his mind, came back.
Half blinded with her tears, shakily reclasping her bikini top, she ran into the cottage, slamming the door behind her. For a second she leaned on it, the tears streaming down her face, then she pushed home the bolt. She didn't want Ritchie getting in here. She ran to the front door to check that was locked, and then stumbled upstairs into her bedroom, roughly drying her eyes with the back of her hand.
She opened the window so that she could look down into the garden, there was no sign of Ritchie, he had gone and she couldn't see a car parked in the lane any more.
If he has gone, he'll be back! a little voice warned in her head. The hard, grim man who had come back from prison wouldn't give up that easily.
Unless he believed you, at last! she thought, turning to walk across the room. Had she finally convinced him that she would never forgive him?
In her dressing-table mirror on the other side of the room she caught sight of herself. A sun-flushed, tear stained face stared back from between tangled webs of pale hair, she looked at it bitterly.
"You fool!" she hurled at it. "Now you're going to spend the rest of your life regretting letting him go! Haven't you got enough to regret without being stupid enough to let Ritchie walk away from you?"
But that was her punishment, wasn't it? That was the price she was paying for loving him, for betraying Barty. There was always a price to pay for what you did.
Wearily, she walked into the bathroom and stripped off her clothes, dropped them into the wicker washing basket and turned on the shower. She was so hot that perspiration was running down her spine. She walked into the cubicle, under the jet of water with a deep, wrenched sigh, letting the cool, cleansing stream wash over her. If only she could wash away her memories and feelings as easily!
She groped for the soap in the she'll fitted into the tiled wall, and began to wash. A moment later, above the noise of the shower, she heard a sound outside the cubicle. She stiffened, her face running with water, her lashes stuck together, turning to look around.
She hadn't imagined hearing something, there was someone in the room. Through the glass of the cubicle door she saw a dark shadow, the shape of a man, and gasped, dropping the soap from nerveless hands.
The door opened. For an instant she was deaf and blind with panic, then her sight cleared and she saw it was Ritchie.
"Oh! God, you scared me!" she angrily breathed then frowned. "But...., h...., how did you get in?"
"You'd left your bedroom window open. I found a ladder in the garden shed."
For a split-second she almost felt relief, it could have been worse, it could have been some stranger. She could have been facing rape, or murder. How could she have been such a fool as to leave her bedroom window open?
Then fear and shock of a different sort beat up inside her as she realised the way Ritchie was staring at her. That was when she really began to shake.
"Get out!!" she breathed. "Get out of here!! You had no right, climbing in through the window, that's breaking and entering! I'll call the police....., I'll scream..."
His eyes were riveted on her wet, naked body. He was darkly flushed and breathing as if he were dying.
A wave of searing heat swept over her, up her whole body to her face. No man had ever looked at her like that. For the first time she really felt the full force of desire between them. She stood under cool water and felt as if she were in a furnace. She was burning up and she knew Ritchie was too, she felt the heat coming off him in waves.
"Don't," she whispered, meaning 'don't look at me like that, don't make me feel like this'.
He didn't bother to answer, just began taking off his sweater in a hurried, deft movement, without looking away from her.
"Stop it!" she yelled. "Put your sweater back on!" She was beginning to realise that she was trapped, like a fish in a bowl, unable to get out of the cubicle, with him blocking the door. "Ritchie, what do you think you're doing?" she asked wildly, and it was a stupid question. He gave her a sardonic glance.
She tried not to look, but couldn't take her eyes off him. His body was intensely sexy, beautifully proportioned, very male. His skin still had that prison pallor, and the curling blavk hair growing in a wedge up the centre of his chest made the pallor more striking by contrast.
Without his sweater on, she could see just how much weight he had actually lost, he had never been overweight, but now he was austerely fleshless, yet still a powerful man, his stomach flat as a board, his midriff taut. As he stretched she saw the muscles in his lean chest, saw muscles ripple in his arm as he hurded his sweater away and began to undo his jeans.
What am I going to do? she asked herself frantically. Oh, pull yourself together! came the impatient answer. Stop staring at him, for a start! And use your head! You've got to get out of here!
She waited until he was standing on one leg, pulling his jeans off the other foot, and then she made a Dash for it.
She might have got past him if she hadn't trodden on the soap she had dropped.
Her foot skidded, she slipped sideways with a cry, completely off balance, and would have crashed into the glass if Ritchie hadn't caught her in his arms. She clutched at him wildly and felt a violent shock hit her as their naked bodies collided, hers wet and slippery, his warm and dry.
At that moment she was lost. Her body betrayed her. She gave a long, shuddering moan.
YOU ARE READING
Guilty Love (Completed)
Romance"Everything I did was for you!" "For me? You killed my husband for me? Do you really think I wanted him dead? I loved him!" It was an obsessive passion. It had gone too far, and Linzi's husband had died as a result of it. Ritchie Calhoun was sexy an...
